Honour McMillan – Ahuva’s Blog

I’m Ahuva Heliosense. I’m Rising!

One In Three Women On The Planet Will Be Raped Or Beaten In Her Lifetime.

One Billion Women Violated Is An Atrocity.

One Billion Women Dancing Is A Revolution.

Join V-Day on
02.14.13
STRIKE, DANCE, RISE
in your community &
Demand an
end to violence
(copied from the official One Billion Rising url)

I hold strong views on many subjects. I try not to preach to my friends and coworkers. But in this instance, I believe so strongly in this movement, that I am speaking out to you. Yes – YOU. I mean you – male and female both. Join the revolution. End the violence.

I hope to rise in both SL and RL. I’ve found 2 possible RL events. In SL – it’s running 24 hours, from midnight Wednesday, Feb 13th through midnight, Feb 14th. It will be LIVESTREAMED. There are going to be live performances by well-known SL entertainers (*grin* one of my personal favorites is rumored to be the closing act)

To get you revving – watch the video. Yep, I’m there. Honour is there. Saffia is there, Pyper, Tatiana, sooooooo many others. There is still time for you to be there too, on Feb 14th. Schedules will be posted later this week. Pyper Dollinger, Tatiana Kurri, Saffia Widdershins, Petlove Petshop, Honour McMillan, and Aisling Sinclair have done a FANTASTIC job on this video! You have to LOVE The Dazzlers. I want to be a Dazzler when (if) I grow up!

You need to get yourself over to Prim Perfect and pick up the poster and your t-shirt. They have both male and female mesh shirts, in a variety of sizes, both black and white backgrounds.

Strike!

Dance!

Rise!

Note: Check out my new hair up top. I’m sure I’ll still be wearing my Analog Dog “Astrid”, that I’ve been wearing for 4+ years now. *grin* But Queue Marlow won my heart yet again with “driven” in butterscotch. 🙂

Winter = SL

The temperature is dropping. (Okay, not today and tomorrow – we’re supposed to hit 65. But it DID snow last week.) Christmas music is on the radio. My neighbors turned on their holiday lights. Thanksgiving has come and gone (leaving a LOT of extra weight in its trail 😦 ). So that means it must be winter. I notice that I seem to be logging in to SL a lot more than I’ve done in the past few months. Is it the weather? Is it that FL things have settled down a bit? I don’t know why exactly, but I do seem to be logging more time inworld.

Yesterday I responded to a call for avatars – human and dressed in vintage clothing. That seemed simple enough. I got Calli to help me with the clothing. She took me to Old Time Prims. VERY cool store. I bought several outfits AND hair. Yes, I know. I actually bought different hair. Let’s face it. My usual Ahuva hair is NOT vintage. After we were dressed I took Calli with me to the call. *grin* Once there we were sworn to secrecy, bound with horrific oaths, and basically warned with dire and drastic punishments if I told you what we did. I would tell you anyway, understand, but then I’d have to kill you (as the saying goes) and I’ve grown rather fond of you. *grin* So all I can say is tune in to Honour.

On the other hand I CAN tell you about the nifty gifts I received at a concert. I went to hear Taunter Goodnight at Effie’s Designs’ Christmas party. Effie had a gift box near the stage. You can see all the fun things she had packed into: a fireplace, a blanket, a lamp, a chair. Bamboo claimed the chair of course. 🙂

Speaking of prezzies, Calli always thinks of me. She understands that Christmas is not my holiday, even though I DO enjoy the excitement. So I have my first Chanukah gift – my VERY cool Chanukiah Hat. You can’t see in the above photo(because I’m too lazy to figure out again how to make a video) but the dreidels actually spin (turn). 🙂 I love it. It certainly does make a statement, doesn’t it? If you wish to make a Chanukah statement, you can find the [TMH] Chanukah Top Hat at The Mad Hattery.

So after spending hours, yes HOURS, inworld, I needed to settle down and contemplate the upcoming holidays. I need Chanukah candles. I should probably think about a holiday card. I wonder if the ducks will cooperate this year; some years they have been quite unobliging. Are there any good holiday parties going on? I wonder if I can convince Prad to do a reunion again this year…….

Snippets

RL has been taking up a lot of time. And when I’m inworld, I’ve been listening to a LOT of music. I LOVE dancing to music and I’ve been indulging a lot lately.

