annie And The Story of The Backdrop

It's nearly Halloween and I like taking pictures (btw this is my Flickr page, in case you are interested 😉 click here for my Flickr ). Anyway, I was at a shopping event and came across a great backdrop of a dark creepy stairway that looked pretty amazing. No land impact was mentioned on the poster, but a scaled down model of it was rezzed beside it that showed me 76 prims. That works for me, since I always try to keep around 100 prims available on my land (my little nest egg for emergencies).

I skipped happily home and tried to unpack and rez the backdrop to get cracking on some pictures. To my surprise my land kept throwing error messages into my face, telling me, that I don't have enough available prims to rez the object. I was surprised and sent an IM to the creator, wondering where I was going wrong. No reply.

A couple of days later I went to a sandbox and rezzed the backdrop. My mouth stood open at a land impact of 167 prims. I'm not sure if I'm the exception that I don't have that many prims laying around unused. I also wasn't prepared to clear my land of an additional 67 prims just for taking the pictures and then rearranging everything again. I tried playing around with it to see if there was anything I could do to reduce the impact, but without succes.

So I sent another message to annie. Very polite, told her my story again. I also contacted the organiser of the fair, in case there were more people like me with the same issue. They asked me to contact the Facebook page of the shop, which I did.

Today annie IMed me and clarified a few points:
- she can't make a low prim version because she doesn't have time and she would have to make it from scratch
- her backdrop is like it is 144 prims (I'm not gonna argue 23 prims here)
- there is nothing wrong with her product, it works, it isn't her fault if I only have 100 prims available, it's like someone buying a house and not having the land to used it, the person doesn't have sense

See ... here I do have an issue. I didn't buy a house, I bought a mere backdrop, that didn't mention it's land impact, however had a scaled down model with a prim count that I could have accommodated. My dear annie, I'm not quite that stupid. I can be blond at time, I admit, but no, not that blond.

I did receive my money back from here and got muted straight after (thank you annie, much obliged) and I did love her finishing sentences, which I will quote "... but as I see you wont leave it , and don't have the time , send it you the 180L , you paid !!! , have a nice day !! ♥...". And she's right. I wouldn't have left it, I'm a terrier.

Woof, woof
Aorta

Rezology - Just blow your head up!

Finally Rezology solved the complexity issue with all their hairs according to the creator. Great! Congrats! I decided to spend some Linden on one of their hairstyles, since I can now wear it without turning into a purple jelly for everybody around me.

Uhm...not a jelly, but the hair just wouldn't fit. I could comfortably wear a woolly hat under the hair and keep my phone tucked under the back of it without anybody noticing. No resize menu and no mod option. I decided to pull open the notecard that comes with the hairstyle and see the simple solution, suggested by the creator..."How to increase the size of your head". Really? Sorry for being a pain and insisting on sticking with what I consider the right size of my head and not being prepared to change it, just to fit one creator's hairstyles.

But no big deal, since she promises a 110% refund, if you don't like the hair and promises response within 48 hours. 6 days and 2 notecards later, I'm still waiting for as much as a reply from her. I don't even care about the 10% extra in the refund.

Dear Selc, I will let you in on the secret to a successful business and good customer support: Under-promise and over-deliver. Quite frankly it sucks, when being promised one thing in your profile and then never to hear from you again. Until further notice, I will quite happily continue spending my Lindens at other creator's shops.

RIP Freedom of Speech

In thinking that the human right of freedom of speech (at least where I'm from) is transferable to virtual living, I was obviously mistaken.

On my recent hang-out location Sexy Nude Beach (since I was banned from SDI for ridiculous reasons) they have hung up a new sign. Apparently with the up-coming elections in the US it is no longer allowed to discuss politics in local chat. Needless to say, I was flabbergasted.

The overly zealous 'guards' on the beach that position themselves near the LZ and jump on every new arrival that isn't dressed according to rules (which change and grow more hideous by the week, but I will get to that), now have a new item on their list that they can police and send misspelled, caps-locked IMs about.

My guess is that the next sign up will be 'no discussions about freedom of speech in local', since this is what is going on now in local.

In the meantime, I best keep my mouth shut and try to keep up with the dress code:
- Nude
- Swim Wear
- Beach Clothing
- No Long Sleeves
- No Long Pants
- Men: Sleeveless Tops Are Allowed

And since this is a nude beach on a moderate sim (no kidding) ✖ Do not walk around with bodylights and erections on show - This is NOT a sex sim!

