I have decided to blog real world schtuffs as well as virtual world stuff… because obviously I am a glutten for punishment and would like to tie my time up even further

I will still be blogging here, probably more so than over there, but if you find yourself at a hideously loose end do feel free to check out Real World Ranting.

And if any other SL-ers want to share their RL blogs, please feel free to do so in the comments!

I’ve just finished up the Avatar Writes forums…

The general idea is that this is a place to share information about events and venues catering to the live music, literary and arts scenes in Second Life. There’s general discussion threads as well and also threads for sharing your writing (with the option to post and receive critiques or not to receive critiques). There’s a place to share information about your own blogs or SL related websites and a few other bits and pieces too.

I’m hoping to develop those forums into a place for discussion of the type of performance related events and for showcasing the talent within Second Life.

If that’s something that’s up your street, go register!!

Click to go the forums.

The Newest Version of the Emerald Viewer….

…..is my hero.

Just when you thought the Emerald viewer could get no better, just when you thought its extra Windlight settings, built in radar and double click teleportation were the pinnacle of Second Life viewer improvements…. [drumroll and dramatic music please]…..

THEN CAME THE JIGGLING BOOBS!!!!!

I can’t believe I only found out about this today. I feel… well…. I feel like I’ve been living in the stone ages forever and a day. Why have I not been enjoy bouncing pixel boobies for as long as they’ve been around? Why has nobody enlightened me to this before? WHAT DID I EVER DO TO DESERVE THAT LEVEL OF NEGLECT?

Anyway… I am calm now. I have been made aware of this new development, courtesy of Fainora Pussycat. The world is good again. In fact, the world is now better than good… the world is good with added jiggle. The world is amazing with bonus bounce. The world is wonderful with extra oomph and I am running out of ways to paraphrase bouncing boobs. So I will stop now.

But for anyone who wants to know how to enable ‘bounce,’ just download the Emerald Viewer from here, login and then go to PREFERENCES >>> EMERALD TAB >>> PAGE 2 >>> EFFECTS and check “Enabled enhanced physics on avatar breasts.” Then you can choose how much ‘physics’ hehe!

Et voila. Pixel Pamela Andersons for your perving pleasure.

Side Note: And here is something I could only possibly have gotten away with in light of this new viewer.
Josue Habana: OMG! Will you teleport me so I can look at your boobs?

Congratulations Linden Lab.

And no, I am not being sarcastic. I mean it.

Second Life™ has recently reached 2 major milestones, as the article you’ll see by clicking here further elaborates on.

But for anyone too lazy too read the full article, let me summarise the major landmarks. In essence, 1 billion hours in world clocked up by users… and 1 billion USD spent!

So perhaps the biggest congratulations should go to those who’ve had their slice of the pie?

Happy billionth dollar, Second Life.

SLOcto Mom hit Pixel Headlines when she gave birth to Second Life’s first SLOctuplets back in January.

8 months on and Pixel Scoop sent Skylar Smythe along to see how SLOcto Mom is getting on.

Please note that no prim babies were harmed during the production of this report. Actually, that’s a lie. Let me rephrase, only 3 prim babies were harmed during the production of this report. But they’re copiable, so really it’s no big deal.

Who and what did we use for this Second Life spoof?

Pixel Scoop Reporter – Skylar Smythe
SLOcto Mom, Breda Lott – Lisa Launay
Pixel Do-Gooder, Sandra Beamont – Bubbles Komachi
Written and mediocrely machinima-ed by Josue Habana

Vampire, gangster, SLoctuplets and robot babies created by Beasil Roundfield and available by clicking here.

Filmed largely at the Missing Mile Trailer Park in Second Life, a very cool location owned by Loch Newchurch. Click here to visit in world.

Avatar Writes is looking for submissions from writers!

www.avatarwrites.com is a relatively new blog by Skylar Smythe and Josue Habana focussing entirely on the arts and music scene in Second Life.

In September, we will be looking to publish our first writer’s anthology in world and on the website in PDF format. Looking to see your work in print? Now’s your chance.

To Submit

1. You may submit up to three entries per avatar or poetry (40 lines max for each poem) or prose (1000 works max per piece).

2. Please put all entries on one note card in world and title the note card “[YOUR AVATAR NAME] Avatar Writes” As well as your submissions, please include a two or three line introduction about yourself.

3. Drop the note card on Skylar Smythe in world before 13th September 2009.

We are particularly keen to hear from people who might never have previously shared their creative writing, though submissions will be accepted from all

I whinge about negative press all the time, so it’s only fair I praise the positive!

The BBC, my beloved BBC, reported the other day about a Second Life™ building. Yes, can you believe it? A mainstream news story about Second Life that doesn’t involve divorce, nyphomania or hermit nerd in his parent’s basement. This article tells us about the rather interesting project.

A castle in the highlands of Scotland, Invergarry, was burnt to ruins by Oliver Cromwell’s men in 1654. Though rebuilt, it was then destroyed again shortly after. This castle has now been rebuilt in Second Life by the myglengarry.com conservation trust, but what is particularly interesting about this project is the fact that two versions of the castle have been produced. One is a Second Life replica of how the real castle looks today in its ruins and also a version of what the castle would have looked at before its second destruction in 1740. This is exactly the type of cool thing that makes me love Second Life so much. Where else can you just replicate, not only a castle, but also go back in time and replicate that castle as it was?

They used the original plans to create the castle in Second Life and having had a little look I can ohoenstly say that I believe both these builds are amongst the most beautiful castles in Second Life.

The Second Life Replica of the Invergerry Ruins

As I said, wonderful castle, beautiful Second Life architecture and very true to life replicas, as the photos displayed in world show. The builder, by the way, is Rizla Laval!

