Halo Minoptra

Ask Patch to tell that person that they are not a sim owner.

I always refuse friend requests from people I don't know, especially people who open by sending one. I pretty much accept any friend request if I spent a little time with a person, but on subsequent logins I tend to turn off their ability to see when I'm online. If I don't run into them again after about a month, I delete them. I'm a pretty friendly person, but I don't like people seeing when I log in and out, and I dislike finding that someone has started a conversation with me before I've even finished logging in. When I actually like someone, and hope to see them again, I tell them, "I'm sorry, but I don't like the friends list -- I'd rather run into you when I'm on this sim." That's the way it works in real life -- there are people you might see at work, or at the coffee shop. In RL, people don't see your name light up on a list when you wake up in the morning. If they did, it would be very creepy, and that's how I feel about the friends list.

Okay, I know it's American Idol, but this is the best version of the song ever:

A great way to make regular Monday meetings worse is to SOMETIMES provide breakfast but NEVER to announce ahead of time whether breakfast will be there or no. I worked for a company once that had a meeting every Monday that lasted until noon. Everyone in my section had to be there, but the meeting was really for the managers. The rest of us used to take seats against the wall - the lucky ones could sleep without their heads dropping; the less fortunate passed three hours of being woken by their head falling forward. When I left the company they insisted on giving me an exit interview, and the last question was "What would I change at the company if I could?" So I said, "Let everyone who is not a manager skip the Monday meeting." The guy was really astonished that I'd say that, but then they went and did it! If I knew they were amenable to suggestions, I would have asked the second week.

I have the same desire -- for realistic hair -- but I always end up buying the style that works for my head. In any case, I think these are worth checking out: Limerence, Wasabi, Lamb, pr!tty, Doux, Exxess, Dura

You only wear one set of hands, @pwrofwhy. Wear the Bento hands and not the classic hands. Yes, it gets better. All the things that are confusing or difficult become easier. There is a support group inworld -- I couldn't find it just now in the search, but I'll get it tonight. It's very helpful and timely when you're inworld. But you can also always ask questions here.

One option I'd like to see in Marketplace search is one that would: - only display one item per vendor until all vendors have displayed one item, and so on AND - you can mark vendors to be excluded from the displayed results Example: You search for "maitreya AND romper" -- a butt-load of results are found, from a total of 30 vendors (in the first 1000 results, say). The first 30 results you'll see are the first results from each of the thirty vendors. The next 30 will be the second results from each of the thirty vendors. If you hit one that is crap, you can mark that vendor to exclude them from the next batches of results. Just incidentally, when I'm searching for something, I usually branch off once I've seen something nice from one or two or three stores, and I dig into those stores and abandon the original search.

I think it has something to do with Star Wars. Pangolins I think is the word? But monkeys work too!

This morning I shared an elevator with a guy who was holding a store-bought apple pie. I almost asked him whether today was someone's birthday, but he had a kind of weird expression on his face like he was embarrassed about the pie, so I didn't say anything. Of course I had no idea that today is Pi Day. I don't celebrate it; I'm a nonbeliever. But for those of you who are, here is a pie. I don't know what is up with this pie, but it is happening, or has happened at least once:

So, the new Avengers trailer is out. Spoiler: it is a bunch of tough people saying, "Whatever it takes" as they get ready to battle someone who is basically omnipotent and lives impossibly far away.

LL did a terrible job with names. It's apparently implemented in a super-complicated way that is difficult to change or even tweak. LL did an AWFUL job of removing last names. No one wanted it. It pleased no one. People have complained ever since. Maybe they will do something good in this next iteration, but I think we should lower our expectations, dim our hopes, and take a huge dose of patience. We can only wait and see.

I used to work with a bunch of guys who all made their own beer, and one of them had a bottle opener on his key ring. I saw him use it many times (we had a beer fridge at work), but I never saw the opener itself, because it was so small and because he used it so much that he developed this gesture that would take the opener from his pocket and put it immediately back in, and on trip back to his pocket it would open the bottle. It was one sweep of movement. If you made an animation for it in SL, no one would want it, because it would just look like a guy quickly pulling his hand from his pocket and putting it back in.

Oh, hey -- people are alive in here! In my late teens, I had a paint-can opener in my room as a hidden-in-plain-sight beer bottle opener. I wondered if I could get away with an ah so, but I never got one:

Do you see the same issue when you use other shapes?

It's below freezing again here in the Northeast. Last night my daughter was exclaiming how her phone charge runs down faster in the cold, and I realized I've been experiencing the same thing. In other news, I've been hair shopping, taking my time, going to stores I've never visited before and looking at every selection, taking demos and trying them on, winnowing the choices down. It's so much fun! Once I run through my list of stores I'll go through all the demos that remain and make a few choices. I was in Limerence this morning, which I'd never even heard of before a few days ago, and I have to say the displays are really beautiful. I kept wondering where the clothes in the pictures came from. Shopping on the marketplace is great, but walking around and looking and trying stuff on cannot be beat.

