The Hub on Gaia - Strawberry Shortcake's Hat

The Hub has a promotion on Gaia now where if you watch a clip from the new SSC series, you get Strawberry's hat for your avatar.  So cute ^_^  I wonder if The Hub will do this for any of their other shows?

Random Summer Memory

As I am still essentially laptop-less (which of course happens when Gaia's summer event is essentially the Oregon Trail. *sigh*), posts will continue to be a little light.  But I was reading X-Entertainment's review of Kool-Aid Bursts and suddenly remembered how my mom used to put Kool-Aid juice boxes in the freezer and then cut off the top of box to make a kind of Kool-Aid italian ice for me and my sisters.  It had a interesting texture, from what I recall (and I can only actually remember the Bluedini flavor, come to think of it), that would kind of flake.  It wasn't just a big ice cube, is what I'm trying to say. Part of me wants to try and recreate it.  But I am thwarted by the fact that Kool-Aid no longer makes juice boxes, although they do make Capri-Sun-like pouches.  Maybe that would work?  Somehow, I doubt it.

Writing Meme - Day Twenty Two

A lot of my stuff really falls into this category, so I'm going to share the original plan for my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel, as it really turned out quite different.
I originally got the idea about a year ago, as two Gaia-related events set it in motion.  First, the evolving item Nartian Rock had its third (I think) evolution, and I fell in love with the character, Kink, for the first time, and instantly equipped his strutting pose to my avatar.  Second, it was Easter, and Gaia's event that year involved finding 500 eggs.  Since the eggs only showed up about once a minute, I was on the site quite a bit, and eventually, seeing my avatar so much and hunting for eggs gave me the idea for a story.

The protagonist, Bunny Watson (named after a character from Desk Set, which I had just watched at the time) is chosen by an alien, Em, to be his partner while he collects "eggs" (I never quite settled on what they were) that have to be stored inside her.  The "eggs" were usually found at events in her community, so she'd have to try and get Em there and keep him secret while still giving him the freedom to find the "egg."  In the course of things, she ended up getting a boyfriend, who thought that she was the alien, but didn't want her to know he knew.
I never really fleshed out why the "eggs" were so important, but they had some kind of powers, as Bunny could tap into them to reach a sort of dimension where, if she wanted, she could make herself 50-feet tall.  At one point, Em tried to tap into the power of the eggs and ended up comatose, which brought on the appearance of a few other aliens, Elle, En, and Cue, in order to snap him out of it.
In the end, the story I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year had only the most basic elements from the story I originally came up with (a girl has to harbor an alien), and a lot more emphasis was put on Bunny's roommate, who in the original story actually interacted with Em quite a bit more (in the sense that she basically hated him and he had to work hard to get in her good graces), but wasn't in the story as much.

Gaia - The Little Mermaid

So, Gaia has come out with a new crop of hairstyles, and I have fallen in love with the Hime style, seen above. Which is a good thing, because it's the most expensive hairstyle to date, and I'd hate to get it, only to decide I prefer my old style (Tressa), which has been happening rather frequently as of late. But this style is just so cute! Sadly, it doesn't layer well with a lot of hats (and other items), but it works surprisingly well with the mermaid items.

Gaia's Christmas Event for 2009

I've been enjoying this year's Christmas event, which picks up where the Halloween event left off (kind of ), with the Sentinel and Overseer taking Santa's place. Like the Halloween event, it's a little tedious, what with having to donate your unwanted stuff, some of which is worth more than others, one piece at a time. And if you want to get the highest achievement, you have to donate enough stuff to be worth 250 points (and most items are only one point). But what I do like about this event is that the main event page, rather than being static, has been progressing storywise day by day. On the first day, the Overseer and Sentinel were by their makeshift airship (mostly made out of a bathtub), but on the second day, a character from ZOMG (the site's MMORPG) crashed his own airship into theirs, destroying it. Over the weekend, the NPC from the limited edition store (which seems to have vanished, come to think of it) proved them with a new airship, which the Sentinel and Overseer are riding today. There's a couple more days left for the event, so we'll probably see them take to the air and deliver presents, but who knows.

