Vicky's Eros

 Eroticism has always been a big part of virtual worlds; maybe it's the excellent weather and unlimited beaches, or the chance to have a killer body and even better lingerie, or the option to connect with.. well, all sorts. From the comfort of your own Viewer.

Victoria Logan, from Argentina, is a long time resident of OSGrid,
 known for her art and her work in cultivating the artistic community of Opensim

Art is also erotic, or should that be inherently erotic... on Arts-&-Friends2  Victoria Logan, known in Opensim for her beautiful lagoon galleries, has another collective of artists who have dedicated their talent to this theme - the previous two themes you may remember were 'Women' and 'We are OSGrid' and both were stunning and are still visitable in the Arts-&-Friends archipelago. 

Curating art can be hard work. Finding artists, choosing a unifying and broadly appealing theme, encouraging people to participate and supporting and promoting their work, and presenting it in a pleasing environment requires hours of dedication. The participants this time include Azi Az, Youca Golden, Gabriel Solstician, Tina Bey, Malcolyis Fadian, Morning Glory, Caro Fayray, Victoria Logan, Bonnie and Victorious Oppenwall, Deanna Janus and Elmo Figaro, and Lando Maremagnum. Tina, Caro and Vic joined us for the tour. There wasn't time to visit the whole place, so we have every excuse to return!

Safari Gets Desolate

Tosha Tyran: I just woke up, am still somewhat uncoordinated

Cherry Manga: coffee?

Tosha Tyran: I got myself a beer - more appropriate I thought, haha

Thirza Ember: can I have a red bull instead of coffee?

Cherry Manga: omg, lol! you both are savages!

Yes,  we are savages, which is a good thing because the second destination of this week's HG Safari tour - the Fall season premiere for 2025 - was on a sim that savages thrive on. Well, to be fair, anyone who loves post apocalyptic landscapes, zombies, aliens, elephants, or witty posters, or an adventure playground, or lovely grungy freebies including some great PBR materials would like this new sim Desolate Expanse by Cherry Manga ... yeah I guess that is pretty much everyone. Just about two months old, it's a concept sim constructed with the help of visits by Cherry to some of the best loved Freebie purveyors in Opensim. And while it's desolate, it's definitely not despairing. You'll need to be wide awake to tour this sim without missing all the lovely details, and gifties too.

It all started with a small disappointment for many of us.

Forest in the Fall

Star Ravenhurst: Why am I sunk in the floor?

Thirza Ember: titanic shoes?

Forest Azure: do you see the dancefloor? I don't :)

George Equus: Instant rez for me, glad to  say

Francisco Koolhoven: I see it

Star Ravenhurst: It's fixed, I see everything fine

Yes, Safari is back for our 2025 Fall season and of course, when a bunch of people suddenly arrive on a new sim all together it can take a little minute before all the elements are visible to everyone... not to mention the occasional missing texture here and there, but that's all part of the fun of going as a group. The HG Address is of course at the end of the post.

Our first stop this week, and our second stop too, were both on OSGrid. In fact, this very first destination on sim Forest of Azure, with our hostess Forest Azure, was supposed to be part of last season's lineup. Only, as you may remember, OSGrid was offline for a little while there, back in the Spring. Nice to have it back up and running, perhaps better than ever. We certainly were all glad to be there.

Forest Azure

Forest Azure: welcome ye all!

Cherry Manga: ty Forest

George Equus: Thank you

Forest Azure: Hello all ye safari people! So glad to see you again and welcome you here!  And so great the safari season started again! We are here in the first place for my Maze gallery, but you have time to explore other parts of my region as well, or to dance here if you like, or maybe even both! Let me first show you the tp boards.. here is one and they all look like this.

Poppy's Arrival - Coming Soon!

For a very long time, Poppy Fields has been in SL (and still is sometimes, she has a club there) but she has always explored various worlds. Then, she says... one day she found herself here in Opensim... 

Poppy Fields: ... and I kind of hung my hat here. I am creative both here and in SL. But somehow my creative side is encouraged more here.

Poppy Fields

We met on Poppy's sim Mistburry on Osgrid, where preparations for the latest project are well under way. Called 'Arrival'. Coming in August, it's a multimedia experience that will be performed inside the theater, called simply 'The Box'. 

Poppy Fields: A special shout out to my partner Rachael Cooper for being so patient with me working on this  ...so many evenings standing here watching me work ! This upcoming show is a story told in pictures combined with stage sets, music and lights. It's not quite a club and not quite a gallery. We're telling the classic story of finding love, losing it, and re-united. exploring the relationship between humans and machines

Thirza Ember: and 'arrival' - what does that refer to?

Poppy Fields: the arrival of artificial sentience - I mean an AI that is more advanced that it is at present,. AI with empathy.

Osgrid turns 18

Well, it's official. At the end of this month OSgrid will turn 18, old enough to get a tattoo, go skydiving, and vote. And of course, the grid is celebrating with the traditional show-and-tell festivities on the OSGB regions. 

Spaces are still available, although many are already spoken for, so don't wait too long - get building! At time of posting, there will be at least three exhibition sims, each with a dozen or more original installations, rides, gifts, and exhibitions celebrating the diverse and ingenious group of people who make up the OSGrid population.

 To get a parcel, contact one of the grid Admin. Who are the Osgrid Admin?  Dan Banner, Paela Osgrid, Sarah Klein, Foxx Bode, Wizard Atazoth, AlbertR Landar, and Aussie Envee. Aussie organizes the Event Plaza music shows which of course will be a big part of the festivities. And speaking of music...

Paela Incognito

Incognito? A little less these days. Anyone who's been around Opensim for any length of time will be familiar with the name Paela Argus, and if you've ever dropped in at LBSA Plaza on your way somewhere, or looking for some help, or company, you maybe have seen the attractive lady avie hanging out there. 

Recent events on OSGrid have given Paela even more visibility, so it seemed like a good time to get to know the person behind the screen a little better. Starting with the basics of good manners. 

Thirza Ember:  I know that nowadays you go by Paela Osgrid inworld, rather than Paela Argus. Do you prefer if people refer to you as ‘he’ or ‘she’? 

Paela Argus: I honestly don’t mind. People can use either “he” or “she” when speaking about me — it doesn’t bother me at all. In the virtual world, I present myself as a woman. It’s my way of breaking the realism of real life, keeping a clear boundary between virtual life and real life. This separation is very important for me — especially for the balance of my real-world marriage. Because first and foremost, I’m a husband and a father to a big family. And I take that role seriously.

Thirza Ember: You’ve been on OSGrid for a long time, Paela, what is the secret of your longevity? 

WB Osgrid

 Welcome back, OSGrid! About a dozen people were on LBSA a few minutes ago when these pics and gifs were made. 

LBSA back up! with Admins Sarah Kline and Paela Argus. 

People dancing, chatting, laughing, working... and a lot of them trying to rebuild their avie. Ellen Tiratzo was there, talking about the best way to stop being a cloud. Carmen Ever, very smart, was totally prepared for this day. 

Carmen Ever: I had a folder with my outfit all ready, and so when I got here, I transferred it from Neverworld , and it loaded immediately

Una, IARs, and OARs

In the troubled period since OSGrid went into long term maintenance, Unadecal Masala has found himself in a unique position. He not only rents regions to people in OSGrid, he also rents full independent grids. Most of these grids are small and private in nature, but some are public and they operate their own land rental schemes. Una doesn't have a grid of his own, his motives are simple.

Unadecal Masala: As a mark of respect for their efforts in attracting members and building their own communities, I decided at the beginning that I would never compete with them by setting up a grid where I rent land. I do have a private grid, but this is for testing purposes only.

We met up on HIE region, in the Hypergrid Expo park, on which is still open, if you haven't yet gone around and picked up the LMs, information cards, and freebies. I wondered what Una's reaction was to the whole OSgrid situation, and what had been the effect on his business and his clients. First reaction?

Unadecal Masala: Absolute dismay. Borderline desperation. Not only because of the grid going into long term maintenance, but because of the total asset wipe. Almost twenty years of OpenSim history lost in the blink of an eye.

Prince's Maze

Prince Amor:  quite a bit changed since last, with OSGrid closing up etc.. we are setting just over 100 regions, of which 20 are public, the rest are residential.

We met on Maze Grid, Prince's principality since OSgrid went offline for long term maintenance back on 4 March of this year. It's far from being a small place. Alongside the many residential sims, now home to many of those who rented from prince of Amor back on OSGrid, there are twenty that are public spaces, with freebie areas or art and fan builds on them, all worth a visit.

The Welcome region has an open air down to earth feel to it, with places to play and dance and hang out, but also teleports to other points of interest and a large Building Supplies area, where you can quickly pick up anything you're missing. I wondered how Prince has been weathering the recent events.

Prince Amor:   I feel let down, that is pretty well it.  I have 150 users, so I have 100 renters that were all  OSGrid... most made it here though.

Thankfully between social media and word of mouth, it is a lot more difficult these days for a person to remain out of the loop when something big like this happens. Rather like an earthquake, there had been tremors for some little time on OSgrid, giving us all warning. Prince wasn't in Opensim when the last great outage of OSGrid happened, from August 2014 to around February 2015, but he wasn't unprepared for the events of this Spring.

Prince Amor:  This was, for me, the first Big One. Lots of minor ones I weathered along the way.  I would have my renters  make accounts on my Dreamgrid  so when OSGrid went down they could have access to their lands etc.. in December when OSGrid went down then I learned how to do the stand alone so I evolved just in time for the big one

Thirza Ember: so did you get your oars and your renters stuff out in time before the whole thing went down?
Prince Amor:   oars - yes, but .iars were a horrible failure for most part, the ip protections totally broke them making them useless. But the OSGrid admin made the right choice of course. Once that big 6 tb breaks, or whatever size...

Thirza Ember: Really, relying on one grid, no matter who is running it, is kind of risky. People who say it could never happen to them because they take more precautions, sure, but ... hubris alert.

Prince Amor:  that is right and we have seen it again and again with smaller grids,  no matter what they are running. I really didn't lose thing. I know some  totally missed it  but my people did pretty good. That is why I would push my people to have an account with the Dreamgrid and here even but when it happened of course I pushed them as hard as I could. We still have things pop invisible or whatever as they wipe that drive, textures in the stores etc...

Prince of Amor

Thirza Ember: you are now transitioning from landlord of sims on a big grid, to grid owner. That is actually a different role... you have gone from being maintenance guy, to the mayor of the place have you noticed that change yet, how are you coping with the role, and do you like it?

Party On

It's the weekend - Saturday night, and the place to be os Event Plaza. But wait - OSGrid is offline for long term maintenance! 

How can this be? 

The familiar triple tent and steel structure, a semicircle of dancing fun. It all looks very familiar, with just a little bit less lag than you generally would expect to find, even when arriving long after the party has started.

Spring Clean

 I'm kind of looking forward to the great OSGrid asset reset. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of work going back over the 13 and a half years of precious things and junk. Hold on though... scanning through Inventory it quickly becomes clear that although there are 18,000 items in there, maybe half of that is duplicates / slightly modified versions of the same thing. Eliminate those, and the things worth keeping probably boil down to ten maybe 20 percent of what's left. Decluttering - yes please! 

By the way, if you know anyone who only occasionally shows up in OSGrid, or who doesn't follow the news much, then be a friend, and remind them that the OSGrid Reset will take place around March 21 - so now's the time to act!

This is definitely the moment to make sure any scripts you care about, any creations, anything that you have that's unique to your OSGrid avatar is in a safe place.
A big shout out to all the other grid owners who are helping out with the situation and offering places for people to go/put their stuff!

Signs and Visions on Osgrid

 Constelacion de Orion 2 on Osgrid is one of the regions that Geo Perez calls home. Geo's been around opensim for many years now, and these regions, inspired by his writings and built by Tina Bey, will be the subject of one of the upcoming talks at the Hypergrid INternational Expo on HG Safari grid, in the first weekend of April.

Here he is in the avatar that is itself part of the story of his books, and these regions - veery white, with flowing locks and a strange electricity flowing around his body.

Geo Perez:  Welcome to Constelacion Orion geo portal. 

Geo Perez: This is my sim Alinijena 2... Next month I'm going to make a grid of my own, so all my lands will be moving. This is the entrance if you see behind you there are the dimensional portals

Geo Perez: Here are my promotional books...  I have like 17 but 33 if you count the translations in English and Spanish. My story is captured here, this place designed by Tina Bey, everything passed on my book and she created it all.

Love to Verna

DJ, builder, landscape creator, loyal friend, photographer, and welcoming hostess at so many events, Verna Avril has been a valued friend and a familiar face in Opensim for a decade. Her long career of creativity in virtual worlds, going back to the days of Second Life.

 Here's a shot of her handiwork from 2012, on a sky platform on a SL sim called Sharks Cove. The environment she made here was called ' Dragon and Angel Palace' and Verna's love of fantasy comes through, all these years later... 

Verna's Dragon and Angel Palace

... but of course, SL could never be big enough for such a passionate builder! 

Verna landed in Osgrid back in 2012. She has accounts on several different grids, but Osgrid is home to most of her building projects. In 2022 she told me she had ten 4x4 regions, many of them rich environments, and several under construction. She's always been a big thinker - whether it's landscapes, roleplay, or having fun.

Right now, Verna is battling health issues, but even if she's not inworld, she is definitely not forgotten.

Lots of friends all send the same message - prayers, good wishes, and a reminder to stay strong! They include Jaime Wright, Mystic Moonlight, Ozzmosis Ozzy, DJ Purr, Hyacinth, Destiny, Dan, Quaesar Agnomen, Unadecal Masala, and Kylie Brimmer.

Event Plaza

Victoria Logan: Dear Verna, in each of your sessions as a DJ, I have been able to travel through my memories and enjoy your music. Excellent person always willing to help, I know this from my own experience. My hug is with you.

Calendar Guys

 Another year, another calendar, this year "Men of Opensim"... no, no nudes, you can get them anywhere with depressingly banal results, instead here the focus is on guys going places, or well not exactly going but staying places and making stuff that you can visit. Of course, the number of interesting people in Opensim is uncountable, but these  just represent some of the goings on in the virtual.

You can get the calendar for free at the HG Safari clubhouse, and it's a gift offered in the Notices if you belong to the HG Safari group on OSGrid. The calendar part is a MOAP or media on a prim, linking to the Safari's Google Calendar, which will show you our upcoming seasons of events, plus the grid birthdays of many places on the Hyperverse.

So, who's in the calendar?

Advent Neighborhood

 Osgrid is back up, or kind of back up, not entirely convinced by it, from a performance point of view, but it's a good omen, and another promise of good times ahead is the start of the Advent build by Ange Menges and Nani ferguson. Ange and Nani have been consistently building festive, ephemeral regions for over 12 years in Opensim (and worked together before that back in SL) so they're used to the vagaries of the virtual. They have set up their latest creation Advent Calendar on two grids, Zetaworlds and OSGrid. 

When you arrive there's the usual poster board but this time, no HUD, it's just up to you to go out wandering around the snowy, bosky neighborhood and seek out structures with numbers on them. 

A Study in Scarlett

 "Tomorrow is another day" remains one of the most famous last lines in the history of cinema. Gone With The Wind debuted in 1939. The film tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara and her family home Tara during the turbulent years of the American Civil War, and Rhett Butler, the love of her life. 

It's a film about the effects of radical change coming to what had seemed to be a settled way of life, and of the dramatic results that those changes bring to individuals and families.

