Blog Challenges

My Avatar’s Private Life Challenge: Inventory (Mis)Management

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1 Bathing in shoes_030

This week, Miss Berry, compliments of Winter Jefferson, wants to know what we think our avatars get up to while we’re offline. I admit I’ve wondered about this myself, so it was really just a matter of shooting a photo to illustrate it.

This is actually a two-part meme. We can choose to do one or both of the challenges. Don’t you love multiple choice exams where you get to pick which questions you answer?

Here’s what we’ve been asked to do:

Meme Instructions: I’m giving you two options to choose from this week. I will be doing both of them but you guys can pick and choose, unless you’d like to do both as well.
1. Meme Suggested by Mr. Jefferson: “What does your avatar get up to after you log out?”
2. Blog about one of your closest friends in Second Life.
Don’t forget to leave a link to your post in the comments (of this post) and if you decide to do any pictures with this challenge, please share them in the Blog Memes flickr group.

So, to explain my photograph about what I believe my avatar does when I log off: I have long bemoaned the disarray in my inventory. I am fully convinced that Peep, the avatar, waits only long enough for me to sign out to dive headfirst into my inventory and wreak havoc. Undoubtedly, she drags carefully filed items out of their folders back into the root directory, pulls the dozens of items I have put in the trash (but not cleared) and sneakily stuffs them back where they came from, writes notecards to clog up that folder, and yes, even strips off, pulls her hair up, fills the tub and bathes with my shoes!

So, believing I might catch her up to no good, I planned my own sneak attack, logged in as an alt and caught her in the act! Look at her – she doesn’t even have the decency to look guilty! Hell, she doesn’t even have the decency to look decent O.o

I’m only going to do part one of the challenge – as you can probably tell, I’ll be very busy cleaning up this mess and replacing all of the shoes she ruined 😦

Pretty stuff I’m wearing:

Hair: .:EMO-tions:. * LOREDANA*/flames by Mirja Mills
Skin: [PXL] Creations – [PXL] JADE SK Cherry Lips MEB C2 by Hart Larsson
Makeup: [PXL] Creations – [PXL]JADE SK TopLine Eyes (tattoo) by Hart Larsson
Hands: Slink Mesh Hands (av) Casual by Siddean Munro
Hand & feet appliers:[PXL] Creations – [ PXL ] Slink Hands & Feet Appliers SK by Hart Larsson
Eyes: Amacci Gaze Eyes – Ocean Blue by Carina Larsen
Feet: Slink Mesh Feet (Av Enhance) Medium by Siddean Munro

Pose by Trompe Loeil – Vintage Bathtub Brass by Cory Edo

Berry’s Birthday Meme: I Don’t Always Have A Birthday

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But I'm not a blonde!
But I’m not a blonde!

Miss Berry is a birthday girl! And she gave us a gift we could give back to her for this Monday’s meme: we get to either create a pile-up or a meme using a photo she provided. Something tells me this is going to be like a birthday cake with trick candles; yes, she gets the goodies but there is surely going to be an unwanted surprise!

She also wants to know some stuff about our own birthdays. Mine is December 27, and I was amazed at how many notable occasions are war-related. I’m going to try to find stuff that is a bit less depressing – who wants to hear about icky stuff on their birthday? Not me, and I’m not going to subject Miss Berry to it, either!

Here’s what she wants us to do:

Meme instructions: I know a lot of people may not be comfortable sharing their real life birthdays so you can pick and choose from a few options today. Whatever you guys decide to do, I would love it if you shared it in the comments (of this post) and got us all involved.

1. Answer the following questions about your own real life birthday.

2. Take any of the pictures of me shared in this post and pile them up, either by photoshopping them however you please or turning me into a meme.

