You may know that most grids like to celebrate their anniversary, and you also know that lots of grids don't stick around very long. So for an opensim grid to be celebrating seven years of existence is really something!
Craft, the 'Friendly Grid', has its 7th anniversary coming up at the end of January.
Every year, they hold a building competition. Perhaps in past years, you've attended the anniversary party, even admired the winning entries to the building competition. The first prize is a free region for a year. Second place gets a 10k prim region for a year... which to my mind is just as good.
Wowee, you may say, lucky Craftians... but did you realize that anyone from any grid can take part, and win that prize?
Yes, you too can compete in the Craft competition!
Three artists, three countries, three genres, three grids this week.
The theme this week, the interplay between real and virtual worlds when it comes to art. Obviously, it's all art. But working in virtual worlds can be a great stepping stone to begin or re-ignite an artistic career. It can inspire your creativity, suggest new ways to express yourself, give you the courage to put your work on display, and help you find fans and clients. HG Addresses as usual at the end of the post. Landmarks are available at our clubhouses on OSGrid and Francogrid for the next few days also.
Our first stop, A'Shaala on Francogrid, home of Talie Tramont also known as Talie Tramontane. An art school graduate based in France, Talie is best known for her photography, which you can find on Deviantart, as well as on this lovely region.
Thirza Ember: everyone has the Lms?
Malon Wyngard: got all
Thirza Ember: her computer broke suddenly yesterday, she was fixing up many winter things for us to do but... boom - no computer
Cherry Manga: She has computer issues so she leaves us on her region, she can't imagine what a safari can do when alone!
Sunbeam Magic: Does it snow in France?
Cherry Manga: here, it's fog and fog and fog since 3 weeks
Spike Sol: liegt überall schnee im Moment.. nur draussen nicht
Dabici Straulino: na hier her haben wir ca 50cm Schnee - Quebec
.... as you can see we're a very international bunch.
Billy Bradshaw asked if we could do a quick Load Test on TGrid before we headed to our first official destination this week.
If you've been doing anything more than sitting at home alone dropping cubes off towers or checking the hiccup time you get when you cross a sim boundary, you will know what a horrendous condition intergrid communications has reached. For many months now, sending offline IMs to people on other grids - which used to work just fine - fails more often than it works. When this started, it took me a few days to notice that the 'User not online. Message saved' message was actually saying 'Unable to send instant message. User is not logged in.' which caused some really amusing headaches. But of course, now we have all learned that to be sure your reply gets through, you must actually go to the other person's grid to send it.
Words Matter.
George jinxed us. Or maybe it was the fruit. Or the sudden decision to get out some NPC line dancers.
Thirza Ember: Hello all and welcome to the Safari. Two destinations this week, first grid EVER and then on to Kitely. You should know that grid-jumping directly to the EVER grid welcome sim, Gutenberg, is a problem. For some time now, it's not been working right. I have given an alternate LM that always works, it takes you to a different part of the grid, and from there you can get to Gutenberg.. and then to theater... so multiple jumps....Aime, can you confirm for me that the direct jump to Gutenberg region doesn't work?
Aime Socrates: OK
~momentary silence and distinct lack of teleport particles ~
Aime Socrates: no, cannot go there directly, you are right thirza, we must use the alternative lm.
Lucy Afarensis: We have already started ?
Aime Socrates: yes Lucy..we started the party before safari..you know why ? its a dangerous safari...
Thirza Ember: you can tp out of the grid, but to get in, you have to do contortions - multiple tps
Lucy.Afarensis: oh dear
Aime Socrates: some will not come back
Lucy Afarensis: shudder... Thirza, You have a pear on your head ?
Three destinations, and all the Hypergrid Addresses at the end of the post, the first house of this week's trip around the magnificent metaverse was a lighthouse.
It represents a point of reference, of illumination, and security, while hinting at the feelings of loneliness and isolation that can afflict all of us, any of us, at different times in our lives. Leighton Marjoram is here to help, specifically people dealing with gender issues, and where they fit in to the spectrum of attraction and identity.
On the day after the night before in the US election, the special Italian Night Safari was a much needed moment of restful, intelligent fun in the company of a borderless band of creators and thinkers.
We meet on Francogrid. Some Safaris have last minute changes, or there is a special gift for the group, so it's worth taking the time to join us here, rather than going straight to the first destination.
Also, the LMs for each Safari remain in the LM giver for about a week, in case you want to get them on a later date. And as usual the HG Addresses will be at the end of this post.
This week, the Safari trip had a single destination, to the literary grid Nara's Nook, celebrating three years of writerly pixels.
Nara's Nook is the brainchild of Nara Malone, and styles itself as a colony for people who would like to explore their literary creativity online. Whether you're an author in need of moral support, or trying to revive a stalled novel-in-the-works, or looking for inspiration to come up with a new storyline, or curious about using new 3D methods to convey your narrative, Nara's Nook can help. Here's the Nara's Nook website.
Scroll to the end of the post for them list of the places visited this week.
