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If you want something that looks futuristic, two places to go to are sYs and Zibska.  With careful choices, the avant-garde selection of clothes at sYs will fill the bill quite nicely, while still be wearable day-to-day around the Grid.  And Zibska…well, most of Zib Scaggs’ wigs and makeup are definitely on the rising side of the fashion curve — as in “attaining escape velocity.”

Here’s a nice mix of goodies for your consideration, including one of Zibska’s new hairstyles available at Hair Fair 2015.  As for the outfit, the Hesiod pants are constructed of Neoprene — wetsuit rubber, in other words, and nicely fitting, with a button fly.  The pants are paired in the set with mid-sleeved crop tops in luxuriant materials.  And these sandals have heels that I love:

I’d hate walking on these for a long term in RL, but they’re magnificent in Second Life.

The focus for now, of course, is Hair Fair.  We move to Zibska, then, and her Titan style, one of five available.  It comes with a box of hairbases; considering some of the scripted colors available, you’ll want it.  I went conservative in this case, and stuck with blonde.  And how does one get your hair wound up into a pair of chain-link strands?  Don’t ask me, man; all I know is that it looks great!  I added on Zibska eyeshadow, which may or may not still be available, as Zib staged a clearance recently, and my usual (not available) Liquid Glaze liner.  Not a bad look overall for someone who is off duty on a space station!

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The details:

• Skin: Glam Affair Cleo (America – Clean B)
• Eyes: Sterling Artistry Jeweled Eyes (brightblue)
• Hair: Zibska Titan (available at Hair Fair 2015)
• Attachments: Slink hands (Casual) and feet (High); StrawberrySingh.com Broken Ankle Fix – Ankle Lock v2.0
• Nails: La Boheme Industrial Steel mani/pedi
• Outfit: sYs Hesiod shirt (blue) and neoprene pants (black) (separates)
• Shoes: sYs Opyum wedges (black/gold, SLink)
• Earrings: Dahlinks Stage and Screen diamond and gold studs
• Makeup: Zibska Ire (Red); *BOOM* Liquid Glaze (lashed Lime; no longer available); Buzzeri Gem lipstick (Tigers Eye)

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A quick note here on a lovely asymmetrical bob hairstyle I received for review recently.  Tameless is a salon I have not hear of before, but this Norine style, wavy and moving in the breeze as you walk, is an excellent wig for any who enjoy short styles, or want a more practical hairdo for some circumstances, like getting ready to go into a combat situation.  It can stand up to formal wear as well, though, as you see here, and you’ll see on my New Year’s Eve card tomorrow.

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I stopped by the Pixel Bean Coffee House this morning for a cup of joe, and found that the deck was deep in falling leaves.  There was a rake and wheelbarrow off to the side, but the maintenance man looked to be taking a break.  A definite nip in the air, too — fall is arriving for sure.  My legs cursed me for wearing a miniskirt this morning, but at least the rest of me was nice and warm in this outfit from Prism, given to me by the store’s Herradura Baar as a rezz day gift last week.

Don’t you just love that texture, created by Journey McLaglen?  You can see the individual knit rows here, and the colors are wonderful, a contrast to the reds and golds of the leaves around us.  (Although, if you have a taste for lots of orange, there’s a special Hallowe’en version available at the store right now.)  The prim collar and shoulders are very nice, as well, and don’t look to go shifting around into Strange Locations.  (There are stocking cuffs as well, but I left them off here.)  Lots of nice, snuggly warmth here for a chilly autumn morning.  I’d better enjoy it now, before the virtual snow starts to fly in many places.

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The details:

• Skin:  PXL Candy Sunkissed, SE, Red lips
• Eyes:  Poetic Colors Gold Flakes (sapphire)
• Hair:  fri.day Leigh (Jealous Red)
• Top, skirt, stockings:  Prism Laura (blue/sage) (gift from store)
• Shoes:  Detour Supersprint sneakers
• Jewelry:  Dahlinks Stage & Screen diamond studs; DDL black onyx/silver ring
• Lashes:  Adam n Eve Glamour prim lashes
• Glasses:  Epoque Swan Shades (loud color, metal handle)

Thanks to Nero Yedmore and Lureila for consenting to appear in the background.

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The woman stood and contemplated the fire burning low on the hearth.  It gave off little heat, was there more for the light than anything; she had no need for the heat, not since the day he had come and touched her lips and heart.  Moon-pale she had always been, some said.  Not as pale then as now, though, others replied.  A few of the servants had spied from behind doors and curtains, as servants often would, and they all swore that they could see the color draining from her face, the red of her lips replaced by the black, some claimed, of the grave.  Her people had served her faithfully before — now they feared to leave her, lest she come seeking them some night, and bring them back to her halls, changed as she was….

Keep on reading after the break.  Fair warning:  lots of pictures.

