I am not quite sure anymore how I found “Wicked Land”, but it is one of the most enchanting places I have visited in SL. It is a small theme park – small in comparison to other major SL attractions, but is lovingly designed, full of little surprises and made me incredibly happy. Somebody give the creator Rehman Polanski a sim and unlimited prims, please!

This tree stump is actually a whole one-bedroom apartment, complete with a bed and a fireplace. A fairy is playing the piano inside and I stopped for a while to listen.

A few steps further, Baba Yaga is waiting and offers to show you her house. Just be careful – and don’t say later I didn’t warn you!

The castle’s gold treasure is protected by dragons, who get angry very quickly. Don’t cross them! You can buy different dragons in the shop in the sky. I got an adorable little shoulder dragon, which is breathing little clouds and moving around (unfortunately I didn’t manage to take a picture of it). Even better, when somebody comes too close to you, it shoots fireballs at them and turns red with anger. But the sweetest thing happened, when I took it back to visit the big dragons. It declared its love to one of the dragons and sent little hearts into the air!

These Wicked Witches catch fairies and then do horrible things to them! You’d better not come near them or they might do something horrible to you too.

The “Enchanted Waterlilies” are my favourite attraction. It just opened in the last days and was inspired by the “Indian Water Lilies” at the Dutch theme park Efteling. I visited Efteling once and it is such a sweet and magical place, if you ever have the chance to go there, do it! They even have talking trash cans shouting “Papier hier!” (= “paper here”). And if you won’t be able to make it soon, visit “Wicked Land” [SLURL] instead.

Credits (see our “Shops” page for SLURLS):
Skin “Belle Pale” by Belleza
Hair “Dylan” by fri.day
“Winterstock Knit Sweater” by Artilleri, free gift at Winterstock
“Designer Jean” by fri.day
Poses: “Fall Reflections” by Olive Juice (fairy tree house pic) and “Japanese School Girl” by Schadenfreude (dragon pic).

Some days I fear that I might start to get bored with SL. Some days things just seem to be the same over and over again and I feel as if I can’t bear to see another prim. And then I discover a shop with unique and silly things, or teleport to a place where I lose myself for hours and I remember again what kept me here the last two years. Saturday was such a day and I will show you two of the three great places I found today.

“Altya’s Dream Creations and Toys” [SLURL] sells a wide range of silly toys, avatar attachments and other things you never knew you needed. All items also have a “buy as gift” option, which might come in handy for christmas. I love everything to do with aliens and ufos and therefore could not resist to buy this ufo attachment. It folds your avatar so that only your head remains – floating in a blinking ufo jar. You have to detach all prim attachments and it is advisable to at least wear a bikini (for any accidental unfoldings if the AO should not work). It is modifyable so I guess you might be able to put your own name on the sign. I also bought the other version, which is the same ufo jar on an unicycle, complete with little steam clouds and a working horn. Brilliant!

Now that I had turned into an alien, I was looking for a nice space sim to take some pictures. In moments like this I miss the now closed “Privateer Space” sim terribly. It broke my heart – and that of many other people – when it shut down, because it was huge and created by Aley Arai with so much humour and attention to detail. When I read the description of Deshima Space Station, a station “existing far away from major space colonies or settlements”, my interest awoke. And when I teleported there, zoomed out and realised just how huge this station was, my excitement grew.

There is a lot to explore in Deshima and it took a bit of time until I managed to get an overview and to orient myself (and until I found this room with a holographic map of the whole thing). The station basically consistst of three levels, the hangar (where you arrive), the Promenade Deck and the Legacy Deck. The levels are connected with each other through elevators and pressing the green or blue button takes you up or down between them. You can rez a space ship in the hangar and it will open automatically to let you fly out into space, where you can explore the asteroid fields and get a good view of the station.

From the Promenade Deck several automatic doors allow access to the various facilities of the station. They have a canteen, a shop, a medical infirmary, a prison, a theatre (where you can watch Youtube links on a big screen)… Very thoughtfully, a lot of toilet facilities have been provided, something you don’t often see in public buildings in SL.

This is the Botanical Bay, where you can relax in green surroundings and listen to birdsong, have a picnic or watch the carps in the pond.

This has to be the swimming pool with the greatest view in SL! By the way, this is the ufo jarhead unicycle attachment. Love it!

If you would like to see more pictures of Deshima, check out the Flickr stream of Ash Qin, one of the creators, who has put up some high-resolution shots here – or even better, teleport to Deshima (SLURL)and explore it yourself! As far as I understood, Deshima is still under construction and I am very looking forward to see it growing. Deshima is implementing “GreyRP” (more info here), so if you visit, please be respectful towards any ongoing roleplay.

