MoiselleErin Teardrop

HELP ISLAND? No, stay away from that (expletive word) infested island!In the 2.5 years I have been in SL, Help Island has never been a friendly place. Someone mentioned New citizen island, it is also known as Kuula, or NCI. That place is often populated, but if you go there, you have to of course separate who the clique members are and the ones who are not. The ones who have been in SL for years and STILL lingering there are probably, but now always, cliques. Plus if they have no SL life outside some newbie bin, how much fun can they really be? NCI is kind of a place where people go for what they need, but most move on.

With making friends or finding a companion - Some people try to do this thru way of cliques. If you are the clique-type, of course find one. I am not. My friends are scattered. Some of them know each other, most do not. Sometimes NO ONE will IM me and other times I have several (I don't try to have more than 3 going cause it is just too much to keep up) Most of the time when I get too many IM's is when I am trying to do something tedious like fix my house where a single bad click can ruin the whole project. But for WHO to make steady friends with - probably better to seem women. Despite the whole "Every female avy is some guy trying to do teh sects" rumor, I think in general, the avy reflects the person RL gender.Well except for the escorts and "lesbians". DUDES! And with that - women just make better conversationalists. Most men could not carry a conversation if it had a handle on it. My take on SL - I do not "explore" much cause my computer is slow, I average 5 FPS on low graphics so exploring is more aggrivating than anything. Put me on a busy sim and that drops to just TWO FPS. So I like to chat with folks or build stuff, or do home improvements. You never know where your next friend is gonna come from. Many people get on SL once in a blue moon but there are some addicts who you can count on seeing regularly.

I guess LL ran out of last names? But yeah when someone has the blairing "resident" as part of the name, one does tend to think, "Oh boy, another unwanted friend request" or just waiting to hear, "How do I make teh money?" or see them wearing a box or losing their hair. Yeah I know we all went thru all that but it gets tired seeing it non-stop.

Even poor little avatars need companions. I may have found one if the person is serious about being interested in an Erin.

There are places on SL that are full of umm, "rude people". Thing is, places like that don't seem to last. Maybe said welcome area is full of cliquish people. Well, people do not like to be excluded so will cause grief any way they can. I think this is why Avatar Island vanished and their clique disbanded. Welcome areas are bad for that, probably the worst. It is going to get worse now that the teenagers are allowed on. One problem also is that newbies get messed with a lot since they don't know much about this game. Some newbies come in and think they are going to grief. I go to this one sandbox sometimes and each time some newbie thinks they are going to grief me, they quickly find out otherwise. The best way to approach the social scene of SL, in my experience, is to NOT be part of anyone's clique, but just make scattered friends. Few of my SL friends even know each other. Some are pre-SL friends, some are kind of mentors to me, some are clients, and then others are more-less like "Hello, bye-bye" types that I see once in a blue moon. For the ones who say things like, "Well I know such and such and will have you kicked off!" Oh whatever, and in RL my best friend is the toughest guy on the block. And I am telling the prinicpal! I am calling my attorney. See what I mean? Some people like to hide in the shadows of the bigger guys. To get banned from SL, you really have to mess up big. Being underage, crashing sims, stealing content (copybotting) or something serious. Being banned from SL doesn't happen just cause you cussed someone out or didn't kiss some land officer's butt. In SL, you CAN be ejected or banned at a land officer's whim, however, even that is pretty unusual, I mean unless you are truely a griefer or create repeated trouble. Less people means less traffic, and no land owner wants their area to become a ghost town. I know one club in SL I used to love, it was big, busy, but now it is DEAD dead cause the owner is such a (fill in explicit word) Even the old vendors packed up and left. But yeah in SL, stay the hell away from the cliques. Oh hell, in REAL life stay away from cliques! Be your own person and choose your own friends!. To learn more about the silliness of SL, seek out on youtube the videos "man vs second life" and it's sequal. All is very true and very comical. Erin

If SL did try to become FB, well, knowing LL, that could take about a year. Was a year between the initial "gird merge" talks and the actual event. This talke more-less started recently, maybe when 2011 hit is the first I started hearing of it... So, it looks like us oldbies might have about til Jan 2012 to enjoy SL as we know it. Me personally, hopefully I am completely burned out on SL by the time something stupid would happen. There IS good news in the RL and web life though - At LEAST people are catching onto the fact that s*** like FB is just bad news.Bad for their marriage, jobs, church life, etc. Especially with jobs - since jobs can no longer legally discriminate based on - race, color, gender, sexuality, religion, etc... they are looking for other ways to play out their prejudice and what easier than - "Oh this person posted something on the web!" Once someone gets into RL trouble over something they wrote on FB, they pretty quickly withdraw from FB. I have seen this happen before. From an antisocial/introvert perspective - The SL'er is big enough to admit they don't want to talk about real life to much extent. The FB zombie, on the other hand, they want friends and to be popular in the real world but don't want to make any more effort than sitting on a website. WTG FB for comepletely devaluing the definition of "friendship"

Obscenely obese pride day? So now Walmart is trying to become disney too?