Want to go look? Do you, do you, do you? Click here to teleport.

Misinformed journalists, this is your warning. This post contains POSITIVE PRESS about Second Life™. For those of you unwilling to check out all sides of Second Life, for those sensationalists who are only interested in placing one or two extreme freakin’ psychos up on a platform and dictating to the world that these people represent the average Second Lifer, stop reading here. I would hate to piss all over your hate parade.

Today I was reading around at Second Life related articles again, as often I do and, as is always the case, I came across several of the usual hater style articles. You know the sort. The ones written by some wannabe journo who signs up to Second Life for half an hour, visits a newbie sex region, takes some snapshots of a freenis-wearing weirdo and reports in the national press that all Second Lifers are therefore sex addicted hermits, often morbidly obese who only ever leave their parent’s basements to retrieve more pizza.

Well… as a community of wasters, nyphos and hermits, we did pretty well for Relay for Life this year. In fact, to date, 2009 has seen residents of Second Life raise a staggering L$ 60, 324, 956. This, in real terms, equates to $ 263,361 (yes, US dollars). These were the the totals when I last checked the page but they are increasing all the time as more donations fly in and you can see the latest here. Second Life Relay for Life is becoming a bigger and better event with every single year that passes. And this achievement is something that anyone who took part, whether as an organiser or as someone donating to a random box they passed, can be proud of. That is over a quarter of a million US dollars raised for the America Cancer Society that would not have been raised were it not for Second Life and its residents.

Second Life Relay for Life is something that even a search on Google brings back little ‘real life’ press for in comparison to the stories about women leaving their husbands for their pixel partners. Such a shame really.

But anyway, enough gloating about the achievements of Second Lifers. I have pizza to gorge on, hermitry to partake in and general nymphomania and freakiness to be getting on with.

On Tuesday I blogged on the story of the man from Derby, UK who was in the News of the World (Sunday British tabloid) on Sunday because his wife is divorcing him after catching him having gay pixel sex in Second Life™. You can read that post by clicking here and you can see the story from the News of the World by clicking here. As the article explains, the avatar behind real life John Best, is Troy Hammerthall, a relatively new avie. I IMed Troy after reading the article on the off chance he would speak to me and he agreed to answer some questions via offline from his email.

Now, in the way that happened a few months ago with the last tabloid covered RL divorce ’caused by’ SL™, people have had a bit of a laugh about the story and it’s been discussed by SLers and non SLers alike. But laughter aside for a second and what a lot of people fail to remember is that someone’s real life has been completely thrown into disarray because of some sensationalist tabloid rubbish about Second Life! Here’s what John Best aka Troy Hammerthall, had to say on the matter.

Josue Habana: First up, this is quite a new avatar. Is it your first?
Troy Hammerthall: Yes it is.
Josue Habana The News of the World quotes you as saying the incident was just a bit of a laugh. With that said, it seems to have been blown massively out of proportion. Have you managed to get back any sense of normality since the press covered this on Sunday?
Troy Hammerthall: No, everyone is taking the Mickey out of me and ribbing me about it. I’ve tried to keep a low profile.
Josue Habana: Presumably it was your wife who went to the papers in the first place? Have you had chance to speak to her since?
Troy Hammerthall: I have told her to get out of my life for selling the story. She did it for the cash. I don’t have a clue how much blood money she took off those cockroaches and I don’t want to know. I’m just glad to be shut of her now. To do what she did is despicable.
Josue Habana: How do you answer the implications made by the press and by your wife that this incident in Second Life suggests you might be homosexual in real life?
Troy Hammerthall: I’m not gay. I was just having a laugh amd messing about. It’s ridiculous.
Josue Habana: Will you be playing Second Life again?
Troy Hammerthall: I still do play Second Life. I’m on it all the time. I’m looking for a job at the moment on there.

So, as you see and as is easy to forget when simply reading news stories, these are massive implications on a person’s real life. Is it not absolutely absurd for the news papers to report things this way? Can’t they concentrate instead (if they must get their fix on the pixel gossip) on naming and shaming proven texture thieves? Or on covering someof the amazing education, arts and culture events going on?

Well… then again we are talking about the News of the World.

It was not so long back that the British Tabloids (ever reliable gossip and sensationalism providers) reported on a British couple who were getting divorced because he cheated on her with someone in Second Life™. Well the News of the World have managed to dig up more dirt (shock, horror). This time the gossip is a little jucier though. Basically, Lisa Best from Derby, UK, was lying in bed and her husband, believing her to be asleep, was beside her on his laptop… having pixel sex with a man in game. Well, according to the story, which you can read by clicking here, she of course sat up demanding to know what he was doing and he laughed it off. But now she’s had him move out and demanded a divorce. Now she tells her tale exclusively to the News of the World (whose employees really can only be referred to as ‘journalists’ at a real push) complete with a picture of her standing cross armed with a grimace that says ‘Yes, I am mad’. Let’s face it, she probably got paid a nice little packet and managed to completely humiliate her husband in the process. Hell hath no fury and all that….

Anyway, my point is that the only stories that really hit the headlines in terms of Second Life, are these big sensationalist ones. All the amazing educational stuff going on is crammed into 100 words on page two zillion in the bottom corner. But pixel affairs are top story events! Is it any wonder that nonSL-ers think all Second Life players are sex crazed, gender bending, confused nymphos?

Well, peeps, if you want your 15 minutes of fame all you need to do is get a real life divorce and blame it on Second Life. Send a tabloid newspaper your story and some shocking shots of avies in compromising positions in game and you’re Sunday paper top story material!