I'm too nice. Because it is too big of a pain in my butt to have this guy up in my IM about it, I took his name out. Word travels fast, and he was all over me within 10 minutes of me blogging this. Which is amazing because this blog has like 4 readers.

So okay, mr. man, you can stop refreshing my page over and over again now.

-----------

So, because it is EVERYONE'S FAVORITE THING EVER TO LOG IN to random IMs from people you don't know that just say "hello" or "hi," I was OVERJOYED this morning to log in to exactly that. For some reason, I chose to reply to him.

[9:50] Spammer: (Saved Fri May 01 11:45:36 2009) Hello.

(logged in to that offline.)

[9:51] Rosie Barthelmess: May I help you?
[9:51] Spammer: Hi, How're you?
[9:51] Rosie Barthelmess: Fine thanks, what can I help you with?
[9:51] Spammer: I was wondering if you are a land owner?
[9:51] Rosie Barthelmess: To what do I owe this inquiry, please?
[9:51] Spammer: I work with [Name redacted]
[9:52] Spammer: [Name redacted]. We are interested if you would like to place one of our theatres, within your land to raise your lands value.

(OH MY GOD IT IS THE HOLY GRAIL, A THEATRE I CAN PUT ON LAND I OWN TO RAISE ITS VALUE. QUICK EVERYONE, LAND VALUATION PROBLEM SOLVED!)

[9:52] Spammer: Do you use Voice Chat?

(uh, what?)

[9:52] Rosie Barthelmess: Okay, so (1) you are one day old.

(born date: 4/30/2009)

[9:52] Spammer: I just got back from Afgainstan.

[9:52] Rosie Barthelmess: (2) your profile contains a picture of you flipping me off.

(A RL photo of a redneck lookin kid hanging out of the window of his small truck, baseball cap on backwards, flipping off the camera. And the text, which read something like "Yeah, this is a picture of me flipping you off because I'm that badass.")

[9:53] Spammer: United States Army.
[9:53] Spammer: I lost my old avatar.

(It's really hard to lose an avatar unless you're a fuckup or there's some kind of catastrophic LL failure, right?)

[9:53] Rosie Barthelmess: (3) It's pretty easy to tell if I'm a land owner, because then I would own land.
[9:53] Rosie Barthelmess: How did you get my name, please?
[9:53] Spammer: Classfied.
[9:53] Rosie Barthelmess: I beg your pardon?
[9:53] Spammer: Alright, nevermind.
[9:53] Spammer: Have a nice day.
[9:54] Rosie Barthelmess: You too.

Right after this fabulous encounter, our hero changed his profile picture to one of a bulky square-jawed soldier wrapped in BDUs, strings of ammunition, and wielding two machine guns.

The text on his profile was also upgraded to something considerably nicer.

Awesome.

--- EDITED TO ADD

I was contacted by the actual owner of the actual business, who claims that the guy who contacted me is not affiliated with them in any way. They were going to follow up with him, so I don't know if he's a scammer, or what.

Well, obviously he's kind of a scammer.

But anyway, if you saw the name of the business which I have removed from the post, they'd like you to know he's not affiliated with them.

So it's been another week or so since bloggin. I guess I've seemed pulled a bunch of directions and trying to keep it all managed.

Everything's good, just been busy in RL (thankfully) and SL both. I keep getting things gonna stack up on the bloggin posts and then semi-forgetting about them.

Stay tuned, there is blogarificness. I promise.

Oh, wait. Here's a semi-funny story I'm thinking you might get a giggle out of.

-----------

So I was at the club, this was probably a few weeks ago, now. And this avie, a 2007 avie in a 2007 linden skin and static prim hair and linden shoes and a freebie dress, and a pretty noobish shape, and was wearing some kind of intricate +~->ZOMG I'M A MODEL<-~+ kind of tag.

You know the ones.

And suddenly she says:

"I see a big girl dancing there, go big girl, go! I could never be fat, my agency is so strict about my appearance."

So I said, "Oh, I've done some modeling in SL. Each agency is different I guess."

So she said again, "Yeah, I'm big in RL but I could never be fat in SL and still be able to keep my job modeling."

So I said: "Must have been hard to find a modeling agency that would let you model in freebies, non-prim shoes and a Linden noob skin, huh."

