Feel it in My Bones

Hit 'Play' while you're reading this for awesome tunage!

Ahem. So I've been searching for a Tegan and Sara-esque hairstyle in SL for a few days and today, my search (unknowingly) ended at Little Heaven. I haven't been there in over a year. I used to go there all the time because I thought the sim was so neat and the products were so original and cool. Anyway, someone posted some Little Heaven hair on one of the fashion blogs and it made me want to go check out what was new. I went over to the hair section and there were two V's on the lucky chairs so I snagged those. When I opened the boxes, I found two hairs - one of which was very similar to the style I had been searching for. Joy! I had a look around to see if there were any other cool hairs and ended up buying a set.

Then, of course, I wanted to take pictures and try to pretend to be some badass rockstar *cough*

Just chillin' (like a boss). Anddd then it was time to explore the rest of the sim. :>




This room (above) still makes me cringe. If you step on the blood splatters, you hear it squish. *faints*

Oh nu. I fell on a sword...or something.

But, of course, I arise all badass-like to stand next to a burning car. ...Uh, yeah >_>

Anyway! I enjoy the sim, and my new hurr, so hopefully you will too! Go check out Little Heaven (or is it Little Hell with all those mutilated bodies?) here!

Oh, PS: all poses (with the exception of the dying on the floor) are from (marukin). You can find the SLURL by searching said name or flipping back to one of my previous posts. I'm not logged in to SL right now so no SLURL. :(

Whaaaaat?

So I read this comical article over on The Alphaville Herald and I just wanted to share it.


In related news, according to the Official Second Life Blog, M Linden will be stepping down and Philip will be back as CEO. Kind of...interesting (to say the least) that this comes right after the "restructuring" of the company (i.e. firing nearly 30% of all Linden employees).


Just sayin'.

Oh and another one

Just for the heck of it! I'm going to tell all you lovely readers *cough* about the new Emerald beta release and NOT the "what's to come" for SL Viewer 3.



New Features!

• Advanced radar HUD options: Now you can simply click to the Options tab on the Radar menu and it will allow you to set it to alert you when someone enters the sim, draw distance, and/or chat range. You can also do some age notification, but I haven't explored that...so!
  
• Built-in AO. This is probably my FAVORITE feature so far. No more pesky Zhao HUDs. All you need to do is place all the poses you want in the AO in the folder labeled "#Emerald" and then write up a little notecard that tells which poses go into which category - if you need help with this, just IM me in-world, but I don't really feel like explaining the formatting here. If you've used a Zhao II HUD before, you have already prepared said NC and you can simply drag it to the Client-side AO menu in Emerald and viola!
• Announces streaming music artist/song name to chat. When you're listening to a stream and you're like "wait, I like this song! What's it called?!" Just check your chat history. When the song comes on (or when you hit 'Play'), it tells you the info.
  
• Group titles menu. This is a nifty feature too! In the Group tab under Communicate, there is a button labeled "Titles" which lists EVERY title you have from all your groups. Instead of having to sift through all your rental, home, store, and personal groups to find the tag you're looking for, simply click the Titles button and it will display the role name, the actual title and the group that the title belongs to. Like I said, really nifty especially for those that are a part of a lot of business groups

Improved Stability
...At least I think so. XD

Glitches

• Body/Skin textures continually disappear. Hopefully this will be fixed in the official release.

Anddd yeah, that wasn't quite as thorough as I thought it might be. Maybe I'll think of more things to add as I discover/remember them. But for now, that's all I've got for ya! You can download and test out the new beta here.


OH AND! Just so you know, if my blog looks screwy, mainly the header, it's not me...it's Blogger's lovely new Template Designer. -.-;

Contrast

This is my sad attempt at some sort of comparison photo. I bought the Deer Mask from Illusions today - funny story, I actually went to check out the new Corvus raven mask and matching outfits, and ended up with a deer mask that I have been coveting for a while but never brought myself to buy it (ok, so that wasn't really that funny). Anyway, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go all fawn-like and sweet and innocent or dark and demon-esque. So this leads me to the photo.




