Rezday

Today it was one year ago I first rezzed in Second Life. Time for a party! Tull and I invited all our friends and we broadcast notices in our groups. I also posted this as an official event on the SL website.


The party turned out to be a big success. Many people visited Club XFM and many thought this was a new location. No, it is not, I have just redecorated the place beyond recognition :) People enjoyed the XFM audio stream that features non-stop dance music 24/7. (Well except for the short news broadcasts, but someone even said she loved to dance to the news :D )


Highlight of the party was a performance by my good friend Samantha Gustafson. It was her début as a stand-up comedian in Second Life and it was very well recieved by the guests. I think we will see more of her in the future.

Another train

Today Tull took me for a ride in his car to take me to a surprise location. And I was certainly surprised. He took me to see a train! (At http://slurl.com/secondlife/Steamboat/78/84/68)


Of course we wanted to have a look inside...


So I sat down, waiting for the train to depart...


...but nothing happened! Maybe this was a self-service train?
We got out and started to inspect the engine.
Driving a train can't be very difficult! Where is the main valve?


The was no way to make the train move, so we decided to inspect the tracks instead. Where do they lead? First they went over a beautiful bridge and then they disappeared into a tunnel...


And that was the end of the tracks! Obviously this train was not created to move, it was just a static build. And a very nice one!

We had a nice chat in IM with Farallon Greyskin, the guy who built this masterpiece. He turned out to be a friendly furry character. He explained that the train had far too many prims to be used as a vehicle. It was just designed to be static.
We complimented him on his building skill and then we picked up the car and went home to Tull's skybox for a final dance for this evening...

Time machine

At startup the Second Life client shows a picture of the last place you visited on your previous session. Sometimes that is a surprise! Today I logged in from a computer I had not used for a while and I was pleasently surprised to see a picture of my first house in the Wards sim. This brought back nice memories of my first months in Second Life. Note my very early attempts at building furniture in the room. See the beautiful view I had from my living room.


It is a pity my hair was rendered in such a bad way, but I wanted to keep this picture anyway. I can never make this picture again. The Wards sim is now being ruined by Hotla Hoodoo, who griefed me out of the place by putting an ugly black wall into this beautiful view.

Churches and Animals

Today Tull and I went exploring. The first place we visited was the Chebi Mosque - Mezquita de Cordoba in the Chebi sim. We also met the creator, Marino Nuvolari, who showed us around and invited us for a cup of tea in the nearby visitor centre. I was not very succesful at taking good pictures in the mosque.


But the evening was only just starting! The first unusual thing we saw when we left the visitor centre was a horse with wings. It looked like a build of remarkable quality, so we clicked it to find out who built it. That turned out to be Julia Hathor.


We also found a beautiful little chapel that was built by Marino Nuvolari too. There was a tower next to it and we both tried to climb the stairs to the top. Climbing those steps was not very easy and I think we both cheated a little, but we did reach the top.

We decided to check out Julia's picks. If she can make such a nice horse, maybe she does other animals as well. After some boating and a musical intermezzo we moved on... We were trying to find a camel!

We found many animals and also another nice chapel. We saw donkeys, panthers, chamois, a unicorn, rabbits, wolves etcetera etcetera. But no camel!

We ended up in a pet shop. This had the advantage we did not have to explore to find the animals. They were neatly laid out on shelves along the walls. It was full of cats and dogs, even a T-rex was available. But still no camel! Maybe I will have to build a camel for Tull myself...

Single Prim Lamps

Another product I would like the "highlight" here are my 1 prim lamps. The shapes you can create with a single prim are sometimes amazing. The shapes reminded me of Tiffany lamps, so I made two different textures in Art Deco style for them.
The first version is textured in orange and off-white. All four models are for sale individually in my shop for L$ 29 each. On SL Exchange and in some malls in SL they are available in a pack of five:
This set includes:
1 Tall floor lamp
1 Table lamp
1 Cieling lamp
2 Wall lamps
1 Bonus item: A vase in the same design

Simply click the lamp to switch the light on/off.


