take the bows from her hair, 'cos she's been waiting twenty years

Want to see the first Pixar film ever? There you go.

And while we're at it, how about one hundred years of East London fashions? Fascinating to watch.

And the first "sick bay" exists in the world--and where is it in the world? Leicester, England, amusingly enough.

Just across the channel, France is having a 'Post-It' war. Hey, it could be worse--this way, the casualties are pride and geek cred alone. (And if you want to find more pictures, searching 'postitwar' on Twitter reveals a ton.)

"IDW: As long as there's even the slightest interest, we'll publish it." Honestly, I don't understand why people are trashing Magic: the Gathering so much these days. I still have all my decks. Hells, in the back room we still have over 500 cards to swap out to make new decks!

Of course, we haven't played in two years...and we stopped buying cards four years ago...But still...

Yeah, okay, fine, it's got serious 'dead game' syndrome. That doesn't mean it wasn't fun while it was active, or that people aren't still playing it now. But the crushing tonnage of rules changes along the way, well, some of us fell to the wayside and found other games.

Like Munchkin. And Fluxx. And Lunch Money.

And Second Life. And Minecraft.

MOVING ON...Henri Beauchamp has repaired yesterday's terrifying glitch! Behold:

Cool VL Viewer v1.26.1.4 (experimental, MESH branch)

People having downloaded former v1.26.1.x versions should update to this new, bugfix release.

New in this release:

• Fixed the bug that prevented to edit sculpted prims in v1.26.1.2 and v1.26.1.3.
• Reimplemented the tree and grass prims selection outline code that had to be disabled in v1.26.1.0.
• Moved the Material combo from the Object tab to the Features tab in the Build floater, where it now belongs together with the physics parameters.
• Added the Link and Unlink buttons to the Build floater, and moved replaced "Use grid" check box in the build floater with a "Snap to grid" check box in the grid options floater.
• Added the "derender" feature (available in the pie menu for objects and avatars). See this thread for details.
• Added free video memory info to the "Show Render Info" display.
• A few fixes to the renderer, backported from LL's v3 viewer.

And thanks must go to Miss Samantha Poindexter, who pointed out the new release to me.

Interested in tattoos? Interested in science. Discover Magazine has something for that. Each picture leads to a larger picture and an explanation as to why that symbol was chosen. There's several pages, and several amazing tattoos.

Tanks disguised as cows? Apparently, it's the wave of the future. I can see both good and bad in this development, actually.

Lastly, I am still in dread of the Twisted Hunt. Not so much for the hunting, which any participant knows is going to be difficult and crazy-making, but because none of the people who do pictures for hunts have reported in. I don't know if they're all simultaneously sick or fed up or what, but with some of the merchants on the list, I want to see their prize before I just blithely pick it up. With over 72,000 inventory items, retrieving and unpacking 240-something cubes just seems hazardous to my SLife.

I'm not gaming for the Survivor tag, I'm not even in the Twisted hunt group. And, sight unseen, I know there are at least some merchants I'm willing to go and tear my hair out searching for their cubes:

0 & 1: DV8
2: Yellow Jester
3: A&M Animations
4: Blue Blood
5: Nightshade
7: Dare Designs
10: Roewenwood
11: Malfean Visions
13: SN@TCH
24: AAA Poses
34: Snow Bound
47: Treasured Cove Sculpts
52: FallnAngel Designs
53: Repulse
57: Stone Misery
63: A Netherworld
68: Favole
70: Rasetsukoku
72: DAARK Textures
74: Jabberwocky
78: Noctis
89: Incendia
90: Damned Good Design
94: Immateria
96: Heartsick
98: Likka House
104: Epic Toys
115: Painfully Divine
116: Girl Not Included
120: Rokumeikan
126: Cummere Mayo Creations
135: Urban Forge
146: The Doll Emporium
148: Montague Noire
170: Julia Collection
181: Zoe's Garden
197: X Factor
205: De Baza

Now, in each of these thirty-nine cases, either I'm in their group (in-world, or subscribe-o), or I've encountered them on hunts before, and like their work, or I know them personally, or they're favorite shops. In many cases, two or more of these categories apply.

I won't say I'm completely unwilling to try new things, though. While those thirty-nine listed above are my absolute limit I'm willing to try without finding pictures of the prizes somewhere, some of the other merchants intrigued me, as well. Those merchants are:

