For the Love of Lucy

Lucy was always there for me inworld with a word of encouragement, a joke or a useful observation. Always the same, generous, funny, creative.

In virtual worlds, when you don't see someone around for a while, it is easy to assume that they're simply busy elsewhere, or perhaps not feeling up to sitting in front of a computer. That happened with me and Lucy. This summer came along, the Safari trips took a break, and so did I, from virtual worlds... life got busy, and I totally missed seeing the news on Facebook that Lucy (in RL Peter Jones) had passed away. Only today, going to check his Facebook profile to see how he was doing, did I find out what happened.

Lucy Afarensis

That's part of the paradox of the modern world where in theory everyone is in touch with everyone else and we all know everything. In reality, we only know what we know, follow what we follow. Information we need and care about doesn't always get through.

Lucy was key to the HG Safari tours around Opensim throughout the years. More than either of us ever put into words, whenever we got the opportunity to chat - I wish told him more often what our friendship meant to me. Lucy was in SL from 2007 and in Opensim not long after that (Lucy's regions faced onto the OSGrid Moat, close to LBSA),  and the choice of the name name 'Lucy Afarensis' was a humorous reference to age - by a person who was never a fossil by any means.

We had a memorable visit to Lucy's region, including the Grove Gallery, in May 2018. We visited her place on Francogrid back in 2016 also, enjoying a concert by Nazira Avro - Lucy was always a canny opensimmer, spreading the wealth of builds over different grids, so as not to risk losing all if one of them should fail. That's not a lot of Safari visits, you may say, considering how interesting these places were, but Lucy was always the first to give up a spot in the HG Safari calendar, in favor of some other builder or artist, so to finally get to bring the whole group over to experience the horseback trip across this vast landscape was an absolute privilege.

Close Encounters

Encounters - of any kind - it's not a word we always associate with Opensim. It's a whole lotta space! 

If you think that opensim's kind of empty today, then you should have seen it ten, fifteen years ago. The small population of pioneers was pretty sparse, and you'd be forgiven for describing it as a place of rare encounters, maybe even zero! 

Close Encounters - the space ship

Yet, for seven years from 2008, there was one fixed appointment on OSGrid where you'd find a regular band of happy dancers, some good tunes, the latest gossip - of a friendly kind, nothing hostile - and the chance to finally see someone after a week of building and experimenting in this brave new world.

The place was Close Encounters, a spaceship dance club on a region that was home to Dorothea Lundquist and Jay Maze. 

Twirling time!

A Change of Venue

Bit of a different trip this week on Safari as our first destination was at home, in a way. We went over to a brand new grid called HG Safari and visited the place that will be (starting next season, in September) the permanent base for Safari trips. HG Address is at the end of the post, as always!

Thirza Ember: welcome This is the new Safari clubhouse on HG Safari grid

Francisco Koolhoven: nice new area

Thirza Ember: will take a moment to rez, when you do, please come find me at the new Clubhouse seating area

Tosha Tyran: oh, poor little alpaca arrived also...

Ayla Alvarez: this looks strangely familiar

lifted pixel: it's an elephant!

Nara Nook: Everything looks great Thirza

Sunshine Szavanna: looks very familiar for sure

Cornflakes in Bloom

The second half of an uproarious, imaginative, and musical Cornflakes Week party was on Winxtropia! A big shout out to everyone who makes the effort (and it's not always easy, as we're all busy people) to honor the event with their great costumes, and by showing up and being part of the fun! But most of all, of course, to our hosts who do so much work behind the scenes, it's crazy. Here we are arriving on Crescent Melody, Winxtropia, among the incredible instruments that play such a vital part to the event.

Jupiter Rowland: Finally I get to see this sim on a decently powered machine.

Bloom Peters:  hehe i love all the cool new avatars to see

Lavia Lavine: ...she said I reminded her of a bag of Wonder Bread

Bloom Peters: Angelic with a cool avatar too, very unique

Lavia Lavine: So I guess I'll just loaf around.

Farstar Enoch: hehe

Star Ravenhurst: Angel always looks amazing

Cornflakes on Neverworld

Cornflakes Week comes round once a year, and it's a great opportunity to show off your imaginative side in a uniquely Opensim way. This year, as usual, the Safari celebrated the week long event with our Wednesday tour split into two halves, with our first party destination on Neverworld Grid. 

Never Plaza... the calm before the storm.

Be ready to be amazed by what the Neverworldians pulled out of their corny inventories...

But first, a shout out to everyone who dressed up! Lots of cornflake hats, plus Angelic Kisses rocking an Alpha Tribe outfit by Felix Ringtail, Lavia Lavine and four-legged friend sporting spots, Roff clowning it,  James in a vintage carpetman avie with lit-up face, Forest ant-itified, while a colorfully ringed lifted pixel took to the corny dancefloor, as she prepared to livestream the event. 