To the right in the picture you can see some of the other texturing as well: similar shapes, but colored in Red, Yellow and Blue. These are also avilable in my shop and on SL Exchange.

Prim Letters

Second Life has many things to offer, but one of the main reasons I joined is the ability to create your own three-dimensional objects. I haven't written about this on my blog yet, but I have created some cool products I would like to show you here.

In the picture above you see an example of my Prim Letters. If you look closely you can also see in the background how Tull and I used these letters to put our names on our shops at Porto de Galinhas. On the right you can see how I used the letters to put my name on my big shop in Yeodeol.

These are 26 cool letters to use for you. But letters are just building blocks. What you really want are WORDS!

So the letters come with a guide on how to use them to make words. Once you have built a word, you can do whatever you like with it, like resizing and coloring. Please note that these letters are NOT suitable for applying a texture, the results will be disappointing. All letters are COPY/MOD/NO TRANSFER, so you can try as many times as you like, until you are satisfied with the result.

The complete set of 26 letters is for sale for L$ 400 in all my shops and also on SL Exchange.

Exploring the railroad

I love trains and streetcars and today I decided to finally go and have a look at the official Second Life Railroad. The Northern Continent in Second Life is home to the Second Life Railroad (SLRR), a railway that consists of 3 tracks and runs a total of 53 different regions. On the official SL blog I found a list of stations, so I teleported to the first terminal listed there.


1. SLRR Bhaga Terminal, Bhaga (103, 26, 28)
There was not a train in sight, so I followed the tracks to the next station.

2. SLRR Tenera Station, Tenera (200, 141, 83)
You see you lot of robots in SL, but Tenera railway station that looks like a robot is unusual, even in Second Life.


By the side of the tracks I did see a train, well, just an engine really, but it was not in a perfect condition.


3. SLRR Aglia Station, Aglia (147, 146, 83)

The next stop was Aglia station. Still not a train is sight!

4. SLRR Crenulate Station, Crenulate (145, 29, 86)

Crenulate Station looks a bit old-fashioned. I like this architecture, because it stands out between all the modern looking buildings in SL.

5. SLRR Clearwing/Paranthrene Station, Clearwing (255, 26, 86)

At Clearwing station one track ends and another one starts. Passengers will have to change train here.
Since I still had not seen any train, it was now clear that the whole part of the railroad I had seen so far is not operational at the moment. What a pity!

6. SLRR Foxglove Station, Foxglove (147, 230, 90)

I followed this second part of the tracks to Foxglove station. This is an example of very modern architecture. I wonder if it was completely rezzed, it looks somewhat unfinished. A building like this may look very nice in RL, but in SL this style of building is not what I prefer.

7. SLRR Lunalis, Lunalis (34, 78, 90)

I continued following the track towards Lunalis station, but before I reached that I saw a jeep with four girls in it. They were following the tracks in the opposite direction and they were planning to crash their jeep into a train...


At the wheel was "my favorite cookie". (i.e. Mystical Cookie, the creator of the wonderful Mystitool.) She invited me to join them and I sat on the hood of the jeep. Maybe not the safest place in case of crashing into a train, but I felt pretty confident that was not going to happen ;)

So we followed the tracks back in the direction I came from, all the way to the rosty tank engine by the side of the tracks. Then it was time for me to go to bed.

I still have a wish list of stations I want to go and see:

7. SLRR Lunalis, Lunalis (34, 78, 90)
8. SLRR Spini Station, Spini (98, 10, 81)
9. SLRR Jubata Station, Jubata (200, 237, 82)
10. SLRR Epirrhoe Station, Epirrhoe (172, 225, 81)
11. SLRR Zale Station, Zale (72, 194, 31)

I am sure I will get back to the railroad some day and have a look at those places!