Day 249: Heavenly Rose

***Update: Sadly, Heavenly Rose is closed...there goes a little romance... :(

Its amazing what comes up when you type the word "romance" into Search/Places. Just look that the traffic for these places! OK...now we know where everyone is in Second Life :P

Heavenly Rose Gardens is one of these top romantic spots in SL... So how could I resist? :)



Heavenly is just like a Real Life rose garden, with walking paths, trees and flowers everywhere, and lots of benches. Except there are poseballs on these benches...and just about everything else :P

In fact, I have never seen so many poseballs in a sim!



Theres a large outdoor ballroom dance floor surrounded by waterfalls, and full of couples dance poseballs...



And lots of these little semi-private hideaway spots, many of which were um...occupied...while I was visiting :P



There is a little private beach, if you prefer to watch the waves...

And did I mention there are a lot of poseballs here?



Oh...oh...and I got all excited when I saw the trident! Its one of the mer-houses from Creative Fantasy Home & Garden. Heehee...these are important things to know for a mermaid :)



You see, the mer-house is underwater! So totally cool :)



And just under the mer-house, theres a little private area just for mermaids. How very thoughtful! :)



And if all of this romancing finally get the better of you, there is even a large wedding area ready to go :)



Heavenly Rose also has a dance club in a separate nearby sim. Its more dance club than ballroom, so its a nice change of scenery if youve had too much "romance" :P

If you are wondering where to go on a date, or just like to try on poseballs, take a look at the Heavenly Rose Gardens. Click on Search, select Places, and enter "heavenly" as the keyword. The SLURL is Rose Gardens (121,179,26).



Say, Blue Poseball darling...how come you always hang around garden sims?

Day 247: The Mata Hari Quest

OK, the Mata Hari Quest isnt exactly new. Both Taffy and Georgette have been telling me to try this (thank you so much! :D) So Im off to find some jewelry today :)

The Mata Hari Quest is the creation of famed SL jeweler Random Calliope. Random is famous for creating some of the most beautiful prim-based jewelry in Second Life. The Quest is a year old now. It was first solve in January 2006!

The Quest has a colorful background story, centered around a set of jewelry created for the infamous Mata Hari.



The goal of the quest is to find Mata Hari's hidden jewels. I believe there are 6 pieces (including the ring at the start). And you get to keep them, of course :) Remember, these are Random's beautiful creations!

But just a word of warning: The Mata Hari Quest definitely requires SL building skills. You should be comfortable editing prims and with camera controls. Dont ask me why...just trust me on this one :P

The Quest doesnt really start here, but I stopped by Random's store to look at the Mata Hari poster. And pick up his beautiful and free Slither jewelry set. Just to get motivated, of course :)

Click on Search, select Places, and enter "random calliope" as the keyword. The SLURL is Kandinsky (34,209,36).



OK, with at least some free jewelry in hand, Im ready to embark on the Quest :)

The Mata Hari Quest actually takes place at the Crescent Moon Museum. I have fond memories of Crescent Moon, because I spent my past Christmas Day there :)



So heres the starting point. This little clue is in Random's Profile under Picks: "Start with the box of memorabilia on the fireplace mantle then ask me no questions :)"



The Mata Hari Quest gives you a series of clues...which lead you to other clues...and an occasional goodie :)

Most of these clues are puzzles you have to solve. There are all different kinds of puzzles! And they are tough! I got stuck on like the first puzzle, got frustrated, totally cheated, and ran for help... :P

And you would just be amazed at where things are hidden!



But just check out the goodies!

Theres this beautiful little ring box...



With a beautiful ring inside. The ring has 174 really really tiny prims!!! *Yikes*

If you find the ring, you can press Ctrl-Zero to zoom in closer to the ring, and Ctrl-9 to go back to normal view.



The bracelet is my favorite so far. It has 176 prims!

I have no idea how Random makes this stuff! :P



Theres a navel ring...



And a wonderful pair of earrings!



I want that necklace and armband! I just know theyre in here somewhere...Waaahhh!!! :(

If you like puzzles or jewelry (or preferably both :D), try the Mata Hari Quest at the Crescent Moon Museum! Click on Search, select Places, and enter "crescent moon" as the keyword. Choose the "Taber Tudor Village" link that comes up. The SLURL is Taber (203,94,22).