The other evening I logged in around 3pm SLT and tp’d from one music event to another for 5 or 6 hours.

snippet 1:
I’m fairly content with who and what I am. But if I were GOING to want to be someone else, it might be Calli. *grin* She is so talented, has great taste in music (usually LOL. and she ALWAYS plays some Janis- YAY) and has THE BEST wardrobe. Here she is DJ’ing Spanish/Calypso music, and there I am, envying her wonderful Calli-ness.

snippet 2:
I STILL love the horsies, even if I’ve not been by Carriage Trade lately. I always keep an eye on the group chat, and Shenlei and the horses cracked me up completely the other night:
Shenlei Flasheart: /me rattles grain bucket…ahem…
ghostly pricks her ears up and looks
Shenlei Flasheart: I’d like to welcome a new mare, Dreamer, to the herd…she will be in the Pony Club, so please trot by and meet her and give her a big CT welcome!
Hey, it worked! rattling that grain bucket started getting lots of ears perking and tails swishing. *grin* I love it.

snippet 3:
Honour McMillan has been thinking about an extremely interesting and, I think, important project for many months now. She’s finally unveiled a glimpse of it on her blog today, An Initial Plea for Help. Honour has asked us all to think about our lives in SL: If you could take one photograph that would show people why you come inworld what would it be? Just as Gracie Kendal photographed our avatars, Honour is asking US to photograph our LIVES. I love this concept and hope Honour continues with it into the full form I know she has contemplated. (Aside to Honour: maybe now with Rodvik at the helm, it IS do-able.) Gracie captured us as we see ourselves. Honour is asking us to capture our beloved SL as we see it. All of us have SOME picture we can take that sums up, if not our ENTIRE SL life, some important part of our SecondLives. Yes, as usual for Honour, she is being annoying (*grin* couldn’t resist, Honour) by asking that we use Koinup to participate so yes, it DOES mean yet ANOTHER login for some of us. Do it. Or Honour’s friends will find you….. *grin* Oh? You mean *I* have to do it too?????? sigh…..

There you go folks. If you want to find me, I’m probably dancing. Where? Oh, TriBeCa, Prim Economy, Houses, Fogbound, JJ’s Joint. Who’s playing/DJing? Komuso Tokugawa, Callipygian Christensen, Bear Rasmuson, Ziffy Zarf,, Noma Falta , Euterpe Queller (PLEASE come back SOON, EQ), Grace McDonnough, and many many more!!

DON’T MOVE!!!!!!

Omg. Ever since Honour has decided to go micro, I have lived in fear of her being squished underfoot. Today I joined her at a meeting and watched in horror as it seemed my worst fears would be realized. I was poised to interpose myself between Honour and an icy snowy foot of doom, when the snowcreature reseated itself. Whew!!!! And you thought life in SL was all sun and sand…. /me resolves to get a bunch of balloons to tie to Honour’s micro tail and float above her furry little head.

Hair and Shoes

Look. Say what you will. I admit it. If I don’t have hair and shoes, SL is not worth living. *grin* So when Calli IM’d me to invite me to try out a new avatar, I was a bit reluctant. But I’ve learned to trust Calli’s instincts. I don’t think she’s steered me wrong yet. So I went to see her new “look”. *grin* She still had hair – her hair. No FEET, but she had shoes. I was convinced. Calli decided that Honour needed to share in the make-over as well. I taxi’d Honour in for the viewing and she agreed that it was a look made for her as well.

Calli tp’d us over to Car Wash. I’m not sure what Car Wash is exactly. We were too busy getting ourselves unicycles – oh excuse me. Getting ourselves Jarhead Unibike Avs. Car Wash appears to be a shopping center with stores and kiosks. Calli had discovered the kiosk for Altya’s. Altya’s has some great avatars and outfits. The main store is in Archers. I stopped there briefly to take a look. It reminded me a lot of a crazy place I went to with Hunter last summer, when he treated me to my propeller hat. I would say that both Car Wash and Altya’s are worth a visit!

So Honour and I put on our Jarhead Unibike Avs and posed for Calli. The horns on the bikes actually sound, so we had great fun tooting the horns, our own and each other’s horns. /me looks at you reprovingly. Oh puh-leeeeeeze. We rolled about Car Wash, emitting puffs of smoke, until we found a spot for our portrait. Notice that *I* have feet. That is because my feet are prim feet. 🙂 They are part of the shoes. *grin* if I had been wearing just shoes, without feet, my shoes would have been there. But you know me – I neeeeeeeeeeeeed hair and shoes. *grin* And my wonderful Taboo Paris Rose shoes were what I had on at the time. I LOVE my Taboo Paris Rose shoes by Siam Quan, you may have noticed. I may have mentioned. I think I blogged about them after Nat did her post on them.

This is a difficult time of year for me, and this week has been particularly difficult, as many of you know. So some time spent relaxing and being silly and tooting my horn was just what I needed! Altya’s is running something called a Fortune Quest. It is a hunt, but very different than your usual hunt. Honour posted all the details in her blog. Go check out Car Wash, Altya’s and Taboo – from the silly to the sublime!!!

Time to Vote!

Yes, I am biased. Yes, I use my blog for my own personal interests. So having stated that openly and upfront, let me tell you about a vote I think you should cast.

