Soho Vanishes And Now There Are Five

I’ve loved doing some stuff in Photoshop for our shop, we haven’t got many prims, so its a matter of putting up one prim posters and making the most out of the textures.  To start with there were three of us on the Our Virtual Trilogy, Hibiscus, Pixi and I, and we are growing fast, so it’s now Our Virtual Trilogy plus two.  We are honoured to have reporters Ed Follet and Boye Jervil join us, making us five. It will be nice to get some stories from the men’s angle on SL.  I have done some larger than life cut outs of us for the window and I am waiting for Pixi’s return so I can add her to the others in the picture.  I have also put a picture inside of Drax and I in a medieval sim, as I want to explore some role playing places to see what are the best ones.  It’s great getting dressed up in those lovely period clothes!

Being curious I opened my map to see that Soho was still displayed on it, but it looked different somehow, so  I teleported over to Mayfair,  the next sim.   There is actually no sign of Soho now, it has vanished completely and there is just the pretty sparkling sea at the back of the Eros statue at the edge of Mayfair.  There is always something really sad about the demise of a sim, to me it is a sort of living thing and a little bit of SL history that is over for good.  I think in a way it’s nice that we have written about SL as people can look back on what was there, as things change so quickly.  I get a fondness for places, but of course, they are all temporary and subject to people keeping them going or deciding to alter them completely.  So our SL adventures with Soho in the Virtual London sim are finally over and we only have our pictures to say it was ever there.

Soho Is Gone!

“We regret at due to the stringent way that Age Verification is enforced in Second Life, that running Soho as an adult sim has become no longer viable. With regret, we have decided not to renew the Soho sim as part of the estate.  We ask that you contact management with any questions.  Until the tier payment comes due, we will open the sim up for everyone.  Thank you for your understanding. – London Team”

And there it is, how quickly things change in SL, there had been lots of hard work, lots of passion put into building Soho in SL London, we all waited eagerly for the opening of this most unusual sim and were given a preview just before it opened.  It’s very sad for all concerned and there were some nice buildings there.  Maybe people weren’t as eager for the sex side of things as was anticipated, but then it needed other stuff going on to draw people in and more publicity, it’s very hard though with a new sim, getting regular traffic and I’m sure it would have grown gradually.  I always thought that as Soho was seemingly only about the Phoenix Club, that they could have built it into the corner of an existing sim, one that has Mature rating, as the rest of Soho seemed empty. 

I wondered back over to Chelsea where I had my lovely apartment and looked in at the Jazz club, which had closed a few days before.  It looks like they opened the doors again and there is piped music going on, surely this would be a great place to concentrate on after the closing of the Phoenix, people love romantic places, but who am I to say!!

 Oh well, onwards and upwards! lets hope some happier news is waiting just around the corner!!

Script Madness And Funny Time To Open

We had all the lead up to the Soho sim being finished and after a look around over the weekend, we had a date that it would be open to all and would be an Adult sim only.  I thought that there would be a bit of a party and they said there was an official opening, but the time they gave was midnight SLT (PDT).  Now this meant it was actually opening at 8am GMT when I know the SL London sims are empty, except for a handful of people.  Not being put off I decided to go along and see how many people would turn up and to my total non surprise it was only half a dozen.  They let some fireworks off outside the club and it was quite pretty, but I felt a bit sorry that more people hadn’t been there for the countdown to the opening.  Builder Menolly had told me that the event was going on all day, and fair enough, I hope they got a lot more people going in after I left, but I think they should have had it in the GMT evening time when the sims are packed.  I know we have a certain amount of foreign visitors and residents who are on a different time zone, but the majority of SL London people do go into the sim in the GMT evening time so they would have attracted quite a crowd for the opening.  I have been told that there is a proper celebration on the 15th August, but no more details have been passed to me, same as usual, lol!!!. 

I love my apartment in Chelsea and as you know I have just decorated it again.  I bought some new dining chairs and thought I would have a sit down the other day.  Max the kitten was snoring on his back down the other end so I thought it best not to disturb him, although he disturbs every one else by snoring so loudly! Anyway, I sat on the chair and there it was, no nice pose, just an SL newbie sit.  I tried all my furniture and it was the same the poseballs were not working.  I tried opening the door and it refused to budge.  I did call Max the kitten then and he was out like a light, he wasn’t working either.  Only after talking to the other residents I realised that none of the scripts in Chelsea were working at all.  It’s surprising how you miss them!  It was not the Chelsea Manager Seany’s fault as he could do nothing about it, and apparently there had been a few requests to put it right but I suppose with so much going on over the rest of the London sims, it was put on a back burner.   Max had been asleep for three days and none of us could use our furniture, so I decided to take action, making a giant poster, I hung it from the outside of my building and logged off for the night.  Wonder of wonders! by the morning everything was working and Max was scampering around the floor looking for his breakfast.  Was it my little protest that worked? who knows, but it’s nice to be able to sit down without looking like a newbie and not having Max in a coma on the living room floor!!

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!!

Soho in SL London

Well we have been waiting for Debs Regent’s new sim to open for a while, she has the very beautiful and now prosperous SL London and she has worked really hard to make it all happen.  She decided that it should have Soho as well and it’s quite a different kettle of fish from the other sims.  I had a tour yesterday with Hibiscus and Das Wade, London Director, plus fantastic builder Menolly Riederer who has helped to put it all together.  It opened today for everyone to look around before it gets classified as Adult,  which restricts it to people that have verified that they are over the age of 18 to Linden Labs.  So from Monday it becomes an adult sim only.  I went over with Drax today to show him around and we had great fun wandering the streets.

Soho is famous for its sex side of things with lots of clubs and bars, so they have added the Phoenix club with lap dancing and lots of other things.  We went down there for a look and spoke to some of the people involved.  Cleo Charleville, one of the London team members, gave us a demonstration of how someone can dance around the giant Champagne glass.

They are recruiting people for dancers and escorts there, it’s quite strange to think we have this sort of sim attached to the other London ones, but I suppose Soho is one of the well known areas of London.   I saw a gym they had made for the gay community too, so they are trying to please everyone.  We had fun looking around and I will be interested to see how many visitors they get.

Soho is Created and Woodstock Fun with Guns and Roses

It’s funny how you get used to places, spending a lot of time in SL London I use my map a lot to teleport around the London sims.  When I opened my map yesterday I spotted a brand new sim attached to SL Mayfair.  It hadn’t been there the day before, so with a bit of excitement I teleported over there to have a look.  I met Brie, Seany, Auti and Gerr and we looked around the new Soho Region that would join the rest of London very soon.

I went back with Drax later to show him,  and we climbed to the top of the hill and looked over the new sim which looked big without any buildings and things, very soon the London team will level it all out and start building.  We got out a rug and sat chatting which was nice, it will be the only chance to sit in the sim while it is peaceful, I can imagine Soho will attract many visitors.

Drax had to leave for real life and I went back to my apartment in Chelsea.   I got a message from Brie asking if I would like to go to a Woodstock gig with a tribute band for Guns and Roses playing.  It was lovely of Brie to get the tickets and most of the London Team were there.  Hibiscus and I teleported over and it was by ticket entry only, but the sim was absolutely full.

The band came down and mixed with the crowd, a nice touch, we all had a really fantastic time, thank you Brie!!!