Persephone Emerald

I think they're the crazy ones, but that doesn't really help your situation, does it? I don't think your avatar looks like a child, but I'm not the one running the clubs or sims that are giving you problems. I'd suggest having a back-up Outfit (including body shape & clothing) to change into when you get those kinds of remarks, but otherwise look however you want.

Unfortunately there is discrimination in SL based on how one's avatar looks. This is especially true for young-looking and furry avatars. Once you've explained to the management of a store, club or region that you're not a child, it's up to them to let you in or not, and no amount of complaining will change that fact. You can either have a taller, more mature avatar for such places or not go back to them. It might help to understand their perspective, though this likely won't help your position. Second Life has a bad reputation, partly deserved but also largely undeserved, regarding sexual age-play. Because of fears that someone might report a sim owner for allowing sexual age-play, sim owners & managers tend to be overly strict about allowing young-looking avatars in places where there could be any kind of activity deemed "adult". The Second Life TOS doesn't forbid child avatars in Mature or Adult rated sims, but many sim owners act like it does. They're overreacting, but they're not doing it to be mean to you, just to protect themselves.

Wht you describe sounds like a newer, spifier version of what I have, & mine works great. Do get that cooling pad if you plan to use it on your lap, though.

I love exploring & showing places to peope, but I'm not always in SL consistantly. Contact me in world if you like. Tableau is a great place to explore, part south-western shopping town & part pure fun exploration. The colors & details are amazing. Climb up to the campfire on the rocks & look for the peyote. When you wear it, you have a trippy experience. Jump past the yellow warning tape & see what's hidden at the bottom of that hole. Look for gifts & goodies. There are a few hidden about. Cimb up on the stages, touch stuff & try the animation. Be sure to look over the sim from the highest spots in the middle of the sim. Look though the viewers there. That's one palce that's best with a buddy, but it's cool on your own too.

I recomend joining a building help group like Happy Hippsters or Builders Brewery. You can get free textures & scripts, take building classes, & ask for help in the chat groups. Second Life is a very diverse & complicated platform, so you can keep learing more, finding more places to explore, & realizing new things you can do. It often seems overly difficult & confusing at first, but if you get a little help from others, you'll see it ofters wonderous possibilities.

Use Survey Monkey, but don't expect many responses. Very few people use these forums & many who do, don't like to do random surveys.

Roleplay is a good way to meet people. Pick a theme that interests you & look for groups in Search. If you like art, check out the Immersiva sim, as well as the LEA ones (Linden Endowment for the Arts). Hunts are a good way to meet people & to get good stuff for free. Look for free hunts that have a theme that interests you. Some hunt groups work for multiple hunts and may have chat going between the hunts. Building schools can be good places to meet people. Clubs are good meeting places if you like music & chat. Like in RL, find things you like to do, then you'll find friends who like to do the same things. I haven't been in world much lately, but if you'd like me to show you some cool places, send me an IM. I like exploring, building & landscaping my land, so I'm not usually very social, but I've been in SL long enough to know some cool places & how to get good stuff free or cheap.

The Game of Thrones RP sims now have 5 land regions, as well as more on sky platforms. Currently represented are King's Landing (year 1 AL), Highgarden & The Farmlands of The Reach, Casterly Rock & Lannisport, The Eyrie & The Vale of Arryn, Sunspear & Dorne, The Grassy Vale, The Dothraki Sea, Castle Black, The Wall & Mole's Town. The Riverlands will be coming soon too. There are opportunities for role-players in all levels of society, as well as for natural (non-speaking) animals, such as wolves & horses. Here are some pictures of this fantastic sim:

I'm agreeing with the previous poster. People in SL tend to be very touchy about even the suggestion of inappropriate sexual use of child avatars. It's best to not even have genitalia on a child avatar. Also stay away from areas with adult activities, even if it's just a dance club in a Moderate rated area. You may want to have both an adult and a child shape for you avatar, so you can go to Moderate & Adult rated regions without being asked to leave or even ejected without a warning.

Unfortunately, nothing is completely safe from accidental deletion in SL, so if your No Copy objects disappear, you could be out of luck. If you're lucky, your objects may come back to your Lost & Found folder after you log out & log in again. If it's something you bought recently and you know who the creator was, you may be able to have them send another copy, but if it was transferable, they probably won't. Sometimes a region reset can eat recently rezzed objects too, in which case you may be able to ask SL support for a rollback to get them back.