Cornflakes Week

'Tis the season... but wait, no real world seasonal atmospherics involved, this is all virtual. Cornflakes Week is coming!
Always held during the final 7 days of February, this year's Cornflakes Week is 22-29 February. It's a festival just for opensim, and for everyone... not linked to any religious or national festivals, making it an all-inclusive addition to the many fun real-world oriented events that happen inworld. 

The first Cornflakes Week event was celebrated in 2015, and HG Safari always celebrates it

In the Abyss

 James Atlloud: i am mes-mer-ized

Imagine a drowned city, old as time.  Here creatures of the sea play among the ruins, while above the water a series of monumental bridges link land masses, no more than islands now, where a scatter of fine buildings, architecture ancient and modern, can be visited - even danced in and shopped in.

Mr Smokes and Nexus Storm

 From a landing point among coral and shoals of fish, Nexus led the intrepid group who made it to Aqua Abyss through the main points of interest at quite a speed. 

Portugal by Tutz

Every musician likes a nice stage to perform on, but generally speaking, a visiting singer doesn't expect to have a whole sim built for them. 

That's what makes the region over on Pangea pretty and amazing, and all around pretty amazing. How did sim Portugal come to be? 

Scripted Artwork

 If you've been around Opensim for a while, you'll recognize this familiar face: Wordfromthe Wise. Yes, back in the days of Metropolis you may have experienced his fireworks region, or perhaps you remember dropping in on his Cornflakes Tribute sim during Cornflakes Week.

Word and Cornflakes were good friends, which is why  he has still owns that treasure-trove of early opensim original content.

But there's more to Word than this.

He and his scriptilliscious colleague Sixtus have a small grid where you can find some delightful creations. Called scripted artwork, it's exactly that. Everything in movement, interactive, moving, flashing and generally immersive.

Nyx's Art for Space

Every grid in Opensim has its niche, its look, its personality, and with few exceptions they're all growing or evolving one way or another. It is a treat to explore each one! 

Creating a brand new region as a public venue can take a lot of time and talent, and maybe you've thought once or twice - "Argh... I wish I could just get a really top notch builder to come in and make a really unusual venue sim."

Jazzland, on Pangea

Here is an option that might appeal! 

Nyx Breen

Nyx Breen has been making  Virtual Art creations for nearly 18 years. 

He started in SL where he was the top monthly winner in the SL-UWA Build and Art contest.  

Here in opensim, he's been busy building both on Alternate Metaverse Grid, and at the Pangea Art and Culture Festival. A hypergridder at heart, Nyx has over the past few years also participated in the OSCC (Opensim Community Conference), OSgrid's  Anniversary, the Hypergrid International Expo, and more. 

The Safari has been to visit many of his builds, so if you're a long time reader of this blog his name will be familiar to you, and our experience has always been very positive with little lag and some amazing immersive experiences. 

Crescent Roll

 Winxtropia Grid has so much going for it, it's almost a crime for us to do a double dip this season by returning there, and going to the same region - but who could resist, when it's for the purpose of enjoying more Sound music by Cutuelala Artis. HG Address, as always, at the end of the post.

Cuteulala Artis, photo by C Calhoun

Our second destination to celebrate Cornflakes Week 2023, was therefore back at the great Organ of Sound, in company with Boujee Gamergirl, Farstar Enoch and the aforementioned Cute, under a dome designed by YumYum Komani.

Cuteulala Artis: hi all! I will need to preload the sounds before i play full songs... for the best sound try to be near the circle or turn your volume quite up. This is a live in world musical experience no media is needed

Star Ravenhurst: We have been here before. This is awesome!

Key of C

If you're not familiar with the concept of Cornflakes Week, a totally Opensim event started in 2015 and unconnected with any national, religious, or otherwise real-world-based festival, and not limited to any one grid, or particular style of celebrating, then you can read about its Corny origins here and  here, and about the man who inspired the whole thing here and  here. 

Waiting at the Clubhouse before Go Time

Our first destination for our festivities was a new build, purpose made, by Nyx Breen, over on Pangea grid, HG Address as ever, at the end of the post. 

Nyx called the build 'Key of C' which works on enough levels that you can spend the next half hour enjoying the poetics of the name. A vivacious paradox of complex simplicity, the size and detail and laglessness of Nyx's work is always a treat, and met the 'standard' - if there is one - of a Corny venue. None better. 

Whirli Placebo agreed to sing for us which was so good on so many levels. If you don't know his music, or know it and want a wider window on his originals and covers, check out his Youtube Channel  and look for him at music venues in SL and Opensim and more.  You can even download yesterday's show here, if you like! Catch him in SL every Wednesday at 10 am SLT at Cafe Musique Whirli's mercurial masculinity always takes the long view of life with subtle sensitivity and chronicles its fragility and foolishness through a blend of his original songs and originally rendered covers. It was a perfect fit for this build

Ta ta, 22

It's that time of year when there are retrospectives everywhere... so here's one about Opensim. 

Plenty more things happened than the few that are listed here, so if you have a special memory of an Opensim milestone from 2022 that is not mentioned here, go ahead and drop it in the comments.

