The Poetry Of Winter.

Winter has fallen and flakes of snow drift lazily to the ground in the cold, dense air. Around all of us is the romance of the holidays and the joy of seeing the warm smiles of distant loved ones once again. Memories resurface of cuddling on a park bench with a lover as the snow falls, kissing their nose and sharing an intimate laugh. The joyful noise of the young fill the days with excitement and wonder. Winter can be a romantic time of the year, and within it there is poetry around all of us. Sadly, it is completely ruined by the lousy weather. The best thing about winter is sending my friends to miserably cold places to get even for trips to the beach I didn't get invited to. Riot Bayn can tell you all about that when his teeth stop chattering. The Megastuff 2 Hunt is going on right now. It consists of the Menstuff, Womenstuff and Homestuff hunts, all running at the same time. They are on until January 2nd and are generally excellent hunts. Riot is wearing the Stephen Steel Grey Jacket - the Menstuff Hunt gift from JFM (Jana's For Men). The garment is a well made, warm looking MESH jacket perfect for these winter months and JFM was very thoughtful in including a FITMESH version in the package as well. It is a well done garment and deserves some extra love from us hunters. Riot is also wearing another Menstuff Hunt gift in this post, the prize from HAWKER'S HOUSE. Their gift includes the very nice black turtleneck and chino slacks in black. The sweater is nicely textured and is a system (in layers) garment which makes it fantastic to go under mesh coats and jackets. It is a great thing to have in inventory for that reason alone. If that wasn't enough of a reason to pick up the Hawker's House Menstuff Hunt prize, here is another one: the MESH black chino slacks Riot are wearing is also part of the same gift! The Menstuff hunt is ending soon, January 2nd so, if you want in on these items, you will have to run there. The hunt objects are small blue T-shirts and cost 1L each. At Hawker's House you are only looking for one hunt item, both the chinos and turtleneck are in that box! Lastly, since the hunt is nearly over as I post this I wanted to post the Menstuff blog where you can find pictures of other gifts offered. It is fairly well covered already so I am just hitting the highlights that I feel need extra attention. Until we cross paths again my friends, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Festive Festivus to all of you. I hope you find a great deal of joy and love over the holidays wherever they take you. -----WHC Riler

Riot Bayn is wearing - JFM (Jana's For Men) - the Stephen Steel Grey Jacket (Menstuff Hunt / 1L)

Hawker's House - the Black Turtleneck Sweater and Black Chino Slacks (Menstuff Hunt / 1L)

The Official Homepage Of Menstuff

This Scavenging Life - Home

Websurfin' Safari

It is great to be back home! My safari vacation went smoothly but first off, for educational purposes, let me make an important statement. When someone tells you something is "endangered" often they are grossly exaggerating. Lets just say I am no great hunter but at no point did I ever feel in danger at all. The really big elephants are impressive and could pose a real threat to someone, but if you stick with the small ones you can hunt safely. I am kidding of course, I did not kill a baby elephant. I bought it off the back of a truck at the safari camp. Before anyone gets upset, I made sure to ask the driver about the elephant and was assured it was not a wild elephant but it was raised at a "domestical breedery" for use in the "National Economic Treasury Program". I really didn't believe him, so I refused to buy the matching lamps. Sometimes a man just has to take a stand and do the right thing. All of this leads me to the Around The Grid In 80 Days 2 Hunt. This hoodie I am wearing is the Around The World Hoodie hunt prize from SHORT CIRCUIT and only cost 1L. It is perfect for the global traveler in you, is mesh and has the T-shirt with the map texture integrated into it. In the outfit I made for myself below I actually tinted it slightly to darken it, something that is optional and no trouble at all. The pants are a FREE gift from SF DESIGNS, the grey chinos are available for a very limited time at Creations Park. They are actually grey straight out of the box so a little tinting was in order to get it to look great with the hoodie, but grab these while you can, they are FREE, look great and are very versatile. The Elephant Coffee Table & Rug from POTPOURRI DESIGNS are another great gift from the hunt and is 1L. All kidding aside, they look fantastic and are a great pick up if you ever want to have a safari themed room or such. These are all great bargains.-----WHC Riler

WHC Riler is wearing - Short Circuit - Around The World Hoodie (1L)

A Hunt Gift From Around The Grid In 80 Days 2 Hunt On Until Sept. 30th

SF Designs - SF Design Chinos Grey - mens FREE

A Limited time gift from Sf Designs Grab it while you can

NOTE - A women's version is also available there free!

Also pictured - POTPOURRI DESIGNS - The Elephant Coffee Table & Rug

  Other items from inventory (Skin-Egoisme, Hair-MADesigns Hair, Eyes-Poetic Colors)

(Blogmonkey's note - I intended this blog to help new residents as well as to serve hunters and bargain seekers, so please forgive me for taking a quick moment regarding tinting. Sometimes when you pick things up they are mod, and tinting will be an option. Whenever possible, make a copy of the garment and work on the copy instead of the original. That's actually great advice when making any changes on Second Life, no matter what you are doing. For the hoodie I decided to tint it slightly more beige to cover a tiny bit of white on the bottom of the tee. honestly, it is really only necessary if you are a perfectionist like me. I use the firestorm viewer to access Second Life but other viewers should be similar. First put on the hoodie and notice in the inventory screen when you choose it, it does say no modify. That's fine it can still be tinted. Wearing it, right click on it and choose edit to bring up the edit window. Under the texture tab is a white square, that's because it has not been tinted yet and it's default setting is white. Click the box under the word color and choose your tint, its always best to be as subtle as possible, over tinting does not look very good at all using restraint is best. Please make sure not to choose the full bright or any other option in this tab, that's outside of the scope of this post, perhaps topics for another day. Close the edit window and check your work. The SF Design pants are grey straight out of the box but I thought they would look great with the hoodie. They are mod on the pants layer and are edited normally just like other clothing. I like keeping things simple so I tinted them just enough to look good with the hoodie and adjusted the length and such to fit over my shoes better. I didn't need to bother with the leg prims this time to do what I wanted so I left them out of the finished outfit. That's it really, most times I wear things I don't make changes like I did this time but the outfit looks fantastic and hopefully I am helping to encourage newer residents to think about what they can do with what they get rather then just accept items purely at their face value. Second Life allows you a great deal of control over things if you choose to use it, and it can be a very creative experience in many unexpected ways. Thank you for reading this, see you on the grid.-----WHC Riler