SL10BCC: “And soon, it begins…”

The sun dips slowly towards the sea, spreading shadows across a patchwork landscape of interacting footpaths which mark out a seemingly endless parade of green squares. Neat. Regimented. Empty.

On the water, the wooden piers also mark a series of tidy squares over the water, the tide occasionally slapping against their sides. For now, their lamps remain unlit and the track running beside them quiet.

Almost everywhere is still beneath the high, scudding clouds. Nowhere is a soul to be seen.

It is a time of quiet expectation. A calm before a coming storm of activity which will see the squares of green and blue transformed into the most amazing and awesome builds, all raised with a single purpose: to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Second Life.

This is a last chance to see the regions in their almost untouched state. For on Sunday 26th May they will be open to the exhibitors who have waited so patiently to be a part of the celebrations, and so will begin the first of several weeks of building and arranging which will itself herald the coming celebrations.

Soon gardens, buildings, stages and other wonders will spring from the ground, and over – and under – the water wonderful builds will start to appear, and these regions, so quiet and calm when seen on the map today, will be a riot of green dots as builders, assistants, helpers and SL10BCC staff work to ensure everything is ready for the Grand Opening on June 16th.

And if truth be told, some of the work has already started … Over here I can see the land has been altered, sculpted into hills and other forms, where it is rumoured strange beasts may well roam; over there lay woods and trees in bloom; and over there. Oh my, over there stands … Well, you’ll just have to wait and see, for I’ve promised to say no more…

But the wait will be worth it, of that you can be sure.

Key Dates

• May 26 – Sims open to builders
• June 6 – Photo contest closes
• June 16 – Grand Opening
• June 23 – Official Birthday day and final day of performances
• June 29 – Sims close to the public
• July 1 – All builds to be dismantled – sims go offline

Related Links

• Community Celebration website and blog
• Community Celebration coverage in this blog

Home and Garden Expo opens

The 6th annual Second Life Home and Garden Expo opened on Friday May 24th 2013.

In support of Relay for Life, and covering a total of 11 regions adjoining the American Cancer Society, the Expo brings together over 100 exhibitors of the very best homes, gardens, landscaping and interior design products in Second Life. It will continue through until Sunday June 2nd, 2013.

Eight of the regions of the expo are devoted to homes and gardens, while two more are devoted to the Breedables Fair, which features 30 of creators of Second Life breedable creatures. The remaining region in the exposition is devoted to entertainment and activities.

The Expo is an annual highlight for those that love seeking out the latest home and garden products and combined with a full entertainment schedule, hunts, raffles and silent auctions plus items designed just for this event – you can be sure of finding stylish new products to give your home a fresh look.

Devonmoor Manor, a design by Kismet and one of the units available at the Home and Garden Expo

Entertainment at the Expo will be ongoing through the week of the event, and the best place to find out information on what is going on is the Expo’s entertainment webpage. As with previous years, the Expo has a hunt running through the week, featuring some unique prizes. There’s a L$10 entry fee (proceeds to RFL), and the hunt is  “blind” hunt – meaning entrants  get the landmarks/locations of all the stores in the hunt and their hint, but do not know which store they’re going to. Hints for the hunt can be found at the landing points in each of the Expo regions.

A Silent Auction is also a feature of this year’s expo, with more unique items donated by creators and with all proceeds going to RFL.

The Palamino by Stonewood Homes, also on display at the home and Garden Expo

Release a Lantern of Peace and Love

In 2012, Alchemy Immortalis created a lantern which formed the centrepiece of remembering all those who had survived cancer’s ravages and those who had succumbed in their battle against the disease through a special daily ceremony in which lanterns would be released and allowed to float up into the sky.

The ceremony became very special to the people who attended, and so the folks at PrimPerfect have decided to host it again in 2013.  So, they’ve extended an invitation for people to join them at the Prim Perfect platform on Home Expo 6 every day of the Expo at 16:00 for a communal release of lanterns both to celebrate the living and in memory of those we have loved and lost.

PrimPerfect are also hosting a series of talks with designers throughout the week of the Expo, starting at 15:00 SLT on Friday May 24th with Loz Hyde, Maxwell Graf and Kriss Lehmann, all of whom will be talking mesh.

Meet the Designers with PrimPerfect

The talks will all be taking place at the PrimPerfect Temple at the Expo.

Related Links

• Home and Garden Expo website
• PrimPerfect Taverna – Lantern Ceremony
• Region SLurls (all are rated Moderate unless stated):
  • Home Expo 1: Sponsored by: Roawenwood
  • Home Expo 2: Sponsored by: Cheeky Pea
  • Home Expo 3: Sponsored by: Park Place Home Décor
  • Home Expo 4: Sponsored by: Stonewood Homes
  • Home Expo 5: Sponsored by: Galland Homes
  • Home Expo 6: Sponsored by: Prim Perfect Magazine
  • Home Expo 7: Sponsored by: PRIME
  • Home Expo 8: Sponsored by: Home & Garden Market
  • Entertainment and Activities: Sponsored by: Wonderful World of Meeroos
  • Breedables Fair 1
  • Breedables Fair 2
  • American Cancer Society (rated General)

She’s not me

Not long ago, Honour posted a piece on how, in order to get things done in-world, she sometimes resorts to using an alt. Doing so allows her to focus on what she’s doing without the distractions of IMs, people dropping in or whatever. Last on, she followed-up with a piece commenting that despite the fact she does use an alt – she doesn’t consider the alt to be “her”.