Time flies - or does it? over on Sauce, Aire Mille Flux

Opensim has continued to grow in 2022, in every way.

A Safari Year

 What a year it's been! The Safari started up in January, in the usual timeslot, Wednesdays from 12 noon SLT, but with a new sim on OSGrid courtesy of Ange Menges. The immediate response by old fans and new of the weekly group hypergridding concept was great - thank you all. 

Prodyck, Lux, Frank and Truelie

The more familiar clubhouse on Francogrid had become unworkable - just teleporting to the grid had become difficult, and regions would often be unavailable for days. The heart of the problem was an issue with server hosts, and as much as Francogrid was the home of the Safari, it seemed unlikely to have a future there.

For that reason, I got busy immediately with porting most of the Safari's Francogrid assets over to other grids. 

Aphra, Cherry, Lifted Pixel, and Mal

It was a time consuming process, with permissions and scripts playing up a lot of the time due to

Outgoing and Upcoming

 After 60 destinations - well 62, if you count the two special Safari trips to the seasonal Hunt builds of Ange Menges and Nani Ferguson - over three seasons in 2022, the Safari is taking a break for a bit. 

Mandjelia on OSGrid was our first destination this year

In 2022 we went to 36 different grids, from Kitely to CopyKat and back. At last count, somewhere between 60 to 70 people joined us in person as Safari tourists, forming part of the group that gathers at the Clubhouse before setting out on the adventure - plus many more who came along to support their friends, our Hosts, at each destination. 

Safari trips begin at the Clubhouse -  last minute information, gossip and jokes

Cherry Manga 3: OS and SL

Throughout the years, Cherry Manga has accomplished the rare feat of maintaining a notable presence both in SL and Opensim. Her 'extrametaversal' experimentation includes forays into Tilt Brush as you can see in this video. Google has discontinued Tilt Brush but there is an Opensource version if you are interested in trying it yourself. It's a brilliant way to augment inworld art in further layers of surreality.

(By the way, please take a moment to watch all these videos in Youtube, like, subscribe and comment if you can, it's a nice way to show your appreciation for the hard work of the machinima makers.)

Corn-o-graphy

 This week is Cornflakes Week, a festival of fun that is exclusively OpenSim. Only a handful of grids are  participating this year (we were up to 11 grids back in 2017) but maybe Cornflakes 2023 can prove to be BIG for original OpenSim silliness, if the world doesn't end up a cinder before then, 

Put it in your calendar just in case, February 22-28, 2023.

The idea of Cornflakes Week? It's not morbidly focused on one late lamented person. Goodness knows, so many dear companions, fine artists, and generous friends have left this virtual life and we miss them all. No, the idea of the week is that it's an open ended festival, in the sense that you can have your own home grown Corny party, it can be adapted to the style of any grid or region, it's not affiliated with the weather or time of day, or the local religious, cultural, social, or political goings on of any one corner of the planet. What the world needs now is more gentle silliness, more than ever, and Cornflakes Week is all about that in a uniquely OpenSim way. 

Just to show that the concept can be modded, brought forward from the aughts to the twenties, and from pure prim to magnificent mesh, Cherry Manga took a journey through the creations of Cornflakes and came up with her own take on gentle fun. The build is still visitable in the sky above our clubhouse on OSgrid, and guitarman Whirli Placebo agreed to sing for us. But before that, we popped over to see fireworks conjurer Wordofthe Wise, who kindly invited us to see a copy of the region where all the Corn fun began. 

As always, the addresses of the destinations are at the end of the post.

Post Pre Safari Safari

 Just as a test, and to make sure we are all on the same page, we had a meet up on the new HG Safari region on Wednesday. The event was advertised in Facebook and Mewe and in the OGgrid and Craft HG Safari inworld groups. Thanks to all who attended, and those who IM'd saying they saw the event even if they couldn't make it this time.

It was a chance to catch up with old friends and to meet new Safari fans. Also, a learning opportunity for those unfamiliar with what '12 noon Grid time' (which is Pacific time, just like back in Second Life) calculates to where they live. Anyway, about 25 of us managed to navigate the time zones, and  cope with the fact that the Safari's main base is on OSGrid now. Oh, and there is a space between HG and Safari in the name of the new sim. Which is quite a lot to take in, if you think about it.

Safari and Cornflakes: Made In Opensim

         Cornflakes Week is the last seven days of February and, since this February ended on a Wednesday this year, it was a Safari Finale to a week of celebrations and silliness.

        This was the 4th year of Cornflakes Week, and once again people got creative in the best way. The event even got a mention in New World Notes, a blog about Second Life.

Corny Calendar 2018

Cornflakes Week 

2018 

22 February to 28 February         

Thursday marks the beginning of the 4th annual Cornflakes Week in Opensim, and yet again, many grid owners have pulled out all the stops to make it a fun and silly one. 
If you missed previous years, here's a video of last year's event, to give you an idea of what happens