Hey, I use Linux Mint, and I get that message occasionally. So it's not a Windows thing, although the mentions of Windows Updates made me wonder whether it happens after I do software updates (which are optional, but I like to stay up to date).

Once my husband looked at my screen while my clothes were still rezzing, and so my avatar appeared naked. "I can see why you like that so much," he commented in a very dry tone. Of course, explaining did no good. Soon after, we went to a family reunion (of *my* family), and he was talking about politics. He really has a lot of insight there, so I said, "You really should have a blog!" He stopped and looked at me for a moment. He isn't a luddite, but for him the internet is fine for reading news or buying things, or skyping with relatives far away, but aside from that, he has strong doubts and reservations. So he took my remark as a pretext for telling my cousins about how I spend "all my time" in SL. After that, they were like dogs going after a bone. Everything I said provoked gales of laughter, and (stupid me) it took a while for me to realize that they thought I was playing a video game and believing it was real. That was a couple years back. More recently, I was talking to one of my sisters and we were basically psychologically dissecting all our absent siblings, one of whom is a bona-fide floor-to-ceiling hoarder. When we were pretty much done with everyone else, my sister sighs and says, "Yeah, everybody's got their issue." And I thought, yeah, I know about you and I know about everybody else, but... so I asked, "What's my issue?" And she replied, "Second Life." I was pretty well knocked back by that answer. So I didn't answer then, and I don't talk about it now. I only get inworld when I'm alone, and I keep it all to myself. And you.

Every so often I create a new account to see (1) what the new-user experience is like now, (2) how well I can look with only free stuff. Lately the second part takes less of my attention; I've changed my feeling about spending money in SL. I think that's probably due to mesh bodies. I own Belleza Venus, eBody classic and curvy, the eBody classic free version, JudyBody, Maitreya, Eve Slim, Altamura, Slink Hourglass, and Tonic Fine. I have an account for each body, and I've used each one pretty well, gone through the trouble and pleasure of finding clothes or fitting clothes for each, so I have opinions. I think they are all great and fun and worth the money. HOWEVER, lately I've noticed how well a person can look without a mesh body. I was on a sim where people weren't wearing much, and one woman's avatar was so striking that I had to ask her which mesh body she was using, and she said, "None. I don't have a mesh body." Hair and skins are so much better than they used to be that it isn't hard to look REALLY good without a mesh body. And shapes are better as well. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the average SL skin in years past was not too good in the face, and it was an inadequacy that no shape could make up for. Now that skins and in particular faces are better, the effect of a good shape has increased. Also, if you're using a classic avatar, you don't have a neck seam. Sure, your butt and breasts are not as smooth as a mesh body would make them, and yes you don't have as wide a selections of shoes, but you can look pretty damn hot without the mesh body world. Just avoid to really dated stuff like flexi-prim skirts, clunky box-like shoes with bling, and the crappy old hair that came before flexi hair. It is getting harder to find skins for the classic avatar, though, and that's a shame. As much as I love mesh bodies, I still find mesh heads to be an unnecessary complication. I'm sure it's great if you're a model or take a lot of photos, but just to live in SL? Not so much. And as to the question of which mesh body is best? I don't think it's a valid question. It's like asking which language is best, or which food is best. The choice depends on so many factors. And btw, if you want a mesh body but don't have money, eBody and Altamura have free or almost-free bodies.

If she were holding the bratwurst with her hand, I would buy it.

It reminds me of a scene in Howard Stern's movie Private Parts.

Wow, I was so wrong in how I imagined it was going to be. The loud woman wasn't there. Everybody who came actually wanted to see the Oscars, which also moved a lot faster this year, since they weren't slowed down by a host. Lots of fun. Lots of wine. So many actors and actresses to ooh and aah over. A lot of the fun of the Oscars for me is imagining myself there.

Going to an Oscar-viewing party tonight. Maybe three years ago we went to the same couple's house for the same reason, and I know everyone who'll be there. It will be great for everything except watching the Oscars. One of the people who'll be there is a woman who shares my first name, but has an really loud voice and zero interest in anything on TV. Oh well, at least the the food and drinks will be good. I like watching the red-carpet show, and I love the program itself. I don't really care who wins. I want to have a good time tonight, and I know the key will be giving up the show, which isn't a big deal. The people are more important.

You can reactivate your account. I just did it. You need to open a support ticket (click on the link Pamela posted). They'll ask you some questions to verify who you are. Just be polite and keep replying to their emails, and soon you'll have it back. As far as inventory, there is no guarantee. After you get your account back, if your inventory is gone or partially gone, you can open a support ticket for that, and if you'll lucky, they'll be able to recover it.

Duh! I never noticed that button. But I thought we were talking about the ones that let us react to someone else's comment -- the ones you see when you hover over the heart. There are only five reactions available.

EMO-tions?