Day: December 15, 2019

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Gifts from the ACCESS Event

Yet another Second Life shopping event that offers dozens of free gifts is the December round of the ACCESS Event (SLURL), where just about every single booth has a blue-wrapped present for you!

There’s lots of gifts for men here, but today I am just going to show you some of the women’s presents (check out Cat Pink’s video at the end of this blogpost to see some of the men’s gifts). You will need to join the ACCESS Updates group for free to be able to pick up all the gifts.

Let’s start off with a fun one: these green Grinch socks from Rosary! They come in sizes to fit both flat and high feet:

Looking for a versatile Santa hat? LOB has you covered, with versions to fit both male and female heads. The included HUD gives you five different colours, including two different shades of red:

This pictures shows you three gifts: the Ilsa hair from Analog Dog (which comes in a fatpack as shown), the ApiBlossom Vancouver red silk top (which could double as a minidress), and the Dahlia set of jewelry by Supernatural:

Here’s a closer look at the Supernatural Dahlia earrings and two separate necklaces, which come in three metals: gold, silver, and rose gold. The set comes with two different HUDs to change the colour of the jewels:

Asteria offers the Maya top in a fatpack of ten colours:

The gift from Oushk is this ice-blue Imogen latex minidress:

Here Vanity models the cheerful Holiday Gift dress and the separate Holiday Gift waist bag, both presents from RINKA & AMPRENTA:

This is the Donna dress by Betrayal, daringly low-cut!

And here Vanity is wearing the shoulder-baring Holiday Gift sweater from Spirit:

Scandalize’s gift is the Bloom top and skirt, which come in plain as shown, and also in a satin version:

Seniha gives you the lace-trimmed Kristy dress in red, which comes in both a plain version as shown, and a patterned version:

The ACCESS gift from Black Opium is this Elise outfit in strawberry red (both the top and the skirt come in plain and patterned versions). The versatile red Loca Love Bag by Ryvolter comes in versions for your elbow (as shown), your shoulder, your hand—and even hanging from your index finger!

Now let’s look at shoes. First up are the Jordana leopard mules from Ohema:

Next are the Amanda golden peeptoe slingbacks by Gos (for some reason the texture on these took forever to rezz):

And finally we have the fun, chunky red Carmen heels by Enchanté:

The ACCESS Event runs from December 12th, 2019, to January 8th, 2020, so there’s plenty of time to come down and vacuum up all the freebies!

Cat Pink SL has just released a video showing you most of the male and female gifts, as well as a few free dances you can pick up at ACCESS:

UPDATED: What’s Next for High Fidelity Users?

There were a record 20 avatars at DrFran’s weekly salon in High Fidelity, which is effectively shutting down as of January 15th, 2020, trying to figure out what they are going to do in response to all the bad news. New users will not be able to create accounts on High Fidelity after that date, which means that in-world meetings of this kind will be increasingly unlikely, as the existing userbase drifts away to other platforms.

As far as we are all aware, there are at least three forks of High Fidelity’s open-source software code in various stages of development:

None of them is currently up and running, which means that there will possibly be an “in-between” period where HiFi users will not have a home. DrFran said that she is not sure she will be continuing her weekly salon in the new year, which leaves the Federated HiFi users Discord (and of course, my own cross-worlds Discord) as places where High Fidelity’s diaspora can meet and discuss issues.

UPDATE Dec. 16th, 2019: Caitlyn Meeks has shared with me the invitation to join the Tivoli Cloud VR Discord server. Thanks, Caitlyn!

UPDATE Dec. 17th, 2019: There’s also a new Discord server for Project Athena; here’s the invite link to join.

UPDATE April 3rd, 2020: Project Athena has now rebranded itself as Vircadia.

