Think Kink Reorg

More changes at Think Kink. You’d think bondage bunnies wouldn’t squirm around so much, but there it is ;)

First, if you have old no-copy toys that you want to trade in at a rebate, the deadline is July 8th.

Second, Serjourn Daxter, our friend from the Freedom Continent, joins Think Kink.

Along with Serj’s arrival, Think Kink becomes Think Kink Lifestyles; that is, the shop separates into boutiques which will serve specific interests.

Here’s the list :

• DungeonWorks
• PeopleWorks
• GhoulWorks
• PipeWorks
• TechWorks
• PetWorks
• DollWorks
• PonyWorks
• Classics

Note the pets, dolls and ponies; pretty exciting stuff!

Stay tuned for upcoming new toys, and have a great weekend!

Danish Design - Baroness Catsuit and Criss Cross Dream

Deirdre:
We stopped by Pip’s lovely store and saw some great, inexpensive outfits.

Pip swears they’re old and musty, but I think they look terrific, so here I am, sharing them with you.

I’m wearing the Baroness catsuits, sold separately in black or red, and lelo has the Criss Cross Dream.

Good shine, and very good tints make the Baroness stand out, in black or red. The prim turned up collar looks great, and has a resize script for that perfect fit.

So while I enjoy a hot-off-the-press outfit as much as anyone, good quality is timeless. In the next post, I demonstrate that hot is cold, black is white, and dogs lie with cats.

La donna è mobile, you know? ;)

lelo:
The Criss Cross Dream dress isn’t the newest design by Danish Design, but a girl can never have enough little black dresses.

Being a good little black dress it’s only available in good old black and has a slight shine to it, making it more acceptable in vanilla company.

The criss cross lace, which give the dress its name are on the front and back of the dress and on the included gloves.

You get the clothes layer parts of the dress in all layers, even if this isn’t really necessary, still it’s nice to have the option.

The prim filling to linden skirt gap is simple but fits very well in my case, just had to lower it a little bit.

So lovely little black dress for a nice price that shouldn’t miss in any closet.

Name : Danish Design
Owner : Pip1 Boa
The SLURL : http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cheops/157/78/509

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	8	8
Price	8	8
Service	9	8
Store	9	8

HybridZ - Bitch on WheelZ

Deirdre:
We’re rarely disappointed when we drop by HybridZ. There was a cool motorcycle waiting in the entrance - well, once it rezzed ;)

This is Bitch on WheelZ, HybridZ’s first vehicle, I believe, and it’s got a lot of fun features, the most interesting for all you bondage bunnies probably being the chance to be hogtied on the baggage rack and taken along for a ride.

The poses menu takes a bit of getting used to; for example, to set the passenger poses, the driver must choose Position, Passenger, Drive, and Poses.

Every pose can be adjusted (up, down, forward, back, and tilt), so I got a decent fit for my long legs on the pegs without losing grip on the handlebars.

The bike’s construction is quite good, and reminds me of the Orange County Choppers. I love the little details: heat-blued pipes and the HYBRIDZ vanity plate, for example :)

The price is quite low for a vehicle that comes with so many fun bondage features. So get yourself some good riding leathers and drop by HybridZ.

lelo:
Ok what do you get when a fetish designer wants to build a bike, well normally you get a pretty much standard bike with some great poses for the passenger.

Well there are six more or less uncomfortable poses for the passenger so that part is as expected.

But there it ends, making vehicles move in SL is art in itself and not everyone can get it right.

This bike comes pretty close to the handling of the professional bikes in SL, just don’t touch the turbo button.

In turbo mode the bike goes faster than the sim crossings in SL can handle, so you are warned.

You also get a fun flight mode taking you back into the future.

So want to take your loved one on a summers drive around the linden roads, here’s your bike.

Name : HybridZ
Owner : Fyre Furse & Natalie Serapis
The SLURL :
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tasmania/64/234/23

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	8	8
Price	8	8
Service	8	8
Store	8	7

Elle Ordonne - Maitresse and Elle Commande

Deirdre:

A reader tip led us to Elle Ordonne: thank you, DouceSoupire!

The lovely outfit I’m modeling here is called Maitresse, and lelo is wearing Elle Commande - she might have nightmares, she’s really not a switch ;)

Maitresse is a lovely clothes-layer leather dress, with very good prim details (the rolled-up sleeves) and my beloved military cap included.