Honour McMillan has been nominated for SL Entrepreneur of the Year, a recognition bestowed by SL Entrepreneur Magazine, an electronic publication dedicated to business in SL. There are 12 nominees including Honour. While I am sure that they are all deserving of recognition, I believe that Honour deserves this award. And that’s how *I* voted. Aintree Nursery has been a source of textures and plants for me for over a year now, including rescues from under a bus. *grin* Honour was nominated for her Drama Dolls and Doll Cozies.

The Drama Dolls, should you not know of them, are a riot. They are intended to help you relieve the stress and frustration of having encountered someone who dissed you or done you wrong. Drama dolls come in a variety of dress, culture, gender and occupation. Doll Cozies are for hugs and love and comfort. I had the great privilege of watching the birth of the concept, the nurturing of the creation and the ultimate production of the dolls. While the Cozies are cuddly and sweet, it is the Drama Dolls that absolutely win my soul.

Although there are many, many varieties of Drama Dolls, none of them were quite right for me in the recent past. I was a bit frustrated, stymied at something I was attempting. Yeah, I basically “blamed” one person for the bulk of my aggravation. Hey – it couldn’t have been MY issue, could it???? Of course not. *smile* Poor Honour. She had to listen to me gripe and whine and spew and complain. Finally one day, when I was close to tears, my very own customized DD appeared. Now, I won’t tell you what name I gave my doll, nor will I repeat the dialogue. *grin* Honour pegged this person so completely that to me it seems glaringly obvious who it was. But the fact of the matter is that I really was truly angry when I started up the DD HUD. By the time my DD self-destructed, rising up to the heavens with a repentant, beneficent smile under its halo, I was laughing out loud hysterically, screaming at each phrase the doll uttered. Now THAT is a great product – turning anger and frustration into good humor.

I love my Cozies as well, but when I need a smile, I dig out the chat from that DD and read. *grin* Ah yeah, that is so good. Honour for SL Entrepreneur of the Year! Go and vote.

Sometimes You Need a Professional

We’ve all heard the admonishment: Kids, don’t try this yourselves at home. *grin* I ignore that ALL the time when I take pictures in SL. I really am not a good photographer. That’s okay with me – I don’t have to be a good photographer. It would be NICE of course, but usually all I really care about is showing you a glimpse of my life. And for that “okay” is sufficient. Until last week.

Honour gave me a gorgeous outfit last week. She’d been shopping at Bare Rose, saw the Black Salamander Lady outfit and says she thought of me. Apparently something about the red garters, or so she said….. Excuse me a moment while I tease Honour. For someone who claims to HATE shopping, Honour spends more time shopping in one week, than I spend in a month. *grin* It’s true. I swear it’s true. But Honour has great taste. She is also friends with some of the best fashionistas in SL. And so I’ve learned to trust Honour’s fashion sense. *grin* I know, Honour, I’m killing you here. LOL.

Of course when Honour dropped the folder on me, I had to wear the outfit IMMEDIATELY. It was sensational. I loved it. Honour was shopping for a skin so I went to keep her company. She actually wasn’t shopping. She was going to stare and either talk herself into or out of that skin. If you read her blog (as you should), you already know how that ended up. She bought that skin, a drow skin called Chromatic from [][]Trap[][]. The store is located on The Twilight sim. I couldn’t resist – I bought a skin also. Considering the last time I bought a skin was over a year ago, and I think I dithered for days, finally going to Calli for advice, buying a skin in less than 20 minutes is quite remarkable for me.

So I had this sensational outfit and a new breath-taking skin. Of course I went to take a picture to show you all. Except…. drow skins are dark. I couldn’t get the lighting correct. The pictures were okay. But this time, this look, “okay” was not okay. I am fortunate to be friends with one of the best photographers (if not the best) in SL – Callipygian Christensen. Calli was logged on. I IM’d her and asked if I could hire her to take my picture. In the interests of keeping this post to a manageable length, I won’t detail how LONG it took for the 2 of us to actually have time to be logged on at the same time to do a shoot. *grin*

The difference between a professional and me. I thought, okay, yeah, we’ll go downstairs where there’s no furniture, or down to the beach, take some shots. Oh no, no, NO. One gets posed in a proper LOCATION. I love Calli. She found a sim – we were at Rustica, a wonderful furniture store in a castle (Quality Medieval and Castle Furniture). She found a window and managed to walk/talk me into the right spot and then she took pictures. I took pictures too – of us doing the shoot. But Calli – she captured exactly what I wanted to show you. The incredible package: outfit and skin.

The photos in this post are by the incomparable Callipygian Christensen. My deep thanks to you, Calli, for capturing the essence of what I feel when I put on that outfit. *hugs* You are amazing.

