I'm still alive, I swear. I've been dealing with some drama, which has sapped tons of energy from me, but has in return been my blessing in disguise. It's made me take a closer look at people I consider friends, and rid myself (taken off my friends list and muted) those who need cleansing from my life. And, I thank my husband, Jeffry, for everyday he talked me down from doing something incredibly stupid on a whim that I would regret later. So, I have channeled this negative energy into a couple positive projects and various different things in SL.

So, 2 months ago, if you had asked me to change skins, I would have laughed and took it as a joke. I rarely change skins. I go through stages, only really updating my skin when something better comes out. I normally stay with only one skin for several months. However, I just changed my skin late last month.

I was doing a little organizing of my inventory, when I came across a folder from a popular skin store, with a group gift in it. I put it on - omg, LOVE. It makes me look more mature, more sexy, but still cute at the same time. I love it, and the body is soooo well done, with a bit of shininess to it too. And the boob shading. OMG, its perfect.

I think the skin is sooo Sai. And this HAIR. I love it, and I haven't taken it off since I bought it. I warned Jeffry that I might never take it off. I've been trying to get Jeffry and I into Octoberville, but it's been full, and I can never seem to TP there, so I have decided I will not change clothes until we go visit Octoberville together. XD Its the perfect outfit to run around a fall inspired sim in.


I've been playing around with Picnik too - its so great, you can upload a photo and do photoshop-like things to it, like add grain, tint, add blurs, soften the photo and all. I couldn't help not editing one of these photos, and I think it came out really interesting. Photo taken in our home, edited totally by Picnik (Go try it, its awesome!).

Its been a while, and yes, I still live! I've been getting a few curious IM's, notecards and such, with people asking if I am ok. Yes, I am. I've been dealing with RL, an Aion addiction, and a sudden illness that came over a close family member.

But, I've been moving into a new apartment, and settling into life there - which has been a bit of a challenge. I've pretty much gotten everything unpacked, and finally put my shelves and curtains up over the weekend. All I have left is to unload my books onto my shelves. :D I contemplated blogging about the new apartment for a while, even had a whole post written, but then deleted it. I decided that I don't want force my RL onto people. Instead, if people have interest, they can check out the Apartment flickr set I've created. :D

I've been slowly getting back the swing of SL. Jeffry and I gave up our sim, found new land, with the worst neighbors ever. But, its home, and affordable for the amount of time we are in SL lately. I did a new release for [ImpEle], the first one in about 2 months. I've been spending more time in SL, I actually went shopping this morning, and Jeffry bought a new bedroom set for us on Friday, and we watched a silly movie together on our beautiful new Loft bed.

As I said above, Jeffry and I got new land, and I plopped my old Pixel Mode house down. It fits the land really well, with some modding. The rooms are perfect for what we need - Jasmine's room, living room, foyer, kitchen, dining room and bedroom. The house isn't entirely done yet, so I'll hold off on posting pictures of the whole house. The husband doesn't really like to change houses often, so there's really no hurry to finish it.

But, I did decorate it for Halloween. I'm not fond of Halloween at all, in fact ... I believe its one of the worst holiday's ever, but I do like to decorate for the seasons, and I love these pumpkins too much to not use. And, they work well for Thanksgiving too. :D


The one thing I've always hated about this Pixel Mode house - is the textures. Or, lack of. The walls are flat, blinding white. So, I took some time to retexture every room... and am very happy with the result. I looooove aligning textures, and doing this house was so fun. Add in some m.fox accents, and some furniture picked up at the fri.day sale - you've got a win room. xD


And, I need to say something about this hair. I LOVE IT. Seriously. It's the Southern Belle from Exile, and I don't think I'm ever going to take it off. Ever. It's the first thing that I've actually left the house in search of in several weeks. I haven't really wanted anything lately, but when I seen this hair... I NEEDED.

After I grabbed this hair, I actually spent some time doing the Pieces of You hunt to grab that beautiful Evie's Closet gown... So, I'm returning little by little. ^^

I went to restart the sim my husband (eee! Haha, I'm such a dork) and I live on, and needed a place to go for a few minutes.... so I decided to go to Redgrave and check out if they have any new shoes. Little did I know... I wouldn't even make it to the shoes, instead I'd be standing there trying on skin demos.