Oh come on, Blue Poseball darling! Just one little itsy bitsy clue, please? Pretty please?

Day 246: Sirena Hair for Men

Last week was the grand opening of the new Sirena Hair & Fashion store. I promised something for the guys, so here they are! :)

Introducing 6 new hair-styles for men! Each comes in 3 sizes (S)mall, (M)edium, and (L)arge for easy fitting. With 48 different shades available! (And just for you guys, I changed Brunette to Brown :P)

The hairs can be color-tinted (with 66 different colors) to give you even more color choices.

Check out the Free Hair Color Samples to see all 48 textures :)



Bill is scruffy, a cross between a rocket scientist and a billionaire...



Corporate is the respectable Steve. The corporate executive. The guy who hangs out at the corporate sims :) Do people really work in corporate sims?



Mark has a bit of an attitude. He might check out the corporate sims if it suits him. But isnt it more fun to hang out at the beach?



Kevin has never been in a corporate sim. He's got way too many prims in his hair. He would probably crash the corporate sim :P



Rick is the musician...and musicians need long hair :)



And finally, Roberts...as in Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride. OK, Westley's hair is shorter in the movie, but I didnt say *WHICH* Dread Pirate Roberts :P

So check out the new men's hair at the new Sirena store :) Click on Search, select Places, and enter "sirena" as the keyword.

Heehee it was fun to bring Second Steve out of my closet again! He's been incredibly busy this past week!



BTW, I had a heck of a time finding a decent-priced men's skin for Steve. Thankfully, my friend Bagnaria of B&B Skins came to the rescue! Bill, Corporate, Mark, and Kevin are all using B&B's Bratt skin. They have great male and female skins at a good price. They are located at Firemaw (122,137,34) (Search/Places for "affordable skins").

Day 244: Buy/Rent Land in Second Life Part 2

In Buy/Rent Land in Second Life Part 1, we talked about things to consider when you are thinking about buying or renting SL land.

So now, lets go shopping for some land :)



In this Part 2 of Buying/Renting Land in SL, we are going to shop for 3 plots of land: Buying a 1024M Mainland plot, renting a 2048M residential plot, and renting a 4096M commercial plot.

BTW, these are not the only ways to go about shopping for a plot of land! This is just how I would go about looking for land, knowing what I know today. Often, your own social circle can give you better advice, and perhaps a great deal on a starter plot. Also, you might want to "live" where you "play", and rent from a themed-sim or a role-playing sim.

And the sims, businesses, prices, and places mentioned here are just examples I encountered when I was writing this blog entry. By the time you read this, the actual places and prices would likely have changed. Hopefully, you can still use the same methods to do your own shopping.

But if you just want to browse around and see whats out there, then follow me on a little land shopping adventure :) Remember, buying land in Second Life can be a bit of an adventure, so be patient and shop around!


Buying a 1024M Mainland Plot

If you have made the decision to purchase Mainland, then this section is for you :)

Our goal here is to shop for a low-priced 1024M Mainland Plot (with 234 prims) with no Covenants in a Mature sim. Since the land has no Covenants and its in a Mature sim, you can do just about anything on this land (as long as you abide by the basic SL terms of service). You can build a house, open a casino, or start a club. Unfortunately, so can your neighbors...

BTW, remember that you have to be an SL Premium Account holder to buy Mainland land.

Mainland plots tend to come in 512M increments. So 1024M costs about twice as much as a nearby 512M plot. On the Mainland, you can generally find a lot of 512M and 1024M plots for sale.

There are larger plots available, but unfortunately, they often come at a premium. Fortunately, you can sometimes find 2 adjacent plots and just used them as a single plot. And if you just need a lot of prims, you can just buy several plots in the same sim and build on a single plot.



The most effective way I know for finding available Mainland plots is to click on Search, select Classifieds or Places, enter "mainland" as the keyword, and then go to the bottom of the list.

Why the bottom? Because very few residents would pay more than the minimum L$50 to place a Classifieds Ads for a 1024M plot of land. Its just not worth it...unless someone is charging a premium. Likewise, under Places, land for sale typically generates very little traffic. Because our goal is low-price, we are going to the bottom :)







The last listing under Places brought me to Lendrum. As luck would have it, theres a lot of Mainland land for sale in this area :)



Lendrum is in a new section of the Mainland. Lendrum is circled in orange on the right side of this map. The original Mainland is on the left. The red circle to the left is on the Mauve sim (one of the original original SL color sims).