There is a hat invisiprim which is meant to hide “hair base” styles; a lovely idea but useful for a small number of us, I think.

One day someone will make good hat hair and will become a millionaire. That’s a hint, designers!

I’d be thrilled to see more designs from Elle Ordone; if more appear, we’ll definitely keep you posted.

lelo:
Woohoo we found new latex, Elle Ordonne by Kayani Curameyer is a small label we missed till now.

I’m wearing the Elle Commande, a classic black skirt, corset and colored top combo.

The colored top comes in red, copper, green and purple, do get the fat pack it’s a real bargain.

Ok she uses the standard SL skirt, which, well you know, makes your butt look gigantic, but she’s fair and puts a warning about that in the supplied notecard.

The texturing is very good, from folds on the skirt to the zipper and buckles on the corset.

A prim collar and prim ruffle cuffs complete the outfit, giving it that little extra to make it stand out from the crowd.

Name : Elle Ordonne
Owner : Kayani Curameyer
The SLURL : http://slurl.com/secondlife/Royal%20Tropic%20Moonlight/125/225/2002

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	8	8
Price	7	7
Service	8	7
Store	8	8

Chey's Spicy Outfits - LX Cat V33 Huge Set Black

Deirdre:

Chey is still around. That’s good news for us; and for her customers too :) She makes awesome latex, and I’m always glad to see stores stick around for a long time.

We last featured her in August 2010 - a ridiculously long time for Second Life. Sims are bought and sold, couples are made, broken, reconciled and divorced in less time than this.

This lovely outfit with the catchy name “LX Cat V33 Huge Set Black” is a catsuit in open and closed top version, and a lovely kit of latex lingerie, all in one box.

I forget where I picked up the expression SPZ (for Strategically Placed Zipper) - it could have been about fursuits. It sure applies here, and along with the good shine and realistic seams, it makes a great-looking catsuit.

The open and closed versions of the catsuit top are in shirt and undershirt, giving some good mix-and-match options, and the catsuit bottom is in both layers.

The naming is easy to follow : LXCat for the catsuit parts, just LX for the lingerie, and a small u marks the underwear layer.

Two pairs of gloves and two pairs of stockings, for use with the catsuit (black) or the lingerie (transparent latex) complete the outfit.

Chey’s is one of these less-well-known stores, that really deserve more love - do give it a look.

lelo:
This set gives you some nice options, huge might be a bit of marketing talk, but you do get a good looking catsuit and some amazing underwear.

Ok the underwear first, you can see the back of it in the first picture, the front is a bit too revealing.

The quality is amazing; nice see through smoky latex, sharp lines and lovely seamed stockings.

Isn’t it a pity you can’t alt-zoom around the pictures in Blogger as you can in SL. *winks*

The catsuit comes in two versions, the zipper opened revealing a sexy cleavage (as worn by Mistress) and zipper closed (worn by me).

Last but not least you’ll get a tattoo layer mask (yes keeping your own face), which i just love, simple black mask with a smoky face inlay, that has very realistic seams around the openings and down the middle.

Name : Chey's Spicy Outfits
Owner : Cheyenne Colasanti
The SLURL : http://slurl.com/secondlife/Greater%20Farnley/16/164/90

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	9	9
Price	7	7
Service	8	7
Store	7	8

SL9B ends soon - don’t wait!

Longish week, so no awesomely entertaining anecdotes or assorted coolness today, except a reminder that the birthday festivities are ending very soon: June 27th is this Wednesday - so that’s not a lot of time left if you haven’t started touring the sims and seeing the exhibits.

I imagine the crowds will be pretty heavy this weekend, but if you aim for off-peak hours you might get some low-ish lag time in.

Have fun, and see you Monday!

Nekos From Mars - Operative Series

Deirdre:

While we’re not changing careers from bloggers to secret agents, our recent wardrobe seems to hint that we should :)

We got a friendly hello from Mars Matova asking if we were interested in reviewing his new Operative line of full outfits. A quick peek on Marketplace showed that they looked good so we agreed.

I just had no idea. This is really impressive gear!

I’m wearing most of the Cell Operative outfit in our first pic, minus only the commando-ninja mask; it did nothing good for my hair ;)

The box for C.O. held 30 parts not counting extras, of which I’m wearing 15 - lelo was a little puzzled when I said I was a overwhelmed; the other outfits are somewhat less intricate.

There’s a lot to love here. The mesh corset and excellent booties would be worth the price of admission by themselves.

Cydonian Operative, my outfit on the second pic, is much more revealing and features two-toned mesh boots, red in front and black in rear; wow them when you arrive, sneak away undetected, perhaps.

Keep an eye on Nekos from Mars - we certainly will :)

lelo:
Nekos From Mars is a new shop in our list and it totally blew us over.

One of the great things with Mars's designs it that he writes a backstory for all his operatives and designs the outfit accordingly, a smart way of working i would say.

On Marketplace he tells the backstory of each design, giving you a feel of what’s involved with each operative.

Legion Operative is the outfit i wear in the first picture, according to Mars’s back story, this is the most basic and most common operative and with prices like that i can understand why.

You get the mesh corset in 8 sizes so there should be one for almost every one, the way the corset moves with your body is great.

You also get 3 different versions of the gloves, a modest version of the catsuit and the one i’m wearing here, both in underwear layer.

Finally there are a pair of great-looking booties, a prim collar and 6 alpha layers to let the corset work with different size boots and shoes.

In the second picture i’m wearing the Cyber Operative in red, there also is a blue version.

According to Mars this is a gynoid operative aka a fembot, that should bring in the dolls of SL.

This one comes with a amazing-looking circuited catsuit, the same texture is also used on the booties.

Most eye-catching is the helmet which totally works with gynoid theme.

The big prim collar and the arm blades bring the outfit further to life.

So check out what kind of operative you are and join the Nekos from Mars.

Name : Nekos From Mars
Owner : Mars Matova
The SLURL : http://slurl.com/secondlife/Bellobas/26/88/43

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	9	9
Price	8	8
Service	8	7
Store	7	7

---

Cool quiet visit, saw much

I actually finished my first sim, and got half-way through my second one!

Most of the exhibits are really cool, a few are so puzzling as to be completely incomprehensible to me - I really wasn’t expecting that; but I’m reconciled with the idea not everyone thinks the same way I do, and it’s ok.

What I did see and love were two old friends : the Phoenix viewer exhibit, and New Citizens Inc.

Phoenix has several panels of good info, and a really stunning animated phoenix statue which catches your eye from a good distance :)

NCI.. those awesome, crazy guys built a little replica of NCI Kuula, the spot I send new residents for free classes and good information since we found them years ago.

I’m really enjoying this visit, and doing it with the idea of sharing my favorite finds with you definitely adds a little something. I never expected I’d enjoy blogging so much :)

Elixir - Hextile

Deirdre:

Hextile is a new line of clothing from Elixir for all you people who get shot and stabbed a lot in SL: “armor plating framed in durable rubber, grommetted and reinforced with carbon mesh”, it says here.

Now we’ve had the prototypes for a good while, but when someone tells me something under the rose, I respect that 100%.

So when Obscuria Cyannis told us last week that the Hextile line was out, I said, “awesome!”, and marked our calendar to feature it tonight.

We had a peek at the store for prices and for the sake of completeness - we’re good that way - and I saw that the men’s vest I’m wearing here got *big* improvements.

I decided to wear it to show you the hextile pattern anyway, but don’t look for it at the store. Hey, prototypes are perks too ;)

So, Hextile: cool, sexy armor for your superhero / espionage / science-fiction roleplay. Complete it with the hardshell boots (not shown) for a more spacey look, and have fun in style :)

lelo:
I’m wearing the 1 piece suit from the Hextile series here, and it might be armor plated but you must be a pretty good shot to hit this body. *winks*

You get all the cloth layers for a bit of mixing, though with this texture it will be hard to match to it.

Still the texture really makes the Hextile series, i do love the look especially all the different grey tones, just shows you that there really is no need for all the black on black we get in SL.

As we said Hextile is a serie, the body i’m wearing it the skimpiest one in it, but there are also pants and a full suit in a male and female version.

So as per usual Elixir offers something out of the ordinary, so looking for something not everyone is wearing? get your butt over to Elixir.

Name : Elixir
Owner : Khorus Magne
The SLURL :
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nelson%20Bay/187/169/27

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	8	8
Price	8	7
Service	9	8
Store	9	8

---

SL9B exhibitors are friendly!

I’m still trying to finish visiting an entire sim at the expo, but this morning progress was slowed by people who forcibly sat me down and talked my ear off... well, no, not really. ;)

People who know me know I’m pretty sociable and I do think SL is for conversation. So this morning I ran into Pamala Clift, the Roadside Philosopher and author of the “Virgin’s Handbook on Virtual Relationships”, an ebook carried on Amazon.

Pamala’s been in SL for a good while, and while I’m not sure that her thought that everyone will come to the metaverse is for anytime soon, she certainly has interesting ideas worth considering. A free chapter of her ebook is available at her booth in Celebrate.

I then had a pleasant chat with the folks at the Transgendered Lounge, Trinity Dejavu and Lilly Noodle. The Lounge is, to quote Trinity, “a low-key peer support group and hangout, we run a drop in place where people can just swing by, chat and hang out as well and regular meetings”.

They were awesomely friendly and interesting, and they’re readers of the blog already, so hi ladies! :)

The Time Tunnel is the attraction I want to mention in particular, because they had content uniquely related to us.

I’ll let the pictures speak.. we’ve come a long way, baby!

Anima Temptation - Eleganza Blackshine and Discordia Ballo

Deirdre:

Back to our regularly scheduled broadcast - but see the end of the post for my morning visit to SL9B!

I saw the cheapie version (violet!) of Eleganza advertised on Fetish Consolidated, and decided to go have a peek at the cool underground store at Pirandello Bay.

We were pleasantly surprised to see so many nice new designs, but as Adira said, it’s nearly a year since we last featured her. High time!

The shapes are gorgeous, and completely original. Bought sculpts don’t mean poor quality boots, but original gets higher marks from me.

Eleganza is the style of stiletto I love best, and could have been inspired by Fernando Berlin boots’  dagger heels and pointy toes.

The price is pretty awesome too : 240L$ instead of the regular 480L$. Pounce and tell Adira who sent you ;)

lelo:
Yes, we managed to find some more ballets and you thought we had done them all.

Adira seems to have reworked her old ballet shape and i think it’s a good improvement.

The boots come in black, red and pink i’m wearing here, you can change the color of the sole of the boots with a simple chat command.

With the boots menu you can control the sound level, the size, the ao and finally the locking options that all good ballets should have.

A final fun, if dangerous, option controlled by the menu are the spurs, first time i see that on ballets, i’m sure there is a reason for that. *winks*

There is also a thigh high version of these boots and an ankle version that doesn’t have the spurs.

Name : Anima Temptation
Owner : Adira Aeon
The SLURL : http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pirandello%20Bay/168/139/21

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	9	8
Price	8	8
Service	8	8
Store	7	7

---

I visited the amazing Lake Stage this morning. Built by Kazuhiro Aridian, it’s the first mesh stage to be used at a SL birthday celebration.

It’s absolutely huge, and my first thought when I saw it was dinosaur bones :)

I was lucky enough to catch a live performance, arriving without any particular planning.

Caoilte Skytower, aka Connor Savage, entertained a modest but appreciative crowd (hey, it was early for many of us!) with Irish ballads and drinking songs.

He pronounced my name correctly so I’m now a lifelong fan ;)

If you want to avoid trusting luck as I did, here's the event schedule :

SL9B - Opening ceremony and tips

I was going to run the SL9B stuff as bottom-of-post addendums this week, but after attending yesterday’s tour and today’s inauguration, well, I’m too enthusiastic to just let it go with a paragraph or two. Plus I have pics ;)

Fetish fashion assorted goodness resumes tomorrow!

First, I can’t praise the team enough. Working under incredible pressure, they were uniformly gracious and helpful, and pulled a stunning rabbit out of a tiny, last-minute hat. (metaphors were mangled for this post, sorry!)

Using my press priviledges, I went in this morning at 7 my local time, and visited one of the sims. I wanted to have an idea of the time it might take to visit the whole thing - I always want to see everything; it’s incurable, I’m told.

Well, I was able to see 18 exhibits, half a sim, in an hour, at breakneck pace with nobody else on the sim. It’s not hard to extrapolate from there : short of spending several hours a day (every day until the end) visiting SL9B, you won’t see it all. I know, aaaaaauuugh!

I’m reminded of the Barnum and Bailey famous Three-Ring Circus : with so much going on at the same time, you may not see it all but you walk away with a sense of wonder; I think that’s what will happen to us here.