I've always liked Redgrave skins. I love the cleavage on them, and the shininess of the body... well, shininess on the paler bodies, the orange colored skin tone with the shine always looks a little dirty to me. The faces look sooo cute one most people. But never me. At one point, I tried every single skin in the store, but still couldn't make them work on me.

Well, I had some time to spare, and I picked up a couple demos again, and tried them on. I came to one of the skins and actually did a double take at it. It didn't look that bad :O I did something - I swore to myself I'd never do: I modified my shape to fit this skin. Mainly just my lips, but still.

Then, instead of packing up more boxes to end the night, I decided to pretend I'm a photographer, snap some photos and post process them. xD I'm such a procrastinator, its really sad. I have 2 days until I move, and I'm still sitting here playing with photos and blogging. xD

I think, the photos I did turned out pretty darn good. I found out how to put a pattern in the background the easy way, and found out how to take a green screen out of the SL photo. I love this skin on me, and I actually think I might keep it for a while. Jeffry doesn't seem to mind, he seems to be like the 'whatever makes you happy' kind of mood with skins. xD


I even cropped it a bit, to make this my new profile photo! \o/ Can I just say, how much I love love love the lips on this skin? I'm really not fond of the eyebrows, and I can't seem to get them how I like them, but the lips make the face worth it. :D And yes, I LOVE this Farrah hair... its so perfect for photos. And don't even get me started on the clothes I bought from fri.day during the Labor Day sale.... *fashion squee!*

Now, its time I run off to do some more procrastinating by taking a nap! :D

So, yesterday was the last day of Aion's Open Beta. I spent the last couple days helping Jeffry level up (who eventually got tired of me screaming "Download Aion NOW!" at him, and downloaded it).

I took some photos of the Verteron Observatory when I didn't want to level anymore. It was the first beachy place I came to. I think in this post, I will tell my thoughts on the game.


I think its obvious though - I love it. But why? Every time I heard about this game, it was filled with excitment and all the screenshots was soo pretty. I asked Jeffry if he would play it with me, and when he finally said he would - I scoured the web for more information on classes, and gameplay. It was right past the last closed beta when I preordered.


So, my excitement esclated and went out of control as I got more and more information. I even got Jeffry looking for more information and he got excited too. xD I downloaded the client early, and checked the website several times a day, waiting for details on the next beta.


Open Beta came, I was jumping off the walls. This was my first MMORPG, I had no idea what to expect. I was expecting people to kill me when I first went into the game. I mean, the higher level players - don't they get experience from killing other people? For the first few hours I was looking over my shoulder, expecting to be killed by higher level players. People were too involved in their quests to even talk to me, let alone to worry about killing me. (Apparently you can only PvP in the Abyss - which you have to be like, lvl25 to enter, I think) xD


My goal was to get used to controls, and fighting during the beta. I didn't want to seem too noobish when the game came out. Because believe me, I really had no idea what I was doing at first. It took me a little while, but I eventually found what a NPC looked like (arrows over their heads, who would have thought? *d'oh*)


I love the interface. Its simple, straightforward, and easy to understand. Wonder what something does? Click it. xD Equipping armor and stuff is painless and easy, attacking is simple, and even the minimap is total win. I'm a total MMO idiot. xD


I played nonstop for several days, and then some more helping Jeffry level up to get his wings. I learned a little about grouping, following, trading and dueling with him too. Even got invited to a Legion then too. I don't know about legions though, I'm perfectly happy with fighting by myself or with Jeffry for now.


Its been only 24 hours, and I'm already starting to have Aion withdrawls. The game was soooo much fun, I can play it for days nonstop. While I can't play it during opening weekend this weekend because I'll be moving to the new apartment and setting my life back up, but you can be assured that I'll be on Aion the first second I get free. :D


The most beautiful photos I got of Aion is during flight transportation. OMG. It took me forever to figure this thing out. I love this. You talk to some person - pay them some currency, and they transport you to your destination by this beautiful bird thing.


But, its not just some transport. This bird takes you through the landscape. Over the tips of trees, through canyons, and even skimming over water, its so beautiful. I swear when I found out I can do this - I went back and forth from place to place for like a half hour. xD


And, with that, that concludes my posts on Aion's Open Beta. Interested in prepurchasing the game? You can check it all out on the Aion website. :D

Tomorrow is the last day of the Aion Open Beta, and it will also be my last post about it for the rest of the week. Until the launch date at least, I'm so excited about it. But, after I hit level 14, I got bored of doing quests, and I decided I wouldn't spend so much time leveling up, or crafting, when my character was going to be wiped on Sunday. So, I decided to just teleport to random places and look around.

