Come On Lindens Don’t Let This Happen

I heard yesterday that the fantastic Victoriana sim is to close because the owner could not get the technical support he needed when his whole 12 sim site became unworkable as his permissions had been altered to non-modify on all his prims after Linden Labs carried out maintenance on the server. See more details about the closure in my article at http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-424253. It would be nice to think that Linden Labs may contact owner LittleBlackDuck Lindsay to try to resolve this, and maybe reverse the decision to close one of the most loved places in SL.

Murray Info Hub

If you want to have your say on the Murray Info Hub plans, please see the article at http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-394229 and place your comments there.

Heavyweight Global Warming To Role Play In Gor

Most of my attention has been drawn to writing stuff on CNN this week, I have been invited to go to the in-world Copenhagen climate change conference by the organiser, as fellow ireporter Vickie Maistone had told him about me, but I had to IM the organiser back and say although I am accepting the invitation, which was really nice, I am also a sceptic and I have been writing about the leaked emails belonging to the top scientist Prof Phil Jones who it seems has been manipulating the data because the planet isn’t warming up at all.  See Global Warming or a Scam, An Update on Global Warming and Global Warming, when the Truth is Really Inconvenient.  I realised that I would be in for a lot of stick because people are pretty fanatical about green issues, calling sceptics ‘deniers’ or ‘flatearthers’ as it’s treated like a religion and I think if this had been going on in the 17th Century the Save the Planet brigade may have even hunted sceptics down and burned them at the stake, but I just think the truth should be out there, the media are doing a great job of covering the leaked emails up.  I will try to get to most of the in-world conference as it is linked straight into the real world one, who knows they may even have a balanced debate, but I doubt it somehow.   

The nice thing about SL is that you can take your mind off of stuff like Global Warming for a little while and just enjoy wandering around.  I took my Arabian horse for a ride around virtual London, Brie and Torric and their London team have been putting up the Christmas lights and it looks a treat.

Later on Drax and I took to the skies on the tarn again, he is getting really good at controlling the giant bird.  We flew back over to the Gorean City of Thentis and made a very smooth landing in one of the streets there.  The tarn really dislikes me, as every time I get off him he tries to bite me, I had a meter attachement on that shows when I am in danger and the tarn was having a right go.  I think he has bonded with Drax and doesn’t like anyone else, what a nasty bird!

We looked around the city and found some people sitting around a big fire and we asked if we could join them.  We sat and chatted for a while and I tried a bit of role play as a free woman.  I am still a bit rusty with it all, but I enjoyed having a go and exchanged questions with the others at the fireside.  It made a real change to real life politics and was a bit of fun.

Swine Flu at CNN and Lively Week!

I’d put in a couple of stories to CNN last week and went over to the meeting last Tuesday and Nicole Saidi the CNN Producer was already there waiting for the others to arrive.  Nicole is usually very pushed for time, as she meets us in-world while she is at work at the CNN Headquarters in Atlanta, so she often has to dash off if a story breaks.  She told me that she was actually at home ill, as she had swine flu and a bad throat, so it was good of her to make it into SL at all, being that she was not very well.  As the others arrived it was quite a good meeting, however, I think most of them thought that the meeting slot was 2pm SLT like it used to be, and not 1.30pm SLT, so many arrived late.  We thanked Nicole for giving us her time in spite of her being at home, and I hope she is feeling better.

You might wonder what it’s like working with a very rowdy bunch of virtual reporters in SL, well I can tell you it’s not easy!  I have to keep Ed and Hibiscus in check all the time or they run riot!!  Things came to a head the other day when they decided to have a medieval duel in our office in Virtual Kensington, I just ducked out of the way as Ed swing his hammer and Hib drew her lethal looking sword!! 

Max the Siamese kitten is used to Ed and Hib sparring in the office, he knows they are only joking around and he loves them both, Ed sent me a picture of Max who had found a warm spot on his shoulder to go to sleep, awww cute!

I went over to the Jazz club in Kensington to see what was going on and there were some people enjoying the evening there.  I met up with Gerr Finesmith and we had a bit of a dance, it’s a nice club with some good music and I hope it’s a big success for Almo Skytower who runs it!