Tara

The movie, and the story behind it, have been cleverly brought to life in OSGrid (the HG Address is, of course, at the end of the post) by the French builder and historian Wildrose Guardian, who has a particular interest in those life-changing years from 1860 then the United States found itself torn apart by conflicting ideologies that turned to physical violence. 

Tabula Rasa

Tabula Rasa, the blank slate, is a concept as ancient as Aristotle, and as modern as an empty sim. Often associated with the human mind in that magical moment before impressions, feelings, opinions and experiences have made their mark, the very words 'tabula rasa' can fill a creative person with the thrill of possibilities.

It's also the name of Ieko Catnap's art sim on OSGrid, and it's home to pleasant pathways leading between attractive buildings with a provencale feel.  In one corner, a little grey graveyard is enriched by this lovely fountain, with prim fish that say they were made by Virtual Christine, giving the place the feel of an authentic history.

Charming too are the little shops, a flower market, bakery, newspaper printers and more, the cutest has to be 'Chik' Ânes' with a bit of a Latin American vibe going on. 

Prince's Passions

 suprema citius solvet amor die

He's Prince Amor, or 'the PrinceofAmor' - his precise name fluctuates, but for simplicity's sake let's just call him Prince - is pretty new to Opensim. He's only been here two or three years, but of course he's got a whole lot of SL experience under his belt from before. Safari goers will be well familiar with his Solar System build on OSgrid which we toured back in September. There's much more Amor on OSgrid, and hopefully over time we will get to explore the trippy Maze of the Mind, or his Star Trek build, and perhaps his automotive sim with over 300 cars, just to mention a handful of his personal sims. Along with these, he is known as the landlord of about 100 sims; his renters are either on OSgrid, or have Dreamgrid sims. It's always informative to get someone's take on the two platforms, especially if they're a fairly recent arrival, and it will be interesting to see if your observations are in tune with his. 

Prince Amor

I asked first of all for him to give us an overview of his experience in Opensim and the Other Place.

Prince Amor: Both experiences for me were about the same. When Second Life first started people there were helpful and kind. I was quite worried over privacy in Second Life at the time and they helped me a good while there. Gifts etc....things were free or close to it. Of course when Second Life first started Osgrid and it were one and the same. So it was the same kind of people. I do believe Second Life is not the same place now as it was, I believe it is because the good kind people came to Osgrid. I wish I had known of Osgrid then, but such was not talked about in the circles I was in.

LibDescent

Yes, OSGrid still has logins restricted, but it'll be open again soon, and when it does, here's a place you might like to (re)visit. It's a piece of virtual history and also - what could be better - a bit of a freebie shop, by Plastichansa Bade.

If you're a bit of an oldbie you'll remember the golden days of Metropolis Grid, and among the vast number of great artists from Germany and around the world who made that grid their home, you may recall the art of the Plastichansa Bade - and it's hard to think of Plastic without Zonja Capalini. They met inworld in 2016 and were a great artistic team for years. 

Two artists from Spain, they've graced the pages of this blog more than once. Even before our Safari trips began, Zonja's little grid Condensationland featured on this blog - later the oar was attached to Metro, making it easier for people to see. They participated in AvatarFest, that much loved pan-grid annual event, back in 2017, and of course, a lot of you will remember the tango place in SL called Arrabal - the Safari went there too, back in the day. 

The Art of Aaack

For many years, Aaack Aardvark and his original mesh creations, available free and full perms in his store Arcadia on OSgrid, have been a familiar and much loved part of the opensim galaxy. Recently, Aaack decided to step away from the platform, but he very kindly took a few minutes to tell his story.  Like so many of us, he came here from SL.

Aaack Aardvark and his signature store

Aaack Aardvark:  When I was in Second Life I spent all my time in a sandbox called Little Blue; I made friends with the owners and eventually helped moderating it, all my available time there was distributed into play with friends and build, especially build. One of my friends there started to experiment with Open Sim and used to comment his discoveries about the platform. That was my first contact with OS, at the time I learned two very important things:

1. You can be in SL and OS at the same time, it’s not like you go to hell if that happens and,

2. OS exists.