Blingless

Bling

No Bling

My Favorite Earrings

Written 26 July, 2007

Blingless

When I was new in Second Life, I was way excited to buy jewelry with bling in it.

We all know what bling is, or course—it’s that periodic particle sparkle jewelry and other items give off.

Bling looks good on the dance floor, but most of the time it’s an annoyance—at concerts for instance, or when Sweetie and I are alone in the House of 1000 Pleasures.

Sweetie keeps midnight set and has cranked down the gamma in Preferences to make the nights really dark (so local lights have a greater effect on her screen). Under her visual conditions, the bling from my jewelry is dazzlingly bright.

Most bling scripts listen to chat and so can be switched off and on (which is why you hear so many people say “Bling off.” They’re not telling you off, merely turning off their sparklies.

Unfortunately, the bling scripts in my jewelry (and perhaps those of lots of others) turn themselves on upon teleport. (This is another reason you hear so many people telling you to bling off).

And of course scripts that listen to chat contribute in a small way to sim lag. And we all know sim lag is a bad thing.

And so, last night, as Sweetie was sorting through her inventory, trying to figure out what was causing her Black Band of Death syndrome (parts of your avatar show up as black), I took the bling out of my favorite earrings, bracelets, and ankle bracelet.

It was a big step for me; I’ve been a bling grrrl for a long time. Bling is all I know.

It was pretty easy, once I got past the mental part; I just hopped on a pose stand so my avatar wouldn’t fidget, right-clicked my jewelry, went into Edit, clicked the box that let me edit individual prims, zoomed in close, using CTRL-0 (if you do that, be sure to hit CTRL-9 to reset your view when you finish) and rifled through the prims that comprised my jewelry, moving any bling scripts I found to my inventory—and in some cases, when I couldn’t seem to move them into my inventory, deleting them.

When I was through, my jewelry was blingless.

I have to say my jewelry—most of which comes from a place called Rick’s (I can never seem to find a landmark for it)—was quite stunning when seen up close. I had never noticed it before, but the pearls in my earrings were rotating; I left the animation scripts in place. Blingless I may now be, but rotateless? I don’t THINK so!

Bling or not, Rick makes really nice jewelry. Take a look at the photos—then go get some! Take the bling out or leave it in, as suits you.

As for me, I’m sans bling. I’m sure Sweetie’s eyes will thank me for my efforts.

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p.s. Removing bling doesn't quite get it-- for, you see, the bling particles remain after the script is deleted. It's necessary to stick in (and you can then remove it) a remove bling script. You can find one in the Pele Freebies at Forsaken (74, 153, 21). :)