Celebrating Drama Dolls

Thanks to Jonah Svoboda for posting here today! I was too busy partying last night and asked Jonah to cover for me! *grin* It’s always good to have responsible friends.

Celebrations! We all love them, and last night we had two great reasons to celebrate. We did not loose the opportunity either.

First, the amazing Honour McMillan unveiled her incredible Drama Dolls. These delightful animated and scripted dolls are available in multiple languages and sure to please anyone who has experienced “drama” in Second Life and needs resolution!! They are fantastic and you owe it to yourself to take a look. The dolls are adorable, scripted beautifully, and there is nothing mean or cruel or hurtful about them. They will make you smile and feel good about life. Scripter Cris Lefavre explains on his blog the care and thought that went into making the Drama Dolls a positive experience.

Second, it was Canada Day – the day we celebrate Canadian independence. There is a long tradition of understated celebration for this event, and we did not miss that opportunity either.

So what do we do to celebrate? Honour got friends together to help, and we had a party. Set up in the Taylor Bay sim, where Honour has her dolls for sale, the extremely talented Von Johin provided not one, but two concerts of two hours each, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The blues rang true for hours, and the dancing was wonderful. Friends enjoyed each other, and partied.

A good time was had by all. This is the SL that many of us know and love – friends working together, celebrating accomplishments, clever work, excellent music, and just plain fun. Thanks for work and the party, Honour!

DRAMA DOLLS are here!

Today is the day!!! Now you can have your very own Drama Doll. Or two. Or three. Because, you know, DRAMA happens. What is a Drama Doll? A Drama Doll is your way to get satisfaction when someone in SL “does you wrong”. Read on as I plagarize the DD notecard:

Did somebody cheat on you? Were you insulted or offended by another SL resident?
Did you experience DRAMA?
It happens unfortunately.
Well Drama Dolls is here to help you get a bit of what you deserve in return – at the very least you are owed an apology!
Pick a Drama Doll that you can use to represent the individual who did you wrong. There are different price ranges, levels of detail, number of animations, types of dolls – something for everybody.

We have macho types, the girl next door, elves, vampires and more! We even have Fuginistas – you know …. those people who like to make fun of you on their blogs because they don’t like your skin/shape/clothes. 🙂
We have the Doll you need to get closure move past this traumatic experience!
Take your Doll home – you will find detailed instructions and 4 copies of the Doll in your inventory. 3 of those Dolls are fully scripted and will give you the acknowledgement and apology you so richly deserve. Once the Doll has apologized it will disappear – quite dramatically! 🙂
The 4th Doll is not scripted but you can keep it as a reminder of your apology.
Please note that all of our dolls are multi-lingual and will operate in English, German, Spanish, Japanese, French, Portugese, Italian, Dutch, Russian and Norwegian.

Dale, Oura, Chestnut and I broke into the warehouse last night – we couldn’t stand to wait anymore. We wandered about ooo’ing and ah’ing and laughing. We each found a dozen dolls we HAD to have. So – when we shove you out of our way when we go to buy OUR Drama Dolls – you will need to find your own DD version of us to make us apologize. *grin* That’s the way it works!

But there are not just Drama Dolls. There are DollCozies also. Honour gave me a Doll Cozy as a rez day present. I love her. Oura and I took her fishing last night after the break-in.
Do you know somebody who needs a hug?
If you are looking for positive Drama (because it does exist) we have DollCozies. You can purchase a Doll, name it and give it a message you’d like to pass to your friend/lover/partner/spouse. Your Doll will give them a Hug and your message.
Some DollCozies have flowers in their hands. Your folder will come with a pot of matching flowers you can also give your recipient.

The store opens today (11:00 am SLT) with two parties to celebrate, featuring brilliant blues man Von Johin. The first show is at the Euro friendly time of 11:00 am SLT. The second party will start at 6:00 pm and rock on for 2 solid hours. Honour is a proud Canadian and tomorrow is also Canada Day so if you want to join us for that reason alone please do! TP from this link.

It’s Almost TIME!!!!!!

Tomorrow!!! Tomorrow Honour unveils her new product line. It is fantastic, humerous, and, I believe, something new under the sun. My new friend Faust was doing last minute testing and let me watch. 🙂 Like I gave anyone a chance to keep me out of the testing process. I was literally screaming with laughter at some of it.

So be there bright and early tomorrow to get your own……. *grin*……. did you think I would slip NOW??? I’ve kept this secret for four months!!! Be sure to watch Honour’s blog for the big launch announcement on Wednesday, July 1!!

And be sure to catch the wonderful music by Von Johin – 2 shows: two concerts on Taylor Bay. The first from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm SLT and the second from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. LOL. Yeah, I am going to try to sneak in for that first show for sure. LOL. /me schedules a meeting on my work calendar for 11am SLT.

July 1st is Canada Day – also a good reason to party!!! 🙂 See you all there!!