So neither is really sweet & innocent or demon-esque, but you get the gist of it...hopefully.

I actually only took the bright photo at first because when I was visiting the sim that's in the picture, it reminded me of the setting of the final battle in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. And of course, just the fact that I was wearing a mask at all reminded me of MM. Anyway, it was just a Zelda fan-geek-tastic moment for me and then it turned into this contrast thing.

Whatever.

Mask: *~*Illusions*~*

OMG! I can see!

Honestly, I could not think of anything better for the title of this post. I wasn't even going to update tonight, but when I logged on today...to my surprise I could SEE people, buildings, textures, everything! Usually I'm kickin' around 15fps (sad, terrible...the horror, I know), but today I'm running like 41!

So why the change you ask?
I upgraded to Windows 7 and reinstalled my video drivers, cleaned up and reformatted my hard drive and now I'm running super smooth :) It was a nightmare getting to this point though, let me tell you! Ugh! It was time to wipe my hard drive though, honestly. I won't even get into all the crap and stupid mistakes I did while trying to save my computer because any self-respecting computer techie would probably cringe and scream >_>
So anyway! After two days of installing, repairing, overwriting, repairing, installing, yada yada, here I am with a fresh 64-bit copy of Windows 7.

But yeah, back to SecondLife related things...Themi released some fantastic new accessories and I just must show them :3

Those totally wicked Reaper wings are so friggin' sweet! And guess what? They're only 65L. I love the title "Reaper" because it reminds of the television series Dead Like Me which I also find friggin' sweet!

And of course a shot of the wings from the back and you can also see the neato posture collar that Themi made that has spinal detailing on the back. Anddd because I didn't feel like doing any poses or anything, you get the raw photo so you'll see that Themi and Ysa are in the picture to the left as well XD


Now it's time for me to go to sleep. I was up until 2 last night waiting on the first install to complete (which was a total waste of time in the end) and now it's late again :<
Goodnight !

Just another post for kicks

Did someone say "Verona's in an ad in this month's issue of La Vie d'Innocent"?

Oh, no, no one said that. But it's true! So yeah, check it. Page 10! I'm on the left, while Themis is on the ground and Kaishi, her partner, is the super tall dood in the back :P And of course the lovely photographer was Ysandir.

I think it's super cool that not only am I in an ad for a store, but that Favole is getting so much exposure lately. :>


Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

The search!

So today I was just roaming the Starlust sims and landed at a store, which I can't quite remember the name of, that sold roller blades, skateboards, and even a pogo stick, and it made me want to get a bike to ride. Yknow, those cool wearable ones. But you know me, I didn't want to pay like 5000L (no lie) for a bike or motorcycle or something. I mean, sure, they might be worth it if you use them enough and they're great quality, but honestly, I probably won't use the bike but a few times. At this particular store, the items were actually very reasonably priced, but I wasn't really diggin' the styles.

So the search was on!
I first took my quest to XstreetSL and browsed the free/cheap ground vehicles. Not much luck. I tested out a few things:

I call it "Collage of Fail". On the left, we have what was supposed to be a wearable moped, but...yeah... On the right, it may look normal at first glance, but I had to adjust my avatar Z positioning (i.e. lifted off ground) with Emerald Viewer up like .9 points! The bike was obviously made for a very tall avi. And finally, my personal favorite, the tiny skateboard. I guess I should have known that when it said "tiny skateboard" it actually meant it was for tiny avatars...thus, it squashed my already-short avi into a little box. Classic.
Oh and by the way, the designers are not full of fail because they worked hard on the items, so kudos to you! I'm just sorry I couldn't sport them in a erm, more flattering way. :>

BUT JUST WHEN I WAS ABOUT TO GIVE UP....THE SEARCH WAS CONCLUDED!

..err, wait. No. Just kidding. The problem with not speaking Japanese is that when you assume something that sort of looks like "#^($%()$%" means "wear" or "ding ding ding! we have a winner! this is what you've been looking for, Verona!"

Nope. I just can't catch a break.
I went with the unicycle, but...well...

