I've moved my blog to wordpress (hopefully a good move, I like it so far). Please come visit me here http://virtualstranger.wordpress.com/!

Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?

This is the article I found on the yahoo home page today that talks about a man's SL relationship and the effect on his RL marriage.

http://biz.yahoo.com/wallstreet/070810/sb118670164592393622_id.html?.v=6

Here is an excerpt:

The woman he's legally wed to is not amused. "It's really devastating," says Sue Hoogestraat, 58, an export agent for a shipping company, who has been married to Mr. Hoogestraat for seven months. "You try to talk to someone or bring them a drink, and they'll be having sex with a cartoon."

Mr. Hoogestraat plays down his online relationship, assuring his wife that it's only a game. While many busy people can't fathom the idea of taking on another set of commitments, especially imaginary ones, Second Life and other multiplayer games are moving into the mainstream. With some 30 million people now involved world-wide, there is mounting concern that some are squandering, even damaging their real lives by obsessing over their "second" ones. That's always been a concern with videogames, but a field of study suggests that the boundary between virtual worlds and reality may be more porous than experts previously imagined.

Nearly 40% of men and 53% of women who play online games said their virtual friends were equal to or better than their real-life friends, according to a survey of 30,000 gamers conducted by Nick Yee, a recent Ph.D. graduate from Stanford University. More than a quarter of gamers said the emotional highlight of the past week occurred in a computer world, according to the survey, which was published in 2006 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press's journal Presence.

This is just another article that brings to life the RL debate about how important SL should be in comparison to your RL. Is Second Life just a game?

Without getting into a length post, this is a small part of my point of view. For a lot of people SL is not just a game. Sometimes it can be very hard to keep your emotions from becoming involved with SL friends or those that have become partners. It's understandable for people who might spend many hours in world. But, I think that it's ok as long as they can honestly tell their RL partners that it is just a game, they can separate their SL creation with their RL and they can still function in the RL without SL becoming wrapped up in it.

ETD and Reel Movement Sales!

My favorite hair shop is ETD (for good reason) and this is your chance to get every hair you could have ever wanted at a super low price. (Check out the ad from ETD.) I've already been and bought about 20 packs, more colors of the styles I love and styles I've always wanted to add to my collection.


ETD opened to the public today at noon. The sale ends Monday.


Teleport to ETD>





Luth Brodie has a new store coming so there is a great sale at Reel Movement for all you pose lovers. 25% -50% off EVERYTHING. Ends next Friday (17th Aug) at 5pm SLT.

Teleport to Reel Movement>


***It's been exactly a month since I last posted anything. I've been enjoying my summer traveling around the states and enjoying the beach. But summer is coming to a close so I'm sure I'll be back settled at home and get back into SL more.***

[Outfit] Celeste by PixelDolls

PixelDolls has a wonderful new freebie dress release! The dress is called Celeste and it includes 12 different colors (I'm wearing the Ivory). I really like the texture of this halter dress, the stars and swirls are fitting to the name. The prim skirt is well done with just enough transparency to it. The ever present black belt has the detail of a lot of the PixelDoll tops. I don't mind the belt on some colors, but I definitely could have done without it on the lighter ones. I think the dress design and the texture could have looked fantastic on its own. (Beggars can't be choosers, I know!) Don't miss out on this freebie release at Port Seraphine, don't know how long it will last!.

Tropical Eyes from Ameretto

When I buy eyes I usually go for beautiful colors and detail (which these eyes do have). I don't like most of the eyes that contain a scene but when I saw these I fell in love! These are the Calypso collection from Amaretto. They come in six wonderful colors and they all have a very detailed tropical scene within. With palm trees, water and the horizon, these you really need to check out for yourself.







Here I am wearing the Daquiri color (could resist) in the larger size.


And here is the smaller size, more human like which I prefer.

You can find Ameretto here where you can purchase the eyes for $100L each.

Outfit: Canimal "Willow"

Skin: Vogue Summer Series 3 in Amber by CS/Lashes: Bedroom Lashes by CAKE/Hair: The Updo in Caramel by ETD/Dress: Willow in Green by Canimal/Boots: Dune in Brown by Maitreya/Necklace: Boho Gypsy Necklace, Mixed Cherry Woods by EARTHTONES

Dressing Room anyone?

I lurk on the SL Forums a lot and I found this thread that I think offers a lot of helpful hints for those homeless fashion addict avatars or those who love to change their shape every other day.



Portable Dressing Room for us homeless
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=192534

Highlights:

• Use the NCI Dressing rooms (Search Places for NCI)
• Find a mature sim on the map, find a place where there aren't a lot of people around or none at all and change there
• Fly up high, do your changing in the sky
• Go to a public sandbox and either rez a hollow box for you to change in, rez a small house or find a portable dressing room to buy or for free it rez
• Find a store that has dressing rooms for you to use - if its busy though, be sure to let the "real" customers use the facilities first
• And the best suggestion - find yourself a cheap apartment to rent and you'll have a place of your own
  

In the first couple of months, this was exactly how I felt. I love to try on my clothes and change my shape but there was never any good place to do it. Before I knew about modesty and PG sims, I used to change in public. Those where my exhibitionist days. Then some helpful man let me know that while he appreciated the show, some other people wouldn't and that I could find a dressing room at the NCI plaza. I spent a lot of time in that dressing room, crowded with all the other newbies and semi-newbies sorting through their freebies. I've tried going to a secluded place, but after my embarrassment of public nudity it felt to weird. I've even tried dressing in a box or a small house in sandbox. I always felt that it was just meant to test your building skills in, so I never felt right spending an hour checking out my inventory.

Eventually I sucked it up and looked for a low rent apartment to call my own - dressing room that is.

So if anyone new SL souls need a place to come change, IM me when you see me online and you can come to my place, I know how it feels.