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!*

Winter, Water, and SafarAI

What's it like, going on safari? 

Well, imagine trying to order off a high-class menu while riding on a train travelling through a hurricane. And your clothes keep falling off. In quicksand.
Four excellent destinations, which produced as usual a sort of 'if it's Tuesday, this must be Brussels' sensation. These are all places worth visiting again (and again!) by yourself or even better, with a friend.

Mattie Mcbride's festive forest, on Paradise Island, Metropolis

First Metropolis, to Mattie Mcbride's Paradise Island, and second to Tangle grid for the Expo. Similar theme, very different scales, from Mattie's exquisite winter market, full of baubles and tinsel, to the three sim extravaganza on Tangle. 

Paying Thanks

Thanks to everyone who came to see my knickers this week on Paradise sim in Nara's Nook. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and this is a mediation on why none of the things I make are for sale. Anywhere.
OpenSim  freebies have a reputation (fostered by people who want YOU to pay for THEIR Content) for not being very good. When someone says to me, as they did this week, "Oh yes, I put out some crap - I mean basic items - as freebies", that makes me sad.  My content is free because I want to crush that 'free=Crap' nonsense out of existence. There are a growing army of creators providing amazing avatars, houses, mesh items, and so on without charging anything.  I want to be a part of that. In the olden days in SL, it was a village where people shared and worked together. There are still many pockets of generosity in SL, but in many ways it has sunk into the same grasping, money-oriented economy you can find in the real world. Let's not permit OpenSim to fall into that trap.

A Tale of Two TPs

'Safari' means journey in Swahili, and the hypergrid safari is really two journeys in one. 

There's the sightseeing trip, of course...

...but there's also the 'I'm going to beat this 'Identity Not Verified' crap if it kills me' journey, and last night was perhaps our greatest ever triumph in that department. 

German Grid is a hypergridding Shangri La. Dabici Straulino summed it up in an IM.

Dabici Straulino

Dabici.Straulino: My curiosity is driven by the fact that I have never been able to visit German Grid and this what ever the multiple ways I tried.  I just checked using the LM to Folkcafe - same problem - unauthorized teleport.  and I tried with the second destination, Star trek - same message Any ideas why I experience this - and I am quite good with hyperjumps in general.

Attention Spike

There are some things that are really hard to get your mind around. 

One is the relative size of the planets in our solar system. Another is German. A third is Spike Sol's smexy girl avie, even more mind bending when you hear his voice.

Where were you listening to Spike Sol's voice? you ask. Right now.

Safari Spanks the Vortex

Bolle Zijde: I need to warn you, no spanking on my butt.

Yeah good luck with that Bolle. There are times when open sim is so unstable it drives you crazy, and then there are times when it is so efficient it's shocking. Have you noticed that quite often both things happen in the same five minutes?
Many new faces joined us this week on Safari. We started out in Francogrid on the new HG Safari base. The sim is called hgsafari so it's easy to find. This week the Lingerie shop on Nara's Nook sort of took all my time so there aren't as many poses and places to sit as there ought to be in the new clubhouse. By next week that should be fixed. 

Lingerie store on Nara's Nook

          Speaking of lingerie, the 'let's fix up your open sim avatar' service, Safari Confidential, got started this week with Betty Tureaud. The idea is that you help someone to go hypergrid shopping. Anyone can do it, it's your civic duty, kind of. Think about it. It is so frustrating when you've had a smart sophisticated avie in Second Life for years and years, and suddenly you're in Open Sim and are a cloud, or walking like a duck, and don't know how or where to go to sort yourself out. 

So, those of us with a little more experience can reach out by taking a friend shopping, hold their hand while they fix  their Ruth hair, and help them get the necessaries. 

If you don't know where to go, there are some appearance oriented Freebie LMs in a dispenser at the Clubhouses on sim hgsafari, Franco and Outlands, on Metropolis. And if someone helps you - Pay it Forward! help someone else!

