Cornflakes Woodcock

          His name was Ulf, but I don't think too many of us knew that. We knew him as Cornflakes, Corn for short. He had been in SL, and then he found a true home in OSGrid, where he made things, and made visitors welcome not just by giving us a chance to see and own his creations, but with a sandbox where anyone could visit, collect, and build. 

          One look at his things would inspire anyone to create, whether it be your own invention or a little scene put together of Cornflake's creatures.

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.

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

Cereal Builder

Not one of these deserves the praise

That welcomer of new-born days, 

A breakfast, merits; ever giving 

Cheerful notice we are living 

Mary Lamb  

Is it a fish, is it a bird, is it a refrigerator? You decide - on the Cornflakes region of Osgrid, located also inside the brain of the grid's zaniest (and nicest) Swede, Cornflakes Woodcock.

The region is carpeted in a red and blue nylon twill that conveys both safety and severity. It's a minimalist landscape graced by - what to call them? Cornflakes steers clear of any pompous noun for what he does, falling back on terms like 'thingies' and 'stuffies' to describe his output. 
Toys or models seems the most appropriate way to describe them, a plastic fantastic collection of playthings. Even the man himself seems like a doll of sorts. 
 Cornflakes Woodcock: Cornflakes? Oh, he reflects my personality. Never liked the idea of making me a Ken doll. Garry [Beaumont] is complaining about my carpet used on the sim, he says it give him a hard time seeing. I told him that I use the same pattern on the inside of my skull to make it even. 

Crank up your draw distance to take it all in. Cornflakes' region runs smooth as silk; that's one of the advantage of running sims on your own server. Another is the complete control you have over things like inventory. No nerdy fingers experimenting with 'cleaning up' the grid and losing all your treasures. After starting in Second Life in 2007, he came over to Osgrid in 2010, drawn by the prospect of space, and the desire to escape the reality-bound commercialism of the grid. Although he defines himself as a bit of a lone wolf, his region included a Sandbox from the start. 

Cornflakes Woodcock: What I was attracted to here is the possibility to create things, and leave them out instead of keeping them in the inventory. So maybe OS grid is helping people to be more creative. SL is just a place were they rip you off if you would like to make a place of your own. I made the sandbox here beacuse people need a place to rez things, and I was actually living there from the begining 2010. It was a fun place to live and to meet other creative people. In SL I was pretty much living in sandboxes or up on my platform 700 meters. I left, in the frustration of never having all my creations around me. This region is an inspiration source for me. I can pan around and look closer to my creations, and suddenly a new idea pops up. 

From those old days in SL, he brought with him several pieces, including the giant scorpion. One of the advantages usually cited by artists in SL is the cross-pollination that takes place, visiting other's installs, and attending openings. (Not to mention bitching and griefing.)
Cornflakes Woodcock: I did that a bit - go and see installation art. But I like to create, and to go explore steals time from that. It's pretty much the same here. 

That said, he's quick to honour the work of others. You can see a range of Star Trek ships including a magnificent Bird of Prey in the sky gallery. They're the work of a friend, Cornflakes is quick to point out - the merit belongs elsewhere! It's the kind of building task he personally would find 'too realistic' to do, but he likes the ships and was pleased to give them a home. Below, games of perspective keep your cam and your imagination constantly at work. Despite his cry for a less 'realistic' world, Cornflakes is far from an abstract artist. 

A robo-dog and her puppies - no bigger than an avatar's shoe - shelter under the giant ship. Some are set pieces, others look like a jumble of toys at first glance, but closer reflection reveals a little tableau of conflict. 

On the Freebie sim, harsh primary colours, clown figures and comical blocks square off against more organic shapes with sleek metallic lines, or detailed textures. Many are domestic, down-to-earth scenes with a twist - the giant clothes peg, or the improbable fish in its tiny, yet giant bowl. 
  The Sandbox contains Storm Petersen-like vehicles, and the Cornflakes' ingenious rats making off with the cheese. 