I am after spending half of my lazy weekend by going through old landmarks. You know yourself what happens. Around 20% of the Landmarks do not exist anymore. Antother 10% have moved. From the remaining 70% around 40% have not moved on from selling the same old stuff and seem to find Mesh overrated. Seriously, I would not take that stuff even if it came in a freebie box. Then I decided to go even more radical through the remainder of my Landmark folder. Let me tell you, it wasn't getting any better. I saw skins and hats for sale where I really wonder, what look they are trying to create. They have not even reached the 'angry chipmunk' but still have the 'deer staring into headlights' noob shape and eyes on their sales poster. Then I came across the Dragon Winter Hat in the Black Market. As an act of mercy I have left away the name of the shop. Decide for yourself if that is what SL has been waiting for.

Stuff Store - A Very Pleasant Experience

Not wanting to turn this into yet another shopping blog, however, I couldn't avoid but mentioning this great new store. The oddity that unites this post with all my other posts is, that this shop is owned is a very able, talented and helpful man, Crias Rowlands. He not only attentively responds to IMs (without requesting notecards, because his IMs are capped due to popularity (OMG how I hate that in profiles, but that is for another post)). He also has amazing sculpted stuff in his Stuff Store. I had some trouble with the notecard in my newly purchased radio from him and he immediately sorted it out. Go and check it out Stuff Store - Main Store, Lionheart Kiara (95, 204, 28)!

Invasion of the Giant Females

Have you seen them yet? For quite a while now I feared that I was getting paranoid. I started spotting them all over the place. They are about 2 1/2 metres tall and look just ... wrong! First I thought I was once again suffering the SL-small-bug that I looked so dwarfed beside them. Thankfully it is official now! There are even campaigns in SL against them. I came across this picture in a shop yesterday and the relief I felt was so intense. I am not imagining things, they are here, they come in great numbers and they are ... wrong (on so many different levels). Could this be the new generation of female avatars that had their origins in a male mind? *shakes her head and tells herself "No, no, no, their boobs would be bigger"*

Pacific Crisis Fundraiser - People of SL You Are Making Me Proud!

Last night I briefly TPed to the Pacific Crisis Fundraiser in the World of Beauty sim. It was crowded and very very laggy. I hung around near the landing spot for a little while and followed very angry conversations of some smart people trying to get less smart people to trim down on their prims and scripts to make life a little easier for everybody. Needless to say the less smart people kept answering back and hadn't got a clue what they were talking about.

However, what impressed me most were the floating texts above the donation boxes. At that stage approx. 42K Linden had been donated. What impressed me further was the fact that 100% of the profits of the impromptu set-up are going to the victims of the earthquake/tsunami in Japan.

I saw the items which are for sale on several blogs today and decided to go back. My chin dropped when I saw the amount at the donation box only 24 hours later at a staggering 135K Linden. WOW! I cannot help to feel proud of this community that acts so fast.

My dear SL co-inhabitants, don't mind the lag. Strip down your scripts and prims and go. Go to Pacific Crisis Fundraiser! Shop, donate, be proud, be helpful, be generous and be touched!

Miracle !

Funny thing happened. Just yesterday I received a questionnaire from The Dressing Room and one of the questions was, if I had ever had a bad experience with one of their vendors .... Now, that was a strange coincidence. I explained my current experience with Ricielli and ... oh wonder ... today I received a little surprise upon log-in. The owner herself had send me the missing item.

Thank you Ricielli! Why the wait?

Update - Riciellie

For all of you that read my last post. No news is bad news, or should I say it the other way round? After sending my second notice to the customer support person, still no news. No goods send. Left the group. Deleted the Landmark. Ah well, I am sure they aren't bothered about that either.

Good resolutions 2011

I haven't written anything in this blog in a long time. Partially because I forgot my login details. I also forgot the username and password for the ymail account I have linked to this blog *blushes*. After spending an hour of my brand new 2011 retrieving and recreating passwords I finally made it.

Back to new years resolutions. Somehow they always end up being something that reduces pleasure and increases the pain in the ass. They are not for me. However, for the sake of this blog and any sane reader, I intended to be positive. Yes...right...I inteded. Fruitless, they won't let me. Once again I hit the customer service wall of SL so it seems. By that I don't mean Linden themselves who always send me politely phrased automated mails. No, once again one of SL's many proud vendors just PI..ES ME OFF.

I have bought things in the past from this shop for good money. They also sell at 'The Dressing Room'. A fabulous place where many good designers sell one or two articles for one or two weeks at a spectacularly low price. So of I went after the last group announcement that the newest offers have arrived. Needless to say that it was jam-packed. This went hand in hand with SL's hang-over-performance since the new year was bound to cause trouble. I bought, I crashed, I never got the goods.

Not shy, I send an IM and a notecard with my transaction details to the vendor and her support side-kick. NO politly phrased automated answer, no IM, no goods. Now most of you, and under normal cirucmstances myself, would say "Hey, keep your pants on, smoke a cigarette, only 70L" only then, it turns into a matter of principle and that I had previously spend a lot of money in this vendors shop. I sent another IM today. Still polite. Curious if I am going to hear back. I will keep you blogged...