Not wearable ;( I mean, it's still a neato unicycle (besides the odd huffing noise it makes when you're on it - not to mention the erm, interesting pose >_>) to use when at home or on build-ok land.

Ah well. I spent nearly 100L on stuff that went straight to my trash folder, but that's alright. At least I got a semi-entertaining blog post out of it, right?

I guess I'll just stick to an oldie, but a goodie: my favorite, the Catnip wearable balance ball with animations and facial expressions.



I got a little carried away with the Picnik stickers, sue me xP

So, I never did find a suitable bike/skateboard/roller blade/random wearable mobile, but oh well. The search continues!


Have a good night everyone! I'm off to shower now. Make sure you tell your fathers or father-figures Happy Father's Day tomorrow :>

I couldn't get the wheat fields to rez properly. Sorry.
Today: not so light and airy as in previous posts. Off-key. Tired. Neutral.

Just a few notes:
the pose is by Valencia Southard who is the blogger over at My Secondlife.Free and she also owns a shop called (marukin). Her poses are really simple and cute :3 (cheap too!)
The dress is from Doppleganger Inc. I got a notecard that said there was a sale going on and even though this dress wasn't on sale, it was so worth it - you get three colors for 200L.
The eyes are from Umedama Holic, one of my favorite eye stores in SL. These were a hunt gift I believe, but they're really neat - they are textured to look teary-eyed and the eyes come with a tear-drop prim.

Final Challenge.

If this is your first BBBC... What did you get out of your experience? Do you think it will change the way you blog in the future?



So this is the last challenge of the Big Bad Blogger Challenge 2010. I'm glad to say I kept up with my posting and completed each of the challenge topics.

Alright so...what did I get out of this experience? Well, for one, I realized how uninteresting I truly am XP However, even though I didn't really have anything of importance or even anything witty/interesting to say most of the week, it was nice to check my Google Reader and see a challenge post waiting for me. It made me think throughout the day what I would be blogging about.

I don't think this will really change how I blog in the future because I didn't really step out of my comfort zone - but that's probably my own fault. I may have held back since this was my first challenge. All the more to look forward to next year though, no? I think I will try and continue blogging every day. Maybe I'll make up my own little challenge - Life in Verona: 7 days a week - always on. ...actually no, that sounded more like a commercial for a news station, so scratch that. Point is, I'm gonna try to keep up my blogging, even if no one ever comments or even reads my posts - at least it gives me an outlet.

So I'll see ya next year, BBBC!

Oh, and I was going to post a picture, but since I downloaded the new beta release of Emerald viewer, I have been glitching like crazy. Right now I'm a floating head with bracelets hair and feet and when that's not enough to drive me crazy, I rebake and all my clothes come off. No joke. I stand there completely nude until I rebake again...and then it's back to no-body-Verona (no pun intended, I literally mean no body..>_>)

Oh well.

BBBC #5 - Unrestricted

So today's topic is to simply write about whatever we feel like. When I read the challenge the first time, I panicked a little - I had no idea what I was going to write about and quite honestly, didn't feel like blogging today at all. Meh.

So I'm gonna take a little tip from the BBBC creator's blog and just do a list sort of dealio for today's post of whatever comes to mind. And maybe I'll stick some random pictures in that I've had in my folder to blog for a bit since I haven't posted anything lately.

So (I wonder how many paragraphs I can begin with "So" in this post), let's get right down to it. Here's what's on my mind:

• My computer is awful slow as of late. I think I need to just wipe my hard drive and start anew.
  
• SL just crashed because the "region was experiencing some trouble" BAH
• I'm really, really tired. I've been going and going and going like the energizer bunny lately. Tomorrow, I plan on staying in my PJs all day and watching movies and laying on the couch with my two pups. I have no intentions of turning on my phone or even getting on SL (...but I know I will at some point, at least the second part of that statement)
• I wish my blog was more interesting. I've been reading some other posts from bloggers in the challenge and I have to say, bravo you guys - your stuff is fun, interesting, exciting, thought intriguing, and all that good stuff.
  