Credits:
Jarhead ufo and unicycle – modifyable – by “Altya’s Dream Creations and Toys” [SLURL]
Skin “Blu Beauty Skin 1″ by MiaSnow [SLURL].
Hair “OCI185″ (gift for update group) by booN [SLURL]
Lashes “Seductress” by LeLutka [SLURL]
Eyes by Miriel (no longer available)

Kero’s Toybox (by Kero Yufi) is a small shop full of little gadgets and silly toys. Originally I had planned to blog about one of my favourite throwers from here, but then I got distracted with all the other wonderful things, so the thrower will have to wait a bit. By the way, one of the freebies is a cute prim gun that, as its name suggests, shoots random plywood prims.

This giant piano reminds me of the scene in the movie “Big” with Tom Hanks and it works exactly the same way. Walk over it to make the keys glow and to produce sounds (it also works when you click on it). Nelly Pigface is having a lot of fun here!

Although you wouldn’t believe it, Nelly Pigface does not only get compliments when she is on the road touring the virtual world. She has heard everything from “how funny” to “what a nightmare” and “you have a purple tongue?!”. Therefore, when she saw this Doll Factory, she decided to give it a go and try a virtual makeover. Just stand on the mat on the left and your avatar will automatically be transferred to the conveyer belt and pass three stations – clothing, makeup and mind. As the process starts, you are given a folder with a shape, a skin and a hud. Put it on for a good laugh before you reach the “mind” station. And the result: Nelly Pigface looks exceptionally beautiful and stylish now, doesn’t she? You get to keep a free doll box as well, or you can even buy the whole doll factory and put it up at home for emergencies.

If you don’t have the space for a whole factory you can also just get this doll box, which comes with different poses and an automatic name script. “Malibu Paulina” is going into mass production as we speak and will soon be available in a toy store near you. “Now let’s forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream.”

Of course I was just kidding. Nelly would never consider a virtual makeover, as she is perfectly happy with her body, her style and her mind. Instead she decided to put on this pair of Faery Jet Wings and head towards the sky. Wohoooo! At this point I also realised that the whole store resembled a giant playroom and the store literally was a toybox. Teleport to Kero’s Toybox here [SLURL].

Credits:
“Nelly Pigface” avatar including hair and sunglasses by Rotten Toe [SLURL]. Dress by [Bingo] [SLURL]. Wedge Pumps by EDT [SLURL]. Dance “f-dance28″ by Henmations [SLURL].

It rains almost every day in Tochigi City, but people have got used to it. When I say “people”, I mean cyborgs. People as in “human” people have been extinct since the Climate Catastrophe, which made Earth unhabitable for every living being except for cockroaches and us cyborgs.

When it rains, it is almost impossible to get an air taxi. My granny always used to say that there is no bad weather, only bad clothing, but she died before the Climate Catastrophe. I am sure she would change her mind now.

On rare occasions the rain stops and everyone rushes outside to make the best of the day. I love to play outside with my dog Claude. He was sent to me as replacement for my old dog, who one day suddenly had a short circuit and exploded. Claude is the latest version and can do tricks, he even plays dead on command! This time I will be more careful and take him back inside when the rain starts again.

Claude and I live in a small apartment downtown. Rent is very expensive and space is a luxury. I am a big fan of retro furniture. Really, not only furniture, I love everything retro and often wish myself back to the past. The “Naughties” must have been a great time. As a child I sat for hours and listened to my granny’s stories about the old internet, airplanes and Harry Potter.

And sometimes when I sleep, I dream of sunshine.

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Credits
Teleport to Tochigi Japan City here [SLURL] – thanks to Gita for the SLURL!
Anipets robot dog by Pannie’s and Rosedrop Media Circus, reacts to chat commands like “sit”, “beg”, bang!”. It is transferable and would make a great christmas gift for your beloved geek [SLURL].
Green Cyborg skin by Loknath Darkmatter available on XStreetSL as limited time offer for $L50).
Cyborg eyes MACHINA (peridot) by Nemuri Kohime, available on XStreetSL.
Dress “Dogu” by Bare Rose [SLURL].
Hair “TOM245 ash” by booN [SLURL].
Shoes: “Basic Stiletto Pumps” by Unique Needs [SLURL] (not sure if these are still available).

Poses:
Airtaxi pose “Jazzhands revisited – Jazzy4″ by LAP [SLURL].
Playing pose “Kicking Leaves” by Olive Juice [SLURL].

Happy Halloween everyone! We hope you are having a great weekend, no matter if you are celebrating today by getting dressed up and eating lots of candy or are doing other enjoyable things. If you are looking for some inspiration for things to do in SL, here are three great places you could explore. Have fun!

Empress and Hierophant [SLURL].

Bentham Forest [SLURL].

The Space Between These Trees [SLURL].

Skeleton avatar by Loco Pocos [SLURL].