We zombies are a fortunate lot. Food is rarely an issue for us as we can subsist entirely on the brains of any hapless soul who unwittingly crosses our path. For many less-dead humans, though, hunger is a real issue. October 9th through 13th, Hot For Zombies, in conjunction with World Zombie Day™, will present Zombiefest 2009, a charitable event to raise money in the fight against world hunger.

World Zombie Day™ will be a day when all fans of zombie culture can join together. There will be an international charity event done throughout the cities involved to help alleviate world hunger, and this will be a first.

In-world, the Hot For Zombies group is organizing Zombiefest 2009 to support this RL event. There will be a zombie ball, a kissing booth, and a zombie date auction…you don’t want to miss this one!

There will be a store and all proceeds will go to the International Red Cross. Interested in participating? Great! Please send a notecard to Gattina Dumpling, Stein Shilova or Putrid Gloom. Putrid, by the way, has generously donated a space for the event and we have some fantastic content creators preparing a wonderfully dismal display for the undead celebration.

Read more about World Zombie Day™ here and remember…

Dead is the new black.

Sanura Snowpaw has experienced first hand the heartbreak Brain Cancer can cause. She and her RL family lost a loved one to this devastating disease. For one day, join Sanura in an effort to raise Brain Cancer awareness, and perhaps a few funds, by dressing in Gray today.  Several retailers have joined in the cause and marked a few pieces, gray ones of course, with all proceeds benefitting the American Cancer Society.

Whether or not you choose to make a donation is entirely up to you, but please take a moment to choose today’s look with a little extra care that you, too, might help put the spotlight, just for one day, on another malicious member of the Cancer family.

Read more on Sanura’s blog, here.

Also, Stacia Villota, an amazing little Neko blogger whom I adore, has also listed a few stores with participating items. You can read about them, here.

As for my gray look…it’s coming. I promise.

Happy Friday,

Gabby

I’ll bet you think this song blog is about you. Don’t you? Don’t you?

I posted today on my “other” blog home, Atomic Valley, about the price of vanity. A pretty performance penny paid, not by the wearers of Anti-Inspection Shields, but by everyone in their vicinity.

Here’s one of the snapshots we used to illustrate the point. Mind you, I’m wearing the shield, but it was Codie who suffered the 90% Frames Per Second loss.  (I’m still a little jealous that she starts at 40+ FPS to start with, no wonder I lag through the floor when faced with one of these things.)

Click over to Atomic Valley for the full story and how you can render Anti-Inspect Shields completely useless in 3 clicks.

I’ve recently become reacquainted with Moonshine.  No, I haven’t taken to distilling my own liquor, but I have rediscovered my fondness for Shelly Toonie’s designs.  I have an alt (shhh…don’t tell) whose inventory consists predominantly of Moonshine clothing, yet I have only a few pieces on my main account.  So, I was delighted when Shelly, a relatively new friend thanks to plurk, offered me her new Fleur Smock to feature here. Read the rest of this entry »

Ryker Beck is Second Life’s version of the Big Bang Theory.  Creativity and drive seem to collide within her and explode across the grid.  It should come as no surprise, then, that as she reopens under her new brand, Exodi, she does so in a big way.  Today, Exodi introduces not one, but TWO, new skin lines, a new range of eyes and a build-your-own fatpack system.

Its no secret that I’m a fan of the original Eden and Candace skin lines.  Ryker has built upon the Eden base to add depth and detail, refining her first skin into Eden v2.  She’s a little more grown up and a little more sophisticated.  The under-lip shadow is a tad pronounced on my shape, but the texture of the lips is so soft and satiny, I can definitely overlook it.

Shiloh is brand new, Ryker’s third official skin line, and the first released solely under Exodi.  She has pouty lips and eyes that seem a bit more exotic.  The release line of makeup options features enough variety for everyone. Read the rest of this entry »

I think I’ve finally climbed my way out from under the avalanche of Blogger Appreciation Week gifts, and all I can say is “Thank You!”

A thousand “thank you”s to the fashion designers in Second Life who put their creativity and talent out there for all of us to enjoy; who work tirelessly to make each release better than the one before; and who spend precious personal time responding to their clients, managing update groups, dealing with failed transactions, upload issues and all of the “stuff” that goes along with running a business in SL.  I know you don’t do it for the money, but for the love of creating and the joy that must come from sharing your creations with the grid.

So Thank You!  Not just for these gifts, but for everything you do, everyday, to satisfy the shopaholic and wannabe-fashionista in each and every one of us bloggers.

I wish I could share with you all of the gifts that you have so generously given in this post, but there are simply too many and I’m still opening and trying on much of it!  But here are a couple of looks that I put together using items that caught my eye right off the bat!  Don’t worry, I’ll get to all of it…its just going to take some time!

Oh! One quick note. The cool frame on the top photo was created with the MechanizedLife FilterCam HUD. Its a great little tool that lets you jazz up your in-world snapshots with frames, textures, designs and other effects. You can read more about it here. Also, there’s a little contest going on for you Photoshop/Gimp types who want to try your hand at creating your own custom masks for use with the FilterCam. Read more about the L$40,000 in cash and prizes that Codie is giving away!

