Month: December 2020

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: End-of-Year Freebies for Male Avatars

Well, Advent calendar season is almost over, and I have spent most of it focused on fabulous freebies for female avatars, but I wanted to blog about some men’s freebies that you can pick up today.

First, please meet Silver Quick, my handsome male alt who will be modeling today’s finds:

Silver Quick is wearing:

  • Head, Eyes and Eyebrows: the recent group gift of the Alain Bento, Bakes on Mesh head from LeLutka
  • Body: Romeo by Altamura (a Valentine’s Day group gift a couple of years ago; to use Bakes on Mesh skin on this body, you must first purchase an Omega system kit for Altamura for L$99 at this exact SLURL, and obtain the free Bakes on Mesh kit from Altamura (at this exact SLURL in their in-world store)
  • Bakes on Mesh Skin: Delphinus by Altamura (included with the Bakes on Mesh kit mentioned above)
  • Hair: Jamie by Firelight, a free gift available here
  • Shorts: Alejandro shorts from the starter avatars in the Library folder of your SL inventory
  • Animation Override: Tuty’s Daily sLIFE Free Bento AO (free from the Tuty animations store)
The Altamura Bakes on Mesh kit includes a BoM Omega relay and the Delphinus skin

Our first stop today is NERO N7 menswear store, where (if you join their store group for free), you can pick up a free L$500 gift card, good for anything in the store:

Next, we hit a couple of Advent calendars that are still up!

Donni’s Dollies has an Advent calendar where the odd-numbered dates (plus Dec. 12th and Dec. 24th) have gifts of menswear as well as womenswear (no group is needed). Here is the black and gold tuxedo from December 24th:

No Shot still has their 12 Days of Christmas calendar up, too. Here is one of the 12 menswear gifts you can pick up, a camouflage outfit with boots:

Here’s another nice outfit from the No Shot calendar, which also includes the shoes:

And here’s a business suit outfit from the same calendar, with shoes:

The ACCESS shopping event has many lovely gifts for both men and women (you have to join the ACCESS group for free to pick up these gifts).

Here’s a pro tip to help you quickly find the gifts you want at this and at other events: if you are using the Firestorm viewer, select Area Search under the World menu, then enter a keyword you are searching for (e.g. “varsity”). Then, from the list of search results, right-click the one you are interested in, and select Zoom from the pop-up menu as shown here:

Your camera will then zoom in on the specific giftbox you have selected! All you have to do is click on it and it’s yours! This tip can save you a lot of wandering around at crowded sales events where there are dozens and dozens of vendor booths.

Do a keyword search for “GRAILED” to get this Zion hoodie fatpack by GRAILED, which includes a HUD with 30 different colours and patterns:

And do a keyword search for “Varsity” to pick up this Randon jacket and long sweater combo from Varsity, with two HUDs to change the colour of both the jacket and sweater. You’ll need to alpha out your arms and hands for this hands-in-pockets look!

Our final stop is the Shop and Hop event, where there are a few men’s freebies to pick up. The gift from Etham is this shirt-and-hoodie combo, which comes with a HUD to change the colour of both the shirt and the hoodie individually:

The gift from Mossu is this cheerful Christmas cardigan:

The present from Lapointe and Bastchild’s SWEAR store at the Winter Shop and Hop are these wonderfully-detailed tundra patrol boots, in a camouflage snowflake pattern:

Happy freebie shopping!

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Poet’s Heart Hunt and Group Gifts

If you like gowns, you’ll love a new, free hunt at Poet’s Heart! Between now and January 3rd, 2021, you can hunt for eight green fairies’ hats hidden in the store for some lovely prizes of gowns and accessories!

Just click the board near the entrance for a list of clues, and be aware that some of these hats are well hidden! Here are three of the generous hunt prizes, all free (you do not need to join any group to partake in this hunt).

First up is the Prima Donna gown, which comes with carious attachments for many different looks, and a three-colour HUD to tint various parts of the outfit:

Next up is the tightly corseted Rosaura gown, which comes in two basic colours for the main gown, and four colours each for the corset, its lacing, and its metals:

The last hunt gift I wanted to show you today is the Aurelia gown, which comes with optional sleeves, and in a full fatpack of bright and pastel colours!

While you are at Poet’s Heart, you may want to join their store group for free, and pick up sixteen free group gifts from their gift wall:

Here are a few of these group gift gowns. There’s the smart DeVries jacket with matching skirt, two pieces which could be worn separately:

Here’s the beautiful, romantic Happy Holidays 2017 gown:

And here’s the Happy Holidays 2018 black and white ballgown, which includes a separate black and white fur coat!

Here’s your taxi to Poet’s Heart!

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Meshbody Legacy Bodies Are 50% Off Until the End of the Year! (Plus a Review of the Female Legacy Body)

This is not a freebie, but it is a deal! From now until the end of the year, Meshbody is selling their entire line of Legacy male and female mesh bodies for only L$2,500 each—a savings of 50% off their regular price! The bodies on sale include:

  • the Legacy female body (their standard female mesh body);
  • the Legacy Perky female body (for those who prefer smaller breasts);
  • the Legacy Pregnancy body;
  • the Legacy male body (their standard male body, which I reviewed back in January); and
  • the Legacy Athletic male body (the more toned, muscular version of the male body).

I was not willing to pay the full L$5,000 price for the female Legacy mesh body, but at half price, I decided to take the plunge! Here is my review of the female Legacy body by Meshbody.