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Lisavet Darchiev swiped her key card in the lock slot and stepped inside Suite 484 on board the S. S. Galaxy. She glanced idly at the rate card on the back of the door as she closed and locked it; then she blinked, and with a shudder, she read, “L$5,200/week.” Bozhe moi!! It still gave her a shock every time she thought of how much this business meeting disguised as a party was costing her publishers. L$5,200 was more in one week than Lisavet made in a month at her old job, and she was not that badly paid. At the same time, the whole concept gave her a delighted frisson. Here she was, once an administrative assistant assigned to the Russian Embassy in London; now she was the toast of the literary world, or at least the mystery/thriller world, being compared to the next Stieg Larsson, and being feted like the Tsar of All the Russias at the release party for the English edition of her second book.

Andrei, her agent and publicist, born in London but Russian to his soul, was already in the suite; he waved across the great room from the windows, came to give Lisavet a hug and an air kiss, and said in Russian, “So, Lisavet Petrovna, how do you enjoy Miami weather?”

“Much nicer than home in Petersburg, Andrei Leonovich; maybe I can actually get a tan here.”

Andrei laughed, then took Lisavet upstairs to her personal bedroom, followed by a ship’s maid. It was a complete mini-suite, with a large shower, marble tub, comfortable bed, and a personal private balcony beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. “I think this should do the job, don’t you? Just the surroundings for E. P. Darchiev, literary sensation, to make her first big splash in the world of charming the critics.”

Lisavet giggled as she dropped her purse on the bed. “The critics won’t be coming in here, Andrei. And I still need to get used to people calling me ‘E. P. Darchiev.'”

“Well, like I said when you hired me, do you know how long the British and Americans would struggle trying to get out ‘Elisaveta Petrovna Darchiev’? Let alone the spelling mistakes for years? Tell them your real name when they’re interviewing you, but give the printers and proofreaders a break, and life will be much saner in the end.”

While the maid put away the luggage in drawers, and the ship pulled out of dock to make weigh, Andrei gave Lisavet a rundown on the schedule. This first day would be free time for Lisavet until 6:30, as everyone else was getting established in their cabins and staterooms as well. Come dinner time, she would need to be ready for the party she was “hosting” for the press and booksellers’ buyers. Lisavet nodded happily; that gave her some few hours to enjoy the Galaxy‘s amenities before she had to get ready.

A half-hour later, Lisavet was clad in a new swimsuit, and floating on an inflatable chair in the ship’s salt-water pool on the top deck. Here in the Caribbean, the weather was warm and sunny even in November, miles away from conditions back home in old Saint Petersburg. She relaxed back into the gentle support, letting the tropical sun warm her and tan her while she considered ordering a margarita. Or would a piña colada be more appropriate…? Ah, well, for now, she would just kick back and get rid of a little of her boreal winter pallor. Saint Petersburg was her home, but it was good to get away for a little sun now and again — that’s why everyone in Russia seemed headed for Odessa on the Black Sea back in the Soviet days. She spread herself out to the best decorative position with an internal smile, watching through slitted lids and lashes as two men walked by on the deck and stopped to stare at her.

It ended up a margarita, after she got out of the pool, toweled herself off, and slipped back into her batik walking sash and sandals, left on a deck chair. She was a good daughter of Mother Russia; sometimes, though, you needed a change of pace from all that vodka….

After that, a light lunch of sushi and rice in the Japanese restaurant on the conference level — the tuna looked very fresh, and was — followed by a short round of shopping in the small stores, and then back to the suite to be primped and pampered for the party.

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Lisavet waved across the room and called out, “Andrei Leonovich, come here, please,” calling him over to help with an impromptu talk with one of the critics, this one for the New York Review. Things had gone splendidly all night, but it paid to never be caught out. She shimmered in her new evening gown: strapless, with a luxurious pattern in gold print on silk, it was appropriately named Goddess. That’s just how Lisavet felt all through the night. Everyone she had talked to raved about their advance copies of the new book, and it looked like she was well on her way to another best-seller. It wasn’t over yet, though; there were six more days of talks with individual reporters — the Review had decided to get his licks in early — as well as the usual shipboard activities to “cope” with. She grinned to herself; somehow, she thought, she could manage that….

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The details:

The standard stuff —

• Skin: PXL Candy
• Eyes: Poetic Gold Flake eyes (sapphire)
• Nails: Mandala Nail Palette 1 (medium size, HUD controllable)

Daytime:

• Bikini: Connors Hula Sash blue batik, w/ skirt for wear outside the water
• Sandals: EarthStones Lalika sandals (Deep Ocean)
• Hair: Analog Dog Harper (cherry)

At the party:

• Dress: Gizza Goddess (includes armlets)
• Shoes: N-core XtremeHeel II slingbacks (silver)
• Jewelry: Finesmith Noga suite (earrings, necklace, ring)
• Hair: Vanity Shizuka (Feux, w/o fans)
• Makeup: Miamai XGen Vintage Liner, Dark Delight eyeshadow

All photos taken on board the S. S. Galaxy, a three-sim-large cruise ship with all the amenities you could imagine or desire. The teleport will drop you at the embarkation dock.