Gaia - The Lonely Star

Gaia seems to be getting RIG (random item generator) happy as of late, having just released their third one this summer. But I don't mind so much as the ratio of not-store items seems to be higher than usual. Although I'd like to stop getting so many Star and Moon Lanterns. That would be nice.

On a related note, I can't stop playing with my Avatar lately. Seriously, I've been putting together different combinations of the past couple days, and I like to think that the only up there is the best one so far.

Fun on Gaia: Genderbending

Of course, I have too much fun with the evolving items and their need to fit both male and female avatars.  And by 'too much,' I mean 'over an hour's worth.'  Kind of makes me want to write up an epic fairy tale about these two, or something.

Halloween comes early to Gaia

Tonight marks the beginning of this year's Halloween event on Gaia.  This year you can either be a human, zombie, vampire, or dark elf.  I chose the latter.  Doesn't it go nicely with my kitty costume?

Gaia Olympics!

The Gaian Rejected Olympic Games are so addicting! Seriously, I want to keep playing, even though I really should be going to bed. Which I will, because my wireless mouse is acting up, so I can't play the games any more anyway (and get a decent score, anyway). I'm on Team Isle de Gambino, as you can tell by my shirt (from last year) and flag (which covers my second pigtail). Right now we're only in third, but that's still better than we fared last year!

Gaia Story - Freakin' Fantastic!

Do you know who I am? Well, do ya, punk? This feeling coursing through me... This is power, awesome power as yet untapped. It is definitely the cape. Just remember, this is where it all started. Play your cards right, and you'll be in a favorable position in the new regime.

A Gaia Story: Snake and Rabbit

The bunny makes a peace offering of mochi. The snake contemplates the offered confection cooly, waiting for the right moment to strike. And I, as usual, am too busy being cool to notice the upcoming feeding frenzy.

A Gaian Story

What's that, you ask? That is my avatar on Gaia, and I'm posting it because of those little wings attached to my hat, the Angel Mini Wings, which I have finally acquired, after dreaming of having them for three years.

I joined Gaia early in 2004; in fact, that bag I'm wearing is the Emo Bag, my very first donation item. For those of you who never heard of Gaia, it's a glorified messageboard where you get "gold" that you can use to buy items for your avatar by doing various things, like posting. Also, one of the ways the site earns money for its upkeep is by giving sealed letters with exclusive items to users who donate to the site. New letters are released each month, and the items are revealed on the 15th, although it used to be the 25th. This practice started in June 2003, when only a handful of donators got a halo. Starting the next month, each letter had a choice of two items, and more recently, some letters have three items to choose from. But in September 2003, the items were the Nitemare Mini Wings and the Angel Mini Wings. And they were pretty darn popular.
After being on Gaia for a year, I decided to get a pair for myself, and so I started a quest thread, mainly a place to make my cause known so that if anyone felt generous, they could donate to my cause. Some people did, but I got most of my gold through bumping up my thread, and voting in polls (you could get more gold for that back then than you can now). I hoarded letters each month, and even invested in a Nitemare Scarf (another 2003 donation item), but after almost nine months, my offer was simply pitiful, and inflation was running rampant. So I gave up and simply enjoyed the lump of gold I had raised. I still dreamed of owning the minis someday, but I didn't take any action.

For whatever reason, I got interested in the Gaian Exchange board last month, and I decided to see if I could sell the letters I saved from 2004. So I made a post listing what months I had and how many, and spent a little over an hour trading letters for millions of gold, raising 32 million by the time I was done. With that in hand, I made an offer to a seller, and, with the addition of the Nitemare Scarf, and a more recently acquired Angelic Scarf, she took it, and here I am, three years later, my quest finally over. And I still have 2 million gold in my account. It's so surreal. But I'm so happy, that I don't really care.