21. Vengeful Threads (I like the name)
23. Gypsy Wares (I want to know if they actually design things like vardos and/or Rom-inspired outfits)
28. The Fooding (The Fooding makes great stuph, and definitely some home-decor options, especially for Hallowe'en, that I want, but for the most part they drift under the radar because I think they're concentrated on food, not decorative pieces)
33. Goth1co (Goth1co's drifted off the radar the past couple of years, but I still have some EGL outfits of theirs in some folder or other)
36. Ezura (Ezura's odd; they're apparently the parent store of the Sugar Garden, whose group I'm in currently, but as far as I can recall, I've never been to Ezura, specifically)
37. United InshCon (I like their work, I have a lot of it as occasional trees/decorative details that show up in Solace Beach decoration; but the builder has a definite draw towards Pandora, and I really don't want to hunt out a cube that's filled with yet another Na'vi tree for the prize)
42. The Delectable Doll (Sherri Zeurra's store didn't make the first round of picks, not because she doesn't do good work, but because so very little of that work looks good on me. It looks great on other people, but most of my shapes just make her stuph look wonky, and I end up hunting it out, trying it on, appreciating the work that went into it...then sighing and throwing it out.)
43. MollyWorld Dwellings (MollyWorld's a heavy maybe because some of her stuph blows me away, and some of her stuph looks like a five-year-old made it, and I never know which it's going to be until I retrieve the hunt object. There's very little consistency to her work.)
66. The Secret Shelf (Secret Shelf is run by a very quirky woman with a superb sense of humor. Searching her place is fun, I nearly always find something to buy while I'm there, and at least once, I spent half an hour dancing on the roof so I could get a camping-only version of her scribe silks. How'ver, note that last word: she mostly makes silks, and I just don't wear silks that often these days.)
73. Trapt (Trapt makes the maybe list because I own some Trapt pieces--some skins, and one set of gloves, and a wonderful set of hakama pants--but I don't go out of my way to shop there. Still, they're a possible without a picture of their prize.)
97. PETRICHOR (It's one of my favorite scents, and one nearly impossible to reproduce in a lab; for the name alone, I'm willing to try them out)
110. Archaic by Grey Mars (The name sounds interesting)
121. Federschneider Millinery (They get points for being a millinery shop in SL)
141. Little Boy Blue (Don't misunderstand me, Tomoyuki Batra does insanely intricate, beautiful, and occasionally breathtaking jewelry work. I highly admire his pieces. How'ver, as with the intricate items built by Mr. Alastair Whybrow, beauty is not sufficient for me to discard the prim count. While I own jewelry pieces of Mr. Batra's, I rarely ever wear them. Porting around as often as I do, that many prims trapped in a neck adornment or a hair ornament would just kill me.)
145. BedlaM (Again, mainly for the name)
147. Leonine Fantasy Avatars & Accessories (The name intrigues me here, too)
151. TigerLily (There's a vague recollection that I got something from this store before)
154. Hysteria (Pretty much, she makes tattoos, and she's not that prolific, but what work she does is very well done)
161. Burren-Built Designs (If I'm remembering accurately, they do hobbit houses. I don't know why they're on the hunt list, but they do good work)

And that's another nineteen, to round out the original thirty-nine. So that makes fifty-eight stores of the 206 that are possible or definite stops. For some hunts, that's an entire hunt on its own!

But of course, what Twisted list would be complete if it didn't include places I would never, ever go to? Top of the list, of course:

6. Grumble (Because I'm still banned. 'Nuff said.)

Followed by:

54. Alexohol (Like Heartsick, Alexohol has a bad habit of hiding things inside other things, or underneath the floor, or pushed up so far into the ceiling the cube itself can't be seen, and who needs the stress? There's good design work that goes into it, and I own some Alexohol pieces, but unless they have a really good prize, they're off the list. Thankfully, Burning Chrome is not on this year's Twisted list, which is good because I'm still bitter about her hiding one year's cube inside a goddamn wall prim.)
56. Battle Angel. (Unfortunately, this late in the game, I just can't wear hair that alphas terribly. Battle Angel's hair is gorgeous, until I put it on, then it alphas terribly.)
58. Aster's Builts (A woman who can't correct the spelling on her own business name after four years is not a woman to be trusted. Plus, hello, she makes wedding flowers! Her shop is largely done in creams, whites, pinks and baby blues! WHY THE HELL is she in the Twisted hunt in the first place?!?)
107. Shitz N Giggles (I'm an admitted elitist, I don't like the name. SN@TCH only makes the cut because she makes clothes and stockings I love, but I still hate that name too.)
108. DRAGONZ CUSTOM CHOPPERZ (I don't own one single motorcycle in my admittedly vast inventory, and I'm not going to start now)
150. Wildz Creations & Pimp Daddy Trivia (This is another business that's been in the Twisted hunt before, and I have never understood why--they make pretty much mainstream wear, beachwear, holiday outfits, and nothing at all dark, gothic, twisted or even unusual)

So, yeah, that's the list so far, of the great, the good, the okay, and the not-a-chance-in-hells. All I know for sure is that, unless circumstances force my hand somehow (hard to imagine), I am not doing the hunt start to finish. In fact, with Grumble's inclusion, I can't. (Which is fine with me. Yeah, I do regret lumping most of her work in with hooker chic, but I don't regret saying she's a better designer than some of her work shows. Everyone has bad days, people. Deal with it.)