"Make us some more possible maps!"

What do you think it all means?

When I jaunt (teleport), I like to work up a rhythm. Usually, no longer than 5-10 min. 'cept for the hottest spots which demand 'splorations. I can always revisit when things've grown, and ohhhh how I wish we could affix 24/7 cams to various locations and do timelapse all over the grid. Speaking of such, watch for a sly Philip Glass reference later.

The new home of Grendel's Children. Some of the most imaginative, if not outright grotesque avatars I've seen on the Grid. In the sky's the store, and on the ground is a fossil and wilderness. I huddled up to the cactii, because Second Life is very cactus-sparse. Now if someone would please go ahead and do tundra and New Orleans-style swampland, we'd be all set.

City ambience. I added some local lighting. The kind of place where you could buy drugs, but don't, because you're clean and sober. Nevertheless, the grimey textures have an imposing air of urban-chic toughness coupled with the pitiful wailings of idle despair. Postmodern unliving at its dirtiest, and suitably dubbed "Hells Kitchen". Which reminds me of the Ashley MacIsaac track "The Devil in the Kitchen", which recalls the story of how he tried to sell his prize violin for crack cocaine. Which brings us back to the beginning of this paragraph.

Linden Village expansion into Beaumont & Levenhall is going nicely. Look who's moving in! From L-R: Benjamin, Meta, Sejong, and Nicole… and a number more not shown here. Benjamin and Meta are having inworld office hours, as Tao Takashi blogged 'bout Ben, so you may wanna come and discuss.

There's a bug which renders shiny prims as transparent shiny. Runitai internally fixed it for a future release, but in the meantime, I pulled off these cool licks. Shades of dynamic reflections before it, graphical glitches can be used for great artistic effect.

Dreams Community Fair 2007, a yearly tradition and all-'round inspiring good cause — what could be better than humans supporting humans and healing? — is coming very soon! Se has the info-notecard with more info, and I earlier chatted with The Sojourner ("Soj"), Jase Byrne, and minxeh Volos, who're valiantly helping to organize this. I donated a special something for the auction which I'll be sharing more about shortly… it's colorful!

As I stopped by to check it out, I surprised my wife…

and she showed me some cute books from last year's fair. It rejuvinates me daily to know that the jobs we have today, working in this virtual world of Second Life, would've been unheard of a decade, or even 5 years ago. We're so blessed, especially after battling uphill for so long and finding each other. (Without a doubt, Second Life continues to be the best 10 bucks I ever spent.)

I later jaunted…

to Sloog.org land, where Anibal Shui is rebuilding their headquarters. Two things:

1. That tasty placeholder texture (slight shadows on sides, grain) is similar to one of mine, but not the same. It was made by Anibal & Co.
    
2. If their mascot looks like a Futurama brain slug to you, that's an absolute coincidence, so I'm told. This critter actually has a tail.

It was nice to chat with Anibal about Sloog's future. Their site looks very slick, and with the uprise in search improvements in Second Life, I'm looking forward to more beyond-exciting developments. I hope for more visual search too, which is one of the primarily reasons why I'm so keen about crossposting to Flickr from SLBuzz and tagging my postcards. Saves me so much time finding it all later. Proof is in my blogging.

One of the top-tagged Sloog destinations, Virtual Morocco, has watermelons. I like watermelons and I can not lie. Word up to Bjornson Donaldo.

I also visited the Mercedes-Benz presence in SL. They only have C-class cars, which was kinda weird. But I really liked how they morphed part of the roadway from dry asphalt into snow:

There's symbolism in that, somewhere.

Tagged as: General, Inworld Exploring