So Much Fun In Second Life!

I’ve been pretty slow reporting stuff since Christmas, but gradually getting back into the swing of things.  Sometimes it’s hard to write about events, as there are so many going on, and finding time for just enjoying them as well, because I’ve been enjoying them too much lately, especially when you know most of the people in the virtual pubs and clubs and join in the banter, which flies around the room all the time!   I did go to maybe the best event I’ve ever been to this week though, it was in the West End Club run by Brie, Clive and Cute.  They are becoming masters of how a virtual club should be run and if this was a real life club I suspect they would be millionaires by now, simply because of their professionalism and ideas.  Brie wanted a Cabaret/Moulin Rouge evening and everyone just loved it including me!  I already had a showgirl outfit that I had bought as a special offer from Evie’s Closet, but I had never worn it before.  So I put it on and was ready to go!  The club, decorated by Clive was stunning, and it was a shame that it would all be taken apart again after the event.   Hibiscus looked amazing in her outfit and Drax and Boye joined us for a great night. 

Everyone had got into the mood of the evening, the costumes were gorgeous and Brie sent me a message that she wanted a few of us up on the stage to do the Can Can and Lady Marmalade with her.  By this time I was so lagged out, being nearly 40 people in the club, that my pictures weren’t the best quality, but I managed to get onto the stage and it was so funny!  Not to be left out the men also joined in the Can Can and luckily Drax, Simon, Brie and Hib were taking pictures too, which they have sent me (I’ll be publishing them in Virtually London (lite) with their comments about the night this week). 

No one wanted to log off, we carried on way past closing time and I think people would still be there now if they hadn’t needed to get to bed!   It was all too much, there was another costume event the next day, this time it was the Flintstones theme.  I bought a costume for 1 Linden off of marketstreet and met Drax who proudly made his own costume in ‘Appearance’.  We had those caveman clubs as well, when you type ‘bam’ in text you can clout each other over the head with them, I think everyone in the club that night had one of those!

In true caveman style we travelled over to the club on Drax’s big black bird, the nasty bitey Tarn!

The Flintstones evening was really good too and I’ll be putting all the pictures on the London blog for that as well.  Who says you can’t have fun staying at home with your computer!  Of course add all your virtual friends and you can’t fail to have a smashing time!

Robot Dances and the Darn Tarn!

The bank holiday was packed with things to do in SL, in fact it’s a good job I can teleport because I would never be able to cover everything otherwise!!  I wanted to call in on the Global Love day event which I had covered on CNN, as I wanted to see everyone there and also do a follow up story on how it all went.  I needn’t have worried about them, they were doing fine and I enjoyed my visit.  I called into virtual Kensington because there was a rumour that London Mayor Boris Johnson was in the sim, well the av had a shock of white hair like good old Boris, so I had to go and have a look, but I’ll tell more on Virtually London (lite), probably tomorrow!  While I was in Kensington I danced around the Maypole with Isobel, Ed, Gold and Piper, which was fun, then I teleported off to a Queen tribute concert at Brie and Seany’s West End club.  Eliza joined us and we had a great time, the tribute band was one of StageOne Production’s performances and they really do well.  Sunday saw the Abba tribute concert in virtual Hyde Park and the London team put on the show themselves.  Abba is always popular and the team went through their paces and put on a good show, it was great fun.

Back at the West End club they had a wacky dances theme and Ed and Drax were there too, shame Hibiscus missed this, she would have loved it, the sight of everyone doing soppy dances was hilarious, Drax came into his own with this one, he usually picks the strangest dances anyway and has me in stitches, but he found a robot dance and looked like he was directing the the traffic!

At the end of the evening we all got on the Bunny Hop dance and formed a line, snaking crazilly around the dance floor, funny how watching your avatar on SL can make you laugh so much, we had a great time.

Drax and I thought we would visit Murray to see who was about earlier in the day and there were only two people there, two ladies.  I found that I couldn’t move when I went to walk and Drax found the same, one of the ladies remained and said she thought she could cast a spell to get rid of whatever it was, it felt like an invisible prim, but who knows.  The lady av cast her spell, making it snow and, low and behold, the invisible barrier vanished.  I think Drax and I thought the same thing, that she may have put the barrier there in the first place.  Murray never changes, it’s still a place for people to try out their tricks which is part of its charm.  Drax decided to call his faithful Tarn and we climbed on board and escaped as the bird flew skywards.  I watched out for the darn Tarn’s beak though, he has tried to bite me before and he isn’t getting a second chance!!

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.

Flying With The Tarn and Camera Mistake

I met Drax and we went over to a sandbox, Alphonso Pidgeon had kindly given Drax one of his Slea-z-boy chairs and we were looking forward to trying it out.  Drax looked relaxed in the chair as he put it through its paces. 

He suddenly thought it might be a good idea to fly the tarn again, the Gorean bird that he hasn’t practiced with for some time.  It’s a giant vicious looking black bird with nasty talons and a sharp beak.  As we intended flying over a Gorean city I put my new Freewoman Dress on (it’s lovely, pale blue and very floaty, plus you get the headdress with it too).  Off we sped and soon arrived over the rooftops of Thentis.

Drax soon got the hang of the tarn, turning and twisting above the city, it was a smooth ride, the tarn screeched and you could hear it’s wings flapping as it gained height.  Eventually Drax brought it down safely within the city walls and he jumped off.  I followed but landed near the vicious beak of the tarn who tried to bite  and scratch me with his huge talons, what a bad-tempered bird!

(You may notice I have blocked part of the pictures out with a blue square.  I took loads of pictures over the day and had forgotten to untick the bit on the camera that shows the interface of chat boxes and text, so it was a bit of a disaster.  There’s a real lesson to be learned for me to make sure I put the camera controls back the way they were at the end of using the camera to shoot the interface (I use it to photograph some pictures taken in-world).  I had a whole day of nearly wasted pictures.)

After Drax put the tarn back in its cage we decided to go to Avilion, which was great, as I already had my long dress on.  The Avilion ballroom is so pretty and we had a couple of dances until we had to return to real life.

Gorean Tarn Takes Us For a Ride

I met up with Drax the other day and he had got something he had been interesting in getting for ages, a big black monster of a bird called a Tarn.  Tarn’s are part of the Gorean role play  and are used for carrying messages and things, as well as being used as fighting birds that you can ride, attacking your aggressors with the tarns sharp beak and claws.  We went to a building skybox to try to open the box containing the Tarn, but Drax had trouble there, probably SL playing up again, so he tp’d over to a sandbox to set the Tarn up there.

I tp’d over to Drax and there he was with the great black Tarn, it had a long vicious beak and sharp talons.  I jump up behind Drax for a ride and we took off, the bird twisting and turning as we held on tight.

I saw Hibiscus come on line and I sent her a message asking if she wanted to join us.  She came over and Drax showed her the magnificent black bird.  We all scrambled onto the Tarns back and took off once more.  Drax had done well up until then but suddenly the bird decided to ditch us and I found myself ejected off into the sea.  I caught up with Drax who had also been thrown off and Hib was still riding the tarn on her own, what a star!!   She did eventually fall off and joined me and Drax.  The only thing was that Hib still had the sitting pose, one of SL ‘s wonderful bugs of course! and she thought she was standing but we had to tell her that we could both see her in the sitting pose.  She tried everything but nothing worked and she had to log off in the end to get back to her feet. 

I’ve seen lots of people lately gliding around as if they are sitting or laying down, they must think they are just walking on their own computers, you never really know with SL just what you do look like, at least I have kept my hair on lately!!!