Then I said, "Would you like me to give you some landmarks to places like Gnubie's and Sarah Nerd's, so you can pick up some higher quality freebies?"

She shut up.

Good grief, I've been gone for what seems like forever.  My SL is getting more and more full as the days go on and while that's a good thing, my blogging has definitely suffered.

Let's see if I can cover the bases.

There's a new blog for the Sable Rose store so I don't have to clutter up this one with posts about the store. I'm hoping it gets accepted to one of the feeds, since I've never felt it would be right to put this one on a fashion feed or anything similar. The address for the blog is, at least temporarily, http://skatoolaki.com/sablerose and I've started posting pictures of some of my stuff.

Today, I had the honor of meeting with Shenlei Flasheart of Shengri La and the Fashion Institute, and I've been accepted as a vendor in what is currently known as the Vintage Marketplace. I'll be working with Shenlei to try to progress my little shop along and raise awareness of my jewelry, with the goal of becoming better known without sacrificing all of my free time or my SL enjoyment by things feeling more like "work."

I also signed Sable Rose up for the Twisted Hunt that's going to be starting in April, so watch for more news about that.

Life on Four Corners is never dull, and we're getting the island fleshed out and absolutely beautiful. From Bonibaru's mermaid hangout under the sea to Raeyn's ground level fog and clouds, to Izzy's willow forest to our garden, we're all settling in and loving it.

That being said, I help Marx Dudek out with her residential sim Wellstone, and she has some parcels up for purchase. She's letting them go for a very good deal depending on the size, so if you or someone you know is looking for an affordable chunk of LOVELY oceanfront estate land to call their own, have them contact Marx Dudek inworld.

Hm, what else is going on? Fleur! Fleur, fleur, fleur! As you may or may not know, I am a CSA for Fleur and I am down at the store a few times a week to meet and greet and help people find what they're looking for. If you haven't seen the absolutely gorgeous new Shoujo valentine's skins and the Vain - Kissed Hunt free skin yet, do yourself a favor and head to Fleur and CHECK THEM OUT. Don't forget to enter the photo contest for your chance at Fleur gift cards!

My partner Daman has reincarnated himself as Eirik, and as such Eirik has started a new blog. He has subtitled it "beating up Second Life with the chair leg of truth," which I reckon means he's going to be telling us a lot of what's on his mind. As the one who gets to talk to him more than most I reckon, I can tell you he has a lot of things on his mind so I'm sure it'll be interesting. Make sure you check it out.

On a more solemn note, I have been cherishing my inworld friends and I am so deeply grateful for the support and fun and friendship you all have been sharing with me. I have been finding the time recently to become closer with my core group of friends who are definitely converting/converted into my SL family. But I am SO blessed to have a varied and amazing group of people around me in SL so in case I have neglected to tell any of you how amazing you truly are, HERE, YOU CAN READ IT IN MY BLOG BECAUSE THAT IS THE BEST WAY EVA TO GET THE POINT ACROSS.

Okay, well, hopefully you know what I mean. And I intend to get back to making with the regular drive-by IM lovins. SL is nothing without the people in it.

What else can I torture you with? I've lost 10 pounds IRL, RL Mr. B. is settled in overseas and we're patiently counting the days until he gets to come home on a mid-tour trip in July. We're thinking about heading to Vegas for a few days.

I would do almost anything for some french fries or buffalo chicken wings, I'm Plurking as much as I can to hold my karma steady at 65 which frustrates me, I'm trying to stay caught up with all of y'all on your blogs, and, um.

THERE'S LOTS AND LOTS GOING ON.

Is everybody feeling as crazy as me? C'mon, talk to me, frenz. Tell me what's on your collective minds.

I wrote over at Snark Attack.

I've been a bad blogger in general, having neglected to come in here and not having a whole lot of time to read around my friends on the blogosphere and find out what's up. RL's been kicking my butt a little, but that's okay. We all need a good buttkicking sometimes.

When I did go snooping around today though, I was sort of surprised to find the hullaballoo about shapes.

I stopped by my good friend Chestnut's blog and found this post in which she discusses her avatar shape, and I leaped from there to some other folks with their thoughts on the same subject.

