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

• hg.hyperica.com:8022
• sanctuary.homelinux.org:8012
• soloton.selfhost.eu:8002:Weltraumbahnhof
• craft-world.org:8002
• seleacore.com:8002

          The idea is you go to all five destinations, take a selfie on each stop, and count the working gates. You're welcome to go try them yourself. Which of the destinations did you find most useful?
Talia.Sunsong: We look like a festive herd
Alizarin.Goldflake: sheesh we supposed to count all these?
Wizard Gynoid: how come Maria never comes hypergridding?
Thirza Ember: We don't let her out of her office, except to visit Mal, and even then, I imagine Mal is armed at all times. Where is Mal, anyway?
Alizarin.Goldflake: I need to straighten my antlers
Wizard Gynoid: i'm leaving my antlers crooked as a statement
Talia.Sunsong goes into rut and starts head banging people
          I think Talia is our kind of safarista.

Truelie.Telling: ok, far as I can tell, only this one aisle is working
Alizarin.Goldflake: oops I just cammed and found some more
Thirza Ember: working gates... or just gates?
Alizarin.Goldflake: does that make a difference to the contest?
Truelie.Telling: yep
Alizarin.Goldflake: was it in the rules?
Thirza Ember: it was in the fine print
Wizard Gynoid takes swig off vodka bottle
Alizarin.Goldflake: oh sheesh - pass me the bottle!
Thirza Ember: everyone has a generous quantity of gates to Kitely, but Kitely never seems to have gates to go anywhere else. I can't imagine why.

 We were lucky enough to run into Shaun Emerald on Sanctuary.
Talia.Sunsong: Hi Shaun
Shaun.Emerald: Hello!  Love the antlers. :)
Thirza Ember: we came to count the gates. They'll ask you how many gates you have - don't tell them!
Alizarin.Goldflake: i get 83 working
Shaun.Emerald: ~80
Alizarin.Goldflake: oh TY!
Wizard Gynoid: i get 96
Truelie.Telling: yay!
Thirza Ember: CHEATER GOLDFLAKE
Shaun.Emerald: 194
Talia.Sunsong: wow 193


Thirza Ember: good save there, Shaun
Shaun.Emerald: 100 of them are up in the sky. They are part of the rollercoaster. :)
Talia.Sunsong: Blue and red gates don't work?
Shaun.Emerald: Blue are (or were) down. Red have issues (at least for me). When I see a gate is down, I mark it blue to remind me to test it when I see it's up again.
Alizarin.Goldflake: have you been to all these grids, Shaun?
Shaun.Emerald: Yes, I test every gate.
Talia.Sunsong: Shaun is an intergalactic traveller
Shaun.Emerald: If you go to the back row, far right, you will see the 101 gate. That's the entrance to the rollercoaster. :)
           We did and it was AWESOME. An crazy trip of TPs and drops, one after the other. How many times have travelers passed through Sanctuary without realizing this was here?
          Next up, we went to the Weltraumbahnhof. Try spelling that after a few glasses. Snow everywhere. Quite a wonderland, a weltraumsbahnhofwunderland. *Lies down in a darkened room*
Wizard Gynoid: this is Spike's place?
Spike Sol is Online

Thirza Ember: yes! the new improved version
Talia.Sunsong @hypergrid.org:8002: oh many gates
Wizard Gynoid: i found the HG Safari gate!

Thirza Ember: A lot of the places we've been to - almost all of them, in fact - have gates here
Wizard Gynoid: this gate is to our Metropolis clubhouse. we have a new one on Francogrid.

Spike Sol: yes i know  - here is the gate to Franco grid.
It was getting so close to Art time, but Alizarin managed to snap a photo of Hydra before joining us on Metropolis for Art Blue's show about the moon. 

           Here's her picture. She's right, those horns are a bit off.
          None of us ever did get to Selea Core, but it will keep for next time. 
          Art's show on Futurelab, Metropolis Grid, was about the Moon. It was dreamy, strange, trippy, with particles, music, words, and light, not all of it annoying. 

          There was a flying ship and some bizarre particles and animations that had Mal Burns walkin' on the moon, and Wizzy in magical pose mode. The moon kept handing us Stangens that you had to wear, with particles, and rods that were still circling my head this morning, despite the fact I took them off like 12 times and hyperjumped all over the place.

          Before we knew it, there were gifts and goodbyes and off we went back to Francogrid for Truelie Telling's concert that featured her Hunt song, an unexpected 'hello' from her RL husband, who sounds like a sweetheart, and of course, a rendition of 'Where's My Hair'. 

The Safari anthem. What fun.