Style Notes:
Bottom Photo (left to right)
Jacket – Malt Fashions SE Antique Gold Suede Jacket
Shirt – Hoot Red Penguin Tee
Jeans – Ibizarre Rockstar Groupie Boyfriend Jeans
Lingerie – Insolence Dolores
Shoes – Pretties by JB Risque Pump, Wish Diamante Heels in Lush Merlot
Skin – TeaLane Amanda Skin in Honey, Symphony Skins Risky Business (2009 Ltd Ed) in Contralto
Hair – House of Heart Tilda in Bitter Chocolate, Philotic Energy Portia in Cocoa

Rheta Shan has been my friend and trusted confidante for the better part of a year.  Today, after more than a month with no word from her, we learned of her tragic passing.

On 3 April 2009, just days from giving birth to her first child.  She was struck down while crossing the street.  Her death, we are told, was quick and for that I am grateful.  I’m not sure that I could bear the thought of my friend suffering.

Rheta was remarkably brilliant, her’s was the winning entry in Dusan Writer’s User Interface Design contest, she was a vocal advocate for avatar rights, and she is loved by a great many people, most notably her devoted partner, Thaddy.  To me, she was the voice of reason. Always talking me down from my ledges, making sense where I found none, and, in turn, allowing me to do the same for her.

Though I will miss you terribly, I know that the things I’ve learned from you will always guide me.  Goodbye, my friend.

Valérie M./Rheta Shan
† April 3rd 2009

Recently, the metaverse has been abuzz with the heated debate surrounding the value and effectiveness of freebies, group gifts and hunts.  The hunt after hunt after hunt.  The are everywhere, a new one every week it seems.  I don’t know about you, but my inventory is still clogged with unopened gifts the grid wide Easter hunt…last year’s Easter hunt.

Watching the hunt debate unfold, Rika Watanabe started to formulate an idea.  What if there was a system that connected designers and consumers directly, allowed content creators to provide samples of their work to potentially new customers, and gave these same customers time to try out the item, decide they liked it and visit the store to see their other products?  I know what you’re thinking, this sounds a lot like another hunt, right?  There’s more.  Now imagine that the system automagically sends out one item per day, randomly selected from the pool of creators, to each list subscriber so that every creator’s work is exposed to a new group of customers everyday, and, over time, customers receive a product from each and every participating creator.  Starting to sound more interesting, isn’t it?

This concept is the Designer Showcase Network, and it launched today! Rika and her partner in this project, Peter Stindberg, have worked tirelessly to create a system that takes the hunting out of hunts, puts samples of a content creator’s work directly into the hands of potential customers, gives shoppers a new gift item everyday while eliminating that dreaded chore of opening hundreds of hunt boxes, weeding through the schlock and sorting it into an already-overloaded inventory.

Read the rest of this entry »

That’s right, one tiny little challenge has snowballed into THIS.  And what exactly is THIS? Come closer and I’ll let you in on all the fun…

While I sit, innocently minding my own business after a fun-filled day at the RFL Art Auction – over L$300K raised, by the way! – my dear friend Jori Watler pops up in my IM with a link to a photo and announces that her partner, the ever-charming Reacher Rau, has challenged her to wear this lovely outfit for a full week.  Knowing Jori’s taste in clothing, I knew she’d never go for it, but I took the bait anyway.  “I’ll match it if you let me drag you around to events all week.”  Jori’s reply, “TP me.”  Lo and behold, she is wearing the lovely ensemble seen below.  Not only will she wear this for the full week, she informs me, she will donate the funds to Eshi Otawara’s RFL team.  What a generous sport.  But wait! There’s more…

While shopping for the outfit, Jori was torn between the one she chose and another.  We have to take some pictures, she announces. And, off I go to pick up the second outfit.  When I came back wearing the delicious-looking fruitiness, an idea was formed.  Both Jori and I will parade the grid in our new and delightful ensembles – I agreed to participate when Jori anted up 10K of her own to the cause.  But…and this is a fantastic but…if we can gather 100K in donations to Team Eshi, all funds to benefit Relay For Life, we will ditch the fruit and flowers (and, yes, the bling…gawd yes, the bling!) and pose together wearing nothing but a smile…and maybe some smexy pumps.

So, open up your wallets fashion fans and we’ll treat you to a skin review the likes of which you’ve never seen!  Donation Kiosks have been placed on Night Flower and at Jori’s store on Fusion.  Give generously, give often, just give, give, give!

Okay, so the the old joke is actually:  What’s black and white and read all over? (a newspaper…yucka yucka yucka). And when I started putting this outfit together, I had on some red accents to go with the black and white. (Get it? Read. Red.) Then Java sent me a little pink dress and my mind started to flicker.  Once I headed upstairs to my little hideaway on Rouge (the only place on Codie’s sim you are likely to ever find anything pink), I was further inspired to make some changes.

I’d been trying on random goodies from Dice Beattie all night, and I love the versatility of his tintable Boobless One-Piece. He’s currently designing like a man possessed, rebuilding his store and planning to release all kinds of newness in mid-April. I paired the one-piece with a blouse and cropped pants from COCO, tights from Fleur, socks from Maitreya, and a belt from caLLie cLine. I chose a whimsical, romantic hairstyle from Clawtooth by Clawtooth, mostly because I really liked the flower and finally, I added my current obsession, the Boho Chic Mules from Pretties by JB.
Read the rest of this entry »