Been chatting to Debs Regent a bit this week and I told her about Johnnytreadlightly Nightfire’s castle so I met her over there and we had a little look around, she was amazed at the detail.  I could imagine a copy of the Tower of London would be really great in Virtual London, complete with ghosts, lol, but the Tower of London is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, a long way away from the areas covered by Virtual London, shame though!

Debs had to return to real life and I went back to chase some more stories for the coming week.

 

A Hedge, A Shrub And A Thorn!

I wandered over to the sandbox in Hyde Park Yesterday, I had this yearning to build something, although I wasn’t too sure what, I find it quite relaxing messing around with prims.  While I stood there still deciding, a tall gentleman came and stood near, and he had a tee-shirt on that could only invite comment.  Written on the front of the tee-shirt in big bold letters was the word ‘Pervert’.  He said hello and I asked him about the tee shirt, he said he didn’t believe in Lindens so he must have picked it up for free.  His name was Hedge and he asked about how far people could go in the pg sim before they get thrown out with bad language etc.  In spite of his tee-shirt I got he impression that, he did, in fact, have a good sense of humour and would wear that to invite conversation.  After all a real pervert wouldn’t exactly advertise the fact would he?  We were joined by Hibiscus who entered into the lively chat and puns were exchanged right left and centre, I was very boring and on a bit of a roll with them.  Hedge thought he might like to get more involved with us and decided that all three of us should get married.  I decided this was a bad idea as I thought I might get left with the washing and ironing part of the partnership.  Hib had other ideas and began to put her wedding dress on.

In no time at all Hibiscus was kitted out in all the wedding gear!

It seemed like a match made in the Garden of Eden,  a Hedge and a Hibiscus, a union of shrubs, I felt like a thorn in the side of this ‘would be’ romance and decided that a three way wedding was not for me, who would do the dusting and vacuuming? how would we decide who is doing the washing up? it just wouldn’t work!

Poor Hedge decided, in the end, that this wedding was not for him, Hib has another broken heart and I am wondering if she can get a refund on her wedding dress, perhaps we could buy Hedge a new shirt without ‘that’ word written on it!!!

Just Having Fun!

I seem to be writing all the time now, ok it’s what I enjoy doing, but there hardly seems time to have any fun lately and just wander off to do other things without constantly getting stories and taking pictures with an article in mind.  Well over the weekend I decided that I would just do that for a change, wander around the grid and see what I could find.  I found a beautiful sim and the man who owns it makes real looking waves and rocks and the best thing is that you rez it on your land them push it over the sim border so it doesn’t use up any prims.   I decided to buy one of the kits and take it home to try it out and it’s absolutely breathtaking, I’m really glad I did.  The only thing is though, I found myself writing about it again as it was so good and put it on Our Virtual Trilogy and ihearts.

Meeting up with Hibiscus and Ed later on in Virtual London, Ed showed us this fantastic jet he had built and we talked about getting around the sims in the helicopter that you can rezz from the Chelsea sim.  Ed has been having a go with it and I bet he can fly it a lot better than I can.  Drax joined us and we stood laughing and joking and having a great time.

I went for a wander with Drax the next day and we visited a castle (which I am planning on writing about! again!!!) and then went on to the Magical Mystery sim to listen to the music and just stroll around.  Funny thing, I met the owner who was standing there when we rezzed in, I hadn’t told her that I had mentioned her sim in my last CNN story about the Beatles, so I was able to tell her and she seemed  pleased.  We just relaxed and looked around, ending up in the little shop there where there was a blazing fire.  We made ourselves at home and just sat chatting, it was an end to a really nice weekend.

Crowd At CNN With Special Visitor

It had been a busy night last night, I was writing a couple of articles and editing some photos ready for the Trilogy blog and Virtually London (lite) and it was also the evening for the CNN meeting as well.  Just before that I had seen a group IM asking for someone to help with a couple of griefers over at the UGC, so I dashed over there to see what was happening, nosy as ever!!  I couldn’t take a picture as there was an av running about nude with a big attachment, but I arrived in time to see DJ Mike booting the guy out of the sim, he did come back once, but Mike booted him again and this time he stayed away!

I went over to the CNN meeting and met Hibiscus who was already there and Nicole the CNN reporter had already arrived as well. 