Taarna Wells' shoes on La Baronnie (Metropolis)

The many weird and wonderful mesh avies on offer are lovely, but they aren't Betty's style, so we sought out some more orthodox attachments. We visited Taarna Wells' legendary shoe store on la Baronnie, and then jumped over to Craft to take a look at their many Free shops. Hydra, the arrival sim on Craft, is undergoing a massive overhaul and it is great, much easier to jump straight to the sim you want. 

The new look Hydra, on Craft grid

 SL has loads of consumer blogs. The Hyperzette is excellent for outlining destinations, and of course there are many fine OpenSim traveler's blogs, but we need someone who's a consumer, not a producer to step in and hunt down the hair, clothes and skins and let us know where the best stuff is.  

Odd's Playground, Metropolis

Speaking of stuff, Safari went to Oddball Otoole's region on Metro this week. Odd's Playground is a dark, mysterious cityscape with a guitar museum, a free spanker, and so much more. At first, it seemed like the group was frozen, but in reality they were camming and picking up all the ...odds and ends.
Han Held: Log in to metropolis they said! It'll be easier to teleport they said! :P~~~~~
Miso Susanowa: hlo Wizzy. Are you getting the same winds as Patti?
Nara Nook: I found a candy machine
Nara Nook: by a Christmas tree.
Miso Susanowa: hi Han
Art Blue: guitar?
Art Blue: where?
Thirza.Ember: OK I may have lied. It is hardly the first time, Han.
Wizard Gynoid: winds?
PatriciaAnne Daviau: at home wizzy
Wizard Gynoid: oh . it was 26 degrees F last night
PatriciaAnne Daviau: we had gusts up to 60 miles an hour
Wizard Gynoid: i don't have the winds
Wizard Gynoid: just the usually passing kind

Truelie Telling: I see Art found the script library
strannik.zipper: script library?
Equus.Staedler: Really weird... had no trouble what so ever an hour ago HG tp'ing all over
Miso Susanowa: It's the safari, Equus; we are load testers
Tina Bey shouts: freebies..!
Equus.Staedler: Must be... I am new here :)
Wizard Gynoid: oh my goodness there's a dead body under a rug over here
Isolde Caron: trying to get the spanker working lol
PatriciaAnne Daviau: wow I cam around and all sorts of peeps show up
Pathfinder.Lester: lots of nice freebies around here
Equus.Staedler: Hi Thirza, glad I made it here... at loooong last
Pathfinder.Lester: and everything's frozen here. I feel at home.

Fuschia models Odd's battery powered facelight

Pathfinder.Lester: i hear spanking
Isolde Caron: ah good, it works
Fuschia.Nightfire: i love Odd's facelight, it's very subtle, you hardly even notice it
Pathfinder.Lester: OMG
Betty Tureaud: ops
strannik.zipper: Fuschia, that is quite the personal facelight!
Fuschia.Nightfire: i think the facelight is the only thing that comes with battery included
Isolde Caron: cant figure out how to spank someone yet. I'll figure it out another time, then I'll spank everyone all the time
Pathfinder.Lester: for those of you who like scripts, there's a whole tutorial area here with tons of scripts available for free... really nice

Alle Zeb and me at the Vector's Vortex arrival point

 It was difficult to get people to leave this wonderful sim and everyone is sure to go back because we all missed something, there was so much to see. 

Next up, Karima Hoisan's Vector's Vortex on Kitely. It's a space journey, complete with poem and flying book. You really have to go yourself to experience the Vortex, or get a video of it maybe; the sounds, the movement - it's all an exquisite journey. After vortexing, dancing. Oddball's freebies were everywhere.
  There were 28 of us at one point, we maxed out the dance ball. Equus Staedler did a great job of taking snapshots and sharing them with the group

Cosmic Safari Kitty in Kitely! Photo by Equus Staedler

Karima.Hoisan: wow cosmic salsa dance
Alle Zeb: Incredible here
Karima.Hoisan: ohh great photo
Nara Nook: love the cat picture
Thirza Ember: what a lovely safari
Alle Zeb: Yes Thirza!
strannik zipper: hahaha

Let's draw a veil over my wardrobe malfunction.