• I hired a new model today at Favole. Makes me feel good to have responsibility again in SL. I like having a purpose.
• I got a much better grade on the exam I took today than I thought I would. Go me!
• It's a good thing this blog is called "Life in Verona" and really is all about me, otherwise I'd sound pretty egotistical with all these "I"'s everywhere in this post.
• I have a paper to write.
  
• I, I, I, I. ....just thought I'd throw in a few extra I's for good measure.
• Talking with old friends makes me really happy. I hope it continues.
• I keep typing things, then backspacing them. I guess I'll end this list now.

I'm not in a very good mood today :<

Oh, and I don't feel like fixing up all those pictures I was talking about, so I'll just give you one for today.

I'm feeling very cloudy and bleh today. Thus, the sepia tone with blur. My avatar is so boring, I swear. I always wear the same damn horns, the same skin, same hair, and the same colors. I think maybe I'll go shopping tonight to find something new and interesting. I like getting into character sometimes.

Goodnight.

Unrelated

You know...the more I look at other people's blogs who are doing the BBBC, the more I think my posts are just so terribly boring.

BBBC #4 - What's my age again?

SL Bloggers - Is your avatar more or less your current biological age? Do you portray a younger avatar, or older? Why is this?



I like this question. I actually try to keep my avatar's appearance pretty close to mine - unless I'm just having a totally whimsical-feeling day and want to throw on hooves and a tail.

(Damn, is anyone else having trouble logging in today? I've been "connecting to region..." for like 10 minutes now)

But I keep my height the same, 5'2, my hair color for the most part, and I've tried to make my shape as realistic and similar as I can to my own iRL. I guess that's pretty boring though, eh? I guess I just got tired of trying to fix my avi up to look a certain way when I, myself, never dressed that way or had black or purple, or any other number of colors, hair.

Though, I don't look my age iRL, but I'm told this is gonna come in handy when I'm in my 30s and 40s, so I guess I can't complain. LOL

So once again, after drifting away from the point of the question, my avatar is about the same as my biological age.

I'll post pictures later if I think of something nifty. :>


phew. I just tried to publish this and it didn't submit right so I had to click Back. I thought I was gonna lose my post, but luckily Blogger is so smart and auto-saves :)

BBBC Nummer Zwei

Oooh, kickin' in some old german right there! >_>

Anyway..today's Big Bad Blogger Challenge topic is to either:
SL: Name three positive things going on in your Second Life
RL: Name three positive things going on in your life.

But being the over achiever that I am *cough*, I decided I'm going to pick three things from BOTH lives to write about. Three POSITIVE things. This might be tough...

Alright so...Second Life. This one might actually be tougher for me than real life. I guess that's probably a good thing to have more going on OUTSIDE my internet hobbies XP

1) A managerial position to keep me occupied - I'm grateful that Themi's new store has been keeping me busy and I finally have a "purpose" in SL. I know, that sounds pathetic, but I look at everyone else and they're all designing clothing or houses or scripting or whatever. I just never felt like I was really contributing to anything except to the designer's wallets.

(I've already gotten stumped :< )

2) Positive things going on my SLife....Hum. Well, my avi looks pretty neato if I do say so myself :) I take pride in my petite stature (5'2) - Though this isn't really something "going on", it's something positive...right..?

3) (This was originally part of #1, but I decided to give it its own bullet) Great friends - this is pretty much a given for anyone, I know, but I'm really thankful that I've reconnected with some old friends. It's a bummer that there are still some I haven't spoken to in a long time and of course there are those who just never come online anymore, but I understand, everyone's gotta live their lives. RL always comes before SL, of course.



Now on to RL:

1) This has been "my year", at least, that's what I keep telling myself. I didn't make a new year's resolution in January, but this seems to be the most productive year for me. I've been working out more and eating healthy, granted, I've always been petite, but I actually feel healthy now.

2) Pursuing a degree - even though I dread it most of the time, I'm still thankful that I am able to go to college. I'm working on my Sociology degree and so far, it's going great. I have a 4.0 GPA and I made the President's List this past semester (booyah!). I'm proud of my success thus far :3

3) Volunteering. I recently signed up to become a volunteer at the local SPCA and I'm getting involved in other community service. It just feels good to help others.

