The Maybes of TPs

          Never, ever, ever, ever say these words:  "Oh this week there's nothing to worry about. All three destinations are confirmed and guaranteed."
           Just don't. The God of Small Things (and let's face it, hypergridding is a very small thing if you look at what else is going on in the world) will make you pay for your hubris.
What does the God of Small Things look like? It'd be nice if he was something like Thor from Marvel's The Avengers, but he's probably more like your balding brother in law, the one who says he'll help you take that old couch to the dump on Saturday, to make room for the new one, and then never shows up. Why not? Well, his story changes every time you ask him what went wrong.
          He probably has visible butt cleavage too.

Janufari

            Pathfinder.Lester: hear circus music and feel a sudden crushing weight? that's just the Hypergrid Safari. we come in peace.

      Rome wasn't built in a day. It took Joe Builder about a month, if you add up all the time he spent on the magnificent region on Lost World Grid. The Coliseum, a Theater of monumental proportions, an exquisite bathhouse, and a shipyard.As always, the Safari took just the briefest look around. Another place to return to!

Auld Lang Safari

Safari closed out the year the way we began. Confusion, last minute changes, hilarity, friendship and a good dose of excellent luck.

It's a virtual world tradition that most people go offline for New Year's, but about a dozen Safaristas showed up for our final tour. Fuschia may have been disappointed when she discovered the promised pub crawl didn't materialize owing to all the pubs being closed, but she didn't complain *what a trouper* and we were delighted to welcome some complete and relative newcomers to the insanity.

 There was some hair outage, but most of it was transitory. First stop was a bit o' dancing on Strannik Zipper's grid, Pirate's Atoll.

Safarigate

Wizard Gynoid: I've got Stangens up the yazoo

         Well, we all did by the end.  'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the club, we were getting ready to visit some Hypergate hubs. Jump stations have always been an important part of any grid, and now increasingly grid owners are looking for ways to make their grid hyperfriendly.  

Above and beyond that, there are those who've made Hypergrid Hubs central to their virtual life. Are they all equal? We put together a very short list: Hyperica, the venerable mother of all hgstations, the splendid stones of Sanctuary, The great red Weltraumbahnhof most associated with Metropolis, although it runs in fact on a home server, and two smaller collections, the brand new Hydra sim on Craft, and Selea Core's pristine windows on worlds. The great Thinkerer, Selby Evans was there at the start, but we lost him. Not on purpose. Here's hoping he gives us another shot next time.

          Here are the URIs

Classic Safari

Once upon a time, there was a grid called Virtyou, and it had gallic village on a sim called Niflar. This was all pre mesh, you understand. Well, Virtyou seems to have sort of morphed and amalgamated with another grid, Nick Zwart's 3DLES grid, a language acquisition environment in association with Digischool. The idea is to make immersive environments for the students to play and learn in - there are Quiz chairs, videos, Sloodle boards, and games like Snakes and Ladders, which is Snakes and Chutes to you, probably. This is Chatterdale, with its pub, Belisha beacons, Job Center, fish and chip shop, and so on. You'll find a potted version of France and Germany on sims Parolay and Plauderstein respectively.

 Nick frequently has 20 students on the grid at any one time without his system even blinking. OK, now you're thinking: "hahaha, famous last words" and of course, you're right. Hypergrid visitors are not like regular local visitors. We really should get that printed on a tee shirt or something.

Safari In Wonderland

Wizard.Gynoid @hypergrid.org:8002: this is starting to look obscene

Clustersled!

 Not one Wonderland. 

Three. 

On three different grids. 

Because this is OpenSim, not merely SL. We saw Alice, rode dragons, made new friends, honed our ability to grid jump, and thoroughly came to terms with the instability - and beauty - of hypergridding. 

Cherry Manga's new Alice build on Francogrid

First up, a Winter Wonderland, Canadian style. L'Hiver du Grand Nord is on Dabici Straulino's VAR region full of snow and fun, and oh boy did we take advantage. Kelso Uxlay and Dabici herself were on hand to welcome us when we arrived, via a gate she supplied, although the Safari Landmark seemed to work OK for most. The HG Addresses are at the bottom of this post, and of course, the LMs and explanatory Notecard (not reading the NC can make your life more difficult) are still available on both the Metro and Francogrid bases, and in Group Notices on Craft, Francogrid, and Metropolis. 

L'Hiver makes you shiver

Creanovale is the biggest little grid, and has a gallic smart ass bot called Jean-Givre on hand to keep you company if you go over there by yourself. If you're into festive stuff, there loads of decorations in the winter market. James ATLOUD found what he described as an HG Wells lost underground vessel (an excellent excuse for another visit) but that's not why we came. 

The Kids are Arles Right

James AtLLOUD: Thank yous to our hosts and organizers. W00t w00t.

If you'd been on Metropolis about 3 hours before the start of this week's Safari, you would have found Art Blue rehearsing his performance on a perfectly functioning Futurelab sim.  Art's Performance, which kicked off the first Safari of the month had as its theme 'open sim identity', although this being Art, it was a lot more complicated than that. But to help him illustrate the point, there were four Thirzas online, three of them hanging out in Futurelab, his combination workshop, theater, community sandbox and meeting-place sim, complete with Harry's bar. We sat in the Safari zoo and tested the stage as he went through his lines, little thinking that by 12 noon grid time, something sinister would happen.
 Here's Lena's 11 pm post on the Metropolis Forum *thanks, Google translate!*