Karima.Hoisan: Thank you all for coming
PatriciaAnne Daviau: it was soo fun!!
Nara Nook: Thank you Karima
Karima.Hoisan: I am so honored to have had you all here
Thirza.Ember: 28 avies, impressive Karima!
Miso Susanowa: ty Karima, thanks for having us!
Lucy.Afarensis: Really great Karima
Isolde Caron: yes ty
Fuschia.Nightfire: really love this experience Karima
Pathfinder.Lester: yes, ty Karima!
Nara Nook: such a lovely sim
Karima.Hoisan: My pleasure

Our final destination was PMGrid, where safari has a sim, currently full of excellent Fuschia Nightfire art. The piece de resistance is Ghost Castle, an avatar interactive installation. About 16 avatars arrived almost all together, and once again the voodoo of open sim kicked in. 
While some people could see everything, others - even using local avatars - saw only an approximation. Although the Art gallery textures all showed up fine. 

But that's safari for you. Every day is different!

This week's URIs:
Odd's Playground, by Oddball Otoole:  hypergrid.org:8002:ossd playground
Karima Hoisan's Vector's Vortex:  grid.kitely.com:8002:vectors vortex
Fuschia Nightfire's Ghost Castle and gallery: pmgrid.org:8002:san22

Waiting for Philip

Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...
Connected
Region found!
Teleport completed from https://opensimcc/region/Landing%20Zone%201/127/128/38
KN1 Conference Chair (42):
 *** ATTENTION *** (hit esc for best camera viewing angle)
  ******************************************************************
 For the best experience, enable automatic prim and parcel media under Edit > Preferences > Audio & Video tab > Check the *automatically play prim media* and *automatically play parcel media* boxes.
 ******************************************************************
~to read this again check your local chat log.
Pathfinder.Lester: hi Thirza :) just saw you there. lol
Mal Burns: WB Thirza
Thirza Ember: what is with these sit poses???
Pathfinder.Lester:lol, lemme try that chair... hm, ok for me
Thirza Ember: ok i am now officially the Problem
Mal Burns: renames them "perch" poses - AO maybe?
Gavin Hird: try turn off sit ao
Thirza Ember: you really think my a/o has that sit pose?
Gavin Hird: hehe
Mal Burns: think i see yr dance pose, something working
Thirza Ember: yes, and I am getting counselling for that

Safari Insanity

The first destination of the first Safari of the month, every month, is Art Blue's Futurelab.

Insanity, you say, and this time you'd be right: Cherry Manga's Insanity, a strangely ecru, disturbing, moving installation complete with not-right-in-the head avatars. Art talked about Faust, we kind of knew he would, that's how he rolls. 
Cherry floated through the air, we all did, including first time safaristas Dorothea Lundquist, whose legendary 1001 was one of our first attempted destinations when Safari started, and hopefully will be back on the calendar soon, and poet and artist Karima Hoisan whose Kitely based build Vector's Vortex is on the docket for next week.
John Pathfinder Lester: The Safari is mindblowing!

Conference Call

          There's this 'working relationship' deal you can do with Philip Rosedale that's an effective way to manage your productivity. I've been on to it for quite some time, and really enjoy it. Basically it boils down to this: he wastes absolutely no time at all taking an interest in any of my VW writing, schemes and projects, and in return, I do the same for him.
          This coming weekend is the opensim community conference, being held on a special little grid at this URI cc.opensimulator.org:8002. Fleep Tuque is the organizer, ably assisted by the guys who run - I almost wrote 'used to run' - OSGrid, along with many other opensim stalwarts, the lovely and endlessly entertaining Maria Korolov among them. The conference runs for two days, this coming Saturday and Sunday, and begins at 7am Pacific time both days, with five breakout venues, which means there will be times when there are five different events going on at the same time, listed as Business, Development, Research and Education, Community, and Learning Lab.