I guess my 3 RL points all sort of go together with "this has been my year". I've just been occupying myself with feel-good hobbies and trying to be healthier and stress-free. I would have put "finding myself" as one of my RL bullets, but I can't say I truly have yet, but this year has definitely been a jump forward to that.


So I guess I got a little more rant-y than I thought I would, but ah, who cares. 'Least it was positive, right?'


Oh, PS: that unexplained photobreak was meant to go with bullet #1 in my SL list - the wings I'm wearing are from Favole, the store I mentioned, and come in 12 different colors. I can't stop wearing them, I don't care if I don't match, they just look so darn cool :>
Go buy the Leviathan wings at the Favole Mainstore !

BBBC 2010, Here goes nothin'!

So I've decide to take part in the Ch'Know sponsored blog..thing..called the Big Bad Blogger Challenge 2010! I heard about it last year, but too late to join and at the time, I had quit blogging for a bit, but now I'm back in action and ready to roll :)

Let's just hope I actually stick to it.

Anyway, you can read all about it here if you'd like to join - all you have to do is comment on the post with your blog URL and make sure you do the posts! Simple.

So today's topic is "Why did yo become a blogger? How has it enriched your life?"

Hmm...so let's see. Well, if we're just keeping this to SL, I set this account up a year or so ago and I did a little blogging here and there, but got easily bored. Just recently, however, I started blogging again on this account because I've become a little more active in SL as of late. At first, I wanted this blog to just be daily "adventures" and explorations in my SLife, but it quickly turned to daily rants and fashion-related posts. This was mostly due to the fact that my great friend, Themi, started up her shop (Favole) so I wanted to show off her goods.

I try to still blog about my favorite or interesting spots that I come across while in-world, but it's been hard to keep the material exciting. So pretty much, I just blog about whatever now.

So after that long rant, my final answer (to the first question anyway)...I became a blogger because I thought it would give me something to do. It would be an outlet of expression for any topic, cause yknow, sometimes I blend RL into this blog. I just wanted a place outside of my RL blog to write.
And this leads into the next question, "how has it enriched my life?" Like I said, I now have a place that I can come to just to write whatever I feel like. With my RL blog, I find that I am more hesitant to be open, but when I'm blogging here, I feel comfortable and because I really don't have that many readers, I'm not concerned about offending anyone, posting crappy pictures or what have you. So in sum, it has helped me to "vent" whatever I'm feeling without restraints. Not exactly enriching, I guess, but somewhat therapeutic maybe?


Anyway.



BBBC Day 1: completed. I'll come back later and add a picture or two so it's not so drab :)


Hope everyone is having a great day - it's hot as heck here. I want to go biking in the park, but I'd probably keel over from heat stroke XP

So..t..ir..e.....d..

I'm gonna make this as quick as possible because I'm so friggin' tired. I just wanted to show off my finds for the day XP


That neato side bag is by Meriken Co. I love it *_* There are three versions: traveler (which is what I have), a cigarette one, and..well, I can't actually think of the third one so I guess you'll just have to go check 'em out! They come in three versions as I said, but there are like...six colors/patterns I do believe. Oh and each one comes in two versions: with a belt and without a belt. You can't really see it, but I'm wearing the belt under the new Ce Cubic Effect wide leg trousers which I adore as well.
Anddd of course, I can't forget the awesome goblin ears that I'm sporting. They're by ::{Favole}:: and such a steal at $50L. They come in 6 shades and they're full of win.

(I just went back and read what I had written so far and I skipped a bunch of words..that's how tired I am. So, if you come across any sentences that just don't make sense, well, it's the sleepiness talking, forgive me)

I had another picture, but I don't feel like resizing, cropping, and fixing it up to look somewhat decent. So, I'll just wrap this up and go to sleep :>

Goodnight !

Also, I don't feel like posting credits for the rest of my outfit...maybe tomorrow...