There are gifts, greeters, a hunt, dragons, tinies, tons of good live music.. if you’re not keeping an eye on the official blog already, here’s the address, and the best tip post I’ve ever read for reducing lag :

http://sl9b.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/lag-at-sl9b-how-to-deal-with-it/

Get the SL9B Community HUD to teleport around the sims easily. The Hub is the center pointing to other SL9B events around Second Life, an admirable outreach gesture that shows true community spirit, in my opinion.

The awesome sponsors who pitched in and offered the sims for the event deserve our thanks and admiration, and they’re listed here (except for the anonymous donor who loaned six sims - you know who you are, thank you!) 

The keynote speech, read amid not-unexpected first-day chaos by the unflappable Saffia Widdershins, is copied here.

The Riverdance performance by 20 tinies and Saffia after the speech, sadly, isn’t ;)

Hello everyone – and welcome to SL9B!

Welcome to over three hundred exhibits created by the denizens of Second Life and spread across twenty sims.  Welcome to a week of music and performance by the finest in Second Life.

Welcome to a week of beauty, a week of interactivity, a week of games, a week of music and dance ... welcome, in fact, to a week of everything that a birthday party should be.

There’s presents – yes, it’s just like those parties you had when you were very young – at least you do in the UK – when you leave with a swag bag of goodies.

There’s cake. There’s beer – please remember, though, to take your litter home with you.

And there will, unfortunately, be lag.  And possibly, like a rainstorm on the barbecue, there will be sim crashes.  But, you know, we live in Second Life.  We’ll keep calm and carry on.

But we nearly didn’t carry on at all.  Back in April, on April 16th, just over two months ago, there was an announcement by the grid operators, Linden Lab, that they would not be donating any sims for the community birthday party this year.  They suggested that we took the theme of community ... and celebrated in our own communities.

I think I can safely say that that decision disappointed a great many people.  There were those people who had already started their builds, in anticipation of the opportunity to exhibit on the largest communal platform that Second Life annually offers.  There were scores – no, hundreds of people who were preparing to donate their time and energy to the celebrations – the musicians, the educators, the greeters, the estate managers and assistants …

What would we have lost, if we had accepted what Linden Lab had said, and partied in our own communities?

I think the clear answer is that we would have lost our sense of a greater community. Many of us belong to strong communities – lifestyle communities, national communities, role play communities, study or work-based communities, communities of interest. And we have parties there – fantastic, wonderful parties.  We could have done that for the Birthday.

But …

We would have lost the sense of being part of the greater community.

We would have lost our sense of awe and wonder at what we can achieve individually – as new exhibits continue to astound us and delight us. We would have lost the crazy serendipity of seeing wonderful things rubbing shoulders with each other. We would have lost the chance to salute people who make our virtual lives – and our real lives – a better place.

But that didn’t happen.

For what was an agonising month, there seemed to be hope ... but finally, on May 9th, just over a month ago, it became clear that there would be no communal sims from the Lab.  And with that final “No” – it all seemed hopeless.  How could the huge birthday party – the biggest annual celebration in Second Life - be gathered together, organised, built and launched in what amounted to ... five weeks?

And that was when we found our fantastic sponsors.

Let’s salute Zeebster Colasanti and his team from DreamSeeker Estates, who donated ten sims, and his lead here at SL9B, Samantha Ohrberg. Let’s salute Callie Cline of KittyCatS and Equinox Pinion and Dennis Lagan of Fruit Islands, who donated two sims each.  Let’s salute our anonymous donor, who gave a further six sims. Thank you – for having faith in the Birthday, for having trust in the community that we would make the birthday happen. Thank you for your belief in the Second Life community.

As we started pulling things together, I heard one question more and more ... “Why are you celebrating Second Life’s birthday, when Linden Lab can’t be bothered to? Why are all you people putting in time, and money and so much work when Linden Lab can’t even drop twenty sims on the grid for a month and say, “Here you are. Get on with it.”

And, you know, I have an answer for that.

It’s not Linden Lab’s birthday. It’s ours.

Yes, Linden Lab have created the framework. They have given us the grid, the land on which to build our dreams – and sometimes our nightmares.  They hold the data that drives our Second Lives. They’ve given us the power and the ability to shape our imaginations in virtual forms. Amazing, wonderful virtual forms.