I forgot the name of this place, and the average level around me was lvl 20 and above, so it would take me a long time to get here if I was playing normally. xD But, it didn't stop me from exploring everywhere I could. :D


As I said in the post about Verteron, flying is very limited in this game from everywhere I've seen, but flying is allowed here as well. (Yay, second place I found where I could fly!) I flew around here several times, and dying countless times as I run out of flight time and plummet to the ground. :/


I love the bright colors of these rock-buildings. They are soooo bright and pretty. And then the bridges that link them all together omg. Cute! I wonder if I could talk my husband, Jeffry (oooo! The first time calling him my husband in the blog! *dances around) into making our homestead look like this? *Contemplates*


I did find it amusing how - these buildings appear to be carved out of rock, but inside of them were just as beautifully crafted as normal buildings in Sanctum. Strange. :O


I also ran around to the forest area below the rock city and snapped some pictures. These photos don't really look as cool as previous ones, but hey, I think they still turned out pretty cool looking :D


There really are a lot of forest areas in Aion. It seems there are more forest areas than anything else in the Elyos side of Aion. Most of them seem different though, I mean, one is more lush, another is rocky, another is more like, a plain. But yet, they are all interesting. :D


This game has been a really great and welcomed obsession this week, it kept my mind of moving, which I still need to pack for next week. And other various stressful RL things that would have destroyed me otherwise.

I have one more Aion post left, then my life will return to its regularly programmed schedule on Monday. XD

Yay, more Aion photos! I think its awesome so many people are interested in seeing this game - If you haven't preordered it yet - you neeeeeed to! It's so beautiful, and fun :D

Last time, I blogged about Sanctum - today I'll blog about the next city you go to after you get your wings there.... Verteron, and the surrounding Verteron Swamps. I love Vereron almost as much as I love Sanctum, for different reasons. :D


This city was also the first place I found the "Broker". I guess players sell their items all in one place here, which was cool, because I wanted the "Hunter" armor, which seems you can only find it through creatures dropping it. Which, I only found the shoes ... but I wanted the full set. So, I found pieces from the Broker for cheap and got the armor I wanted, the lazy way. xD


I keep saying over and over, its soooooo pretty. One of the reasons I love SL so much is looking at beautiful sims, and admiring people's creativity. Aion makes me feel this way, and I don't even have to go searching through people's Flickr accounts for SLURLs of pretty locations. I get awesome cities and landscapes where ever I turn in Aion.


And besides, how can you not love a game where your character does silly animations like this? I think in this photo she was dusting sand off herself, and later in the desert mines, she whips out a hand fan and fans herself (and even fans under her armpits. o.O) I might have to take a machinima of this, its soooo funny.


As for the Verteron Swamps, I don't know what these were, but they were freaking awesome. :O I couldn't find a way to interact with them, and if I tried to get close, I either hit a barrier thing, or drowned. Looks like I can only admire them from afar. :(


However, I couldn't stop snapping photos of them. Despite their massive size, they look like really kind, gentle creatures who would be hunted just because of their size. (And just one of their skins would probably make some really good leather armor for the rest of my Aion gameplay) :O


And, a more swampy-ish photo, with the awesome, giant creatures in the background. I seriously love those things.


Verteron was also the first place you can fly at. Which to me, was a HUGE let down. Beacuse, in all the places I've been so far, its actually the ONLY place you can fly. In the Dukaki mines... No Fly zone. When I went back to Poeta - nope, can't fly there. The forests outside of Verteron - nope, no flying there either. Why give us wings, if we can't even use them? I was very annoyed with this, but I hope I will be able to fly more later on in the game. :D


But I did decide to take advantage of the only place I could fly, and flew around all of Verteron. Note to self: Do not press Page Down to fly lower, you stop flying mid-flight and will die. I can't even count the amount of times I died doing that. xD


And because I like taking pictures of my character - here's another one. :D I did manage to learn how to whisper to someone - I was so proud of myself. *Beams*

Now, off I go to pack a few more boxes, and get ready to go out to dinner. \o/

As per request - more Aion screenshots! I've been having soooo much fun running around and snapping screenshots. The Aion world is just too beautiful not to.

