If you’ve had your ear to the ground lately (always dangerous as someone could halfinch your wallet and draw a funny face on your bum as I discovered to my cost) you’ll have heard of the new land that has been discovered by Linden Lab – the continent of Nautilus. Well new land means that that ever grumpy nose of ol’ Magellan couldn’t be far behind and sure enough it appears that, seemingly now wary of flying, he has persuaded some of the LDPW moles to build him a ruddy great void-tunneling sim-crossing underground-moving tank!

Salazar Jack's photo of Magellan Linden in Nova Albion dated 23-03-2006

How do we know this? Because he’s been spotted, of coure! this time by the Lab and not by us mere mortals. But a spot is a spot (the end of my nose was recently a sorry testament to that simple truth) and now the explorers and hunters of Salazar’s troupe are on the case with three field trips planned for Thursday 23rd October (i.e. tomorrow) at 1pm, 4pm & 7pm SL time. Come one, come all! Bring friends! Lets see if we can snap a picture or two of this rare, hairy, sweary beast of lesser-spotted fame.

Be at the Explorer’s Base in Bodega for 1, 4 or 7pm tomorrow. And bring your cameras!

p.s. I’ve added a special page to this blog where I’ll add all the findings from this ongoing mystery – just head over to The Magellan Files page and get yourelf up to speed, Mag fans – there are even some buttons/badges for your blog

I know you will know by now (how could you not!) that Bay City is open. Salazar, Osprey and Enjah (Nova Albionians all) organised a parade from Miramare over the water into Bay City and through the streets of the new city. Loads of people turned up, some I knew well, some I’d only recently met (Hi Nica!) and some I’d never met before – it was great to see so many happy people having a great time together and I’m only sorry I didn’t get to speak to more folks before I had to go at the end

Here are some of the shots I managed to take:

Here all are at the start in Miramare

Yikes! Douglas the Dino!

Janey on Colin

Sal and Alba – the new Little and Large?

The Show Must Go contingent (Lucy hadn’t arrived when I took this – sorry mate!)

Marianne turned up with loads of kids

Nica was here for the horned community

Off we go!

We faced many dangers… from dodgy bridges…

…to floating heffalumps…

…to killer trams (I took a shot of Doug munching it up good, but it never arrived at flickr )

But we bravely carried on through the streets…

Until we reached the bowling alley at the end!

Where Doug looked at us all with a hungry glint in his eye…

Eeeek!

p.s. Other blogs mentioning the parade:
Janey
Osprey
Enjah
Tina

As you can’t have failed to have noticed, the LDPW’s first project has opened and Bay City is full of eager explorers just dying to see what the moles have been beavering* away at all these weeks. And me, Janey and Pinks are no different

I had limited time so decided to we just had to see the creepy sounding old asylum people had been raving about on the forums. And creepy is the perfect word!

We rode up to the front gates, but our brave mounts would go no further…

So we continued on foot…

Inside we found all the trappings of a decaying hulk that once housed many unhappy souls. Evidence of their treatment was everywhere…

In the wards and treatment rooms voices whispered and echoed around us, lights flickered, doors creaked…

Quite honestly it was quite a relief when we emerged once more into the morning light and I felt the reassuring presence of Frank carrying me away to adventures new…

Head on over to Bay City yourself and take a look around before the auctions kick in. Meanwhile read more about Bay City on the SL Forums here and for Janey’s report on the trip to the asylum, visit her blog here.

* Moles? Beavering away? Is that legal?

Hola – HBA here to put up some of the pictures taken on the latest BB Group Adventure. Only a few brave souls turned up to explore The Devil’s Labyrinth, but we few had a great time getting lost in the mazes and tunnels of the haunted castle. I hope you can make the next one

This was us outside the castle. Well, some of us. Well, me.

Inside, we saw what fate awaited us if we got lost…

The was the last poor soul to get lost in the labyrinth!

Whereas I just got lost in the 1960s!

TR bravely defended us… at least that what I think she was doing…

Janey never knew what grabbed her!

Pinkie tucked into the dinner provided…

And then both of them saw Minimax naked! Ohhh, the horror!

Pinkie made a new friend!

As did Osprey,  a new friend in white. White and blood. Lots  and lots of blood.

TR and me opened the Altar of Doom. Bloody idiots!

Stop over at Janey’s Blog to read more (and better – I’m so lazy!) and you can see my wonderful bum over on Osprey’s blog as a sort of DVD extra of the event. If you want to come on the next one, just join my free Backpacking Burros group for the invites

This week saw the opening of 40+ sim bundles (110 sims in 40+ groups of 4) for a tie-in with the CSI New York telly program. The idea is that you drop into one of the orientation sims where you can either pick up a new look client/viewer/browser or a toolbar/HUD for the existing c/v/b. This HUD allows you to interact with the clues placed around the sims so you can become a CSI officer and solve crimes. Sounds fun… sounds like it needs a visit from a mini BB Flashmob to solve the Venus Murderer case of the Dead Wabbit…

After gathering all the clues, following all the spoken help notes and analyzing the evidence, we finally graduated from CSI school to become:

Agent Pinkie Delcon, Agent Sjet Sakai, Agent HeadBurro Antfarm and Agent Janey Bracken are on the job case!