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For years, the Brandenburger Tor, or Brandenburg Gate, was the image of Berlin in the imaginations of people.  Constructed in the late 1700s, it originally served as an actual gate to the city of Berlin, and stood at one end of the Unter den Linden, a monumental avenue of linden trees.

Then came the events of World War II and the Cold War.  The Gate became a symbol of Nazi Germany, and then eventually a symbol of the division of Germany into Western and Communist blocs, focused on Berlin.  And much of it has to do with a wall.

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Say it ain’t true
The things that they’ve been saying
They say that you’ve found
Someone new
But don’t break my heart
‘Cos your baby never looked good in blue
Your baby never looked good in blue

     — Exposé, “Your Baby Never Looked Good in Blue”

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One of my two favorite time of year in Second Life has arrived.  It’s Hair Fair time, when we fight insane amounts of avatars in the quest to fill our Inventories with lovely new hairstyles.  I’ve already worked through one region, and am planning on finding a box again tonight and trying to hit the next.

Whimsy Winx has written an excellent article at the official HF blog on how you can reduce your lag, which is similar to the one I reblogged recently.  Please go and read one or the other, and take the advice.  It may make for a far less interesting visual experience, but it will improve your shopping experience tremendously.  As for myself, I did some pre-shopping by joining the Hair Fair Demos group and receiving a mess of boxes of demos, most of which I tried on.  It gave me a sense of what to prepare my budget for, though there’s always something else.  And I followed the advice myself, dressing very conservatively before working my way into a chink in the sim population.

What you see above isn’t the ultimate in festival dressing; you can get yourself down to just 1 ARC by putting on a “system leotard,” which can be as simple as a cunningly created skin, and going bald, as I did a few years ago during the “Candy Land” Hair Fair.  The picture above comes very close, though, with only the simple sandals tipping the scale over to a still-green 365 ARC.  Frankly, since I rode around on one of the boxes left for use by the organizers for edit-flying, I could drop the sandals as well; after all, I wasn’t going to even get any virtual sand from the beach-themed pathways in my shoes.  Doing that, wearing only primless system-level clothing and a tattoo-layer hairbase, the ARC can be 100 or less, unless you move.  I left my AO off as well; what little walking I did was duck-walking, but it was for a good cause.

Remember to be at least a little loose with your wallets when you shop at these events.  The Accessory Fair in June was for the Relay for Life; as is traditional for Hair Fair, contributions (either direct or in the form of cuts on purchases) will go to purchase wigs for children with hair-loss problems, often through disease or chemotherapy.  The full details can be found at Wigs for Kids, the organization receiving the donated money.

List of SLurls

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Especially when you are wearing a longer style.  Like this one, which I found while I was cleaning Inventory tonight:

I won’t name it, and there’s no real need to, as the phenomenon can’t be helped.  If you’re gonna wear hair that long, and your head sways from neutral — as most heads will if you wear an AO — you, too, will suffer from occasional Hairy Boob Syndrome.

However, there is hope!  Virtual scientists and researchers are even now working on a cure.  I am accepting donations to further the good work in this quest.  Minimum donations of L$10,000 may be sent to my treasurer, Irving Lipschwitz, care of Jackson State Penitentiary.  (Or is that the state prison in Starke?  They keep moving him.)

(Chuckle)

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I’ve been sorting through my Inventory in odd moments lately, partly to just clear out over three years of deadwood, demos and Stuff I Can’t Believe I Bought.  But it was also to find things I’d lost or forgotten about.  And I have been successful.

The backward horns you see on my head in the above are not horns; they are my hair — well, as much as anything is really my hair in Second Life.  But it’s one of the earliest wigs I still own, and one of my most prized — Covet by Sinsation. You all know my love for wild hair if you’re long-time readers of this blog. Well, Sinnocent Mirabeau, now CallaLily Munster, was one of the reasons I started going for the wilder styles. Her old store, sadly now closed for a year or so, had some of the most amazing hairstyles I’ve ever seen, and the ones I own are prized keepsakes.  Sinny took the idea of looped braids here in Covet, and basically set off a stick of dynamite in each braid, while containing the explosion inside a set of hoops.  To some, it looks like I’m wearing three old tires on my head; to me and to all True Coiffuristas, the effect is fantastic and exotic.

There is one small drawback, though, that comes when I’m sitting in something like a conversation pit, as I was at the University of South Denmark: