Safari crosses over

            Institutions. We all love them, and most of us belong in one. This week three SL/opensim crossovers were our destinations, each one an epic in its own way. First up,  Seanchai Library which this month celebrates seven years since it was founded in Second Life. That's a big deal when you think of all the performances that this group has put on, and all the money they have collected for charity too. We met on sim Inis Arcain in Kitely to hear the short story 'The Bard' performed by Caledonia Skytower. This is a tale of druids and warriors and ancient angst, and one of the most memorable menacing laughs in the metaverse.

          Caledonia set things up so we could hear her via streaming anywhere on the sim, making it possible to go wandering around the build without missing any of the story, also making it easier on those of us who find that Voice does not work well when
hypergridding. Thanks for that! Not to be missed when you visit, the castle and the small stone circle, which in the misty windlight has the flavor of the Rollright Stones. In celebration of their big day, Shandon Loring and Cal have organized a Celtic Hunt on the sim, seven crocks of gold each containing a gift. She invited us to move around the lovely woodland, but as you can see, we flock together, camming like crazy. 

          Mal Burns was trying to TP over to Kitely from Great Canadian Grid, but nothing worked - not landmarks (I sent three different ones), not personal tp's from different parts of the sim, not the HG address, with and without the sim  name, not even the gate on Sanctuary. 
          A Kitely problem? or is this some fiendish plot by GCG to prevent residents going to Kitely? With all the stories of grid owners arbitrarily picking and choosing which grids they're connected to via HG, I was curious to check this morning. And voila - no conspiracy, must have just been a momentary glitch, here is GCG Thirza, snooping around looking for crocks of gold.  Make sure you don't miss out on these very appropriate Irish gifts! The URI or HG Address is at the end of the post. 

GCG Thirza finds a crock of gold

         Visit Seanchai in Kitely this weekend to hear live stories in Voice. All times PDT.
Caledonia Skytower: 9am Saturday - Black Hearts and Ivory Bones, 11am Sunday - The Quiet Man.  I believe both will be on the homeworld [in Kitely, aka the sim called 'Seanchai']. The hunt will stay open and we have something scheduled in SL . . .  we haven't figured out what to do here just yet. Our birthday here is on May 2.
        After much applause and thanks, the safari moved on to our next destination, and boy was it nice to be back on OSGrid! We were at a new sim, called The Docks, part of Clairwil Oh's region, this one inhabited by the talented Scottius Polke. He explained that the idea for the build began in Scribbler.

Scottius Polke: this was the original drawing
PatriciaAnne.Daviau: cool picture
James.Atlloud: oooh, that's nice.
Gavin.Hird: very nice
Scottius Polke: A fellow sl'er said I should make a build of it, so I did.  And all the textures here are created in this program. Here is the website: http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/scribblertoo/
snowbody.Cortes: very nice pic Scott, I love it
James.Atlloud: am drawing now. awesome.
Nova.Saunders: new toy. Love new toys.
Scottius Polke: after this build was released, a machinima, poem and short story were made from this build. Hypatia Pickens made this machinima in it.

Thirza.Ember: how long did it take you to import into open sim?
Scottius Polke: it took a few days, mainly because there were lots of megaprims. Plus some scripting issues. I also had tons of alpha textures that weren't mine, so had to pinpoint all the places where they were, but it went smoother than I expected. The only thing I couldn't get to work was an inner tube vehicle, which was a shame, as it is fun. There is a story in this build, but I have kept it intentionally open ended. This version is only about a week or so old, so still has new sim smell.

Aime Socrates tries some fishing

Fuschia.Nightfire: it's so great to see it again!
Gavin.Hird: It reminds me of a child book I had - extremely cool done
Serene.Jewell: It's so soft and dreamy here.
PatriciaAnne.Daviau: the sounds are awesome
Aime.Socrates:  maybe time for lobster catching ?
Scottius Polke: yes, undead lobsters lol - would get some odd catches here :D
Thirza.Ember: lobster zombies

Scottius Polke: zombsters
Wizard.Gynoid: i'll bet Cthulhu is close by
Gavin.Hird: look at the mountain over there, it has a face on it. I live in Norway and we use to see trolls in the mountains
Scottius Polke: you can see his pipe and still lit lantern on the rock below. Those are very much troll mountains :)
It was very nice to have with Selenmoira from the USS Davy Crockett join the Safari this week, it was a great way to remind everyone that next week we will be visiting two outstanding Star Trek builds, in celebration of the life of Leonard Nimoy, everyone's favorite Vulcan. Before next week, sort out a Spock costume, and brush up on your Star Trek trivia, there are bound to be questions about Pon Farr.

From left to right, Delenn, James, PatriciaAnne, Thirza, Wizard, and Scottius arrive on the MdM

           Last stop for this week - the Museo del Metaverso on Craft Grid.  The MdM, as we call it for short, started back in 2007 in Second Life. Over the years it hosted loads of artists, some great, many not so great, but Rox gave them all a chance to be seen and praised. I am not sure how much good it does to praise people whose only real claim to fame is their unfettered personal vanity, but it's a free country. 
          Roxelo Babenco moved the MdM to Craft some years ago, but the project stalled when RL commitments became too great for her to be able to keep up her presence in virtual worlds. Now she is back, and it is a tribute to her likeableness that so many of her old SL friends and colleagues have chipped in to make this titanic re-opening happen. This sim contains an eye watering nine thousand scripts, well over 15k prims and takes a full twenty minutes to restart. The heroic efforts of Craft grid owner Licu Rau, ably assisted by Billy Bradshaw must be recognized here. The main gallery was designed and built by Alpha Auer. Forty SL artists are on display here, and on the opening night, there were 68 avatars on the sim. It did finally crash, but only when people started talking about watching a performance by DC Spensley. 

Betty's pretty build high up in the MdM

          Maybe 14 Safaristas made it over to the MdM. It takes a very very long time to rez even the notice boards on the welcome area, so brace yourself if you decide to visit. There are some nice things to see if you have the patience.  Betty Tureaud was on the sim, and we went up to look at her little patch of color near the top of the gallery. On nearby sim Uqbar, there are some fun fridges that ooze fruity particles, and an antique install by Gazira Babeli.

Lucy Afarensis kicks art.

Congratulations to Roxelo, mostly for having the foolhardy courage and fortitude to put up with that considerable percentage of Second Life artists who produce way more presumptuous, preening bullshit than they do art. More power to her, and may the MdM have all the success she hopes for it.

Roxelo, snowbody and Lucy in the fruit.

URIs:
Inis Arcain Celtic sim and hunt:   grid.kitely:com:8002:Inis Arcain
Scottius Polke's The Docks:          hg.osgrid.org:80:The Docks
The new Museo del Metaverso:    craft-world.org:8002:mdm