Karneval Is Koming!

Will your grid participate?

Pangea grid is gaining a reputation for art events, and also for its 'hands across the hypergrid' approach to social events, like RL festivals. Why do it? Grid owner Marlon says it nicely.

Marlon Wayne: carnival is a good thing to bring grids and people together.

In a big way, Pangea goes in for Carnival Cologne style ...or as they call it  Köln or, if you don't do umlauts, Koeln. It's a city that does a straight week of crazy days - a sort of teutonic Rio or New Orleans - with the highlight being Rose Monday, March 3 this year. Costumes, a lot of drinking, candy, more drinking, a parade and dancing, and some more drinking, are the main features of the day.

Fish Love Money

For our second stop this week, another take on the Japanese theme. Our host wasn't able to join us on the Isle of Nara, so the crew had to put up with some factoids from me, much like the time when we went to Yana Dakota's Tahiti sim and she had a power outage. The Safarians bore the burden with great stoicism.

Thirza Ember: This is a Japanese style GOR region owned by Shinji Takahashi. We are on CounterEarth grid. This is a Gorean community that moved to Opensim in the very early days, and was first located on OSGrid. Some may remember the sim Sardar Fair which was still exists, back in the day it was one of the few good shopping places in opensim. Some of the founding members of CounterEarth are content creators and offer their stuff for free in opensim, while selling it in  Second Life. We thank them for their generosity over the years!

Star Ravenhurst: I have been excited to visit! I am sorry they're not here though.

Yana's Samsara

 The circle of life - birth and death, and rebirth - that's Samsara, a process that leads over time and many repetitions, to the state of nirvana. Samsara is the name of Yana Dakota's var region on AMV, a region that's undergoing renewal and growth. HG Address at the end of the post, as always.

It was a pretty quick rez as the hordes of Safarians arrived - we've been having slow textures for a few weeks, but this time, they all arrived in the little dock house with seconds of lag only. It's a big region, so everyone tried to keep their draw distances and other bells and whistles to a minimum, of course.

Yana Dakota: Namaste to Samsara. Creating the Samsara region in the Alternate Metaverse has been a labor of love. My goal was to design a space that encourages introspection and spiritual growth. Every detail, from the high-detailed builds to the serene environment, was crafted to provide a peaceful and immersive experience. The music and viewer settings are optimized to enhance the overall atmosphere, making it feel more engaging and calming.

Elegant and lagbusting the ladies of the Safari are unbeatable!

If the name of this sim is familiar to you it's because there was an interview with Yana on this blog a few weeks back. This was an opportunity for Yana to show off her favorite pieces and also to explain so much about this belief system that is so close to her heart. 

Crystal Craft

 Craft Grid is celebrating its Crystal Anniversary - fifteen years of community, international friendship, big art, lovely residences, educational projects, and a warm sociability that has kept its residents amused and absorbed all these years. It's a tightly knit community, with people from all over the world, though it's fair to say, a nice slice of Italians who will make you feel welcome in the grid's general Chat group whenever you log in. 

It's a grid that has always been generous - for example, for many years, Licu Rau, the owner of Craft, donated the regions for the Hypergrid International Expo. Licu has also invited the HG Safari group more than once to celebrate Cornflakes Week with him - here he is, dressed for the event, back in 2016. 

I asked Licu  what is planned for this birthday party on Monday 27 January starting at 12:30pm SLT on Jubilee sim.

Licu Rau: We will have a musical evening in an environment inspired by crystals. Being a moment of transition in which various technical changes and specific needs overlapped, we were not able to organize special events as done on some other occasions.

Thirza Ember:  What kind of changes? Tell us more.

Khiron's Voice

If you know Opensim, you've almost certainly heard the beautiful mezzo soprano voice of Khiron Ametza at one venue or another. And yes, you're right, I did have to restrain myself from calling this blog post Ametza Soprano, and no, it wasn't easy, you know me so well. Anyway. The very talented Khiron (check out her SoundCloud page!) started her career as a vocalist back in in 1986, singing with lounge bands, in bars, dance halls and parties in general. Then about 15 years ago, she made a change. 

Khiron Ametza: I decided to focus on the virtual world in 2009 and stopped performing in RL. 

