Virt-Me

Maria Korolov rocks, but you knew that already, of course. If you've never been to her grid Hyperica, you've missed out. 

It's not a place of soaring original architecture, or outstanding natural beauty, but it has a poetry of its own, as a train station or an airport. The poetry of possibilities. 

The hyper pools are handily organized in 'Activities, Education, Shopping and Major Grids', but don't feel overwhelmed, many destinations are duplicated in each pavilion. This in fact one of three jumping nodes, Lower, middle and Upper, helping hyper grid travellers hop up and down, bridging the gap from one part of opensim to another. Just for spritz and giggles, we dived into the pool marked virtyou grid, to see what would happen.

virtyou is a caps-off, polyglot haven for noobs, human-interfaced by Nick Zwart and Torrid Luna. Nick has a black beard (vintage '06, by the look of it) which shouldn't be held against anyone. Least of all me. Anyway they were both offline today, though I think I touched something to summon them, but since nobody showed, no harm done, right? 

virtyou has a number of attractions, and where better to start than Asterix Village. It's as cute as can be, with a huge fat statue of Obelix just outside those Gallic gates. 

Where was his diminutive friend? Nowhere to be seen, but maybe it's a work in progress. Or we may have missed him in the fog.

If you have any kind of Poser or QAvimator skillz, and are a fan of Asterix, you might want to approach Master Niflar, a few cute poses would bring this place to life. As it was, Goldilocks decided to risk it with the only pose at hand. There didn't seem to be any bears about.

Still, can't spend all day laying around. Dawn was rising, and so was the damp. You could almost smell the castrum over the horizon, and there was an uneasy feeling that the tribe might be back at any moment, and not be all that glad to see us.

 Shoppppping! Couldn't resist the opportunity to check out the Mall. Not a lot on sale, as yet, at the Plaza, but the architecture was very classy. This is where making and importing your own clothes comes in handy, people. I won't even say the word pigtails.

The architecture is great, but I must confess to not being crazy about the furniture, or the noob avatars, available all over the grid, which are straight out of Scaryville. I guess that beard was a bit of a clue. What's a little disconcerting is that virtyou opened in 2009, and from the looks of things, time has stood still.

 Much more stylish, the little flower shop. You may not be able to buy anything but it's kind of fun to play shop assistant. Gosh is that the time.

Jaynine Scarborough,  SL oldbie and Berlin-based vocalist, is the source of all this elegance, her store just a few doors down from the flower shop offered a freebie dress, and some other interesting packages that wouldn't open, but that's OK. 

Probably they wouldn't have made the trip back to Jokaydia anyway. It's a mad world.

The wall art, mannequins and poses, it's a great place. And oh, that voice.

The Devil's Island Mystery sim was a bit of a letdown, but the French newbie area is touted as the smallest virtual village, but has full size recycling bins.

I know you're supposed to make newcomers feel at home with lots of familiar references, but this seemed a bit much.

In Chatterdale, 'the world's smallest hamlet', (huh, that's where he ended up) I found myself in the back of a cop car within seconds. Guess the Thought Police were onto me. The village, which had overdosed on half-timbering, had a snakes and ladders game in an open area which, I'm sure, breaks some health and safety rules. 

Finally and bizarrely, a pile of rocks where you'd expect to find a house, camming inside it seemed solid. Very odd. What is it? Virtually no idea.