Bilizzard!

Written 29 November, 2011

Blizzard!

Seems we're having an unexpected blizzard on Whimsy!

Automated Ticket Giver at the Robot Cinema

Written 26 November, 2011

Automated Ticket Giver at the Robot Sanatarium

Return to SLeezyWood

Written 29 November, 2011

Return to SLeezyWood

I should know better than to seek destinations at the Linden Showcase. I'm usually disappointed.

My last venture was to a place that sells mobile homes and RVs. It looked too much like a real RV lot-- flat and boring-- but unlike real life sales lots, this one was chock full of camera traps. I had one hell of a time getting out of this vehicle:

Do you see me driving this thing across the country? No way!

And so I took myself to a place that KNOWS how to make trailers trashy-- the one and only SLeezyWood!

Besides, I was low on herb and intent on raiding this shed I found back in early 2007:

Alas, the shed and the grow lights and the plants were gone-- no doubt hauled away in a bust by the ever-vigilant Bay City police-- but I did find some classically shabby blue-collar abodes. Photos are below the fold.

HO-Made Pizza! Sheesh!

Baja Rides the Bull

"Must... Get... Penny... Royce's... Name... Off... The... Scoreboard!"

Written 26 November, 2011

Baja Rides the Bull

Baja Mekanic, who lives rent-free in the lava of the volcano Pele (she seems to like him), holds the high score on the bull-riding game at Whimsy's PG Den of Iniquity.

Even though he holds the high score, Baja seems obsessed with beating his record. Here's what I witnessed last night:

Now You See Them, Now You Don't!

Notice the All-Prim Top Worn by the Avatar in Blue

Written 26 November, 2011

Now You See Them, Now You Don't!

(AAOOOGAAH! NUDE BREASTS BELOW THE FOLD)

I rarely wear revealing clothing in Second Life-- probably partially because despite a body that's far less than perfect, I've always worn exactly what I wanted in Real Life, and probably partially because I think more is sometimes less (in other words sometimes more clothing is sexier than little or no clothing).

Night before last I tracked Sweetie to a fancy dress show. She straightaway crashed, leaving me to stand and look around.

Straightaway, I noticed an avi with an all-prim top.

Now, all-prim tops are subject to disappearing because they don't rez properly or just haven't rezzed yet, so I was surprised when, after seeing her breasts covered, they suddenly popped out.

Photos from Tyrehl Byk's Catharsis Particle Show

I can't say enough about how well orchestrated Tyrehl's Catharsis show is. The particles make pictures, the music coordinates with the visuals, and every song tells a story.

More photos below.

Tyrehl Byk's Fabulous Catharsis Particle Show: Go Immediately and See It

Catharsis

Night on Bald Mountain

Written 25 November, 2011

Tyrehl Byk's Fabulous Catharsis Particle Show: Go Immediately and See It

Tyrehl's latest show is Catharsis, and it's truly a tour de force.

Through interaction of particle, prims, music, and camera viewpoint, Catharsis not only paints pictures in the sky-- it takes its audience through the same sort of journey 1940 viewers experienced when seeing Walt Disney's Fantasia .

Tyrehl's show has some abstract particle effects, to be sure, but he's skillful at painting pictures with particles, making, for instance, constantly changing trees.

This is the last weekend, so go NOW and see it.

Here's the New World Notes article on the show.

Here's the URL for Tyrehl's schedule.

And here's the SLURL for the particle show.

More photos forthcoming.

GO NOW!

Free Foliage at Nature's Touch Nursery

Written 24 November, 2011

Free Foliage at Nature's Touch Nursery

Yesterday a friend told me everything at Ricardo Avalira's Nature's Touch Nursery on the Sweet Water sim is free until the 27th.

I tried to go last night, but the teleports silently failed. Tonight another friend IMed to tell me about the sale. I kept trying until I got in, and then teleported in Sweetie.

