Cry Wolf

It was going to be a bit of a strange Safari, that was obvious right from the start. For one thing, owing to a radiation accident last week, Fuschia Nightfire has aged about 50 years, and has to ride around in a magic rocking chair.

Karma catches up with Nightfire

In a bid to silence the voices accusing us all of 'copying', I donned this totally original look, and Apmel turned up cloudy, then naked, because that has never been done before in Hypergridding.

Nice shoes, shame about the feet

Of course, it's all very well to have a lot of witty attachments, if you follow my train of thought, but in many ways Miso's one prim stick lady is the perfect hypergridding avie, because either you see all of her or none, apart from the tag. Dressing up as Ohur Lady of the Hyperverse complete with portable banline is great, but there was never any question of all this junk making the first jump.

Miso invades my personal space

Organizing the safari is a crap game, you never can tell if, when people say 'bring your group here any time', they really know what they are letting themselves in for. 

          Sim Valley is a Netherlands based grid, John Silver is the manager. His inworld profile is a little bit scary, but in person he is charming, so it was a shame that neither he nor any of the other Valley people seemed to be online to tell us about their home which, if memory serves me (since Chat Log refuses to do so) has some pretty sweet offers: free land for residents, and accommodation made to artists or builders who want to import big projects. 
          The actual grid is rather more homespun than the photos on their website suggest, but it is cute.  There were probably about twelve or thirteen of us at that point, and chaos reigned as we attempted to explore two regions, the Plaza area, with its internal tp portals and shops, and Niva's Avatar sim. It is very hard to communicate when half the company is frozen in TP limbo, or wandering around on a sim they cannot see, or appear to be offline. Without Radar, the Safari would never work. 

             This is Niva's Avatar sim. We seemed to spend most of our time trying to make the tp machine work, rather than admiring the sunlight through the leaves and I blame the fact that the ikrans aren't rideable at present. That would have been fun.
            Over the past ten days, when logging into Metropolis, I have been getting a lot of 'unable to rez' blue boxes. Inventory items take a long time to show up, and the buildings on my home sim Outlands take a good two minutes to load. This is all a bit worrying, because the same thing happened in the weeks leading up to OSGrid's demise.
          Crashing and failing to rez your surroundings on a sim where there is little to do but take photos gets boring quite quickly, so we moved on to Francogrid where SSM, Gill, Cendres, Jean and Cherry Manga were all there to meet us on Terra Mater, Cherry's gallery workshop. Cherry uses Francogrid to plan out sim sized builds that she generally imports into SL. The space and privacy of open sim, not to mention the free uploads, make it the ideal home for anyone with a passion for creation and an eye for detail. 

Photo by Fuschia

          You can get every texture and mesh just right without spending a fortune. This horror house full of noise and mesh and altered-state furniture and figures is a case in point. It is mesmerizing, haunting, and oddly interactive, though in reality I don't remember there being even one sit pose anywhere. 
Cendres Magic: welcome to safari group
Wizard Gynoid: Cherry is one of my favorite creators
Art Blue: Cherry is one of my most favorite creators!
PatriciaAnne Daviau: agreed 
Cherry Manga: wow stop that please
Cherry Manga: blushing
Wizard Gynoid: woot i walked thru the wall
Cherry Manga: wiz, you're a wizard *facepalm*
Art Blue: i like the room concept and the repeating sound
Cherry Manga: oh yes, some parts were used by me and others for metabody , Art
Apmel Metropolison: you lost your bra Thirza
Ariadni.Afarensis: I was here already
Thirza Ember: yeah, I was trying to make apmel feel better about earlier
Art Blue: there is butterfly
Wizard Gynoid: Apmel give Thirza's bra back
Art Blue: has a strong contrast to the room
Korgi.Silvercloud: ahh this looks very neat
Apmel Metropolison: nice of you
Cherry Manga: brb feel free to wander ;)
Unadecal.Arado: weird
Apmel Metropolison: I've walked around this installation in SL dressed in women clothes
Cherry Manga: ahahah yes, i remember
Thirza Ember: that does not surprise me
Art Blue: the sound creates the atmosphere
Cherry Manga: yep
Art Blue: who made the sound?
Cherry Manga: I played the musician, torturing some cocorosie
Korgi.Silvercloud: very impressive
Miso Susanowa: \o/ cocorosie!  they are fantastic! Nara, your hair is eating your face :D
Nara Malone: laughing thanks Miso
Miso Susanowa: :D at least when my attachment doesn't attach, I am invisible

Fushia: 'must remember to get some tuna for the cat'

          Cherry uses a lot of sound clips in her work that add to the spooky feel, and even though they were builds most of us have seen before, it was lovely to go back and revisit, and fun to mess about on the Red Riding Hood build too. 

Cendres, left, looks on with ever smiling disgust.

This is us all sitting on Lil Red. We like to sit on stuff, it is a Safari tradition.
Fuschia Nightfire: oh dear, i have probably come to the wrong place... don't granny get eaten?
Cherry Manga: no granny in this ;)
Unadecal.Arado: interesting
Wizardoz Chrome: bellissimooo
Apmel Metropolison: this is great! I could live here
Fuschia Nightfire: me too!
Wizard Gynoid: this would make a nice Gothic Dance Club
Miso Susanowa: Thirza is wearing a wolf
Wizard Gynoid: the floor is the moon
Fuschia Nightfire: that's cos she is being SaveMe oh today, living dangerously
Wizard Gynoid: lol wolf pile!