          Philip Rosedale is doing the Keynote speech on Saturday, which seems to be sending a lot of conference goers all wobbly and starstruck. When I was about 15 I remember thinking 'wow, Madonna is rich! how cool!' and then suddenly realizing that she was only rich because kids like me had each handed over our hard-earned five or ten dollars to hear her sing or strut her stuff. And it suddenly seemed a whole lot less admirable. Never done the 'fan' thing since then. Anyway, I guess Philip probably wants to sell OpenSim something, and his talk has the not-at-all grandiose title of  'What the Metaverse is'.

C'est Safari

What's the difference between SL and OpenSim? If a guy in SL asks you to touch his trunk, he's probably a pervert. In Open Sim, the trunk is a chest of Pirate Treasure, and it's a nice little freebie souvenir de France. Make a note of that for later.
This week, there was already considerable confusion over the end of Daylight Savings Time, and we ramped it up further by offering two possible start points for the Safari, the classic Outlands on Metropolis, and a new base, on Francogrid, donated by Gill Beaumont. The sim there is easy to find, it's called hgsafari. With Metro straining at the seams, a backup to out backup seemed wise. There are now three HG Safari groups, 4 if you count the unreachable OSGrid, join them all, we don't have group limits in open sim, and this way you can use Group Chat if you're on Francogrid, Metropolis, or Craft. The weekly Landmark notecard is also sent out as an announcement via the groups, so that may help you find us.

We talk a lot, on Safari. It must be really annoying for the grid owners who are eager to make their presentation, but it's so much fun to read Local Chat and get a feel for all the people coming from different grids. The big question of the week was - What is the National Dish of France? - and it seems that choucroute won, mostly because Strannik Zipper was handing out samples, but also because our first destination was the University of Strasbourg, and the fantastic virtual Campus (URIs at the end of the post). Unistra manager Anne Cordonnier welcomed us, and Cheops Forlife translated her introduction into English. Cheops has her own group of virtual researchers, the i3DM, their stamping ground was OSGrid, so when that's back up and running, we plan to go visit her there too. But back to the University of Strasbourg, and the choucroute...

Beach Safari

And if you said, "This life ain't good enough"
I would give my world to lift you up
I could change my life to better suit your mood...
Santana, Smooth

Ahoy mateys, this week Safari went from the sublime beachfront of Strannik Zipper's Pirates Atoll into the apocalypto landscape as The Mayans Knew It, according to Wordfromthe Wise, and finally washed up in the spookiest of Party Islands on Kai and Seya Devin's Insula Aeternum. (URIs at the end of the post.) Ask anyone who was there, this was the most people with the most hair to survive right though to the final hour of Safari so far. And that's not a phrase you hear very often.

Strannik Zipper is a real pirate and his grid is a gem.

There's loads to do, from dancing on the beach to dancing in the Irish pub, to taking a water taxi or taking a dip in the lagoon, or visiting the lovely Pirate Museum on a brigantine. There are some informative pictures outlining the history of pirating, and a chance to walk the plank and meet the mermaid. Jessica Pixel, shown here, wisely chose to stay on board. I'm not sure her springs would react well in salt water.

Safari How-to.

Caution, this post contains some serious information. Look away now if you can't handle the truth.
Here are the bare facts of how Safari works.
We meet on Outlands sim, Metropolis Grid. When there are problems tp'ing to Outlands, our Fallback meeting area is Futurelab sim, also on Metropolis grid. Thanks to Art Blue for the fallback option, and Nara Malone  who donated Outlands, and the people at Zetamex who donate the server space.