Here’s what the contents of the unpacked package looks like in my inventory:

The “Premium Outfit”, quite unlike the nice starter capsule wardrobe offered with the male version of the Legacy body, consists solely of a black lace bra and panties, pumps, and a white fur coat! I was expecting, I don’t know, maybe a dress or a top and slacks or something? I suppose the fur coat is a nice, unexpected bonus.

First, I tested the body with the recent free group gift of the LeLutka Lilly head, using the included skin tones on the default Legacy body to match the head skin as close as I could, and using a choker to hide the resulting neck seam:

The detail on the Legacy female body is outstanding, particularly on the hands and feet:

Next I paired it with the recent free group gift of the Strong Face mesh head from The Genus Project (still available here; the GenusProject group is free to join), using a free Bakes on Mesh skin from the group gift wall at MILA (available here; the MILA Poses group is free to join).

The Legacy body is Bakes on Mesh-compatible, and the result looks great!

I quite like the alpha sections on the HUD, allowing you either to remove whole sections of the body at once (via a double-click on the body in the HUD, or clicking on the eight buttons on either side of the body), or to select the sections in much finer detail with a single mouse click on any part of the body shown in the HUD:

One of the signature features of the Legacy mesh body is a package of three deformers (for the upper body, lower body, and feet) which allow this body to wear apparel and footwear originally designed for Maitreya Lara mesh bodies. I tested it out with some Maitreya clothing I already had in my inventory, and here are the before and after shots:

The Legacy mesh body wearing Maitreya Lara clothing, BEFORE the deformers were added
The same body AFTER the upper body and lower body deformers were added

However, I must caution that, in some cases, the deformers do not work 100% perfectly, as you might be able to tell around the neck are of this particular top by Bumblebee, both in the picture above and the closeup below:

So, what do I think overall?

The Meshbody Legacy female body, on sale for L$2,500, is a good deal compared to the regularly-priced L$2,750 Maitreya Lara body. You do get a much richer selection of included skin tones and nail colours with the Legacy body than you would with Maitreya (and, of course, you can choose to use Bakes on Mesh skins and cosmetics). The details on the Meshbody legacy female mesh body are superb.

With the included deformers, the Legacy body can wear both Legacy clothing and Maitreya clothing (although the deformers do not work perfectly all the time). I have noticed that more and more designers are now creating and selling apparel and footwear specifically for the female Legacy body (including a few who formerly were exclusive to Maitreya), and I would say that over the past year, the Legacy mesh body has overtaken both the Belleza and Slink female mesh bodies in popularity among womenswear designers in Second Life. You will have absolutely no difficulty finding clothes to fit this body!

A year ago, I would have said wait before buying the Legacy body by Meshbody; now I would say that, if you are interested, now is the perfect time to buy! The 50% off sale only runs until the end of the year, so hurry down. Here’s the SLURL to the sales sim.

Pandemic Diary, December 27, 2020: Spaghetti for Christmas

Today is officially Day 287 since I started working in self-isolation from home for my university library system. I am currently starting my second week of three weeks of vacation, not returning to my full-time paying job as a librarian until January 11th, 2021, and so far I have enjoyed a relaxing, quiet holiday.

If you haven’t seen the Christmas card I sent out this year to everybody, here it is. This wonderful animated card by Jacquie Lawson is set to the traditional German Christmas carol O Tannenbaum.

A screen capture from my animated Christmas card this year

Today is the day after Boxing Day here in Canada. Boxing Day is traditionally the day where Canadians go out to the Boxing Day sales, but this year the crowds of shoppers were mostly staying home (although quite a few shopped online and arranged curbside pickup of their consumer electronics and other bargains).

By and large, the majority of Manitoba have listened to the doctors and scientific experts, and followed the masking and social distancing requirements imposed by our code-red, province-wide pandemic lockdown. I know of very few Manitobans who shared their Christmas celebrations with people who were not members of their immediate household. Many instead dropped food and presents off at the doors of friends and family.

On the afternoon of Christmas Day, my extended family (including my sister-in-law’s family, who have kind of adopted me along with my brother) had a very chatty one-and-a-half hour meeting in Zoom, which lifted the time restrictions on its free version for the holidays:

And on Boxing Day, the members of my arts and entertainment group held a meetup in Zoom as well! Obviously, we have not been going out much to arts, cultural and entertainment events since the pandemic hit, but we still do keep in touch.

(Disclaimer: No, I do not have a house that looks like a Better Homes and Gardens spread, with all my books artfully arranged by colour! This was a Zoom background I downloaded this spring, to hide my messy man cave from Zoom meetings for work! I did fool a couple of people with it, though.)

I did not bother to fuss with a turkey for my Christmas dinner, which in a normal year I would have spent with my mother and stepfather at their seniors life-lease condo across town. Instead, I made a large pot of spaghetti and a tossed salad, which I quite enjoyed as I spent my first-ever Christmas dinner alone in my apartment.

Spaghetti for Christmas (photo by Carolina Cossío on Unsplash)

Truth be told, after 287 days, I am now so used to being alone that spending a Christmas in self-isolation in my apartment did not feel weird at all. Instead of real-world socializing, I have spent quite a bit of time socializing with people in various social VR platforms and virtual worlds this past month, including Sinespace, Sansar, Somnium Space, and Second Life!

I do not expect my situation to change significantly until enough people have been vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. Both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines have already been approved by Health Canada, and the Pfizer vaccine has already found it way into the arms of 2,177 Manitoba healthcare workers at critical care, acute care, and long-term care facilities, plus COVID-19 immunization clinics and testing sites.

Map from the COVID-19 Tracker Canada website

Have a healthy and happy holiday season!