I have never "Cancelled" my account but just maybe when you cancel it, don't uninstall the software for the viewer you use. I think your inventory is somehow backed up on your own computer. Not real sure how that works though.

Well, the people that I have heard a lot about this from are some people that are, in fact, conspiracy theorists. I don't think this all could truely happen, I guess it is just a very discomforting thought

I think a more befitting question might be, "What is the best skin for the money?" Don't dismiss the smaller shops or the less expensive options either.One of my favorite skins called "Apricot" came from a shop called fluffygirl (it is a fat lady store) It ran me like L$600 I have another skin that is very beautiful and detailed, it even looks like she has some small pores around the cheeks, L$300 on promo from Secret Passion. Forget the name exactly. Now if you are talking top of the line skins period, you cannot go wrong with Belleza. Redgrave is comparable but I personally cannot stand that store. They have this warning about copybotting in there and when a business has negative signs like that it is an instant turn-off. No I do not coybot, however, no business should have negative signs in clear view. Even honest folks are put off by that. So, you can pay say L$500 for a decent but not perfect skin or pay L$1,000 for a skin that is near perfect. is the L$1,000 skin twice as good as the L$500 one? Not usually.Are people REALLY gonna notice a big difference between a L$500 and a L$1,000 skin? heck no. I have yet to hear anyone tell me, "OH, that skin must have only been a few hundred, it doesn't look very detailed." Plus at the big shops, the skins you see displayed in the photos have massive lighting so it is gonna look better in the ad than on your avatar anyways. Finally - some skins you buy will have several variations of it like cleavage or not, different makeups, etc. Some vendors just give the ONE skin you see. So what are you really asking? What is "the best skin" or "What is the best for the money you spend"?

If items were "no copy/Transfer" then yes they could just resell them at a lower price than the original vendor. However, the original shop is not going to lose much, if anything, cause say some avatar is selling some shoes with those rights, well Joe Avatar have but ONE pair to offer as to where the shop has unlimited. So a buyer would have these options - go to a reputable store, buy the things where they will get good service if needed, and be guaranteed to be able to buy what they want. OR, they could scrounge around, HOPE some random person is selling their own copy, buy them, and get NO customer service other than - "here ya go, have a nice life". RL and SL, people forget that part of what you pay for at a good store is good service. A few people selling their used junk is not gonna jeopardize big vendors. And as said - for those in SL who just cannot afford the big stores, it would be nice for those people. No one enjoys buying stuff second hand, people who have money usually prefer the convienience, service and selection of a good store. So in the end, "No copy/Transfer" is not going to hurt anything

When I IM someone, I let them know the specific reason why I am bothering them. I expect the same. Avatars that are playing the typing animations, I cannot take seriously, that anim is too much of a distraction and one mark of a noob or idiot.

I guess with things like web profiles, making a "basic" mode for new users who are too lazy to learn the very basics of what us oldbies learned, seeing "join SL on FB", and just a lot of other street talk about "SL trying to be FB". I notice a lot of the fresher noobs actually filling out their RL part of the profile. As an SL'er, I don't really CARE about some stranger's real life. It is of no concern to me, as my RL is of no concern to SL strangers. I guess we cannot blame the rest of the WWW for trying to associate or become FB since that company is the biggest game in town. Except, some of us really detest FB. the last thing I want in RL is someone wanting to stick their nose in my avatar's butt and telling me how I should live my VIRTUAL life (I am sure I am commiting a few sins somewhere in my path) Ever hear people complain about FB? Oh you know, that they are afraid to post anything cause their boss or granny is on their friends list so they have to tone it down? Or how employers might be checking your FB to see what you do online? Now with SL Friends, I might share bits and pieces of my RL, however, sharing my virtual life with real life people that I know is not something I do. I can see a FB/SL clustermuck now - SL chats about "My husband got a promotion and the kid went potty all by himself" NO ONE CARES! Or another nasty thing - OK in SL people can;t see your friends list. Meaning, unlike FB where people try to rack up 1,000's of friends, in SL you are a little more safe from getting random friend requests JUST BECAUSE you have some common fake friends. (OK so the n00bs have a habit of just throwing out friend requests but they soon learn) If someone is on my SL friend list, there is a good reason for it. I do not "collect friends" We all have our reasons for playing SL. Maybe to do things we just cannot in real life, maybe to stave off boredom, maybe to build elaborate things that would cost $1,000's in real life, maybe to live some dream that is unrealistic in RL... however, they all have a thread in common - SL is an ESCAPE! SL is SL and RL is RL. Web privacy was pushed for many years, FB aimed to take that away, and now people are wanting their privacy back. Second Life had the right idea - be who you want without real life constrains or personal RL issues. Let us hope this is the philosophy they still have in mind. So is LL ultimately hoping to turn this into "Second Facebook" or is this just a scary thought for those of us that hate FB with every ounce of our being?