Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Open House I, Parcel Party




Written 29 January, 2007

Open House

I. Parcel Party


The open house at Pele went swimmingly.

There were lots of people.

Bill and Pam Havercamp put on their best performance ever.

All my neighbors were there, all of Forsaken.

We crashed the sim.

How cool is that?

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The open house was scheduled for Sunday between 9 am and Noon, Linden time, with Bill and Pam’s concert at 11 am. But when I logged on at six o’clock (nine o’clock for me!), avatars were already showing up. They were, in fact, showing up at a rate of about 30 an hour.

I stood on top of the altar at the temple to Pele, just behind the entry point, and bade each av welcome, saying, “Aloha, avatar. Welcome to Pele!”

A lot of the folks were friendly, but many didn’t reply even to a second hello in chat, which annoyed me.

I banned two people—not for not talking to me, although I was tempted to ban several no-talkers simply because they wouldn’t talk—but for other reasons. I banned one because I was certain it was he who had placed the pyramid scheme pyramid next to my notecard giver. Everyone else present was looking around, playing in the lava, and chatting, but one av remained in position where he had materialized, not talking. When he didn’t reply to my pointed question about the pyramid, I banned him before he could place more.

He may have been a bot. He was new and unfinished-looking—but the pyramid was placed perfectly right next to my notecard dispenser. A bot couldn’t do that (at least without elaborate scripting), so it was probably a real person.

This motivated me to go to the About Land menu and turn off the ability of visitors to rez objects on the land. I’m glad I did, because throughout the day, someone kept trying to rez fishes in the underwater park.

The second banned avatar—another non-talker—was carrying a bloody ax. I asked him twice in chat to lose the ax, and a third time in an IM. When he didn’t drop it, I banned him.

I am not required to suffer fools on my own Second Life land.

A third avatar showed up naked. I politely asked him to put on some clothes, and he did.

Pam Havercamp came over about an hour before the concert to check the venue. At her suggestion I added cushions for seating and she put out some dance pose balls to supplement my tango and slow-dance (the only two I own). I raised one of the bamboo huts 200 meters into the air, which provided more space.

It was time for the show.

At a quarter before eleven, I sent out a final IM invitation to my friends. Pam sent out invitations to her large group of fans, and she and Bill teleported in at ten minutes before the hour. They gave me the URL of their stream, and we were off.

Bill and Pam are hugely popular entertainers in SL By the time the concert started, there were about thirty people in Forsaken. Within a few minutes, the simulator was at its capacity, refusing entry to those trying to teleport. My fame rate had slowed to five (not bad for so many people!), but otherwise SL was performing perfectly.

Bill and Pam were sounding great.

They started with (because of the pirate flag I have hanging from the decking) a rousing and highly-publishable pirate song Bill had written, and then my favorite from their repertoire, Cambridge Town, which was written by a friend of Bill’s.

My good friend Melissa Yeuxdoux was there, and my friend Bell, and Dodgeguy, and Leaf and her boyfriend Armando, and Nikolas, and Sorcha, Mordecai Scaggs’ little sister (Mordecai had sent his regrets several days earlier). It would have been perfect if Sweetie and Exuberance had been there, but Xubi was driving home from a business trip to Maryland, and Sweetie—well, with Sweetie, who knows? Maybe she was shopping and the open house escaped her mind. Maybe her laptop overheated, as it sometimes does. Maybe she was building something and got absorbed in it.

There was a contingent of Europeans present. Bill and Pam’s fans in Europe don’t get to hear them that often, as they usually play in the late afternoon and early evening, Linden time. That’s wicked early hours in the Western Europe.

We were having a fabulous time.

Then the sim crashed.

3 comments:

Veronique Lalonde said...

Glad to hear that your open house went so well, Chey! Sunday morning was not a good time for me (I am in the same time zone as SL), but I was finally able to go in-world at about 11:20. I IMed Sorcha for a TP, figuring you might be very busy, and she tried to bring me in, but by that time the sim was full. We tried a few times, but no joy. So I will have to see if it's possible to do a volcano inspection some other time. Aloha!

artistjk said...

Trying to get to know more people in SL ........I am Jonathan Kesten in SL But stood next to you briefly while you organising open day at this bar and did say hello but you were very busy.

Cheyenne Palisades said...

Hey, Jonathan, glad to see someone is reading my blogs! The party was January, 2007. YOu must have a memory like an elephant! :) Come by Whimsy some time and say hello.

Chey