          We meet at 12.00pm SLT, that's 9.00pm in Europe. The Safari lasts three hours. We usually have 3 destinations, the first we head for at about 9.15, the second at around 10 and the third an hour or so after that. The times are approximate, but that is when the grid or region owners are expecting us. It can freak them out when Safari people show up much earlier than expected, by the way, especially if they have some sort of presentation planned.

          There is a notecard dispenser on the verandah at Outlands, containing the LMs for our destinations. The notecard is often only placed there just before Safari takeoff time, since our watchword is *chaos*. Make sure you have joined the HG Safari group inworld, so you can see the group chat. We also put the notecard in the Announcements, so you can access it from anywhere on Metropolis.

Do you want to come on Safari but are likely to be late and need assistance with grid jumping? Before the Safari begins - well before time - send Thirza Ember or Wizzy Gynoid a message in Google+ or on Facebook, or an inworld message in Metropolis. We'll organize a limo.  Want to help the Safari? Open an IM with the other people in the group when Safari starts. That way you can tell if someone disappears off radar. Friend everyone. If you or they manage to jump to the destination, you can tp the other party. No creepy behavior with the friending or the IMs please, or Wizzy will stomp on you. Unless you're into that. Also, notecards with suggestions of grids we might visit are always welcome.

          How to grid jump with the Safari
 The sim -any sim - can only handle so many Teleport requests at a time. Please be patient. Here are some strategies (probably snake oil) to get around the problem of freezing or Failed TP issues.
1. Make sure your graphics are set to Low and minimize the number of programs you're running that are using bandwidth.
2. Have the LM ready and jump immediately we announce we're on the move. Drag the LMs off the Notecard into your inventory before trying to use them.
3. Alternatively, wait until most of the people around you are gone before trying to jump. (I'm always last, so don't mind me.) Let us know in Local Chat what strategy you're using, so others can help you if something goes awry.
4. Still can't jump? Make a quick tp hop to another sim on the same grid - the Default sim of the grid is often the best, on Metro that's Startregion - and then try again from there.
5. Use the HG address instead of the landmark. That means opening your Map, pasting the HG Address (also called URI, you'll find one on the Notecard for each Destination) into the Search box, press Search, WAIT till the Map finds the region, then - wait some more! and some more! - and then hit Teleport. If the map says "Region not Found" or "Not Authorized" or any of the other bs messages it often throws up, double check the address you put in Search, or move your avie to another part of the sim, or a different sim, and try again. It sometimes helps to take the sim name off the end of the HG Address (Example: instead of hypergrid.org:8002:Outlands  just put hypergrid.org:8002 and you'll arrive at Startregion. From there, just type Outlands into the Map.)

SLafari

Two firsts this week. We met in Second Life for the Inaugural Ball at the new Safari Embassy (pop by and see it on sim Sistiana any time) and Apmel fell in love.

Not the first time he fell in love probably but the first time he's done so on Safari.
The purpose of our group, and our trips, is to make it easier and more fun for anyone from SL to make the transition to open sim. Confusion yes, drama no. Open sim is not a smooth operation, but it offers such a lot of possibilities that well, frankly you'd be foolish not to at least dip a toe in the water.

Safari Afield

It has been 44 days since OSGrid went down, and today on Facebook [via Ron Brown] came the good news: " The array was not able to be rebuilt from the cloned drives due to logical partition errors so the recovery service has performed a full recovery, restoring everything to a single 6 tb drive that the engineer said should boot and that all the files are intact. The additional costs, less the $2302.56 we have already paid them, comes to $2510. We currently have $3432.88 which would make our budget very tight (we still have hosting costs, etc).
Thank you very much for your patience and support! ~ Dan Banner "
if you would like to help by donating you can follow the link below 
http://www.osgrid.org/index.php/donate
Saying 'No news is good news' has not been great news for OSGrid's image in open sim, but they saved all our stuff, which is wonderful, and going on about the PR disconnect between management and users is pointless and anyway, has already been done.

