My Tiny Little Empire

As if Second Life (SL) wasn’t addicting enough, now there’s a little hud game out there called Tiny Empires (TE) that is threatening my very sanity… teasing me with “oh come on, just one more turn!”

Tiny Empires is a turn based game which runs in the background as you go about doing you business on SL. Simple in concept, it harkens back to the days of video gaming where actions did not have to be multi-leveled – you made your decisions, and waited for the clock to tick away to see the results. Yeah… I’m old school when it comes to video games (except SL which seems to be more cutting edge… and well.. not really a game either… more a virtual world, but that’s another blog entry, I think) … I like them simple. I miss the days of 2D Mario going through his world and all I had to do was figure out whether I needed to jump up or duck.

TE is really appeals to me in that way – the nostalgia, in the “I’m a dummy” kind of way . . . but, the game isn’t really what I wanna talk about too much. Playing it is fun, but I think there is an added side-benefit that’s really got me revved up . . . meeting other people.

Yeah… I know… people don’t think I’m shy, but deep down… yup, am so. That is, once I meet you I can chat up a storm, but trying to figure out how to meet people … that’s another story. Painfully shy might be more accurate description of this affliction I have. So, how does TE get around that?

Well… in TE you are a person in a era long since past, trying to build up your lands, and you also swear allegiance to fellow players who are higher in rank than you. Thus… if you’re inclined… there is the opportunity to talk to and meet other fellow SL players whom you might not otherwise come into contact with. In my case, that has meant meeting five or six people that I never… and I mean never would have talked to – just ‘cuz I am too damn shy.

Today was kewl…. I have spent time with my regular and most favorite SL cohorts, but I also spent an hour traipsing through that jungle sim that Artan showed me, but with a couple new friends by my side – met through TE.

Long live Second Life (even if Linden Labs still sucks )

Catch ya on the flip side.

Hey…. Hay!

A rather interesting weekend.  Of course, one person’s interesting weekend is a boring one for another.

I’ve had the ‘papa’ laptop repaired.  Thank goodness for eBay, where we were able to purchase the required part for $20.00 versus the hundreds the local computer place wanted to charge.  As far as computer repairs go, since I’ve toasted at least two laptops which CB and I have tried to repair, the repair for the papa was easy.  Off came the plastic molding around the lcd screen, out came the high voltage thingy jiggy, and in went the new one.  Previous repairs (on the laptops I messed up) were far more difficult – one turned out to be unrepairable (fried something on the motherboard that could not be fixed) and the other, although repaired 90% of the way, ended up with no sound (a very long long story about how I killed that laptop *grin*)

Anywhoooo… with papa repaired, I have moved it back upstairs, at least for the time being.  CB seems much happier if I spend my time upstairs, even if it is with me being on SL part of the time.

In my earlier entry, I talked about how a recent conversation with a friend brought back many fond memories of growing up in the country, which then sent me off on a hunt for farm/ranch sims.  While I found these sims, I had not found one that had the ‘perfect’ hayloft.  Lots of lofts – no hay!  But heyyyy… what do ya know?  Artan sent me a lm for Pillowtalk – a real cool shop and while browsing, I noticed a great pile of leaves laying on the ground, and lamented that I wished I could find a pile of hay.  Another person heard that and told me there was one at that shop (which displays a lot of its stuff in ‘character’ settings) and told me to go check out the barn.  Woot!  After locating the barn and exploring it, I found the perfect “hay” pile with poses included.   Hehe… haven’t used it yet.. may never… who knows?  But… I loved it and bought it.

I spent part of the weekend hanging with Artan as he showed me the jungle sim he had found.  It was an awesome place to explore . . . Little hidden places to find, beautiful scenery . . . very nice.

Other cool stuff?  Well, I did rezz a raincloud in someone’s house this weekend… a bit of a joke but it backfired just as tad when they thought they had been griefed.  Ummm…. I did have a cohort in this little prank (who shall remain nameless.)  We laughed about the joke for quite a while before they had to go and do stuff in the RW.   It may be a while before I pull the next joke on that person …. *grin* … but I can almost guarantee there will be one.   I can’t help myself… I just can’t.

To round out the weekend, I spent some time with Pickle and Kyo dancing.  Well, I got teased about my hay setup – thanks Pickle – because I had showed it to her earlier in the day.  That’s alright though – had fun teasing back about ’stuff!’  LOL.  Probably not finished with that bunch of teasing.  (Sticks my tongue out at Pickle.)  The night was capped out by hunting for dances to add to my Huddles.  I was shown some really kewl sites, and now will be returning throughout the week to try to figure out which ones I want . . . without going broke!

That’s it… a busy weekend… and I know I’ve missed lots but hey… I mean hay … no, I mean hey… a girl can’t be expected to remember it all.

Catch ya on the flip side!

I’m a Farm Girl

*grin*

Recently I had a discussion with a friend, Schatzie, and although I don’t remember how we got onto the topic, somehow we got talking about growing up on a farm.

Yup… yeeehaw!  I’m a farm girl.  Way before Doodle came to be, this young ‘chickie’ grew up on a farm.  Not a big farm – cows, ducks, chickens, turkey, even a horse.  Woohoo… I hated it when I was a kid, but looking back, there are lots of fond memories, and now, I would love to live on a farm again.

We talked about a lot of things … butchering chickens (yuck!) and yeah, the hay loft.  *blush*  I was too young when we left the farm to really know what the hay loft was for

Those memories sent me on a search of Second Life (SL) for some farm sims.  Uhh… using the keyword “farm” brought up many places that were not quite the ‘farm’ I had grown up on.  Don’t ask me to go into details, but there aren’t many animals on those farms. Haha!  I did, however, come across a few places worth exploring, and sadly, I had to log off SL before I could do them justice.  Next time I log on and I got the time to spare, I will be doing just that.

A couple of things I did find in my travels were a really kewl cowboy hat and the sexiest pair of cowboy boots.  LOL.  Someone said they thought I was talking about being a farm girl, not a cowgirl… well, where I grew up, both pieces of clothing were an integral part of growing up on a farm.   Maybe I’ll eventually take a pic of me in my duds and post them here.

Catch ya on the flip side!

Memories …

A suggestion from a couple friends blogs… I’ve been holding in it draft for a few days, trying to figure out if I wanna risk it but…. sounds like fun

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I want everybody who reads my blog and knows me to leave a comment on this post. All of my friends. Even if you don’t normally comment. You can leave it as anonymous if you need to, no problem. I’m sure I will know who left it even if others don’t.

Your assignment: leave as a comment one memory that you and I have shared at some point. You don’t have to write a lot. In some cases, a single word might very well be enough. And it doesn’t matter if you know me well, or only a little bit, leave a comment anyways.

After you’ve done this, copy and paste and re-post this message on your own blog (if you have one). Title it “Memories …” I think this will bring some awesome responses and definitely bring about a lot of smiles! Look forward to seeing how it plays out!

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Lights… Camera…. Hide!

I watched today as a couple young people pulled a rather er…. funny prank that really ‘captured’ the imagination of those involved. Now, not that I would want to give away the identity of the captive, but it was a uh… ‘trembling’ experience… made me ‘quake’ with laughter… and ‘quiver’ with delight.

The picture below has been edited to protect the identity of the ‘quaking’ victim

Oh yeah… and let it be a lesson on why you never log back onto the spot you last logged off at unless you really think the people you left are not going to be up to mischief.

The Prep: Way more devious than below ‘cuz…

. . . for some reason they decided to take away the sign? *LOL*