An Arrowing Safari

Yellow Submarine time! Safari headed off to Pepperland this week. It was about a year ago that we last visited Mudpuddle Cleanslate and Chelsea Louloudi's Beatle-inspired world. HG Addresses at the end of the post, as always.

A Fact and Fantasy Safari

          Sometimes we think of it as a fail, but one of the virtues OpenSim is that it has no theme, beyond its variety, liberty and instability. Everyone does what they feel, and it's a testament to the inherent positive spirit of, well, humanity, that here are so many grids and regions that celebrate beauty, generosity and goodness, without being self-conscious or coy about it.

          This week, the Safari visited three grids, Saraneth region on Ignis Fatuus, ArcadiaShop on OSGrid, and three sims on Craft Grid, Hildesheim, Heritage and ESOC. HG Addresses, as usual, at the end of the post. Some builds are factual, some are pure fantasy either of an original form, or developing beloved stories or images, but all of them teach us something.

Carima to Raious: Safari gets Ed-ucational

          From Middle Earth to the inside of an iPhone, that was this week's epic - and surprisingly smooth - Safari. 
          First up, the sims belonging to the Carima group on Metropolis.

           Primus, Anna and the gang were there to welcome us to this huge, heart-breakingly lovely region. So what's the Carima story?

True Grid

 Matilda Charron came on Safari!

Matilda Charron at the clubhouse

          Now that is true grit. The Safari begins at like 3 am, Mati's time, and we were so glad she decided to join the fun and games this week.
          And what a game of it we had.  Generally speaking, hypergridders like to be able to jump directly from A to B. Having to go through Welcome sims or make multiple leaps to reach one's destination is not a huge burden, but obviously, if somebody builds a region and wants people to visit, then it would be good if they made that as easy as possible. Is that dumbing down? I hope not. The 'idiot-proof' opensim viewer we're always being promised doesn't matter to me, mostly because I'm not that interested in meeting idiots. HG accessibility is, however, key to making it worth your while to build worthwhile, quality installations and regions.

Safari Turns Two

Truelie Telling

Two years of grid jumping, and to celebrate, we had a great party, thanks to many wonderful guests and some fantastic music! Sarah Kline said it best, seems no time at all since we were celebrating our first anniversary right here on Event Plaza.

A Hearty, Arty Safari

         Some seriously fun art in OpenSim this week for the Safari, on two excellent art-friendly grids. HG Addresses at the end.
          First up, Francogrid and Michaël Borras aka Systaime with his show "Curating Money" curated by Wrong Grid organizers Ellectra Radikal and Frere Reinert.

Nara's Nook Fashion Show

 'Flu time for your intrepid reporter, but that didn't stop the Safari! This week, just one destination, but plenty of fun on Nara's Nook grid, which is a writer's colony run by Nara Malone.

The idea for this event was to showcase many of the clothes made in opensim, for opensim. You can read more about Nara's show on the grid's blog here

This was an encore performance of the event held the previous weekend on a special sim. The organizers included Avia Bonne  knowns for her many splendid opensim builds as well as her real life paintings and drawings, and Jessie Campbell who is a fabulous manipulator of NPCs and has brought burlesque shows inworld up to the highest levels.

Lost Light

One of the giants of virtual worlds, Lumiere Noir, died about a year ago, on August 10, 2015. He had been ill for quite some time, but his passing came suddenly, sending shockwaves through the community of virtual worlds where he had long been revered as an inspirational educator for hundreds of builders. 

Lumiere Noir on Craft Grid in 2011

The expression 'Ivory Tower' was coined in 1837 by the French writer Sainte-Beuve and it means a frame of mind, or sometimes a place of scholarship and learning, that holds itself aloof from the less educated, everyday happenings. That's rather ironic, considering Lumiere's lifelong desire to inform and assist others to be part of the building community.

Safari Goes Lusitanian

For week 101 of the Safari, a special themed week celebrating Portugal! Lots of Lusitanian references, plus a concert by Joao Frazao, to enrich the evening.

Belem Tower, on NiSi Festival region, Metropolis

We began our adventure as usual on Francogrid, at the clubhouse. I don't know why we never actually 

g inside the clubhouse, I guess we just like fresh air. Tht big geometric shape is an invention of Wizard Gynoid, you can buy one from a 3D website service she has set up, and you too can have a RL copy (although not that big!).

Our first destination was Carlos Loff's project to build the city of Lisbon in opensim. He has a grid of his own, and his plan is to recreate the entire metropolitan area, with all the monuments and geographical features - that's quite an enterprise!

The 'is' and 'isn'ts' of Virtual Money

We love what you do when you do it with heart

Truelie Telling, the Safari song

It may have been Pathfinder who brought it up, at this week's Safari, the subject of some sort of hypergrid friendly virtual currency. His comment was to the effect that it would give him the opportunity to support content creators. There followed a little polite but determined chorus of 'hypergrid currency?? thanks but no thanks' from many of the other attendees. Why is it that? What is it that makes people like me feel so passionately that the predominantly no money culture in open sim is the better way?

Safari One Hundred

This week, a little celebration to mark our one hundredth consecutive Safari. There was music, last minute panic, interesting conversation, lag, unsolicited boobage, laughs, and failed Tps. So much like any other week!

First up a Truelie Telling concert, on hgsafari sim, with the added bonus of the Guess the Grid competition, organized by Wizardoz Chrome. There are 25 images spread out around the sim, devilishly hard to find, and once found, you've got to guess what sim they are on! You will find the grid names and their hg addresses in a poster marked Guess the Grid Answers, at the Clubhouse on hgsafari sim, Francogrid. The winner on the day? Probably Sunbeam Magic got the most right answers, and Freewee Ling was the champion of finding them... she found fifteen, though confessed she couldn't identify any of the grids in the pics!!