The most beautiful place I've been to by far, is Sanctum. It's some castle-like town floating in the air, and its absolutely stunning. You first get teleported here when you hit level 10... and this is where I got my wings. (Which, is hilarious to me, because you can't even fly here) xD


I think I spent about 4 hours just looking around exploring this place and taking screenshots before I settled down to do any Quests. Yes, I am easily amused. It seems I spend the majority of my time just exploring. I started playing Aion right when Open Beta started, and am only level 13, while other people are 20 and above. I don't know, either I suck at leveling, or people aren't taking in the beauty of Aion. o.O


This is also the place where you chose your crafting skills. I decided I'd go with Tailoring and Weaponsmithing, and created a pair of leather shoes. But, its extremely time consuming with battling creatures and waiting for them to drop something... and Open Beta is only a week, so I made my shoes and decided I wouldn't bother with it anymore until the game comes out.



Sanctum is my favorite place. It's beautiful you can buy all sorts of interesting things from accessories, to armor and weapons. And, you don't have to worry about violent worgs, or dukaki brawlers coming after you while your back is turned. xD


This is my favorite photo from Sanctum, I think. I turned a corner and seen this, and I was like :O Its beautiful... and Sanctum seems to be a major part in Aion, because all the crafting stations and stuff are located here.


I just *had* to explore every piece of it. There is the Library of the Sages, which is a massive library filled with information I can't even access :P


Also, lots of things to buy - I think this particular area dealt with manastones... or Godstones - I don't know the differences. I've come across several Manastones, but I don't think I've seen a Godstone yet. xD


The interface wasn't too hard to learn, either. It was really just a matter of going like: "I wonder what this button does" *clicks it* "Oh, I see." XD I love that you can have a list of Quests on the side of the screen. It makes things so easy especially when you have to kill like 15 creatures, and you lose count of how many you've already killed.


And, a picture of my character (I've heard people call them toons?). She's so cute, and I absolutely LOVE her armor. And hey, as I was snapping this picture, I realized you could sit on these benches. Clumsily random clicking I guess pays off! XD

OMG, I've been missing from SL fora few days now, and don't really plan on logging in much for the next week. Jeffry is extremely pissed off at me about it too. But anyway - the reason being.... Aion Open Beta has begun! OMG I've been waiting for this game ever since I heard about it, and I preordered it a few weeks ago. Because I preordered, I got access to the open beta! I was sooooooo excited when the beta opened. I've been taking snapshots allllll over the place, its such a beautiful game.

I've never played World of Warcraft. I was never, ever interested in any MMORPG or anything of the sort. Well, aside from FreeRealms, but thats a game geared towards teens, so I don't think that counts. Why this game appealed to me... I have no idea.


I've barely seen daylight since the beta started on Sunday. I've been locked up in my bedroom with the computer, only coming out to grab something to drink, or something to eat... and go to sleep. I've been so obsessed with this game, its almost sad. Packing needs to be done in my house, boxes needs to be moved from upstairs to the garage... but I can't tear myself away long enough to do anything. Some please cut my internet cord? Please? XD


Being a first time MMO player, I'm unsure what is expected of me. Like, I've noticed as I'm standing around with half of my health, another player will come and randomly heal me back to normal. And I can't even find out how to work the confusing chat window to even tell them thanks. And sometimes, they are gone and ran away before I even realize what they did. Am I supposed to say thank you, or help them when they go into battle? I guess I just think too much into things. o.O


The servers had some problems early Sunday morning, Sunday night and again on Monday morning. I had some serious lag issues which made Aion almost unplayable. But today and most of yesterday has been extremely smooth gameplay for me. I really can't get enough of this game. Aion Anonymous, anyone?


I love how this game takes you to various places. Beautiful lakes, lush forests, humble farms, grungy mines, elegant buildings in the sky, cute little villages... I never know what to expect next, and where my next Quest will take me to. I spend most of my time in the game just looking around, admiring all the scenery.


I really can't express how much I love this game. It's beautiful, fun, addicting... and I would really suggest it to anyone. Even if you aren't a gamer. I've taken soooo many more photos, of which I plan on posting here too over the course of the open beta week!