I've been reading all the more recent threads on this same subject tonight. I'm also looking at getting a new laptop for SL. With Server Side Baking starting July 9th, I'm going to have to update to something that can run the latest version of Firestorm without turning all the prims in my SL word turn bright pink. From what I gather, 8GBs of RAM is plenty, a good Intel core is fine, but don't get an Intel Graphics card. Get either an nVIDA or an ATI. (How many MBs though?) It's also worth noting that SL is hard on the processor & battery, so always use a cooler under your laptop & keep it plugged in when running SL. For a laptop cooler, I also love my light-weight & inexpensive Belkin (which can easily be taken apart to clean out the husky fur that accumulates in the fan).

I just hope LL waits untile after the Twisted Hunt ( all of March ) to do this.

Online, in SL and in RL, I never lie about who or what I really am, but I don't tell everyone everything either. I'm a middle-age, white woman in RL (and usually in SL), but I have other avatars & RP personas. When I wear an African avatar shape & skin, it is either because I'm RPing as a classical Egyptian woman or because I'm modeling male clothing I made for pictures. If I wear a wolf or cat avatar, I expect people won't think I'm really a wolf or cat either. If I chat with someone in SL or read something in their profile that I have in common with them, I may share more information, but much of the time my complete background & interests is not relevant to my interactions with people. Sometimes I don't even want to discuss information I've put in my profile, but it's there in case it's relevant to the person reading it. If in RL I'm discussing being a caregiver to a parent with dementia, my being a pagan witch is an identification that is irrelevant and could damage my interaction with the person I'm talking with. They might identify as Christian and might be upset if I say I'm a witch. They might not feel free to share their experiences or might view me with suspicion & fear. Online, I'm not going to tell people my real name, address or workplace, because that is information they don't need & I don't want to have shared with strangers. I may tell them what city I live in, but only because it's big city that won't provide identifying information to them. If I'm interviewing for a job, I'm not going to tell the interviewer than I'm a bisexual pagan who plays in Second Life either. It just makes sense to segregate your personal information and only tell people what they need or have a right to know.

Several creators make prim eye sparkles, which can be worn with your own eyes. You can serach for "prim eye sparkles" on Marketplace. Amacci also has some free ones at their in-world store.

Some people probably created alts to abuse this promotion, ...but what were the Lindens smoking when they though giving out free money on Amazon would be a good business model?

Once you get a few lindens, what will you do with them? - Buy stuff probably? If you want virtual clothing & stuff, I think Hunts are fun. You can explore shops & other cool places, make friends, and pick up cool freebies along the way. Learning which hunts have the kinds of things you like is part of the SL "game". You determine your own goals in SL, and the better you get at meeting them, the higher you advance in "rank".

I looked at the Amazon page & it says "This item is Currently Unavailable" Does that mean the deal starts at midnight tonight or something? I'll take the free lindens, if they're giving them out. I don't have much use for a hoverboard though.

Wow! You've done an awesome job of matching your avatar to your RL look. Now, if you upload these RL pictures to SL, you can look at them to adjust your face a bit more. Getting the match close to perfect is very difficult, so take your time. I don't suggest trying to match your RL body shape too closely, becaues SL clothing favors a tall, thin body that isn't realistic for 90% of real women. I've found that if one makes an avatar with a realistic height, then a 50 head size looks ok, but if you go for a normal SL height, then you need to enlarge your head slightly. Also, I think arm length needs to be around 80 to look realistic.Look at where your hands fall in relation to your hips in a mirror to get the right proportion. I've read that Redgrave skins look a little more mature than most good skins do, so you might want to look at their demos to see if they have any you like. I've had the same Redgrave skin for years for my main avatar, which I've tried to make look something like my RL self, & I've been very happy with it. (For my alts, I've used nice, free or inexpensive skins for the most part.)

*Hugs* Heart too. I'm sorry for your losses. Even though I struggle with dealing with my mother at times, I'm grateful for the times when she's funny & we get along, and I try to make the most of the time I still have with her. I also lost my sister to cancer about 15 years ago, then my father about a year later.

*Hugs* Angiewolf. I hope 2013 is better for you, that you got your laptop & that you get a better boyfriend this year.

