The Womenstuff Hunt is on and there are 174 stores involved. Hints and slurls are here - but there are no photos of the prizes. Normally, if it's clothing, Annthrasite goes out and finds the prizes, tries them on, takes photos and some notes, and then posts the results on my Flickr page. She did a lousy job this last time. She found the stuff she was looking for, and we pick out the best or what we liked the most of what she found (no one gives us this stuff - we hunt for it and pay for it if necessary) to post photos of as a Public Service to the Second Life community. No, really. Well, also there's that Barbie effect. I don't know about the rest of you, but I was not showered with clothes for my dolls so this is like heaven for me. I enjoy putting outfits together. But Annthrasite was not keeping good notes and we had to keep going back and updating information.
But it's not as easy as it looks. Frustrated with Annthrasite's performance, I sent Lludmila out. Lludmila needs more clothes like a virtual hole in her virtual head. Usually she waits to see what Annthrasite finds and then goes out and gets the outfits she thinks will look good on her. She did the whole Womenstuff Hunt. This doesn't mean she found everything. Oh no. And she uses every trick at her disposal to get them. Although not as evil as the Twisted Hunt people, the Womenstuff shops can be devious. They've been making that little shirt as tiny as possible in some cases. Case in point, Brocade Tiger. Now, the location just happens to be a men's shop in the men's area of the event sim. So both Annthrasite and Lludmila thought they were in the wrong place. The hint was plain as day. Annthrasite never found the little shirt, but Lludmila finally did. And it took ages. She Alt-moused the camera all over. She went wire-frame. She tried Area Search and looked at each item on the list in the 6 meter area. It finally just hit her where it was. And the weirdest thing is, Annthrasite is Lludmila's alt. They share the same typist - me.
Collecting the prizes is the easy part. Next is opening all the boxes (do you "add" or pull it out of your inventory onto the floor?), putting on the outfit (finding Maitreya versions for Lludmila out of what is sometimes a huge list), taking a picture, and making notes. Lludmila had over four pages of notes, going in what she hoped was numerical order, but not all shops indicated their number or even that it was for the Womenstuff Hunt.
Then there was going back and picking out what to wear with which. This was so onerous that we gave up matching nail polish and even changing the pose. And it was still too much. We'd get Lludmila all dolled up, note exactly what she was wearing and what shop it came from ... and then forget to either take the picture or save it before moving on to the next ensemble! There was one outfit she put on three times at least before she remembered to take the picture and save it. And it was an outfit she really liked. Imagine setting up six outfits, taking all the notes, and when you go back to the photos - finding you only saved two of them. And doing this again and again.
So, I hope you people appreciate this. I see that the photos on Flickr (Here) are getting a lot of views and I don't expect a deluge of thank-yous, but it sure is a lot of work, even in this minimalist format. So, if you see Annthrasite or Lludmila out and about, do give them a wave and all of your Linden dollars. Just kidding. Sort of.