Clicking on the "Map" button on the bottom of the screen brought up a list of Land for sale. These "for sale" plots are marked in yellow, and have a dollar sign ($) symbol on them. You can do some quick comparison shopping just by clicking on all the nearby dollar signs...

For a 1024M plot, prices in this area ranged from L$10,499 to L$13,499. At the moment, this is around the general range as some of the other Mainland spots I checked...



And here is the L$10,499 plot! Unfortunately, its one of those annoying "For Sale" signs! But its still the least expensive in the area...

This plot of land offers additional freebies in addition to the land. I would recommend that you ignore the freebies and just shop for the land alone. After all, you can pick up boxes of free houses, furniture, and decorations at Yadni's Junkyard. So dont worry about the freebies, unless its a custom designed house or something :)

When buying land, be sure you Right-click on the land, select "About Land", and check the price and Covenants. For a Mainland purchase, there should not be any Covenants!

Oh, and as Jennifer pointed out in her comment in Part 1, dont buy land because you like the current scenery and neighbors. It would likely be very different tomorrow. This is particular true for the Mainland, where there are no Covenants!

If you purchased this plot of land, and own no other land in SL, you would need to have an SL Premium Account (US$6 to US$9.95 a month, but you get a weekly L$ stipend). In addition, you would need to pay Linden Labs US$5 per month for land tier fee.

So I would have to go with the L$10,499 plot. If I had bought this plot, the first thing I would do is burn that "For Sale" sign ;P


Renting a 2048M Residential Plot

When it comes to renting (or condo-style buying) a residential plot, you have LOTS of options! Too many, in fact. So hopefully, you have narrowed it down a bit from Part 1 and decided where to rent.

For this section, Im going to look for a 2048M residential plot (with 468 prims) with a nice view and reasonable price. Remember, Im a mermaid, so your tastes might vary :P

A quick glance at land baron Anshe Chung's Dreamland Listings showed 2 available non-commercial plots. These plots are unzoned (Dreamland Anarchy), so they are not technically residential (because your neighbors could use their plot for commercial purposes). But lets take a peek out of curiosity :)



This is the plot on Passionflower Island. This plot is waterfront (in fact, partly under water :D). You can change Island plots up or down by 100M, so it should be easy to put everything underwater :) Oh...Im not really looking for water or anything...;P

This 2048M plot is available for condo-style purchase (meaning you have to "buy" the land, and then pay a monthly tier fee). The purchase price is L$19,999. And the monthly tier is US$14 or L$3738.

However, this is rental, so it does not require an SL Premium Account (saving US$6 to US$9.95 a month, not counting the L$ stipend). You also would not need to pay Linden Labs US$15 for land tier fee. Thats why many people choose to rent (condo-style purchase) on an Island...

Next, I tried the Azure Islands Listing page. Unfortunately, they did not have any 2048M plots available. So I chose one of their residential listings (Ursae sim) and decided to go sim hopping for a plot...

When I arrived at Ursae, I clicked on the "Map" button and looked for yellow plots of land.



After hopping around a bit in the nearby sims, this brought me to the Palau sim. Theres a 2112M plot for sale by owner (by another resident, instead of from Azure Islands). This is a waterfront plot in a zoned Residential sim (so your neighbor cant build a casino :D). This is also a double-prim plot, which means that you will have 996 prims instead of the usual 468 prims.

But of course, this costs more :) The condo-style purchase price is L$32,000 and the monthly tier is approx L$7,323 (about US$27.50). This is because of the double prims, which effectively gives you 4096M worth of prims on a 2112M plot (and you pay for it :P).



Just for fun, I went to Search/Places and typed in 2048. The results brought up one of the islands owned by FairChang (another land baron :) ). I followed the weblink to their for sale page and found a perfect plot on FairChang Kumori!

Its a waterfront 2048M plot (with 468 prims) and zoned for residential. The (condo-style) purchase price is L$15,950 and monthly tier is US$16 (about L$4,272).

