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...

More hobbiting

Novelty bobbin seating sets bought: 1 (good); Cute postbox with seating animation bought: 1 (cute); Provision jars bought: 3 (good); Rustic seat bought: 1 (good); Terracotta pots bought: 2 (good); Standard lamp bought: 1 (good); Red squirrels bought: 1 (v.v. good); Carrots bought: 2 (good); Rabbits bought: 1 (a little weird, actually).

Have made further embellishments to cute hobbit home, encouraged by interest of North Lamar (who sent me 1st pic shown here, of himself outside same, cool or what) and Peregrine, of whom more when I write up more serious meeting that attended yesterday.

2nd pic shows house at dusk so cannot see all detail of new installations, namely a couple of artful pots with flowers in, the rustic seat for contemplating horizon and postbox arrangement on one of the walls. Can Sit on post, and am shown doing so in 3rd pic.

When sifting through inventory for suitable furniture discovered unused set comprising table in form of bobbin with 6 seats in form of cotton reels, some with pins sticking out to form back of chair. On grounds that if start with Hobbit house then there are few upper limits to cuteness, set out these half dozen stools/ reels and then bought some more so that could use it as fully fledged discussion area (can just be seen behind North in 1st photo). Also bought jars and lamp as decoration and installed Christmas Gluhwein barrel and tea, as appropriate Hobbity beverages.

Hobbit House is near Magic Apple Tree which unfortunately has lost some of its magic since what used to be a seat at the base of the trunk on which one could picturesquely recline appears to have been eaten by tree. Now if one Sits one is aborbed into tree with only feet sticking out. This is what comes of sculpted prims. Animated Squirrel, though, retains charm and after gazing fondly upon its scurrying and chirping for a while decided 2 squirrels are even cuter than one so bought Red squirrel to join Grey one, but at opposite sides of tree as we all know how grey squirrels deal with red in RL (i.e. beat them up and let them starve).

When buying red squirrel in Second Wildlife (advert) also fell to temptation of Rabbit, in fact initially lured in by 15 Linden carrots which one leaves lying around for Rabbits and are meant to encourage them to hop about in lively fashion. However rabbit appears only too lively and frankly rather malformed. Is shown in final pic as blob in foreground, next to carrot. Have put rabbit on hillside behind Hobbit home where sort of blends into landscape, it seemed the best thing.