Daily Archives: August 1, 2015

The Lady from L.U.S.T

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Hi.

One of the great pleasures of my life is reading pulp fiction. I go to flea markets, second-hand bookshops, boot-sales and any where else I can imagine to buy (for very little money) pulp fiction novels. My collection now runs to several thousand titles, believe it or not, although the market value might be a few hundred dollars at most.

I love them for their ‘sleazy’ plot-lines (‘she took a quick puff of his reefer and descended into hell’) and of course the ‘sexploitation’ covers. I’ll buy a book based on the cover alone.

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What’s better is that they’re ideal for updating in the context of Second Life. The original cover is above, and my (very quickly done) revision, in the context of SL, is below.

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I didn’t bother to make my model (Karen) ‘perfect’ in the the frame. I’ve not properly cut her out of her posed shot to place in the cover. It’s very imperfect. I just did this exceptionally quickly (5 minutes) to see if there’s any of you might like to see SL models ‘re-cast’ in old pulp fiction covers. Old pulp fiction, married to new SL models, would very readily work. If you want more, properly done, let me know.

 

Hugh

 

Cock in a sock

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When I was a girl, I loved Boy George & Culture Club. We would go through the magazines aimed at our age group, publications like ‘Smash Hits‘ and hang on George’s every word. We’d experiment with our older sisters’ or our Mums’ make up, even though we were 10-11 years of age.

Somewhere along the line, I remember a quote of George’s saying he would love to be the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ ‘sock roadie’. I didn’t understand until I saw this photo…

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Might this be the first ever incident of ‘cock in a sock’?

Scroll forward thirty years, the invention of Facebook, and ‘cock in a sock’ made a welcome/unwelcome return as one of those very silly internet memes (like the ice bucket challenge). Thankfully it didn’t take off in the same way the ice bucket challenge did, but I know it did get to be briefly popular, with men replicating the RHCP’s pose and making a donation to charity (to testicular cancer, if I recall correctly).

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My attention has been drawn to the fact that you can actually replicate this ‘phenomenon’ in SL.

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Yes. No matter how silly RL can get, SL will be quick to replicate it!

A ‘cock in a sock’ set can be found on the Marketplace, from ieQED, priced at L$75

Like the male thong, I don’t quite understand why people would want this accessory in their wardrobe, but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway. There’s almost certainly someone out there who will say ‘the very thing!’ 🙂

Pookes

The Linden dollar exchange disaster?

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Yesterday Linden Labs closed its Exchange Affiliate programme, meaning that the hitherto simple task of paying with Paypal seems to have been discontinued. I had no idea that this was something that was going to happen. Apparently, the LindeX exchange is now the only way to do it…

 

I tried to go onto Lindex, only to discover that the only option is to buy in US$ (unless I’m missing something). I don’t want to buy in US$, for the simple reason that I would fully expect my bank to slap on a transaction fee for US$ to £ exchange. It’s not just £’s. There doesn’t seem to be an option to buy in any other currency other than dollars.

lindex

 

I can merrily muddle on in SL for…ooh…weeks, maybe months yet with what L$ I have. I don’t own a house. I’ve no rent to pay. But imagine, this morning, that your rent is due and you intended to buy some L$ in pounds, euros, yen…whatever. Are you stuck? From what I can see, yes. Might you lose your house if you’re not going to be able to pay your rent (unless you make payment in US$ and accept the bank charges likely to be applied.lindens2

A couple of clicks with my Paypal account used to see the virtual currency land in my inworld presence in a couple of minutes, followed buy a rubbing of the hands and a shopping  spree. I would have done something similar this morning, but now I’ll be watching my remaining L$ like a hawk until what seems to me like a fairly serious problem is fixed in some way. Or perhaps I will decide not to engage further with the Second Life economy and simply limit my purchases to freebies and group gifts. Is this really the way forward that Linden Labs envisage? Is it what I want. No, would be the answer in both cases I think.

The previous, Paypal system wasn’t broken. It didn’t need fixing.

Are Linden Labs hell-bent on wrecking their invention? Each step forward seems to be accompanied by two steps back. Am I missing something? Is there any way in which I can buy some L$ with a £ paypal account? If I can’t, does anyone have any indication how much my bank is likely to charge me?

 

Ella

 

edited to add… I’ve also tried Virwox, which does offer £’s exchange, but their website offers the following message…

virwox
I don’t exist! 😦

The way Linden Labs mess around with their invention, it would rather seem they don’t want any of us to exist. Another poorly thought out Linden Lab disaster!