A Few Valentines’ Day Happenings in Second Life

Valentine’s Day hasn’t gotten as much attention this year as previous, at least from my point of view. Maybe more people were knocked off SL by bad weather than before. Maybe people are just feeling blah. A few of my friends openly disliked the holiday, saying with the trouble they had finding someone, the holiday seemed like a cruel joke. One flower shop owner told me while bouquet sales weren’t too bad, she expected much more. Maybe this is why some places never bothered with this theme on Friday, Saturday, or at all

Still, there were a few events. The Mystery riverboat club had some Valentine-themed events last week, such as the red, white and pink party on Friday. Saturday had no party. But on Sunday Valentines Day, the Mystery sim had things all set for a heart-filled good time. At 12 Noon SL time, DJ Bentham began broadcasting the romantic tunes. The wolf Silverwolf Sweetwater was the hostess of the party, as always lifting a friendly paw to all visitors. People danced to music like “Love Game” by Lady GaGa, “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” by Areosmith (“Armageddon” theme), “All I Ask if You” (The Phantom), “White Wedding” by Billy Idol, and others. Jetta even put up a recording of her singing “My Guy.”

Unfortunately, there were a few technical difficulties that messed with the party a miss. Yours truly ran into a glitch when trying to tip the DJ, which sent his account down to -1 L. Someone looked up the details, “[Posted 12:55pm PST] There are current issues that are preventing some logins, as well as affecting in-world transactions, teleports and related actions. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. In the meantime, please refrain from any sensitive transactions or rezzing any no-copy items.” This naturally got a few in group chats rolling their eyes, “Ah yes were would SL be without problems? (laughter).” Because of this, tips were lighter than usual.

Despite the glitches, the people at Mystery were determined to have a good time. People wisecracked and joked, “Plumbers are red, Hedgehogs are blue. Would you press start and be my player two?” Corky Darkstone added to the humor by going next to SilverWolf and changing into another feral wolf avatar. People began cracking jokes as to whether Silver now had a boyfriend, “Hi-ho Silver, awaaaayyy!” Silver herself joked, “Oh look, a twin brother.”

There was a bit of confusion when some people found themselves knocked to the corner. Confused, they walked back, only to find themselves slammed against the wall again, or thrown out of the building. Then one of the staff noticed a dancer had on a forcefield, and he was then asked to remove it or leave. The man did so, profusely apologizing.

There was a 300 Linden prize for the man and woman for best in theme. Asemia Avedor won for the ladies. Jedrek Leodhais won the male contest. For Mystery, it was a glitchy, but happy, Valentines Day.

Other clubs had their parties. At 1 PM SL time, Cutlass had it’s Sunday Euro-party, the theme naturally being Valentines Day. DJ Tamara Peart played the tunes for a small party, “Another Day in Paradise,” “I Want to Step Right With You on the Mountain,” “Love is in the Air,” “Unbreak my Heart,” and others. It was not a large party, possibly due to SL glitches limiting teleports, and Tammy’s tip jar was empty. But the party went on.

On Friday February 12 and on Valentines Day, the Lindens had their “Kiss a Linden” event on Isle of View and Isle of ViewToo, from 7-9 AM and 5-7 PM SL time. As their blog stated, “Never met a Linden before, or interested in celebrating Resident Volunteers? Come on over and enjoy the lovin’! And there’ll be even more love: look out for Cupid Linden on February 12th & February 14th, she will be flying around and looking forward to meeting you! “ Besides the Lindens, there would also be volunteers to kiss.

Reporter Gemma Cleanslate had the fortune to see people, Lindens and residents alike, having an ideal, romantic, time. Yours truly stumbled across what the poor volunteers had to go through sometimes. There were no Lindens around, just a couple volunteers. And they had to deal with a few characters from Woodbury, a sim with a reputation for harboring griefers. They included a guy wearing a lampshade and a self-described “kissable griefer,” taunting the volunteers. Not exactly Valentine’s Day greatest moment.

Some moments were more important than others. There was meeting up with friends whom were feeling dispirited over not having found someone. Time spent together, reminding each other they were not alone. They still had their friends.

So to those who found their special someone, and those whom need cheer from being unable to find love, may your Valentine wishes come true.

Bixyl Shuftan

moreless

Some Favorite Communities in Second Life

Second Life is full of interesting places and fascinating people, but when the two come together in a community: that's when the real fun of SL comes to life. I was invited to write about an incredible community in SL called Chilbo. Chilbo Public Library is one of SL's most famous libraries. And the community itself is very intriguing. Chilbo comprises multiple sims which are inhabited by artists, musicians, poets, writers, and many other creatives. One current project is Poetry Benches. Chilbo is inviting poets gridwide to participate. You sit for a spell on a Poetry Bench and a poem appears! Cool! In the picture, I am having an SL brunch with Chilbo resident artist Kristine Kristan and our friend Kelp Parkin. Behind us is the Cat Cage, Kristen's very arty SL house. Check out the community website and blogs at Chilbo.org; which are quite impressive resources about SL culture (great links on the side navibars!).

