Was blind but now I SEE!!!!!!!!

Hi from the land of fever. 102.5 F to be exact!

WOOOOOO HOOOOOO! I have the flu. THANK YOU JESUS FOR THIS FLU because my company has a new "swine flu prevention" policy that says if you have a fever, you cannot come back to the office until 48 hours after it's gone. Gosh, that'll break my heart, but OK.

Excuse me for a minute while I go make a hot toddy . . . . . . .

(Starve a cold, feed a fever . . . with scotch.)

OK, I'm back.

It's been a while since we've had exuberant exclamation points and bold all caps over here, so here we go:

So HEY EVERYBODY! I finally got my new MacBook Pro, optimized for superior online gaming performance, and

WOW!

It reminds me of my childhood, when I spent years running around not being able to see clearly but not realizing it, and then finally getting glasses and just gaping at everything in wonder. And then to take it a step further, getting contacts later and looking so much more attractive than the Coke-bottle-glasses geek face I was before.

Because this baby is sleek! SLEEK, I TELL YOU! SLEEK!

This is the first time I've really been able to see you, my friends. Seriously, many of you have been lovely gray blobs to me up until now. And my house! And the island where I live! I didn't realize I had so many neighbors all around me!!

And the clothes are so detailed! For instance, I've always loved Evie's Closet, but now that everything is so high-res, I love it even more!

We now pause for some news you can use:

That Christmas Caterina Gown in the pic up top is a prize in the Evie's Closet Lucky Dip (50L per dip and there are several cute prizes to win). But if you're lazy like I am, you can just buy it (500L). And that great Blinky hair with little holiday lights in it is one of three 50L holiday hairstyles at Magika. LOVE! I'm also wearing Tuli's Bella skin in Elysium/Fair.

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd buy a fatpack of a freckled skins, but hey, never say never, kids.

Anyway, life is trippy right now. TRIPPY! Like a 'shroom trip!

For instance, the first time I saw my AV move on this new computer, I FREAKED OUT A LITTLE! You have to understand, on my decent-but-not-as-awesome plain ol' MacBook, Emerald kind of clomped and jerked around, like "clomp clomp jerk jerk clomp pause do the robot clomp clomp some more."

Now she moves so fluidly! Like a movie!

It's like a whole new world, and it totally makes me want to belt out that Disney song from "Aladdin."

"A WHOLE NEWWWWWWW WORRRRRRRRRRRRRLD!"

OK, I'll stop now.

The downside is that I can now clearly see horrible things like this:



Crack is whack! Even in a "hey, c'mon over and pop my" thong. Wow, those jeans are low. Why even wear pants at all?

But yeah, I can see what everyone's wearing now. And I'm watching you!

And facelights! Now I get it, I get it! Months ago, my friend Soph begged me to remove my facelight. "You're blinding me!" she wailed.

"But it makes my face look so pretty!" I protested.

"Not to me!" she said. "Just optimize your Windlight settings and you won't need a facelight!"

So I did. And she had a point. But I still didn't really get it, because my facelit face never looked blinding to me.

But she was right! Because now this is what people wearing facelights look like:



(Sorry, small pic.) At first I thought this girl was wearing a really flawed skin or even clown makeup. Then I realized it was her facelight!

And shoes! I never got the whole shoe craze. They weren't that exciting to me. But I finally went to the Shoe Expo, and not only did everything REZ around me, but the shoes looked delicious! I wanted to stick them in cones and LICK THEM!!!!



Dear Pixel Mode, I love your Danger shoes, but I hate my freaky feet and my even-more-freaky ankles.

So speaking of seeing the world with fresh eyes and childlike wonder, my three-year-old niece came over the other day. She brought her Barbies with her.

"Hey, wanna see MY Barbie?" I asked.

"HELL YES!" she screamed. (OK, no she didn't. But she did say "OK!")

I logged into SL. I showed her Emerald. I told her we could dress her up any way we wanted. I told her that Emerald could even do cool things like fly or ice skate.

For the record, my niece gave my Bax Coen ice skates a thumbs-down.

"NO MORE ICE SKATING!" she commanded.

Sheeeeeesh, OK!

I took her to Bliss Couture. Or actually, I sent Emerald to Bliss Couture while we watched.

I let my niece pick out a dress. Then we went to That Hair Store and I let her pick out a hair style. Then she picked out the makeup.

Here's the three-year-old fashionista-in-the-making's finished product:



Wow, purple! Lots of it!

And *cough* expensive!

The kid has good taste.

Dress: Scarlette Gown in Purple (750L) from Bliss Couture
Hair: Eva in Swedish (250L) from Truth
Skin: Bella in Sophia (Fair) from Tuli (Single skin, 1000L; Fatpack: 4950L)

"Now what does she do?" my niece asked.

"Well . . . nothing. She just kind of stands there and, well, she just stands there. But I know where a train is. We could make her go ride it! Or I can make her dance!"

"No. Let's go make some eggs and watch Mickey Mouse!"

OK! :D

(Meanwhile, a shot of the action on the other side of the monitor, as captured by the iCam.)

Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is an upper lip. Love, E.