...now I herd everything.

Fuschia Nightfire: granny mounts the wolf
Apmel Metropolison: go for it granny
Thirza Ember: that is the alternative story
Wizard Gynoid: I hope somebody is getting pics. This is prolly not the sculpture Cherry had in mind.
          Francogrid dealt with the sudden influx of ten or fifteen people without missing a beat. They have got it going on, and if you're thinking about sticking a toe in open sim, like imaginative avatars a cut above the rest, and don't mind being in a place where English is not the first language, this could be the grid for you.  
             Third stop was Roddie Macchi's Great Canadian Grid. Ladyjo Martineeqe sent me the landmark, she is currently working on a Halloween sim over there. Roddie's high quality build began life in SL. There is not a huge amount here yet, but the cabin suggests whatever they do make is going to be very good looking. 
Art Blue: great canadian grid
Art Blue: never heard
Apmel Metropolison: where is the nearest hockey arena?
Korgi.Silvercloud breathes in the fresh crisp maple syrup scented air
Thirza Ember: it is still very small but the cabin is cute
Fuschia Nightfire: is there a bar here?
Thirza Ember: and now you're IN CANADAAAA
Art Blue: small is good
PatriciaAnne Daviau: yay!
Miso Susanowa: wow, those Canadians sure know how to build a clubhouse.
         There was much discussion about whether anyone other than Bryn Oh actually lives in Canada, apparently the answer is yes.

           Odd how some people's hair sometimes shows up, sometimes doesn't. Must be to do with that suitcase thing Nara Malone is always mentioning. I was hoping Roddie or possibly Ladyjo would show up but they must have been busy elsewhere, after all. No problem, we talked among ourselves instead. 

Thank gosh for my gotch

Apmel Metropolison: I was over at the Free Mall and picked up something..but it never made it to my inv
Korgi.Silvercloud: yeah nothing from this grid will. The GcG has the ability to take items from here out of the grid turned off.
           So scratch this grid from my list of Good Shopping Places. Noticing that they have their own currency, the Maple, got me thinking.
Thirza Ember: hands up who thinks a commercial grid can survive in open sim
Korgi.Silvercloud raises hand
Apmel Metropolison: I would raise my hand but...
Art Blue: commercial grid .... as long as there are reliable non-commerce, no chance ... but there are mixed offers
Unadecal.Arado: Inworldz is a commercial sim
Thirza Ember: yeah but that is not really 'open sim' is it? or is it?
Miso Susanowa: no Thirza, they forked long ago
Art Blue: you pay little money for getting a sim and you have no management duties on your shoulders
Thirza Ember: you can't always rely on free grids, but at least there is no money investment only time
Apmel Metropolison: time is money
Miso Susanowa: ... the example of OSGrid recently
Wizard Gynoid: everybody knows that OSGRid is installing their replacement drives?
Alle Zeb: OSGrid is so sad
Miso Susanowa: yup
Korgi.Silvercloud eye twitches
Unadecal.Arado: yes, I was going to say.
Unadecal.Arado: so... is OSGrid going to survive?
Ariadni.Afarensis: Will they restore the data
Miso Susanowa: and if they can't, all assets will be lost. Even if they CAN... assets will be lost
Unadecal.Arado: Most people seem to have jumped ship
Miso Susanowa: it did concern me that they had no backups
Miso Susanowa: people like Lani Global must be upset
Ariadni.Afarensis: Many of us were backed
Wizard Gynoid: Lani has all her stuff backed up she can be running in an hour
Unadecal.Arado: backing up a large database to an acceptable standard is not easy, or cheap
Korgi.Silvercloud: I sort of see this as a positive. it has increased traffic in numerous other grids, and I think opensim development in various areas has increased as well in general. Sure it is unfortunate that the first opensim based world is down...but for the most part everyone seems to have moved on by now.

        Safari hasn't jumped ship, we will be glad to return to OSGrid to meet and visit sims if and when that is possible. We were never limited to one grid in the first place. As for losing inventory, anything that was full perms and worth saving, I had saved, or at least I know someone who can give me another copy. How you set permissions is a window on your mind. It's true that people forget to alter permissions when they make something, and that's sometimes why perms are not granted, and I can understand what motivates people with stores to make their stuff either No Copy or No Transfer, but No Modify - especially when it is backed up by a notice shrieking about the Creator's Rights - suggests a meanness of spirit and control issues that are unappealing, not to mention a lack of understanding. Dude, if someone wants to 'steal' your item, they are going to bot it, whatever Notecard or Texture you put in the box. And however well-built your item is, I can live without it. Especially no mod scripts. They are the pits.
          Our discussion degenerated into a game of rocking chair dodgems. You can make it all the way upstairs on your wearable rocking chair, in the Great Canadian Cabin.
          And so to bed. 

Oh, now you're just copying Wizzy!