Go along with some mates and have a go yourself – there are so many islands that I’m not giving a SLURL – just open MAP and search for CSINY. There will be more cases each week up until Feb 08 when it all ends. Oh, one last word – the lag sucked biiiiig time! Be prepared and turn everything off when you go

Hi all,

Come and join me this Saturday at a brilliantly different kind of SL event – a variety show!!

“The Show Must Go On” starts at 2pm SL time this Saturday, 20th October. All Backpacking Burros and HBA Islanders should meet me at 1:50ish – bring some popcorn!

Date: Saturday, 20th Oct 07
Time: 1:50pm SL (8:50pm GMT)
Place: Phobos TMSGO Home Stage

Make sure you turn off and detach all laggy scripted objects (shields, mystitools, even your AOs if you can) as you won’t need them and any help the lag can get will be appreciated

You will need to turn your audio on (not voice or video) as the show uses the audio stream throughout – and it may help if you turn avatar names off in your (CTRL-P) preferences panel.

For more info on the show, visit their website.

Se you all there!
HeadBurro Antfarm
********************

Edit: This was me and Janey at the last show

Janey, one of my best mates in-world, set up a cracking Backpacking Burro Flashmob to an ice skating (and rollerskating) sim. We drew quite a crowd with our skating tomfoolery, but things really got out of hand with the snowball fighting system (made by the redoubtable Ordinal Malaprop). I lost count of who won, but when the (snow) dust settled, Kae had built a fort to protect herself, Rusty was zooming about on a BMX, Dave had turned into a snowman and I was slipping into a coma after Pinkie found out she could knock me on my arse with the a well placed kick and did so several hundred times! Luckily, I was not hurt (too badly) and the evening passed without a trip to A&E

The Flashmob arrives… Brrrrr! Chilly!

Dead Eye Janey takes another victim down!

Cool Hand Vixen takes her shot too!

Kae Builds a fortress – the wee cheater!

Rusty the Genius gets mean!

Head hits the deck… not for the first time that night, nor the last!

Marisa looks way too cool!

Three fellas admire the snowman like it was a BBQ they had just lit…

Pinkie and Janey hunt for victims like synchronised Raptors!

And Pinkie finds one… the great bully that she is! My horns are still bruised!

Look out for more Backpacking Burro Flashmobs in the group (the free to join group that is) notices. And if you have one you like to lead just like Janey did with this, let me know

HBA
***

Original Post: Deleted. Bugger.

Edit: 18th Sept 07.
Bugger. In my eagerness to make the post on Pinkie’s Birthday Bash look good, I wiped this one in error. This never happens with my other (non-SL) wordpress blog. Blogger is shit in comparisson. The orginal post was about the first ever Backpacking Burro’s Flashmob Exlporation of a sim, in the case the Greenies sim. It was a good post. Funny. To the Point. With pictures. Arsebuggery. Blogger is crap. I’ll calm down and tray again.

Re-Post: To come… Maybe… Here!! Edit Three bastard time this post has fucked up. This bastard does not want to be written.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s not all serious exploration, the life of a Backpacking Burro you know. No, we have fun too. We flashmob places. Not in a griefer way, just in a ‘get as many Backpacking Burros exploring a build at the same time as you can’ way

This was us at the famed Greenies sim. We beamed in under the floorboards and made our way through a doll’s house into the amazingly massive house that the Rezzable company have built.

That’s (left to right): Douglas, TR, Ali, Sennen (I think), Kat, Rusty (I think), Mystery Man!!, Janey. I’m at the front and we were joined later by Pinkie.

We wandered around the sim splitting up and coming back together many times to share the amazing things we found. Apart from one incident when I got a right bad tempered bollocking for leaving my hot air balloon parked by the huge bread bin, we had a great time.

Ali and me zooming about on a dirt bike – I think she was telling me what a crap driver I am after the second crash!

Ali found it safer with one of the Greenies than on my bike!

So did I! (this was shortly before The Great Unwarranted Bollocking so I’m still smiling)

Meanwhile, Kat sided with the Kitty against the Greenie!

Pinkie, Janey, and I decided to try and help the spooked canary – poor thing!

I released my inner dancer…

…tried to rescue a silly Greenie…

… before deciding these Greenies had a deathwish!

In the end, we all had a great night out… in… out… well, you know what I mean. There are lots more pics but if anyone wants me to put there’s up, send them to me in-world with a permission card so I know I can One last one of Me, Pinkie & Janey – what can I say… Pinkie really loves cheese!!

If you haven’t been, go – there is loads to do and see (just don’t park a balloon for more than 30 seconds if you don’t want to get banned from every Rezzable sim! You have been warned!)Watch the Backpacking Burro group notices for more flashmob visits soon!

HBA
****