If you have the time, you could check other results from Search/Places and Search/Classifieds for keyword "2048". Also, the SLExchange Real Estate page is a good place to go...at least for a list of where to look :)

Well, for this particular 2048M residential plot, I would have to say its between Dreamland (initial: L$19,999; monthly: L$3,738) and FairChang (initial: L$15,950; monthly: L$4,272). They are both waterfront plots. FairChang has a stricter residential covenanent. So for a residential plot, I guess I would have to vote for FairChang here :)


Renting a 4096M Commercial Plot

If you want to run a business, from a retail store to a casino to a club, you need to either buy a plot of land with no covenants, or rent a plot of land that permits commercial activities. Since commercial activities are more...um...disruptive (flashing signs, money ball announcements, etc :P), most land barons create separate commercial sims.



We are going to be shopping for a 4096M plot (936 prims) of commercial land. This is exactly what I did when I was looking for land for the new Sirena Hair & Fashion store.



First up...Dreamland. Anshe Chung's Dreamland Listings has many 4096M unzoned plots available. They are bad for residential, but good for commercial :)

One of the first listings landed me on Acacia Island for a little 4080M square island bordered by water (not that Im looking for water or anything :P). The condo-style purchase price is L$39,999 and the monthly tier is US$28 or L$7476.

Unfortunately, neither Azure Isles nor FairChang had any 4096M commercial plots available (at least not at their websites). I suppose I could go island hopping...but let me try something different...

***Update: FairChang now has commercial plots (check Garth FairChang's comments for this blog entry, along with their RL story: so romantic!!! :D)

I went to the SLExchange Real Estate page, typed in "commercial" as the Search word, and sorted the listing by size.



One of the first listings that came up is Richland Center sim, part of the SkyBeam Estates. Its a residential/commercial sim, but almost all of the plots have stores in them. SkyBeam Estates has a very strict covenant. For example, they restrict things like camping chairs, which is a good thing if you dont plan on having camping chairs :)

They also have very nice landscaping and a "planned" community kinda feel.

The best part is the price: the condo-style purchase price is L$16,000 plus a monthly tier of US$28 (or about L$7476).

So between Dreamland (initial: L$39,999; monthly tier: L$7476) and Richland Center (initial: L$16,000; monthly tier: L$7476), I would have picked Richland Center for my own store. Richland Center does have a theme ("Art Deco, Craftsman and Art Nouveau architecture") so it might not have been appropriate for everyone. Hmmm...are mermaids Art Deco? :P


So I hope you found this information helpful!

Before you finalize your land buying decision, make sure you read the covenant carefully! The last thing you want is to annoy your neighbors (or be annoyed by them).

Remember, Second Life is suppose to be fun! Heres your chance to have that beachfront dream house with the deck and sailboat that youve always wanted :)

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Day 242: Caribbean Breezes Jazz Club

If its still a bit chilly where you live, you can always go somewhere warm and nice in Second Life! How about the Caribbeans? :)

(And with Pirates of Caribbeans 3 out, I just had to stop by ;P)

The Caribbean Breezes Jazz Club to be exact...

Its Talia BTW...this is a happening party place, so you didnt expect that mermaid Natalia to show up, did you? :P



Caribbean Breezes is a romantic dance club, in the same tradition as Phat Cat's or the Avilion Grove Ballroom.

But Caribbean Breezes is a more relaxed atmosphere, playing smooth jazz music and without the "ballroom" dress code. So just come in your best clubbing outfit. After all, its the Caribbeans! You cant exactly wander around the heat in a sweeping ballgown :P



Caribbean Breezes has a main dance floor (its where all the people are, so you cant miss it :) ). The entire sim is typically packed, so expect some lag during peak hours!

I came in really late at night to sneak in this sexy shot on the dance floor :)



Caribbean Breezes also has one of the largest pirate ships in Second Life. Any place with pirates cant be all bad! :P



Ahoy Cap'n, there be landlubbers below! Arrr...

(Heehee did you know the Babbler Translator can translate "pirate"? :P)



The cool thing about Caribbean Breezes are all these little areas all over the island where you can sit and have a semi-private moment. Its still a "PG" sim...so keep it clean! :P



There are poseballs all over the island...some in the most unexpected of places (like couple dance balls at the top of the mountain).

So, I had to take an evil Alt shot...

If you enjoy smooth jazz in warm weather (or meeting someone who does), Caribbean Breezes should be on your list of clubs to sim-hop :) Click on Search, select Places, and enter "caribbean". Pick the Caribbean Breezes Jazz Club (typically at the top). The SLURL is Breezes (115,136,31).



So Blue...what were you and Natalia doing in this animation at Tamique Island?