It struck me as funny, because Daman and I had a totally unrelated, but fairly indepth, conversation about political activism and cultural activism, which led to a discussion of our particular individualities in SL whether that be height, weight, skin color, or clothing.

It's already being discussed a gazillion ways out and about so I won't go into it a huge portion here, but you know I never reject a chance to speak my mind, right?

In reading through New World Notes about the subject, I noticed that someone made the comment that "I don't think embracing the flawed real [world image] over the ideal digital [world image] is a good idea at all."

What if I don't consider myself flawed? That's where people have had some confusion -- and here I can only speak for myself although I suspect I'm not the only one who feels like this -- as to why I have a heavier avatar.

I didn't do it to make any kind of a statement, it was just the natural thing for me to do. As a noob, I hit the ground running with zero SL experience, and made myself shorter than what I then found out to be average, and plumper than what I found out to be average. And I got teleported into a busy club where lots of people asked me if I knew what I had done, and I decided to keep it. I felt comfortable.

Rosie looks somewhat like me, and that has just sort of manifested itself over time, but I'm not a fat activist, I'm not seeking any kind of political motivation or cultural revolution. I truly appreciate it if designers or others go out of their way to create things that are *easier* for me to use or fit to my size, but if they don't that's okay too. I don't think very many of us plus-size avatars are on any kind of crusade, we're just being who we're comfortable being.

I have some very close friends in SL who are 6' tall model-esque shapely toned women who IRL are under 5' tall, or are overweight, or aren't even women. I am 38 years old IRL, and Rosie is a lovely whatever-age-we-all-are-in-SL every single day without one wrinkle or sag. I have friends who represent themselves as every version of neko, fur, human, nonhuman, up, down, right, left, or inside-out. But they're comfortable and I accept them for who they are, which is all I think we should really be doing.

Not everyone's choice of avatar has something to do with making some kind of a statement. Some of us just are who we are.

Some days I'm a tiny pink elephant. Some days I'm a mermaid. Lately, most days, I am a bear neko with ears and a tail. I can change my clothing to fit my mood, wear a different avatar to express myself if I'm so inclined - and I do.

I'm all for the unrealistic, I think it has its place. Heck, to me Rosie is even unrealistic -- she can wear 4" heels and corsets all day and her hair is always perfect, her face is impeccably made up even when her typist is in her jammies in a ponytail sipping coffee, and she can fly. But isn't that just all part of the fun?

Oh my goodness, the things that happen when you're gone for like 10 days and you have to get in the swing of things. Why does it always take longer than your time on vacation to get back to the action?

Here's what I've been up to:

1) trying to get my land sold --> I just lowered the price on my plot on PT, anybody looking for a 1024 m2 with 300 prims?

2) Busting hump at the club --> Lounge of Dreams is a smokin' hot hangout lately, and we'd all love it (especially me) if you guys wanted to stop by and say hi -- my next official DJ shift is Friday 6pm-8pm SLT for 80s night, which has turned into "Rosie and Madisen get tipsy while DJ'ing 80s Night", and is always fun.

3) Shopping for clothes

4) Lovin' up on all mah frenz

5) Building an underwater cave (The structure is done, anybody have good ideas for where to get sea plants and things that aren't humongous to decorate the inside of what is about a 10 x 10 cave?)

6) Starting a new steady DJ gig -- Rosie Rocks at Freakheim Funeral Home, every Thursday from 4-6pm -- if it's rock I'll play it, which is a change from my normal super-upbeat bebop pop music DJ set self. The first set was a success, and I hope you'll honor me and the owners/staff of the Freakheim Funeral Home (SLURL) by stopping by to kick some ass on Thursdays.

7) Celebrating Isadora finishing up her half of Rosadora, which means we better get started planning a party!

Cheering on Izzy as she works on the Lounge of Dreams Website at http://slloungeofdreams.com.

9) Spending some much-appreciated time with Daman, as he's now traveling and won't be back until August 4. I'm proud to say that he's blogging again on his own blog, plus make sure to check out his newest review over on Men's Second Style and welcome him back to the blogosphere.

10) Seeing, and participating in, the wedding of one of my bestest SL friends, Guen, to her partner Ozark.

11) Keeping lists of things to blog about so I didn't forget.

What have all of you been up to? Talk to meeeeeeeeeeeeee!!