She's a seasoned and busy performer (you can find her calendar here) so I was curious to know what she feels are the most significant differences for a singer between these very different realities.

Khiron Ametza: The difference between RL and Virtual Worlds is that in VW I can sing what I like to sing, while in RL I had to sing all kinds of rhythms and songs that were bad for my ears and used to make me sick, and what's more, singing with playbacks gives me the pleasure of listening to the music the way it is, without musicians inventing different melodies for the songs.

Ana's Paris

 Our second destination for Safari this week was in Paris! What a fantastic venue on NewLifeItaly grid which despite the name s home to people from many parts of the world and different languages. HG Address at the end of the post, as always. 

In case you don't know, you can find out about upcoming Safari trips by joining our group in Facebook, or by checking the Events calendar in Opensimworld, where it clearly tells you which will be our first and second destinations each time. 

I generally send out a reminder in the OSgird group for HG Safari about an hour before our trips, but since the event attracts interest from many grids, not just that one, social media is a much better way to stay informed. The glamorous and versatile sim owner AnaMari Maggi met us at the sim's starting point, and we also had the company of a big group of locals, including the sim builders, Nadir and Max.

AnaMari Maggi, the region owner

Anamari Maggi[it→en]: good evening everyone

Nadir Rae[fr→en]: Welcome to all of you,  remember to accept the translator and put your native language there please

Angel Dark[it→en]: hi welcome everyone to Paris

Thirza Ember: Nadir you look so cute, very Parisienne- nice baguette!

Nadir Rae: yes I am a Parisian and I have a newsboy near me

It took us a little while to rez, because we came into a large crowd of welcoming NewLifeItalians, there to join the tour. While the region is owned by AnaMari Maggi, the tour was conducted by Nadir Rae, who together with Max Well of Ignis Fatuus Grid, brought the sim into being. We met outside the sim's reconstruction of Notre Dame.

Nadir Rae, our guide - easy to see in the crowd

Nadir Rae: Friends tonight I'm going to be your tour guide we will discover this place together, Welcome to all of you on the New life Italy grid.  We thank Thirza for choosing this place for which Max and I have a particular attachment. Thanks also to Adry, the owner of the Grid. This evening we offer you a unique tour of the memories of Ana who, born in another country, lived her childhood there. This sim is an interpretation of our capital and not an exhaustive restitution. I insist on this point

Nadir Rae: Ah Paris… French capital of gastronomy and love,  Paris enjoys an incomparable historical and cultural heritage. This is what the millions of tourists who come to visit Paris each year appreciate.  But it is not enough to be a foreigner to love Paris, because even if you live in the capital,  it is not uncommon to be surprised by discovering or rediscovering one of the wonders that the city has to offer.  With so much to see and do in Paris, it's difficult to put together a list that gets to the essentials while still having a realistic experience of everything Ana's sim has to offer. 

Domadun Fun

Thirza Ember: here they come!

Within a few seconds, the population of  Bubblesz Grid, which is a small personal grid belonging to mesh maven Taarna Welles, went from two to fourteen. You could positively feel the nerves - Would the grid be able to take the strain? Would we all be standing frozen in a pool of lag? Worst of all, would Locat Chat fail us? You know how we love our banter.

Taarna Welles on a quidditch teleporter

You may have read about this grid in an earlier post on this blog - this was a chance for the whole group to take a look, and the sim is open any time, if you want to explore it.

Bubblesz Grid Welcome Region

People kept on coming, - we met on the grid's Welcome sim, the HG Address is of course at the end of the post -  and for once, everybody brought their clothes with them! Each week, Safari goers are encouraged to dress in a lag-friendly way, keeping complexity as low as fashion and good taste will allow. You can do that in a lot of ways - use the original body, not mesh, check you haven't got one of those Hairs with an insane complexity (those may look good to you, but they're best binned, if they exceed 100k complexity, because chances are everyone else only sees a tornado of bits flying around your head), if you have mesh clothes that contain a lot of texture changing scripts, make a reference copy for safekeeping, and then delete all the scripts from the clothes you wear... there are lots of other common sense ways you can help the group. If you have a favorite strategy, put it in the comments.