Chasing the Safari

RL comes first, we all know that, and for a lot of people, that makes joining the Safari impossible. Same happened to me this week. But while some weeks, the group visits specially opened sims or one-off events, this week's destinations are all easy enough to visit when the fancy takes you. And very worthwhile too. Just grab the LMs from the Safari clubhouse, for your convenience they are available at Teravus Plaza on OSGrid, as well as at our usual rendezvous, HGSafari sim on Francogrid. If you made a  LM to our Francogrid clubhouse more than two weeks ago, it will no longer work, as the sim has been moved onto another server. But if you put our hg address into your map, you will find it OK. That address? hg.francogrid.org:80:hgsafari
This week the first destination was something of a load test for the group, and by all accounts it stood up well to the onslaught of the safari waifs and strays. The grid in question, Sailonbye, (full HG Addresses at the end of the post) is a mini grid that brings together three of opensim's greatest virtues: a sense of place, a talented builder of original content, and a generous heart.

Safari does Particles and Prims

         There are some weeks when, I'm not going to lie to you, organizing the Safari is like boxing an octopus while wading through molasses. And then there are weeks like this.

Two stops, with a retro feel. Our first stop on Metropolis grid, at a place with a name you may well know... The Lost Gardens of Apollo. 

There. You're sighing. Well, if like so many of us you came into SL in that golden age around 2007, you may remember it.

Safari goes Under the Radar

            Small grids! Hypergridding was made for them. We visited three outstanding examples this week. All three are open 24/7 and are worth visiting by yourself for their art, charm, freebies, music and information. Full HG Addresses at the end of the post. 

          First, Isis Ophelia's grid. Arcana. This grid is just exquisite. It's based on Epic Castle (here's a link to Austin's excellent blog post on the subject) plus extras from Kitely Market, and of course original touches by Isis herself.

Isis Ophelia rocking the shoulderpet

 
How do Safaris begin? Imagine a whole glorious mess of 'hello!' and 'hey! how you been' and 'welcome' and 'have I rezzed?' comments. 

Sound Advice for OpenSim

This blog mostly talks about things you can see in OpenSim. But until they finally allow us to have Smellyvision technology in virtual worlds, Hearing is the second most important sense after Seeing.

The Lost Gardens of Apollo on Metropolis,
the venue for an upcoming Torben Asp concert for HG Safari

 And when it comes to audio, the hyperverse has a fine variety of interesting and talented music makers, many of them are also builders or designers too.
             Maybe you're musical and would like to share your talent, or your music collection, with the community. How would one go about doing that? 

Week 96 part 1: Safari Has Visions

                  This week's trip took us to two grids, Great Canadian and RefugeGrid, both operate on US time so we met at grid time, which was an hour earlier for European gridhoppers. Next week we're doing all Euro grids, and will be starting at 9pm CET. Our aim? Confusion, of course.
This is part 1 of two posts.

Aacme Cityscape

          But there was no confusion about our first destination, at Aacme City on GCG, the home of Visionz magazine, which celebrates its first anniversary this week. The magazine is a great example of all that is best about OpenSim. It is a produced by a team, but newcomers and contributors are welcome; it spans all hg enabled grids, rather than being virtually nationalistic about one place; it's free, and offers free advertising space; and it's a positive, upbeat source of information - a ray of sunshine across the hyperverse, one might say.... Visionz publisher Sunbeam Magic said a few words at the champagne and cake do in the office above the shop, on Great Canadian Grid. HG Address at the end of the post.

Week 96 Part 2: Safari Takes Refuge

          Ninety-six safaris is a lot. As we approach our 100th consecutive week of group hypergridding, seems like we're all aware of how far hg has come over the past two years.

DJ Pooh's splendid Honeypot region

          The safari is like a bumblebee. The laws of physics say it shouldn't fly, yet it does. When we began, no grids were set up with mass hypergrid tp arrivals in mind. Even today, many grids  - even big name places, with a good reputation for stability - tremble and even crash when we arrive. 

You may say, stop doing it. Yet, that is really the whole point of the exercise. Gridhopping alone or with a couple of friends is great too, but what we are here to do is to push the envelope, and raise awareness that splendid isolation, while it can be restful at times, is no way to run a grid on the HG. And we like to think that our relentless insistence on mass arrivals have made things smoother for the lone traveller, and made grid owners more conscientious and given them a greater appreciation for visitors of all dimensions.
          Because life is movement.

NPC-fari

          Just two stops this week but boy were they both detail rich. It was NPC week on Safari, so of course our first stop had to be the spiritual home of the non player character, Nara's Nook, a grid that has storytelling at its heart. HG Addresses, as always at the end of the post. The arrival sim on the Nook is Greyville, and it has a new look. 

Safari does Booths, Beaches and Butterflies

          Yay Safari. It's been one of those weeks. 
First up this Wednesday, Great Canadian Grid. HG Safari has a new embassy and outreach center there. Taking advantage of a special price deal for long-time residents, Mal Burns that been developing his dozen or so regions into a living space poised to welcome new residents, collaborators, and friends... maybe you're looking for somewhere to be creative? If you're interested in sharing your creativity via storytelling, design, film, tv or music, then read on...

         

Primary Safari

          Primary colors, silliness, clowns, free items, music and throwing away your worries for a little while in the company of some fun, interesting people, that's what it's all about. Cornflakes Week was a very musical event for the Safari, and as you can see *some* of us have got rhythm!