Men's Second Style

When he stepped off the train into the empty station, he felt not fear or apprehension but, rather, simple annoyance. He hesitated for a moment and turned to signal the porter, but the porter had vanished back into the car and the train was already pulling out of the station in chuffing clouds of steam. He was annoyed because it had been no small task to secure passage to New Babbage on such short notice (notwithstanding the urgent nature and secretly noble origins of the request), especially in a style to which he was most comfortably accustomed. He was annoyed because he could see clearly that, in spite of all extravagant promises to the contrary, no one was there to meet him. He was annoyed because he could see that the nearby hostelry was the Mechanix Arms—no doubt a fine enough establishment, but it was not the Brunel Hall Hotel, where he had rooms reserved for his immediate occupancy. Read the rest of this entry »

It is not widely known that the Fae Airborne Legion played a critical role in several key victories during the Clockworks Campaign of 1864. In fact, the very existence of the Fae Airborne Legion is not widely known. This is doubtless due to the fae people’s resistance to fame and publicity. Written history (human, of course, as the fae keep no such tradition) is all but mum on the subject. Nonetheless, oral histories of fae and human alike document and retell tales of decisive victories, such as the one at Gorham Grange, that would surely have been routs but for the contributions of the FAL. Read the rest of this entry »

After relegating casual summer attire to the back seat in my last post, I thought it only fair to offer a reminder of how attractive casual can be. After all, we’re about to head into September, and in much of North America this last month of summer is about as hot as things get. After all, it’s not like shorts are going out of style. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes, when I’m having a particularly lazy day at home, I just don’t feel much like changing into non-lazy (and therefore less comfortable) clothing before going out. Even less do I feel like “dressing up.” Hey, I figure everyone’s lucky I got dressed at all. In real life, this usually means, t-shirt, shorts and sandals. (On less slovenly Saturdays, the shirt may be Cubavera, the shorts linen.) But let’s face it—in SL, I can do better than that. I can be hotter than that. We all can. Read the rest of this entry »

Riq Graves’s main store/planet can be found at Reek (42, 52, 325).

I was more than a little amused when I read a recent comment from Rhys, something along the lines of “going more steampunk.” It was funny because I was already putting together a steampunk feature in my head, having realized that it had been a while since I had been to Babbage. Unfortunately, finishing it up took longer than I had anticipated—but here we are at last! Read the rest of this entry »

If I’ve observed previously that creating white or even light-colored clothing in SL is a thankless task—and I’m sure I have—it’s only because it’s so eternally true. Even so, there are fearless designers who from time to time take that plunge, which I consider to be an especially bold one. Shiryu Musashi’s recent foray into the wide white wastes, his “Holidays in Cortina” formal suit, is a beautiful and tremendously successful accomplishment in oh-so-sophisticated ivory. It’s perfect for your own travel excursion to northern Italy’s Cortina d’Ampezzo, or perhaps SL’s virtual equivalent. Read the rest of this entry »

ven though the poster only had photos of women on it, I took a chance and bought Sonatta Morales‘s Charleston glasses for L$100. It was the right decision. These beauties feature great tortoise-shell rims with brass arms and fittings. Darned if they don’t feel right at home with any outfit from contemporary to 1920s period-piece to steam-punk.

There are three copies of the glasses in the folder: clear glass (shown), sunglasses and dark sunglasses. The permissions are set to No Transfer. Out of the box, they’re too small for a male avatar and they attach to mouth rather than nose, but they’re modify ok, so I was able to attach to nose, and move them into position and enlarge them just fine.

Charlestown glasses are available from Sonatta Morales at her main store in Ballyboo.

He saw himself as Bodhi. Read the rest of this entry »

see through our eyes, nor are they the window to our souls. Our Second Life vision cannot be brought into focus by interposing precision-ground prims between eyes and environment. Nor can Second Life’s blinding glare be tamed with tint or texture. We see, and are seen, as images adorned with objects that only change our view as much as they change our mood — expressions of my taste or of my familiarity or of my wishful thinking. I wear glasses not so I can recognize you, but so that we can recognize me.

When I surveyed some Second Life residents to find out why their avatars wore glasses, almost all of them said it was because they wore glasses in RL. When I asked, however, whether they were therefore looking for SL glasses that matched their RL ones, there was a lot more variety. Rozoregalia Braveheart created a series of 7 pairs of glasses called “Formica” that are not like your RL glasses. They’re sold in a shop of jewelry. And perhaps that’s how it should be. Most sets come in polished carbonfibre black and burnished chrome; these are finely crafted prims. They look great from a distance and even better when you zoom in. Read the rest of this entry »