To my surprise there were over 20 people there with others still arriving.  I think Nicole was quite surprised and also she suddenly spotted one of the audience had a Linden tag.  It was Christa Linden who had come to sit in, she told Nicole she was part of the marketing group in the Linden Labs and she sat taking some pictures while she was there.  The meeting went ok with quite a few people asking bits and pieces and at the end when Nicole had gone I asked Christa if she had anything we could report on and she mentioned the SL conference coming up shortly.  Silly me, I forgot to ask her for one of her bears, it was only Drax asking me later if I had got a bear that made me think of it, I missed my chance there!   After the meeting I found myself a great little coffee bar in Chelsea to sit in and finish my writing and I managed to get it all done.

100 Stories on CNN!!

I reached a bit of a milestone the other day, my 100th story on the CNN’s ireport site, I put my 101st story on today (SL London Includes Soho Sex Trade Area).   My friend and fellow writer Hibiscus Hastings and I had been pioneers in respect of ireports, as we were among the few who got stories put on the first official CNN ireport page when it stopped being Beta, we had been putting stuff on the Beta pages too when CNN had been trying it all out and there were only a handful of us in those days who were ireporters.  Now there are nearly 27,000 ireporters worldwide.  It was dead scary too, as we had no access to edit our work once it was uploaded and I remember desperately emailing the real CNN reporters Tyson and Nicole put right the odd typos I had made. 

It’s been a great journey for me, interviewing lots of really nice, clever and interesting people.  Covering the first American Congress meeting ever to be held in SL down to funny wacky stories that I find so amusing.  I couldn’t have done it without support from my friends, Hibiscus Hastings and Drax Ember, who are always there to encourage me to carry on and calm me down when people drive me nuts!!!   Plus the CNN reporters Nicole and Henry who keep us going at the meetings each week. 

You meet so many different types of people in SL from all walks of life, all ages, all nationalities, all with different ideas that make the whole thing so fascinating!  I’ve had many ups and downs, more ups than downs though, people who just want to get written about or their stuff promoted, people who alter history like Schmonson Dalglish (artist Paul Batt, see Fine American Art Makes History) and not forgetting nuisance people who spout off in public then make a big fuss when you quote what they forced everyone to listen to.  It’s been an enjoyable ride and writing is a thing I can’t get enough of, so I hope I will be telling SL stories for some time yet!!

A 99 On Brighton Pier!!!

I do love to be beside the seaside!! always have!and always loved New Brighton!!!  So it was with a great deal of joy that I spotted New Brighton Pier in the Showcase stuff in SL and thought I would take a look.  Well I was gobsmacked!! what a wonderful place, the detail is just excellent and it is so much like the real New Brighton that it is amazing!!  I landed on the entrance to the pier and spotted an ice cream vendor, so I got myself a large (and it was large!!) 99 cone (for my American friends a 99 cone is a vanilla ice cream cone with a flake (chocolate bar) sticking out of it, although you don’t have to have vanilla, any flavour with do, but it has to have the flake!).

I looked at every angle of the pier and it just looks great all around, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to get the pier and the surrounding buildings just right, funny how a familiar place is so pleasing, piers are a sort of childhood thing too, the novalty of walking along the wooden floor and seeing the sea between the planks when you are little, and all the bright funfair things and deckchairs make you think of sunny days.

I spotted  one of those big pictures with a cut out hole you could stick your head through to have your photo taken, I couldn’t resist being a Beatle and then one of the Abba girls, what a laugh!!

It was lovely to explore it all, and I ended up lounging in one of the seats nearby gazing out at the sea, this is the life!! or second life should I say!!!

Do It Yourself CNN Meeting!!

I logged onto SL tonight with my evening planned, I dropped into the office and did a bit of picture editing, then thought I would go to the club for half an hour to have a dance before the CNN meeting.  Well I should have stayed at the club!!  There was some chat in the messages asking if the meeting was going ahead and a few of us decided to go over to CNN island anyway.  I’m not sure if they had an earlier meeting with reporter Henry, but no one left a message saying the meeting had been cancelled.  Anyway, there were six of us there and Vickie took centre stage, but for some reason she was walking on the spot again, she has done this a couple fo times before and says she looks normal on her screen.  Anyway Nicole never turned up but it was quite a lively discussion anyway.  Latok turned up with a funny little Martian av and it did look funny when she was typing as her head wobbled!!  I threatened to put a post on CNN about how we were abandoned, but I won’t, as there is probably good reason for CNN’s absence.  Went back to the club with Hib later on for a dance and then said goodnight to everyone!!