3. Create your own birthday meme and share it in the comments so we can all possibly participate.

So there is your meme, Berry! Please don’t go hatin’ on me – it’s the first thing I thought when I looked at that picture. If I had better Photoshop skills, I’d put you in a red bikini 😀

And here are some bits about my big day:

1. When is your birthday? Oops, already answered this one. December 27.

2. Pick one person who shares your birthday and share what you know about them. I said I was going to stay away from war, but I still love the violence of my favourite sport – ice hockey! There’s just something about all of those toned, fit men speeding down the ice and smashing into each other that’s just, well, HOT! And although he’s not a Red Wing, I do share a birthday with one of the sexiest (and best) players in the NHL – Patrick Sharp. He is an alternate captain for the (former division rivals) Chicago Blackhawks, has won two Stanley Cups with the ‘Hawks, including last year (le sigh), was the MVP of the 2011 All Star Game and most importantly, he’s yummy! Don’t believe me? Check out these photos on this website, appropriately named, theberry.com. There’s your birthday present, Berry…enjoy!

3. List one notable event that took place on your birthday. Again, he’s not a Red Wing, but Mario Lemieux is arguably one of the best hockey players ever in the NHL. On December 27, 2000, he returned to the Pittsburgh Penguins as a player three years after retirement, becoming the first owner/player in the modern sports era (USA). He played for one team during his career and bought the team out of bankruptcy during his first retirement. He won two Cups as a player and has won a further one as an owner, becoming the only person to have his name engraved on Lord Stanley’s Cup as both a player and an owner. And he played earlier in his career while undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He truly is a fabulous role model, whether you are a sports (or Pens) fan or not.

4. Tell us about a holiday that falls on your birthday. Hmm. I can’t find a holiday on December 27th related to hockey (although it is the day Chris Osgood of the Red Wings won his 400th game). I guess I’ll have to go with National Fruitcake Day. As it says on the webpage, fruitcake is possibly the most popular item for re-gifting. Please do me a favour, though – I’d rather you forgot my birthday than re-gift me a rock-hard, smelly ole fruitcake!

I hope you have (had) a wonderful day, Berry, and many, many more to come – sans fruitcake!

Surrealism Challenge: Meta Meadow Inventory

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Meta Meadow

Ironically, one of the fundamentals of Surrealism is to incorporate chance and spontaneity. This has got to be one of the most planned and carefully orchestrated photos I have ever taken. However, it did challenge me to push the boundaries, so at least I followed that tenet of Surrealism!

Why would I do this, you ask? Well, because Berry asked me to, of course 😉 And what Berry wants…

…we’ll just leave it at that.

Here are the instructions:

Meme instructions: Create an image in Second Life that has a surreal feel to you. Don’t forget to share your link in the comments (of this post) and add your picture to the Blog Memes flickr group.

And you don’t have to remind me this is a Monday meme and it’s now Thursday. It took me this long to figure out what I might do. Then I remembered I had picked up a couple of avatars from the Meta_Body Project by CapCat Ragu and Meilo Minotaur back in 2011 (you see??? It PAYS not to clean out my inventory!) Of course, when I grabbed these avatars I had fully intended to do something with them. I just hadn’t thought it would take two years *blushes*

Here is what the project was about:

The virtual experience of the body is not exactly an experience of the flesh. These sensations, albeit having a physical sensorial aspect, continue to be experienced in our bodies behind the screen, not in our avatar body. The virtual body is a metaphorical body, all language, therefore open to experimentation and possibility.
In this new project, Meilo Minotaur and CapCat Ragu invite us, once again, to rethink our bodies through our avatars, making available all kinds of skins, shapes, body parts, clothes, etc. All these items are fully modifiable, shareable and copyable, thus challenging the audience to become creators and also share their derivative work with us, in the All My Independent Women exhibition.

The project started again last year, and there is a SLURL to the location of the new avatars on the Meta_Body flickr group page (click SEE MORE on the description), but I haven’t checked it out to see if they are still there. Do go ahead and look at the group – there are some amazingly stunning and surreal photos there!

Me? I put on my Meta_Body avatar then spent ages going through my Arcade gacha items to put together this photo. The depths of my inventory is the real story of surrealism here!

Pretty stuff I’m wearing:

Meta_Body: You see my inside by meilo Minotaur (Meta_Body project avatar 2011)
Props from The Arcade & Lisp

Pose: Body Shots – Female 02F