New home for Dimitrova

New homes: 1 (excessive)

Was tempted into SL action by the announcement today of the "free homes" available for premium residents. This is an attempt to get more people staying in SL and starting to pay tier. You don't have to pay for the land, the ready-made houses don't count towards your prim allowance (a definite bonus if you only have the minimum area), there is landscaping, and paths between the houses, and you are guaranteed not to have a nightclub start up next door.
It's an interesting move towards a "housing estate" approach to mainland, away from a North American free-for-all: though of course some people have been offering these kinds of environments on a rental basis for ages.



I went premium with Dimitrova, my main alt, when I cut down my personal land, but found that I was going over into to the next tier if I kept the amount I wanted to. It was cheaper to have Dimi go premie, so I could sell her the land for 1 Linden, and make her a buffer between me and nightclub land. However, I then found it was more interesting still to move her around to explore living in a couple of other different places. Now she has taken up the Lindens offer, abandoned her old tiny plot (land prices, already dire, will go even lower, so pointless to try selling) and opted for a dwelling in what appears to be The Shire, except they can't call it that for copyright reasons, I presume.

The pictures show her 3 roomed house from 2 angles, plus one of the rooms. You'll see it has integral mushrooms. The houses are not really state-of-the-art design, but I imagine that is so the commercial house designers feel they still have some sort of competitive advantage.

I think that there will still be issues for newbies, since the rooms, being small, are difficult to position things in (the only "furniture" in it to start with was the fire, the other stuff belongs to Dimitrova). There was also a curious glitch that meant that any rugs I tried to rez were disappearing into the floor, and couldn't be spotted with any amount of camming round. However, there is more of a feel of safety and possibilities for meeting up with neighbours.

There were a good number of green dots on the map when she was there: though if everyone's an alt like me, community building will take a bit of time...

Low prim, high prim

Houses bought: 3 (good); Student rooms created: 4 (good); Fairy wonderlands created: 1 (good); Alts with unspellable names created: 1 (good); Hours spent in SL: lots (bad)

Have been spending so much time in SL, there's been no time to blog. Lots to report in future posts. Am preparing stuff for the island, should Lindens ever deign to deliver it, and/or answer any of my emails/ tickets etc.

Have seen that it is recommended you create an alternative avatar to whom you give stuff you create so if all goes pear shaped with own avatar there is a backup. Intended to create one with sensible name. However saw that Shostakovich was available as surname, and as am fan of music of Dmitri S, could not resist creating Dimitrova Shostakovich. Bad idea as even I misspell this name when logging into SL.

Also although intention was to spend v. little time inevitably she takes own life of own. Have decided that she will survive with only judicious handouts from self. Set her up with elegant new hair and skin but otherwise seeking free and cheap options. Thus have developed new blog: Low prim living with style at http://lowprimstyle.blogspot.com/ Above you see Dimitrova in a more artistic moment at ISTE and in 2nd pic self hovering outside the the Insect House which will be a small breakout room on the island and is currently above my place, Cove. Am wearing cute bear backpack and Intelligent prim dress from Nyte 'n Day (v. good, I may say).