But ... it’s not their birthday. It’s ours.

I hope that on June 23rd they’ll be opening the champagne in the Lab – maybe some of it non-alcoholic, and much of it organic – they are, after all, in California.  I hope that they’ll be exchanging a few stories, a few laughs, a few guilty chuckles over where the bodies are buried.  I hope that one or two will raise some bright shiny ideas –“Hey, wouldn’t this be cool to do?” And I hope that they then don’t spring that shiny coolness on us without consultation and rigorous testing!

And I hope they raise a glass – a rueful, bewildered, maybe slightly apprehensive, maybe slightly awed glass of champagne ... and drink to the denizens of Second Life – that awesome, troublesome, mulish, mutinous, sarcastic, angry, loving, fabulously creative group of real life people who make Second Life what it is.

Because it’s not Linden Lab’s birthday.  It’s ours.

We built it. Everything you see here – and everything you will see across the grid was built by the denizens of Second Life.  But none of this celebration  would have happened without the efforts of a small, dedicated and totally awesome group of people who took those twenty sims and bashed them into shape.  Who hoped that people would want to come – and wondered, to begin with, if we needed more than four sims. Or ten. And who were then deluged by people wanting to join us and be part of the Best Birthday Ever.

Doctor Gascoigne. KT Syakumi. Diana Renoir. Honour Macmillan. Marianne McCann. Rails Bailey. Crap Mariner.

Thank you. Without you, this wouldn’t have happened. Without your hard work, your perseverance, your unparalleled ability to stay patient and smiling in the face of everything that the grid and its denizens can throw at you has been just mindblowing.

So – thank you.

Thank you to Mikati Slade, who built this amazing four sim Birthday Cake stage. Thank you to Kaz, Kazuhiro Aridian who built the Lake stage. Thank you to Donpatchy Dagostino, who built the Lotus stage and the wonderful train ... Thank you again to KT Syakumi who created the breathtaking Egyptian stage … and the breath-holding underwater stage!

Thank you to Artistide (Artee) Despres, who made the Community Hub that links this event to the other SL9B events that are happening across the entire grid. Thank you to Bo Tiger – whose lovely HUD is going to have us all bouncing happily from A to J and back over to Q ... Thank you to Yavanna Llanfair who has made the pod tours that provide the most amazing way of seeing the sims.

And thank you to the hundreds of volunteers who have come together to make sure this happens.  The Sim Co-Ordinators. The Exhibitor Assistants who have been on hand 24/7 to make sure that everyone who needed help and support would have it – pretty damn near instantly.  The stage managers who will be making sure the stages stay stable – and that the streams work and all the artists appearing are happy.  Do you guys ever sleep?  Thank you for every last one of those bleary-eyed hours. You have made it happen.

Thank you too to all those people who have committed time and energy to being greeters and volunteers.  You make SL9B run smoothly – your efforts, your patience and your enthusiasm are phenomenal.

And thank you to those of you who responded to our call. Thank you to the exhibitors, the musicians, the speakers at the events, the trainers – who have come into these open spaces and created such an incredible event.

And while all that was going on, we had to make sure that people knew – so they would know to come and visit. So from the beginning, there was a team of bloggers and media people dedicated to making sure that the word got out to as many people as possible. Daniel Voyager, Inara Pey, Ginette Pinazzo and …

This was the year of the “last minute”.

This was the year of the sponsors galloping to the rescue, of the “will people want to build here?” and oh boy they did.

This was the year of clawing every last parcel out of the flat green plains – thank you KT for finding square metres where none existed, for clawing back prims to give us those extra parcels.
This was the year of discovering that more and more people wanted to join us, to help, to perform – so this was the year of the last minute fifth stage and the frantic re-arranging of schedules.

This was the year of the hasty training classes, the year of the flying by the seat of our pants, the panics and the crazy improvisations and the last minute ideas so shiny that they just had to be acted on – and thank you to all those people donating gifts to the Egyptian expedition and to David Abbot for writing the fun tale you’re all about to read!

This was the year of the last minute birthday party and – I hope you’ll all agree – we pulled it off.
But – thank heavens – it doesn’t have to be like this.

Next year is the Big One.  The Tenth Birthday. And, believe me, we’ll be prepared.

Because it will be Huge.  There will be more sims, more exhibits, more art, more music, more of everything than ever before.  We’ll be entering double figures – and we’ll be shouting to the world that Second Life is bigger and better than it ever was – a place where we have claimed our world for our imagination.