Last night's Safari went to Metroberfest, but it wasn't all cakes and ale. This is the landing point of the fabulous four sectioned sim, but last night there was water and bare earth where there should have been buildings and free stuff, and I spent a significant amount of time up to my neck (thanks Miso).

Aaackangel

He is Open Sim's Angel of Mesh, a Blender guru, creator, and all round good guy, Aaack Aardvark of Littlefield Grid. Tomorrow, HG Safari has an opportunity to meet this teacher and creator who feels strongly that there is no reason why open sim creations should be any less in quality or detail than anything your find in SL.

A gentle, talented and kindly Argentinian, Aaack cancelled his account in SL about three years ago, after some four or five years of presence on the grid. This elegant store is a design that he first made (but never used) in Sl way back in 2007. Second life was great, but after a few years, he had grown tired of the mentality there. It seemed wrong to him that creators have to pay upload fees.
Aaack Aardvark: We creators are the ones making Second Life Attractive. Why should we be paying to herp the business of SL? In my book that makes no sense.

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.

Safari Animals

W. Gynoid in "Hippo dreams"

It was a beast of a Safari this time, and not just because it was 'bring your your own sheep' week. 

          Outlands was awash (make that handwash only - do not dry clean) with  pure new wool, much of it in particle form. FYI if you are in need of a good sheep particle, one is available at the clubhouse on Outlands sim, Metropolis. No questions asked.

Big Cat Safari

         First off, the nudity was all Nara Malone's fault.
        This week Safari (which meets every Wednesday at 12 noon PDT on sim Outlands, Metropolis Grid) was accused of being a bunch of cat ladies by SLave Me Oh (the sister of the famous SL artist and provocateur).

          Of course, those who doesn't follow Safari on Facebook had no idea why we were all kitted out this way, but this being Safari, they didn't bother to ask. If you are curious, well, go look here.
          We have been adding stuff to the sim this week, including hypergrid LMs to freebie shops .and a number of giveaways, so drop in at Outlands if you'd like, even if you can't make the event.
          And it was an event, this week, a Big Art day in every sense. In terms of the combination of art destinations, probably the most mindblowing safari yet. This was the lineup. 

Safari Out Loud

A cloudy start in Metropolis this week, things did not look too promising, to be honest with you, and not just Apmel's funky Metrosexual hairdo. We are still meeting on Outlands sim in Metopolis, and no, nobody has fixed that elephant yet, but this time tomorrow, you will find a few freebies and a list of clothing, shoes and hair landmarks, not as fancy as the one Wizardoz Chrome has made in OSGrid, but a start, anyway. 

Outlands : I don't advise sitting on the barrels

It is a strange sensation to hear voices in Open Sim. One gets so used to having a smart mouth without actually opening it, that this week, when Safari went to the Seanchai Library in Kitely, it was a delightful shakeup of our usual routine.

Apmel and I ponder what could possibly have happened to Mal Burn's signature top hat.

  The Seanchai Library in SL has been delighting audiences (and helping real life good causes) for many years, and now they have branched out to Kitely, it means they have a vast number of prims for a fraction of the price. 

Seanchai Portals at the welcome area

That translates into more creative environments, places of wonder and inspiration for you to explore with twelve storytelling venues and eight themed worlds, you could spend days here. And before you start biting your keyboard and shouting 'Yeah, but where is the hg address" they are all at the end of the post, with the assumption that you have some inkling of how to gridjump.

For Safari, Seanchai (Irish for 'storyteller') meant Caledonia Skytower and Shandon Loring taking time out of their daytime to read for us two great stories that left us quivering with fear and clinging to our neighbors (or in my case crashing at the very end... I blame Apmel). The story reading corner is appropriately sized for such a large gathering but you really have to go check out their Fallingwater build, why not pop over there this weekend for their regular scheduled readings at 9 am SLT Saturday and Sunday.