Sure enough, everything on huge plot was free-- evergreen and deciduous trees, palms, flowers, grasses, garden structures, off-sim islands-- hundreds and hundreds of items. The only item that wasn't free was Ricardo's tree house, which was priced at $100L.

Needless to say, I stocked up-- and so should you! Go here. Keep trying until you get in.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Spectacular View from the PG Den of Iniquity

Written 24 November, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

The PG Den of Iniquity: Part III of III

Written 20 November, 2011

The PG Den of Iniquity

Part III of III

For a long time now I've had a rail car that runs along tracks just as Kitto Flora's steam train does. Unlike Kitto's train, the rail car will climb at any angle and even run along walls or upside down, which is perfect for craziness on Whimsy.

The rail car has a couple of disadvantages, though. First, every piece of equipment and track has the same name. This makes it necessary to either unpack the components from boxes with each use or to put each in its own named folder. It's not a deal-beaker, just annoying.

The biggest annoyance is the large non-modifiable sign that rezzes the car. It has to be positioned just so in relation to the track, and it's well, big and unsightly. Unfortunately the sign, like everything else in the kit, is non-modifiable.

The car runs well, though, and was perfect for the route from the blimp tower to the PG Den of Iniquity.

The rail line ends on the deck of the PGDoI. Visitors can move from the deck into the Gobbler's main room or climb the ropes on the port side to enter extensive hidden rooms inside the balloons.

The main room (at the Gobbler's new expanded size) is large enough to hold a grand piano and harp on one side and a large bar on the other and still feel spacious.

This steampunk clock I coincidentally just bought is a perfect fit.

A stair leads to two rooms below decks-- one a lounge, and the other the control room. The lounge now holds a Greedy Greedy table and the control room features a playable pool table and a great steampunk horse racing game I just bought at The Mechanical Toy Factory.

The lowest level features a dart board and Whack-A-Mole and Zombie attack games. There's a well-appointed sitting area done up on Arts & Crafts style.

Up in the balloons are a bowling lane, a shooting arcade, a model train, and a mechanical bull.

 Now all of Whimsy's games have an elegant home.

Well, almost. I keep Settlers of Second Life (255 prims!) and K.R. Engineering's On-A-Roll and SLopoly games in inventory to help keep prim count and script time under control.

Go here to visit the PG Den of Iniquity  in Second Life. Take the robot lift up to the blimp tower and then ride the rail to the PG Den of Iniquity. There are two floors below the main level, and huge rooms inside the balloons; just walk the ropes on the right side (as you face the entrance) to enter the balloons.

The PG Den of Iniquity: Part II of III

Written 19 November, 2011

The PG Den of Iniquity: Part II of III

Since early 2008 Whimsy's games have lived on a series of platforms 1800 or so meters above the beach.

I tried several times to make the platforms into something interesting, and I failed every time.

Putting the games in the Gobbler airship was a no-brainer-- once I had the idea, that is. Ask me why it took so long for me to think of such a solution. Just ask. I won't answer.

With a new lift and with the blimp tower remodeled, I awaited Sweetie's approval. Which I got, sort of.

"Why isn't the tower in the middle of the opening in the roof?" she asked.

"Uh, because it's been off center for two years now?" I ventured.

"It needs to be centered," she said.

"Fine," I said. "I'll just lasso the tower and a dozen or so pieces of the lift and move them to your satisfaction."

"Good," she said. "And rotate it all 90 degrees while you're at it."

Readers of this blog will know this is how Sweetie and I work. She puts up something to get me motivated. I rebuild it. She critiques it. I rebuild it again. This would piss me off, but it's impossible to get pissed off when I know it'll be better after the redo. And it's always better after the redo.

So I  carefully selected all the parts to be moved and relocated and turned the blimp tower. And then, because they violated her sense of balance and proportion, I redid the walkways Sweetie made long ago. Then she demurely suggested the Gobbler would work a lot better as a game palace and center of PG depravity if I would just drag it 20% bigger.