I know what Honour means.

I’ve had an alt since 2008. (Actually, I technically have 2 alts – but one is located on a Destination Island, where I use it to see if there have been any tweaks to the in-world side of the sign-up process, so I ignore it, as it’ll never see serious use anywhere else.). She was created after my main account appeared broken, prompting me to create her simply to be able to get in-world while my main account was “fixed”.

WizardHat Studios

Fortunately, the account issues were resolved after a few days, and so the alt disappeared into a box, making only occasional appearances in-world. More recently, she seen rather more use. This started with me using her to fiddle with project and experimental viewers, a move which prompted me to dub her my “Crash Test Alt”.

Over the last few months, this use has grown to include me sometimes using her to attend in-world Lab meetings (generally as a result of me already being logged-in with her & being to bone-idle to swap accounts / viewers), and occasionally slipping in to scout-out regions I might blog about at some point. Even so, through all this time, I’ve never regarded her as “me”; in my mind she is always, “her”, “she” or “it”.

WizardHat Studios

My reaction probably isn’t that unusual; many of us have a particular avatar in SL into which we pour not only a lot of creative effort, but also a lot of our own personality as well, so much so that there is an indelible line which connects us in a very personal and unique way to that avatar which goes beyond matters of money spent or inventory built up.

Even so, I find my lack of identification with my alt interesting. Other than tweaking her shape and getting her a decent skin, I’ve never seen the need to invest in any clothes or shoes for her. To this day, she’s still wears the outfit she was wearing when first rezzed. It’s not that I can’t define or afford a look for her; I simply don’t see the point of doing so. She doesn’t even have a profile picture of herself.

Humanoid

My inability to identify with her manifests in other ways as well. As I mentioned above, I sometimes use her to slip into SL to scout regions I might blog about. But then I do this, I find that I have considerable difficulty in taking snapshots using her; I can’t settle on camera angles or decide on appropriate windlight settings or the best time of day to frame a shot. Then, even when I do eventually land a series of snaps, I’m completely dissatisfied with them and end up deleting them and swapping back over to my main and starting again. I may be far from the top-flight photographers who inhabit Second Life, but it’s almost as if what abilities I do have when it coming to taking in-world photos is wholly invested in Inara Pey, and it is only with her that I have any confidence that what I’m trying to frame may be worth showing to others.

Winter Moon

My alt isn’t hard to spot. Not only is she still in 2008 “female musician” threads and boots, her group tag tends to read “Inara Pey incognito”, which is a bit of a giveaway, I know. I created it to try and make me feel a little easier with using her; not that it seems to be working.

So if you come her meandering around, and conversation seems odd or awkward when chatting, don’t worry. It’s not that I don’t want to be disturbed or that I’m trying to avoid contact.

It’s just that I’m borrowing someone else’s body for a while, and it doesn’t quite fit.

Looking for summer in Second Life

Earlier in the month, I noted how the weather here perhaps hasn’t received the memo about srping passing and summer arriving, something which prompted me to set off exploring SL in search of something to counterpoint the large number of summer-like snaps inhabiting my posts and Flickr stream. That hike led me – most happily – to Winter Moon, Dream Shadowcry’s beautiful and evocative homestead region.

Well, the weather here in RL has remained pretty bleah; if it’s not been raining, it’s been overcast and the wind less than polite. Up until today, that is, which has seen relatively clear blue skies, sunshine and the chance the lawns might actually dry-out sufficiently for me to get the mower out … tomorrow …

To celebrate, I set out to find the sun in Second Life, I found in Lula, Turnip Sorbet’s marvellous region and the home to her store, Turnip Homes, as well as Lamb and Tres Bleah (Mon Tissu having relocated to Mayfair).

Lula

Lula is another of those marvellous regions where care and attention has gone into presenting visitors with a warm and inviting experience which encourages them to stay, shop and wander. The main stores themselves are clustered, village-like, towards the centre of the region, which has been terraformed into a gently undulating landscape which merges with the green hills of a sim surround.

This is a beautiful rural / rustic scene, the colours of the buildings giving something of a Mediterranean feel to the village, the trees a mix of greens and browns suggesting the season might be late summer, although the young fawns, keeping close to their mother suggest the time might be early spring – so you can decide for yourself which season you prefer.

Lula

The village is small and easy to explore, an added touch of authenticity coming in the form of wooden board nailed over the entrance to the buildings which once house Mon Tissu, and there are places to sit and mark the passing of the day and paths to follow down from the village into the fields and glades surrounding it. Cross the river over the stone bridge and bear right, and you’ll come across a strange little tea party scene, complete with a dormouse nibbling away; not that the Alice reference might be intentional, although the armchair in the tree suggests someone as mad as hatter has some unusual thoughts on the subject of a “room with a view”.

Lula

Cross back over the river via a small wooden bridge and you’ll find the fawns and their mother I mentioned earlier and, as you wander on, other little points of interest and little whimsies to delight the eye as hot air balloons float overhead and offer further platforms to observe the passing world.

Were someone to ask me how to sum-up Lula, I’d probably use one word: carefree. This is a place where the worries and concerns of the outside world – virtual or otherwise – can be left at the teleport point and the heart, mind and eyes can wander and explore happily.

Lula

All-in-all a wonderful place to visit, be it for shopping or to simply enjoy the views.

Related Links

• Lula SLurl (Rated: General)
• SL destinations in this blog

(view slideshow full-screen)