Day: April 5, 2020

Second Life Steals, Deals and Freebies: Belle Epoque Quarantine Hunt

News of yet another pandemic season deal in Second Life: vintage clothing retailer Belle Epoque is hosting a Quarantine Hunt, with 40 fabulous prizes for only L$10 each! You are searching for a doctor’s stethoscope as shown in the image below:

So I thought I would have Vanity Fair model eight of the hunt prizes for you.

First up is the red Eleanor 1950s-style dress (prize #9):

Next is the retro Violeta dress (prize #21):

Here’s the Lola dress in blue (#10):

The soft pink Aiala summer dress has a lovely floral accent at the waist (#34):

The sexy Helena dress has horizontal slits running up both sides of the skirt (#6):

The Christie dress hearkens back to the 1920s (#38), and a matching hat with a blonde bob haircut is prize #39 (not shown here):

This lovely, extremely low-cut pink/blue ombre Candela ballgown is a keeper (#37):

I added the blue fur coat, which comes with a handy accessory that freezes the arms and hands as shown (#40):

All Belle Epoque clothing prizes are sized for the Maitreya Lara mesh body only, but there are numerous prizes of furniture and accessories for your home as well.

This is a fairly easy hunt; the stethoscopes are large and hard to miss, and you should be able to find all 40 within an hour. Here’s the SLURL to Belle Epoque. Happy hunting!

The Public Health Agency of Canada/Health Canada Launches a National COVID-19 Volunteer Recruitment Campaign

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash

Someone just posted this to Twitter. I will transcribe the letter she attached, which is a picture. It looks as though this was sent out to the Ontario College of Pharmacists (OCP), but I don’t know which other groups of people have already received this letter.

Here’s the text of the first few paragraphs of that letter:

“We are writing to you today to enlist your urgent support. As you are aware, we are at a critical point in the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. As part of our efforts to flatten the curve and respond to COVID-19, we are seeking help from across the country and we believe your members would be well placed to assist.

There is an urgent need for people to augment capacity at provincial and territorial levels for surveillance and monitoring of COVID-19 cases. More specifically, we need assistance in detailed case reporting/analysis and contact tracing to help quickly identify cases and and break chains of transmission by isolating and monitoring close contacts.

Additionally, to prepare the health care system for the surge, there is a need to augment health care human resource capacity across all disciplines.”

You can look at the attached picture to read the rest of the letter.

They are looking for people with highly specific qualifications (although there is an “other skills” question at the very end). I put in an application out of curiosity, just to see what the screening questions are (I then deleted the application). They are as follows:

  1. We are recruiting volunteers to assist with COVID-19, these are not federal public service jobs. Please confirm your interest to be considered as volunteer. (Yes/No)
  2. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Community Health?
  3. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Community Medicine?
  4. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Computer Science, Information Management and Information Technology?
  5. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Emergency Management?
  6. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Epidemiology?
  7. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Infectious Disease?
  8. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Laboratory (Viral, Bacteria, etc.)?
  9. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Mathematics and Statistics?
  10. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Medicine?
  11. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Nursing?
  12. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Public Health?
  13. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Public Health Inspection?
  14. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Surveillance?
  15. Are you studying or do you have a degree in Veterinary Medicine?
  16. Do you have knowledge of communicable disease prevention and control, specifically understanding of modes of transmission and public health management of communicable diseases?
  17. Do you have knowledge in using information management tools or databases to facilitate detailed reporting?
  18. Do you have functional and content expertise in Clinical experience?
  19. Do you have functional and content expertise in Communicable Disease Prevention and Control (specifically modes of transmission)?
  20. Do you have functional and content expertise in Communications?
  21. Do you have functional and content expertise in Emergency Management?
  22. Do you have expertise in Personal Support Work / Resident Care Work/ Nurse’s Aide/ Health Care Aide?
  23. Do you have functional and content expertise as a Physician?
  24. Do you have functional and content expertise in Public Health?
  25. Do you have functional and content expertise in a Laboratory (Viral, Bacteria, etc.)?
  26. Do you have functional and content expertise in Surveillance?
  27. Do you have functional and content expertise on Quarantine?
  28. Are you able to work variable work hours? (Preference for Shifts: Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Late Evening/Other)
  29. Are you willing and able to travel, if necessary?
  30. Do you speak English?
  31. Do you speak French?
  32. Are you bilingual (English and French)?
  33. Do you have capacity in languages other than English or French? Please indicate in which other Language(s) you have capacity in, including Indigenous languages.
  34. What is the longest period you would want to be considered for? (Options to Select: 1 to 3 weeks; 3 to 6 weeks; 3 months; 3 to 6 months; 6 to 12 weeks; > 6 months; All)
  35. Do you have any other skill(s) that you would like to list?

Here is the link to apply online to volunteer for this critically important work (if you have not already done so, you will have to create a Government of Canada Jobs account). The deadline for applications is 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, April 24th, 2020. Please reshare this message widely to all of your social networks! Thanks.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: INSOL Skin Hunt

One of the pieces of advice that I give out to freebie shoppers in Second Life is that Christmas is the best season for freebies, the time of the year when many stores have Advent calendar gifts and other free items available. (Here’s a complete list of my best freebie hunting tips.)

Well, I am going to amend that advice somewhat and say that one of the best times to pick up fabulous freebies is pandemic season! I’ve already written about The Stay at Home Club, and many other stores on the grid are having “stay at home” promotions.

Among those stores is the INSOL skin and cosmetics store, which is having a Stay Home hunt. Eight tubes of skin applier are hidden all over the sim: in the store and the café, and in the surrounding beautifully landscaped sim. Each skin applier tube costs only L$1 to buy.

However, I must warn you that the tubes are very small and fiendishly well hidden! Also, the store owner discovered the hunt video Cat Pink put out for this hunt four days ago, and promptly moved all the prizes to new locations as a result, so you can’t use that to cheat! You’re going to have to use all the tools at your disposal to find those tiny tubes (here are my top six SL hunting tips to help you out). This is a hard hunt, so set aside an hour or two. I spent about an hour, and found only 3 tubes.

Four of the hunt prizes are skin appliers for Catwa heads, and four are skin appliers for Genus heads (which also work on the free Strong Face mesh head gift from Genus Project, yet another wonderful pandemic freebie that I would urge you pick up). Even better, Insol body appliers in matching skin tones are available for free in store (for Belleza, Maitreya, Slink, and Omega-compatible mesh bodies). Just click the round panel at the front of the store to receive the package of body skin appliers:

This is one of the hunt prizes, the Mila skin applier in the Milk skin tone for Genus heads (here I paired the free Genus Project Strong Face head with the Altamura Juliet body I picked up as a free Valentine’s Day group gift in 2019, using the free Omega skin applier):

Here is another prize for the Genus head, the gorgeous Daniela skin in the Cinnamon skin tone:

Also, a warning: when you do find the tiny skin applier tubes hidden around the sim, just click on them, then pay the Linden dollar to receive your prize. DO NOT RIGHT CLICK AND BUY THEM. I accidentally did that for one hunt prize tube, and it cost me L$900! So please learn from my mistake.

Here’s the SLURL to the INSOL store. Happy hunting!