Editorial: How to Deal with a Blue Christmas

Photo by Cody Chan on Unsplash

Christmas can be a lonely and depressing time for many people in today’s society. The sometimes-overly-forced seasonal emphasis on good cheer, conviviality, and harmonious holiday gatherings with friends and family can often bring those people like me, with less than Instagram-perfect lives, down. And yes, I am one of those people who sometimes struggles at Christmastime.

Nika Talaj made the following wise observation on a recent thread in the official Second Life user forums:

SL is all about longing … often for things we lost in RL (real life). Longing for the body we lost years ago, longing for the dance moves we don’t have, longing for the perfect partner, longing for our own home. And Christmas, for many of us, also brings up feelings of loss and longing.

So, what can you do if you have a case of the Christmas blues? Here are 14 tips from the Health.com website:

  • Make plans ahead of time: Spend some time figuring out how to take care of yourself during this time, and be sure to schedule those activities.
  • Avoid family conflict as much as possible
  • Focus on the good: Especially the good people in your real and virtual lives.
  • Forget about trying to be perfect
  • Learn how to grieve: This is particularly important if this is your first Christmas without a loved one. Talk about your feelings or reach out to support groups in your community.
  • Don’t skimp on sleep
  • Limit social media consumption: Social media, where everybody seems to be having a better time than you, can often increase feelings of sadness and loneliness. Get off Facebook and other social media sites, or limit their use over the holidays.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it: here’s a list of helpful resources.
  • Make exercise a priority
  • Consider your light exposure: In the Northern hemisphere, especially if you live closer to the North Pole as I do, the lack of daylight can lead to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). If you think you may be suffering from SAD, talk to your doctor about treatment options. I have a SAD lamp which I use when I am feeling depressed.
  • Make other plans: Deliberately plan and do some non-holiday things.
  • Focus on what matters: It’s not all about the Christmas presents.
  • Don’t binge on food or alcohol
  • Cut back on your commitments: It’s OK to say “no” once in a while.

I hope that this list of tips is helpful to you this holiday season. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any other tips you want to share, thanks!

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Advent Gifts for December 15th

This is just a reminder to all you SL freebie fashionistas out there that there are some wonderful, not-to-be-passed-up gifts available from the various Advent and 12 Days of Christmas calendars out there on the grid. It’s Christmas time, and we are getting all the gifts!

For example, this hairstyle is today’s free Advent calendar gift from Firelight Hair, which comes with a mini-HUD with three shades of red (the calendar requires that you join the Firelight group for free). The Shallie dress is yesterday’s 12 Days of Christmas gift from the tree at Baby Monkey, located next to the entrance (a L$20 group join lets you pick up the current gift, and all the previous days’ gifts, for free). This stylish dress comes with a six-colour HUD: pink, light green, light blue, beige, red and black.

Here are three more gifts from the Baby Monkey 12 Days of Christmas calendar worn by Vanity Fair, which all come with the same six-colour HUD as the Shallie dress above:

  • the Long Tank (appliers for Maitreya, Belleza, Slink and Omega);
  • the Glossy Leggings (appliers for Maitreya, Belleza, Slink and Omega); and
  • the Shallie jacket.

Another 12 Days of Christmas calendar you should absolutely not overlook this season is at JUMO (here’s the direct SLURL). The JUMO calendar does not require any group join. One nice feature of this calendar is that (like the Baby Monkey calendar) you can pick up all the previous days’ gifts as well as the current one! Here is today’s gift, the purple Cameron low-cut blouse and matching long skirt:

Here is the Dec. 14th gift from JUMO, the stunning, shimmering golden Nice ballgown. Nice, indeed!

And here Vanity wears the Dec. 13th JUMO gift, the red-and-silver velvet Holly gown with a long, translucent cape, perfect for that formal holiday party!

Here’s a pro tip: if you want to save travel time, you can always elect to visit both the Baby Monkey and JUMO calendars on Christmas Day and snap up all the gifts from both calendars at one time, rather than teleporting in and out each day.

Happy freebie shopping! Here’s a complete list of all the calendars I will be hitting this holiday season.