Kelp Parkin and I met through another great SL community, New Citizens Inc (NCI). I've been teaching free classes at NCI for 2 years, and we just started a new course on Photography & SL Journalism. Kelp is an NCI Helper, one of our many volunteers and students. NCI hosts social events and build contests, as well as free classes on just about everything to know about SL.

I've invested quite a bit of time in 2 other SL communities... one I'd describe as inherently activist, and the other are RL professionals working for social benefits organizations.

Four Bridges Project sim is a collaboration of Amnesty International-E, PeaceTrain, and many other activist groups (a few logos are pictured). Four Bridges groups have organized numerous gridwide events, week-long Woodstock-like affairs, like Peace Fest, Earth Week SL, SL Human Rights Festival, Second Pride Festival, and Imagine Festival. These folks are very spontaneous and thoroughly knowledgeable about RL activist issues and how to utilize SL for action and creating awareness! You can meet a lot of high powered activists through their community and get involved in world rocking projects. The Four Bridges team works effectively across group lines gridwide to bring together terrific art, music, talent, ideas, and energy.

Nonprofit Commons has achieved cross-group collaboration in the real world of charities and social benefit organizations and brought them all into Second Life. They have gathered together over 100 RL groups and concentrated them on several sims such as Aloft NonProfit Commons (pictured). Groups like Kiva.org for RL microlending and The Jason Project for RL missing children, and OpenCafe.org.za which teaches South African youth about open source technologies. I've done the music promotion for a few of their sim launches and it's clear that everyone wants to work with them (easiest gigs I’ve ever done!). They are great do-gooders one and all. Check out their meetings on 8:30am on Fridays in SL at Plush Nonprofit Commons. You'll meet dozens of RL nonprofit organizers, sharing their best ideas. Now that's SL community!

By Any1 Gynoid

moreless

Memorial to a Friend

The other day, a friend of mine told me the following:

“Yesterday evening, when I got home from work, I found out that a friend on here finally lost her battle with cancer. Julie Apocalypse, who was the Queen of Bohemia in Tiny Empires until her battle depleted her enough that she had someone else take her place.”

He went on to say he had built a memorial to his friend, at Bohemia Castle. I ported there, and found a small crowd around the structure, her portrait on a shrine with candles with flowers and butterflies all around, in the middle of a grove of white blossom trees.

The following day, I thought of the place and decided to port there again. Once there, I found the builder, sitting alone among the marble seats in front of the memorial, thinking of his friend whom now had departed. He looked my way, spoke a few words, then apologized for not having much to say.

Some might say he already has spoken plenty.

The memorial to Julie Apocalypse is at Insula Inferi Hills (143, 218, 22), at Bohemia-by-the-sea

Bixyl Shuftan

moreless

Beware the social isolation bug!

I am realizing how getting involved in projects in Second Life can eat away your virtual social life at times.

I remember reading criticism from the Wired magazine about SL and its "empty" grid. Which made me think the writer was just a tourist. In fact, he was. He was exactly like tourists who visit a country and wish they knew the "real" people. This is the way it works: local people have goals, a life and things to do. They don't spend that much time in public places where tourists hang out. And those tourists don't really see the life that goes on.

The same applies to SL when new people visit the grid. They wonder why many places they visit are empty. But many of us started businesses and are working in quiet corners. Or got involved in other kinds of projects such as art galleries. All of this takes most of our in-world time, perhaps at the expense of the the "meet and greet" aspect that made SL at the beginning.

As nice as we want to be, we slowly start to forget about the friends who are online, greeting them only when they take time to IM us. We always say "let's spend more time together soon" or "let's go shopping sometime soon" but never really do it.

As nice as business is, especially if it is successful, it makes us forget things. For instance, we tend to get irritated when a newbie drops in and starts asking questions. "Noobs" are even met with a sigh. Some "tolerate" them only because they help to keep traffic numbers up. Yet that is what we were when we first rezzed, and many of us needed tips and help from veterans to get our second lives going.

Strangely enough, all of the above makes me think that a Second Life is exactly like a first life. We may need to accomplish something, but if we don't take the time to hang out, balance is missing.

So, the next time you want to hit that script, that prim or that other design and "finally" make it available for sale, take a second and look at your friends list. Some of the names there might bring more balance to your virtual existence than the isolation of work!

moreless