And we’ll be holding our first planning meeting  ... well, maybe in a month or so.  Because today – and for the rest of this week ... we’re going to PARTY!

So unleash the Dragons!

Bring on the dancing tinies!

We’re NINE and we’re going to PARTY!

SL9B Press Tour

Blogging is a pretty demanding hobby. We don’t get paid, we work hard (ish), and we have pressure and deadlines.

They’re self imposed, but still; barring force majeure, we haven't missed a day in ages.

So we’re not opposed to the occasional perk. I admire movers and shakers, you know that by now; so meeting designers who create our Second Life is the basic perk for me.

This year, I decided to take more of an interest in the SL9B celebration. I blame Inara for me being generally better informed ;)

So, perk time : press pass! We’re going to be visiting the sims a bit ahead of the crowds on a guided tour, and we’ll slip in reports during the week.. you know, between the leather pants reviews.

Have a great weekend.

Bugshit Latex - TigerStripe Latex and TigerStripes

Deirdre:

We hadn’t featured Bugshit in way too long - new tracking system at work, you see? - and we dropped in and were delighted to see new items.

They’re still at the low prices we remembered, too. I spent a lot of time in my old red Bugshit catsuit, way back when, so I definitely have a soft spot for this store.

The vendors are also old school. Expect up to a 15-minute delay for delivery (Did I tell you about our short production cycle? We were already thinking “plan B” when the catsuits arrived.)

But the cold sweat-inducing delay was worth it. Lelo and I now have fun, matching-but-not-same outfits to go dancing :)

Mine is TigerStripe Latex, the full catsuit with stripes cut out, and lelo’s is TigerStripes, the stripes with the catsuit cut out ;)

TigerStripe Latex comes in 15 colors, including some very neat metallic ones; the one I got tonight is Deep Red.

No tattoo layer for me, but underwear and outerwear versions make it unlikely there’s something you won’t be able to wear with Tiger if you want to mix and match.

lelo:
To keep things straight Mistress is wearing the reverse and i’m in the standard tiger stripes, the old is a zebra white with black stripes or the reverse.

There are 12 items in my box, including the tattoo layer we so love.

There are 2 versions, one with stripes covering all the naughty bits, and the other, well that one doesn’t. *winks*

As you get all the layers you can wear the stripes on top a catsuit and give it an entire new look.

I’m walking around in skin tight latex all the time in SL, but this really makes me feel naked, i guess that will be a good thing for some of you.

Name : Bugshit Latex
Owner : ihaveabuginmyeye Oates
The SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Soobit/196/235/31

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	8	8
Price	9	9
Service	8	7
Store	8	7

Violet Studios - Prey Mesh Boots

Deirdre:

The Prey boots are an intricate system, available in leather and latex, in four different shapes with three different addons, and a color HUD to manage the whole thing.

The leg and foot shapes are unique - you’ll need to have a good look and see if you like them.

Hemi addressed fetish, fashion and pony; no reason for anyone to go barefoot ;)

This is a valiant first effort in mesh; I’m sure that things will improve with time, as they did with prim shoes and other things. (Remember freebie bling sandals from 2006? They looked just fine to us back then, didn’t they?)

The front straps are awesome, I have to give props for that; it’s the first set of optional addons for boots I see. (Firefox says hi!)

There’s really a lot of material in the boxes, you’ll want to make folders to help see through the jungle of versions.

I’ll reveal one of my little tricks to deal with big kits : I make a folder called Wear This, and put in there the right sizes, shapes, or whatever composes the outfit I will actually wear.

Sure, I could throw out the XL sizes.. but I’ll admit I’m a bit of a pack rat ;)

lelo:
Another designer has joined the ranks of the mesh designers and Hemi went big with 4 versions.

The boots are called Ovio (the chunky heeled), Raptor (the ballets), Dyno (the pony boots) and Velo (the stiletto heeled one).

Sold separately from these are the back laces, back zipper and front buckles, these will fit all the boots and as they are copy you only need to buy the one you like once.

The HUD gives you control over the highlight color, the texture color and the shine.

And this for the laces, the boots, the metal parts and the sole separately, beware Hemi has her own special colors, so better get her catsuits if you want a good match.