Amie, I won't rake you over the coals for your response because other people have already done that. I hope you can appreciate from the other posts people have made that not everyone is able to have happy holidays with their family & friends in RL, so SL provides them with an opportunity to share time & love with others in a virtual world. Life is what we make of it. That goes for RL & SL. Often we get dealt crappy situations - such as poverty, disability, isolation or non-ideal families. The Norman Rockwell image of Christmas is unlikely to be possible for most of us. Yet we can still find blessings & joy in our lives. I hope that as your life proceeds, you will learn to appreciate people from all different lifestyles & backgrounds, because our world is much richer for these different experiences of real life.

Thank- you to everyone who shared their experiences of the Holidays in RL & SL. We in this virtual community come from all different kinds of RL lives, and I think sharing a bit of this helps us understand & appreciate each other. Czari, Your SL Posada tradition sounds wonderful. I think it's great when people have friendly, supportive communities & friendships in SL and when they find inventive ways of expressing their traditions & sense of community in SL. In RL, my friends live too far way for me to go see them & my family has never been very warm & happy. At least in SL, we don't have family arguments around the dinner table. Though I guess that could make for interesting RP. lol - I don't expect much for Christmas in RL or SL. I was happy to have a pleasant day with my mother & roommate in RL. I was happy to have a little holiday decor & virtual presents to open in SL. On the whole my holiday was ok, but it was better with SL than it would've been without SL.

This is a problem minors have in SL, that they can change their underwear layer but not remove it. This can cause underwear to show under clothing. I made Invisible underwear layers to solve this problem. Of course, you still have to wear clothing in public, but I don't think you should have to show your underwear, even if you are a minor. One way to fix this problem is to buy pasties on Marketplace & replace your undershirt layer with these. According to SL, pasties are considered adiquate coverage in Mature regions, even though they would not be appropriate coverage in most places in RL.

I was thinking this morning of what my Christmas was like this year & came to the conclusion that I enjoyed aspects of it in SL that I didn't have in RL. In RL, my roommate & I didn't really decorate much or exchange gifts. I didn't get cards or presents from distant relatives. No snow. No church service. My roommate & I took my 90 year old, senile mother to Denny's, then watched Christmas TV shows. Mom & I got each other stuffed dogs that respond to voice. We didn't fight with each other on Christmas day. We enjoyed each other's company. My boyfriend spent the weekend before Christmas with me, but we annoyed each other & weren't really happy most of that time. I gave small gifts to him & to my roommate, but got nothing back in return from them. In SL, I put snow on our land, which my roommate, her boyfriend & our renters enjoyed, as well as snowmen, an ice-skating rink & a snow angel. I put up a Christmas tree in my SL house & a wreath on my SL front door. I gave out a box full of goodies I made to friends & strangers. And I picked up a bunch of Christmas presents I've only begun to start opening. In SL I can have all the fun of dreaming over catalogs, then actually buy the stuff & get it immediately. I can easily decorate a lovely home & spacious land, then just as easily put all my decorations away. In SL I get to experience the joy of finding great bargains from the discount sections of high-end stores. In SL I can afford to give presents to everyone I know. I don't even feel like I need Christmas presents in RL, because I can have all the excitement of opening presents that a child has on Christmas morning when I open my SL Christmas gifts. I think the only thing I miss in SL is eating Christmas treats, but I can do that in RL while I'm at my laptop.

Two of my favorite low-cost rental appartments are Fourmile Castle and Ravenglass Rentals at Pharos Island . Fourmile Castle has several cabins & appartments for $L 150/ 150 prims/ week and one one room appartment for $L 75/ 75 prims/ week. Ravenglass has several nice two-room appartments for $L 150/ 150 prims/ week. Both of these have water views and interesting areas to explore nearby. You can live in a castle or on an island, with your own place to dress or entertain guests, for about 60 cents US/ week. If you get an anual Premium account for $L 72/ year,you could easily pay for either of these places with your weekly stipend of $L 300/ week or you could have a free Linden home and keep all of your stipend for spending money. When you figure out the cost of an anual premium account, minus the weekly stipend you get back, it only cost about 46 cents US/ week. You can also live completely free in SL, but you'll have to find a sandbox or other place where you can set home and rez packages. If you belong to a group with land, you might be able to have a spot there. You can also find land that allows anyone to rez objects, such as sandboxes, dressing rooms, and some plots that just have open build rights turned on. By the way, you can get so much of your clothing free on Marketplace, as group gifts & on hunts, that you really don't need to spend money in SL if you don't want to. Or you can spend a little on rent, and not spend any on clothing. Either way, when you support landlords & merchants with your money, you help them stay in SL & encourage them to continue creating environments and items that make SL beautiful & wonderous.