Primbuilds abound, but they're mixed with the softer lines of sculpts, when he feels the need. 

There is no prim-only snobbery here, nor any desire for the phoney fame so beloved of SL artists. No hostility either - after all, without Linden technology giving OpenSim a leg up, where would we be. But back to the 'thingys' - difficult work? 
Cornflakes Woodcock: They are mostly hard to do - all of them with some exceptions. If you check the prims on my thingys, you will find that there are a lot of them in my creations. and that takes time, but the dustbuster and levitated Dummies were two of the hardest ones.

Cornflakes' sense of humour is tinged with something darker, here and there. In the lumber room of his mind, the light flickers off and on. Could it be a rat problem? He points to the rats with their pickup.

Cornflakes Woodcock: Those are a bunch of Cornflakes rats stealing cheese. They chew my wiring off and makes me build crazy thingys. Got a lot of those in my brain. 

Cornflakes Woodcock: It's a virtual world, so why must things look like in real life? Never understood that. I try my best to bend on the RL rules, as you can see. I hope the people who like my stuffies will come to understand that there are other ways around. Hopefully my mission will be fullfilled someday, so others bend the rules too.

Safari gets corny

This last week of February is, has been and, perhaps, will forever more, be Cornflakes Week in OpenSim. It's a celebration that transcends the rivalries of individual grids, that doesn't require any special outfit or costume, loosely based on the memory of Cornflakes Woodcock's zany, gaudy art, but not limited by his freebies. Anyone can do anything, as Virtual Christine pointed out, no-one's in charge! The week long celebration was publicized in facebook and in G+ and for a first year, seems to have been a modest success. It owes nothing to real life or second life traditions, it is wholly ours, and perhaps as time goes by it will be embraced by all those who love silliness and the mad variety and independence of OpenSim.

Franzi, Nara, Wizard, Mal and Apmel Fransson await the arrival of the latecomers

We celebrated with a few stops this week, picking up birdy nam nam shoulder pets, or

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

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.

Flakey Safari!

          Cornflakes Week, a seven day festival of silliness unique to OpenSim, began yesterday with a 3-stop party on Safari. If you missed the party, you can still go visit all 3 destinations, addresses at the end of this post.
          We started on HGSafari region on Francogrid, with a concert by Torben Asp. 

          His particle show and original music was a wonderfully smooth way to get us started on our - let's be honest - difficult trip around the Hyperverse.

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. 

Safari Calendar 2017 - where, when, and why

          This year's calendar features 13 destinations visited by the Safari during 2016, with an emphasis on the landscapes we've seen.
           The calendar is available free and full perms inside the Clubhouse at Teravus Plaza, OSGrid - just 'buy' it from the box on the Rhino table. You can also get it if you visit the courtyard of the Safari Embassy at Mal Burns' Metaworld Township on Great Canadian Grid. And of course it's also available in the Safari Market on HGSafari sim in Francogrid.
          The calendar bit contains all kinds of opensim-relevant dates, the first hg experiment, the birthdays of most of the major grids, and so on, as well as real-world holidays.
          If you like to mix opensim with real life, you can also buy a high quality paper copy version at Lulu.com
            Choosing just 13 photos from the thousands we have from hundreds of places visited was a daunting task, and one that is never satisfying - we could easily have ten different versions of the calendar, and still find places and people have been left out.  But hopefully this goes some way to showing the wealth of variety that OpenSim has to offer.
             Not all of the places in the photographs are readily visitable. As time goes by, regions -and sometimes whole grids -  close, or change their look, or move beyond our ken. But these are all places where we had memorable Safari visits last year.

Primary Safari

          Primary colors, silliness, clowns, free items, music and throwing away your worries for a little while in the company of some fun, interesting people, that's what it's all about. Cornflakes Week was a very musical event for the Safari, and as you can see *some* of us have got rhythm!

       

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.)

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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.