 There is so much to see I am not sure everyone got to visit Fallingwater this time but we'll be back - who can resist these talented actors who have participated in on a whole raft of quality productions that bridge the gap between virtual worlds, including such classics as The African Queen and The Dickens Project. You can catch up with them on their website, and find them on FB, Google+ etc.  where upcoming performances are announced.

The beautiful Caledonia Skytower, during her reading of Frank Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger?

They have so many great ideas for using virtual spaces to put on plays and readings, this is a huge resource for anyone who loves literature and hypergridding, so be sure to join their group at the main welcome area, so you will get all their updates, and don't forget if you're in SL, you can also join StoryFest and perhaps be an even more active part of the fun. Voice is not for everyone, but it adds a delicious level of intimacy and animation to the virtual experience and we plan to come back again soon to hear some more of their stories, so please join us if you can.

Love the red plane on TanGle Grid!

Few things are more excruciating in a virtual world than when your viewer freezes just as you hear someone ask you a question in front of a large group of people, but at least the inevitable crash is a merciful release... and with crashing on the menu, it seemed appropriate that our second destination was the Air and Space show at TanGle Grid. Their Welcome sim is one of my favorites, it is easy to use, bright and busy, but not so full of info you are overloaded and can't figure out where to go.  Just follow the arrows!

Peter Veliz and the team made us very welcome, although once again it seems a good number of safarians could not see the fantastic vehicles on the sim, while the neighboring fun fair rezzed perfectly for them. It is your classic HG Voodoo, a huge shame though because the vintage and futuristic vehicular variety on show was amazing. For a long time the only thing I could see was Miso Susanowa wearing her new Meeroo HG Hairguard (too late, Philip. I believe it is already Patent Pending)

But then Boom! All the ships came into view. 
I went up to see the Star Trek models, shame my dire computer situation *breaks down and weeps before the shattered hull of her alienware laptop* could not really do the place justice.

This may be illegal.

We bethought ourselves to go over and check out the Ghost Castle Installation that Fuschia has put up on PM Grid. There's a special post all about that, Usually by the time we get to our third destination we are quite thin on the ground, but this week more seemed to have survived the many missteps that makes up jumping. One such misstep, losing your clothes, seems to be easily fixable, according to the Nook's very own Nara Malone who advises - put all the things you are wearing into your inventory's Suitcase, so that grids with HG restrictions will not bork your lovely look (huh- must remember to do that, also not try to grid jump when my viewer is set to High Graphics.)

For quite a few of us, it took loads of jump attempts and the use of sneaky back ways to get over to PMGrid; Pathfinder managed to get there before any of us. We found him riding around on an animal that looked distinctly HG traumatized, and when the grid finally spat us all out, we headed back to Metropolis, landing up in Art Blue's zoo on sim Futurelab. It is nice to close each chaotic safari this way, the hard core safarians drifts back to our grid of origin and we all end up sitting around being silly. For the second time in a week I have been a party to lap-sitting mishaps, and since I have been plagiarized twice this week also, Karma says it's OK to steal this photo from Phacebook. 

It belongs to  Apmel who made it right to the end of the Safari this time, a personal best for him, I think his magic hair must be the secret behind his new-found stickability. Lucy came and went, but what kept Nara with us down to the wire? Writerly genius, of course! Fuschia has Pink Power, while Wiz and Miso swear by Meeroo meat, which has become the number one snack for all Safaris, for its high fiber and levels of vitamins H and G.  I am not sure what Patricia Anne's superpower is... yet. Art has some bizarrely oversized animals in his collection, I leave it to others to decide what that means. Maybe Siobhan and Nara can write a story about it. 

So once you log into your grid of choice, here are the hg addresses of the places we went to. Put the address in the Search box in your Map, hit Search, wait, and then jump.

Seanchai Library grid.kitely.com:8002/Seanchai Library
TanGle Grid tanglegrid.net:8032 and then follow the big arrow to Expo Isle (the Air and Space Expo is nearly over, so hurry!) 

Art Blue's zoo and more  hg.hypergrid.org:80:Futurelab