Ahh and as the boots are copy, be smart and make back up copies before you start playing around with them.

Name : Violet Studios
Owner : Hemi Violet
The SLURL :
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pheadra/90/129/46

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	7	7
Price	7	7
Service	8	8
Store	8	8

LaVa - Holesuit

Deirdre:

It’s from LaVa. It’s a suit. It has holes. ;)

No, no, that’s not the full review.. wait, come back!

So. This lovely and original catsuit by LaVa is called Holesuit, and it features a fun peek-a-boo design with good colors filling the holes.

I snapped lelo while she was blinking, producing a pretty funny derp picture (whiskey will do that too, she says). This is the sort of thing I could never have done on purpose... ah, well. Quick reshoot and curse at Murphy, and we’re up and posting.

The color textures are good, and the transparent tints (yellow in our pics) are fairly bright, not so pale that everyone will notice at first glance.

There are a ton of options which I will let my sweetie describe. Visit LaVa and support one of the few latex stores not using Marketplace.

lelo:
Well here is a catsuit with a twist or better holes. *winks*

When you open the box you will find quite a few items and with them options.

All in all 28 clothing items, including the quick change tattoo layers, there are 5 of them in the box.

4 give you the different possible versions and there is a “kragen” or collar moving the catsuit higher up the neck than the cloth layers will allow.

The 4 options you get are all based on the black catsuit with the holes and give you different fill-ins for the holes.

There is the net we show with the black version (but this one it the same in all versions), the full (shown here in pink), the trans version (shown in yellow) and there also is a bare version (not shown here).

You get every version in all layers so you can mix the layers, giving you net over a colored catsuit, a great look.

Ohh and there are a pair of black gloves included in the kit... just thought i would mention them. *smiles*

So have fun playing with the layers and make your own version.

Name : LaVa
Owner : Latexania Valeska
The SLURL :
http://slurl.com/secondlife/DARK%20REFUGE%20ISLAND/111/74/24
 

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	8	8
Price	8	8
Service	8	8
Store	7	7

KDC - PonyPlay Bridle

Deirdre:

A beautiful new bridle from KDC, called simply PonyPlay Bridle.

It’s brand new; the post date on Kyrah’s blog is yesterday :)

As lelo is usually covered in tack, I shot the first picture “naked”, that is, just with the bridle over her catsuit.

The colors are for demonstration purposes; I don’t recommend you actually set your bridle to pink and purple ;)

The second pic will give you a good idea of the bridle worn by pony in full gear - acquired from various sources, obviously.

Kyrah has a store blog, and uses the awesome DokuWiki software to write her documentation:
http://kdc.ethernia.net/docs/doku.php?id=touchbound_system:bridle
 
You can read the detailed description of the coloring hud, in particular: the simple picture instantly makes things clear.

A handsome bit of tack, which will definitely get a place of honor in my own pony’s more frequently worn gear.

lelo:
It’s been awhile since Kyrah made something for pony play, but she is back with this great looking bridle.

I’ve been wearing her original bridle for years now and i still love it to bits.

The new one does look better and with the simplicity of the touchbound system makes it way easier to control.

The bridle comes with a color change HUD that lets you change the color of the other, inner and contrast colors of the leather as well as the color of the metal parts.

This first version comes with a first add-on, the blinkers and just like with the touchbound system it’s simplicity itself to ad them, just point and klick.

According to Kyrah’s blog more add-ons are on the way.. can’t wait to see what she will add...

Name : KDC
Owner : Kyrah Abattoir
The SLURL :
http://slurl.com/secondlife/dead%20realm/128/127/605

	Deirdre	lelo
Quality	9	9
Price	8	8
Service	8	8
Store	8	8

New Page - Blogs We Featured

We’ve featured a lot of Second Life store blogs and assorted coolness over the years.

One of the little projects I had sitting on the back burner for a long time - if my mind was a stove, there would be twelve back burners and one small front one for actual cooking - was to assemble all of them in one place for ease of perusal.

Ta-da! Note the brand-spanking-new link at the top of our right column, go visit it, tell your friends (heck, tell your enemies, tell people on the street!), and mostly, tell us if we missed one.

The sole criterion to be included in that list is that we featured the store or the blog itself. Therefore, Bax Coen yes, Stiletto Moody no. Iz pretty simple, akshually.

Have a great weekend, faithful readers, and enjoy the cool new blog list.