The PG Den of Iniquity: Part I of III

Written 19 November, 2011

The PG Den of Iniquity

Part I of III

After months of being a slug in Second Life I've been busy the past week or so, making the PG Den of Iniquity (Sweetie named it-- of course!).

The PGDI floats above and  some distance away from our huge built 4000 meters above Whimsy:

I installed the Gilded Gobbler airship about 30 meters above the top of the blimp docking tower. It looked good hovering up there. And then Sweetie renamed it.

Through the Looking Glass

"Alice, My Dear, You'll Never Become Queen
If You Insist on Turning Your Back on Your Subjects"

Written 14 November, 2011

Through the Looking Glass

Yesterday Sweetie and I took ourselves to see Avatar Repertory Theater's new Play Though the Looking Glass.

The new play, if not quite a reprise of last year's Alice in WonderSLand, is certainly similar territory. The audience was this time transported not down a rabbit hole, but through a looking glass into familiar Lewis Carroll territory.

ARC's technical expertise is heads and shoulders above other Second Life performance troupes. Sets magically rezzed and disappeared, avatars seamlessly interacted with one another, and the costuming was incredible.

Productions in Second Life are beset by problems not encountered on the actual stage-- lag, actors who appear as clouds, inopportune viewer crashes by actors and members of the audience, the sim resetting, textures that won't resolve, temperamental scripts. Despite the best efforts of ARC, yesterday's production was affected. At one point Alice was trapped under a rez-fauxed prim hillock and couldn't find her way out, despite the White Queen's repeated ad libs to sit in a chair placed by a tree. At one point there were TWO Alices, the first having crashed but not yet disappeared from the screen and the stand-in having been called in to replace her.

There were issues with the actors, also. Most of the voices were over-amped; I had to cut the speech volume down for most of the players. Alice's avatar was most annoying, as she was constantly looking at the ground-- and not only that-- her back was to the audience more than half the time.

Still, it was an engaging and stunningly produced work, well-appreciated by the audience, Sweetie and myself included.

My favorite moment? When the audience, which had until then been seated on benches in the grass...

...suddenly found itself seated with the actors inside a rail car:

Through the Looking Glass is running through December. Tickets are $500L, a bargain, considering how much work went into the production.

For details, the SLURL, and ticketing, visit here.

More photos follow:

Elysienne's Airship

4 November, 2011

Elysienne's Airship

My friend Elysienne couldn't wait to show me her new airship.

Night before last she rezzed it and we flew all over Whimsy.

It's a serious aircraft. Built by Johnnytreadlightly Nightfire and called the Gilded Gobbler, it weights in at 180 prims, it flies nonphysically.

The texturing is wonderful and the craft is big enough not to trap the camera.

I read Johnnytreadlightly's profile and wound up yesterday morning at his shop. The Gobbler was absurdly cheap, less than a thousand Lindens (Shhh! Don't tell Elysienne!). My plan is to dock it 4000 meters above Whimsy and fill it with games. I've never been satisfied with the game platform above Whimsy anyway.

I got the idea of games because I and Elysienne and some of her friends wound up playing Greedy Greedy the other night.

Update on Whimsy

Written 2 November, 2011

Update on Whimsy

Our friend Fem, who moved onto Whimsy before the land was even terraformed, is gone after three-and-a-half years. Sadness.

She's still around, though. Happiness. Just not on Whimsy.

I reminded Fem she had the option to sell her land, but that apparently didn't happen. I did get a query from one of her friends who said he was considering leasing the land. I told him Fem could sell the land to him, but not lease and asked him to read the covenant (he said he already had, but might as well be thorough).

Tier date has come and gone and there's been no word from Fem or further word from her friend, and no payment, so just now I returned the prims on the parcel and joined  the land.

There's a teahouse and a torii gate on the land temporarily. You should check it out. Southeast corner of Whimsy. the views are great.