Porcelain

I finally gave in...on two accounts actually. Let's break it down:

1. I bought Lindens. I know, you're all thinking - wtf? How do you play SL for two years and never buy one single $L? Well, I was trying to resist because I knew that as soon as I did, I would go spend it all in an instant and then be itching to buy more and the cycle would go on til my credit card bill was through the roof. But as I said, today I gave in. I didn't buy much, just got my toes wet. It was enough to get my avi a new skin. It was unfortunate that the &bean mainstore was down because I was gonna go have a shopping spree there pretty soon, but that will just have to be my next splurge. Anyway, I went skin hunting for several hours. I don't know how everyone can change their skins so often and to all different shades and makeups and such. It takes me DAYS to decide what looks best. If I only try the demo on once or twice and never come back to it, I delete it. To come to a final product, I try on my narrowed-down choices at least twenty times a piece. I examine the bodies, the options (i.e. freckles, cleavage..though I never use it, and the lady parts because even in SL you need to have a nice yknow XD), I look up the skins on other blogs to see how they look on others, and of course price is a factor. SO! After that massive wall of text, let me just get right down to the result of my skin hunting...which brings us to number two...
2. I bought a Curio skin. When I first came to SL, I admired them from afar in ads and on all those fabulous fashionistas *cough*, but never got around to buying one. I know, I'm pretty late to jump on the bandwagon, but everyone else is raving about the new League skins and the new Tuli (which, don't get me wrong, are fab, but not for me)

So - it was an exciting day for me. Now I can watch my savings dwindle away as I'm sure I've unleashed a shopping beast.

I do have a picture for you all though! One of the light and airy variation again - sorry! My new Curio skin makes me feel like all those porcelain (hence the title) skinned ladies with the platinum blonde hair. Something about the ice queen look just makes me all giddy. Think...September, Laura Harris, etc. The Exile Sadie hair in frost tops off the look.
Anyway, here it is. I also combined a shot I snagged earlier when SL was being a jerk...taking my torso and face away >:O

"It's not bitchin' when you're glitchin'!" ..................I need sleep. XD

SL has been giving me some pretty weird glitches lately and I have managed to capture a few of them lately in photograph. Sometimes random parts of my body will just disappear. It's creepy.

Anyway, I think that's about it for tonight. I've had some pretty busy nights over at Favole with Themi as she gets more and more exposure (look out SLWorld, here it comes!) and more and more traffic!
And now I need to hit the sack because I have a very early wake up call x_x

Goodnight!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Credits: (use Search tonight, everyone...I'll post SLURLs tomorrow, I'm too tired)

Skin: Curio - Moonbeam [Dark] Sunny-Parasol Frex
Hair: Exile - Sadie frost (previous hunt gift)
Top: GField - Floral Halter Top (subscribo gift)
Sandals: Skifja - Secrets of Isis
Horns: Illusions - Aries
Headband: Tarnished - Lovely Bones

It's a good day.

I had a really wonderful day for the most part. Let me tell you, Mark Twain really knew what he was talking about when he said the best way to make yourself feel better is to make someone else feel better. It's the best feeling in the world to know you've made a difference, even if it's just a little one. Seize the moment, make someone laugh, give a smile, hold the door for a stranger. Just do something out of the ordinary - trust me, you'll like how it feels.

Anyway! On to SL-related things. I'm sure you've all seen the new group gift from +mocha+ - it's called White Moon Dress. It's really quite stunning if I do say so myself. I snagged a quick snapshot outside the shop because the setting is so neat and cute. As I said in a previous post, I love when designers really go the extra mile to dress up their shop, on the inside and out.

But enough chatter, on to the picture:


This picture describes how I'm feeling today: light, airy, free...happy.

Goodnight.

Creds:
dress: +mocha+ White Moon Dress (current group gift - join +mocha+ update group) (previously blogged over on My Second Life. Free)
hair: Exile - Sadie frost (previous hunt gift, not sure if this color is still available)
necklace: tomoto - pomme l'ange
horns: Illusions - Aries
skin: &bean - Pillow Light (previous group gift)