Where in the world is ...

As I look back I see my last post on this blog was about three weeks ago, quite some time in the fast-paced world of blogging. While I can "blame" my First Life for consuming much of my time, quite a few things have been going on in my Second Life, too, and I should have been blogging about those.

The biggest of these has been the total reboot of the club venue at the Isle of Lesbos (SLurl - women only). Earlier this year, the Isle Manager, Threshin Barnett, had come up with the idea of a versatile space some 500m above the Isle where clubs of different themes could be rezzed based on the event theme: Sci-Fi, Western, Jazz, Grunge, etc., to reduce lag and to have larger clubs. Planet Lesbos (Web) was one of these builds. For a variety of reasons it was decided to move this space to ground level, replacing the Sunrise Dock, the basic gathering area and club. That meant that all of the clubs in the sky had to be redesigned and re-constructed. Right now I'm working an a dark, Ridley Scott-ish space station to replace Planet Lesbos after completing a giant snow globe to replace the Winter club, a rebuild of the Pride Club, and a near complete reworking of Faces, one of my favorite clubs (see below).

As you can see, it is based on my SL6B Exhibit (Flickr), which was based on the original Faces club. I'll try to get pictures of the other new clubs posted here soon and on Flickr.

I've also taken time to do a lot of exploring when not building, spending a fair bit of the time on a great "planetoid" called Mos Ainsley (SLurl), a region built by the Linden Moles for no reason I can discern other than fun. I blogged a bit about it for the Lucky Kitty Crew (Web), focusing on the free space suit and overalls on site. But whether as my Pocos mouse avie (at left) or in other forms, I had a lot of fun driving the surface buggy that can be rezzed, finding alien artifacts, trying to find a way to completely seal the base, or even flying the shuttle around the sim and onward to the mainland.

Much of my recreation has been scuba diving, though. The sport has long been a favorite of mine in SL so I was delighted when I first found Dive World (SLurl) nearly two years ago. Recently they've expanded to four regions from one and have changed the basic land settings so really deep dives are possible. As before, most of it looks to be built by my friend and neighbor Kaikou Splash (SLurl to his shop) and it is all excellent. The remodeling is proceeding such that the flora and fauna appear to be reaching out to claim the new landscape. Following the growth is a great way to relax or explore in earnest.

Recently I took my Shilo there and during a dive we spotted a mermaid (and a merman!) so we quickly changed to become part of the wildlife. On another outing with my Angela, Kaikou joined us in his hermit crab avie, I switched to my nautilus avie and we floated around cracking wise and just having a great time. On a visit with both Angela and Shilo we flew the hang gliders, surfed some gnarly waves, swam, and even snuck in a little diving. Can you tell I love this place?

You can follow me on Plurk (click here) for more frequent updates about my whereabouts and doabouts, but I'll try to blog more. Unless I'm diving!

Happy Happy Hippos

Seawolf Monsters (SLurl) has hippo avies! These fabulous beasties are well-crafted in the tradition of the Seawolf dragons (Web) and given away free in hopes you will support the drive to keep deformations (Web) by voting for the Allow Deformations by Reading Position Information in BVH Files/Animations JIRA (Web). Technically, deformations are a bug in Second Life that creators have exploited to create some fabulous avatars. And thank goodness for them. Here I am with Shilo (on the right) cavorting near Waterhead after dressing our hippos. Without the bug we would have had to cavort as ourselves! Sure, that would have been fun, too, but being hippos made it even more fun. Go get yours and vote vote vote!

My Avie was stuck, I tell you!

First, the pic ... the strange skin layer issue in the Release Client of late has struck my bald body part in the regular viewer. The one I've been using for over a year now makes me a Cromag Unibrow. ::::sigh:::

Long story short: My Uccello Poultry avie is stuck in the Isle of Lesbos Mall. Kinda.

Here is the long story ....

While sitting on the Isle of Lesbos with Angela and Shilo I noticed that the adjacent mall sim was once again popping out of existence then gradually coming back over and over, my minimap flickering red each time it returned. No one else saw this happen so I teleported over to check it out but crashed when the mall disappeared again. The Second Life service wouldn't let me log back in for a period of time so I logged in as my alt..

Angela, Shilo, and I all saw my Uccello avie in the mall and on the minimap so I sent an IM to myself and then my Friends list showed "me" offline though my avie was still there. Not unusual for the "ghost avie" phenomenon. After the 5 minute wait that SL imposes I logged Uccello back in using another viewer and teleported back to the Isle where both my avies had a nice conversation with everyone. After a bit I logged out both avies and loggied Uccie back in on the Isle, her Last Location.

After walking a few steps, I saw my Uccie avie back in the mall, but everyone saw her on the Isle and in the mall. And my local chat was with everone on the Isle. So I logged out again and then back in, finding myself on the Isle for just a few moments before being whisked back to the mall one more time. Like before, I couldn't move and all my Local Chat was with people in the Isle. Angela flew over to see me but I was still both places.

I teleported home from "the mall" then back to the Isle where I was able to remain, but the dot representing me was still seen by several on the minimap as being in the mall.

What do you expect? It was a weekend.

My Own LOLcat

My syster Shilo always amuses me in unexpected ways. Recently, we were sky diving at the Isle of Lesbos and she hollered out in an IM for help ... she was stuck in mid-air, as if she was she got suctioned to a wall. Well, it turns out she was. A "wall grabber" attachment she has got activated by a stray invisible prim and stuck her to the prim, closing her chute and leaving her stranded. She is my own LOLcat.

Complicated Relationships: Meet Shilo

According to my Plurk Profile (Web), my relationship status is Complicated. In so-called Real Life (RL), I am single and not even dating. In Second Life^® I am married to another woman and I am her submissive Pet (no S&M and very little bondage, if you must know). If that wasn't complicated enough, my mistress/wife accepted the submission of another woman to be her Pet, so I have a Sister: Shilo Darkfold. As you can see in the pic, she is a Furry (Web).

None of this is legal for me in RL. In fact, I'm not even sure it is possible. But it feels so right. I dearly love my wife, eagerly submitting to her needs and desires yet remaining an equal partner. And my love for my syster (as we spell it) is without question as she is a great companion in all respects. But as you can tell, it is complicated.