Good Lord! Someone’s stolen my house!

Well now! I know I’ve been out-of-world for as while, but this is just rude!

 

Kowloon goes Tiny!

This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in ages!

So git yer tiny on and head on over the amazing city of Kowloon with the other cool tinies

 

Sinatra Cartier’s Spook House has closed – a sad day for SL History Buffs…

It’s with a heavy heart that I heard from my mate Shigeko that the wonderful Spook House in Noyo (a long time landmark in for anyone interested in the history of SL) has shut down and gone. There is a LM giver that directs you to Sinatra Cartier’s copy in Natoma so we haven’t lost this wonderful build forever, but Noyo seems a little emptier today and given all the changes in the surround sims as the Forest of Kahruvel slowly contracts and de-rezzes it feels as though many of the old lands and my old haunts (no pun, etc.) are slipping away. Anyway, lest I get too maudlin I urge you all to head over to Natoma and take a ride on the Spook House – and while you are at it catch Sinatra in one of his concerts because frankly he’s bloody brilliant!

My first (recorded – I had visited in 07) visit to the Spook House in Feb 08

The same site in Noyo today

My Road Trip in Noyo
http://headburroantfarm.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/bb-road-trip-silence-in-spooky-noyo/

My Road Trip in Natoma
http://headburroantfarm.wordpress.com/2008/11/22/my-second-life-road-trip-10-prim-overload-in-natoma/

By pure chance I recently filmed my journey through the Noyo Spook House

 

Calling All Ducks – Nova Albion’s 7th Anniversary Need YOU!

From Ducks

Saturday 19th March 2011 at noon SLT – meet under the Grignano Arch and let’s quack in the 7th! Everyone and anyone welcome to join us!

 

A re-post: Salazar Jack and The Great Erase.

Aeons ago, I had the idea of cataloguing the various creation tales of SL. This never came off and a page on this blog I created for that purpose remained unedited for several years. Well today I’m deleting it, but not without copying across the information on Salazar Jack’s Great Erase. This information, or rather the links within it, can not be gaurenteed but I’m loathe to lose any nuggets and slivers of his tale and so I’m copying it across to this post. Enjoy and then head over to his blog and twitter feeds to find out more.

• Blog (it seems to have undergone a [further] shrinkage of its own and is now just one page )
• Sal’s Twitter
• Kahruvel’s Twitter

~~~~V~~~~

The Creation Files

Where did this world come from? What existed before the Lindens flicked the switch and opened the doors? Nothing? Void? Or another world entirely? A few people, I am one of them, are asking these questions and seeking their answers. Here’s your handy cut out and keep guide to the creation beliefs I’ve come across.

Salazar Jack and The Great Erase.

Salazar is actually a true resident of this world having been born in the one that existed before SL but was lost in 1969 (that’s by our calendar, I’m not sure what that would have been in the pre-SL world of Sal’s family) in what came to be known as The Great Erase.

The world of Salazar’s family, called Urtahra, was a bustling, populated one that was wiped almost entirely from the face of existence by a massive energy wave that deleted all in it’s path and erased the whole world. Only a few people survived and led by Salazar’s great grandma they escaped to Earth where they made lives for themselves never suspecting that they would ever be able to return to their home-world.

That was until Linden Lab opened up Second Life in 2003. Salazar and the other survivors have slowly made their way back and found in it ghostly echoes of their former world. From the re-built city of Nova Albion to the replanted forest of Kahruvel, Salazar has dedicated himself to exploring and reclaiming as much of the old world as he can find.

Even now, five and a half years down the line, finds are still being made such asMagallen Linden’s discovery of the Nautilus landmass that Sal’s great gran remembers tales of from centuries before her own time.

So the world we know as Second Life is built on the reclaimed ruins of an earlier world destroyed in some still-unexplained disaster. Given that the Linden’s have admitted they don’t know how they missed Nautilus and have never found a cause for The Great Erase, we must all worry that this new world is not as secure as we would like to imagine…

RESPONSES

Re: The Great Erase (From Salazar Jack)

“Only a few people survived and led by Salazar’s great grandma they escaped to Earth where they made lives for themselves never suspecting that they would ever be able to return to their home-world.”

In truth, more than a few survived. Quite a few. Acording to my mom and grandparents, over 70 people arrived with us in Kansas State on Earth, out of the hundreds that went through our portal that day. We never learned where the remaining souls went. And those that arrived with us eventually dispersed. Contact with them gradually diminished over the years. Life was quite difficult actually as the United States government was naturally very interested in our group whose sudden arrival was accompanied with little explanation. Most of us went into hiding to avoid scrutiny. A few, if the stories are correct, were apprehended and not heard from again. It was fortunate that the location we ported into was so rural and remote. It allowed some time for us to make plans before authorities became aware of the situation.

After returning here there were some stories that surfaced of others who had escaped. Like this one…

http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p=406300&postcount=42

I’m not sure if the portal they used was they same one we did. There may have been more than my folks were aware of.

 

Ghosts in the deep…

Note: This post was first written in July 10 but not posted until February 11 and as such I can’t promise the area is still haunted – pop over and see

My mate Nish first alerted me to ghosts in SL a couple of years ago – she was hunting them back then, looking for dots on the map where there were no people or finding avs that were trapped between planes. Over the years I’d forgotten about her quest until a few weeks ago when I happened to notice an odd collection of dots in a strange, old mainland sim called Cyclops.

Cyclops lies at the very top of the north west corner of Sansara, the first continent, and is the start of a short run of single-width sims that links Sansara with the second continent of Heterocera (formed by a meteor strike and discovered by Magellan, dontcyaknow). There is nothing there – it’s just sea, ocean without islands or ships or anything. Hell, there’s not even any mole built ‘stuff’ in the sea (the Moles and LDPW always sem to bring the seas they work in to life, like they did in Murray) so what the hell were the dots all about? LittleLostLinden has an interesting theory about Linden Lab tolerating bots as they pump the ‘online now’ numbers up… could these be bots like the ones I found near the Valley of The Burros in Nutsedge? Or could they be poor, lost souls condemned to wander (or rather stand stock still on) the bottom of the ocean forever? You decide…

Something odd is going on here – look at this flying yacht!

 

Gang Wars: The Sentinel Reports on Chang’s Death

Grab yourself a copy of the latest issue of the Steelhead Sentinel and read Miss Warbaum’s coverage of the murder of Tong member Chang: http://steelheadsentinel.blogspot.com/2011/02/felled-foe-found-latest-casualty-in.html

 

Cycling with Eliza

A long, long, looooooong time ago I met a rather lovely person in Oak Grove, Eliza Janus. She was sweet, funny and friendly at a time when life in Murray, my home next to Oak Grove, was anything but. Over the years we’ve stayed in touch and lately she’s been very busy gathering her friends about her, setting up groups in-world as well in twitter & flickr. A few weeks back I received a message from her asking if I could spare five minutes for a photo and as one who often drops such requests on my friends how could I say no? I TPed over and was met with an idylic scene in which Eliza was sat on a bike – I hoped on, set my emote to charming smile No. 8 and snapped away!

Take a look at Eliza’s version, as well as her other friends joining her on her bike, on her flickr stream here.

 

Gang Wars: The Fox Battalion

The morning air was harsh on his face, the light strong and somehow alien in nature. This, Beck thought, is what it must feel like to be a ghost, one of the deceased walking among the living in a world they no longer belonged to. Except he was not a ghost, he was not deceased and, despite the fact that every fibre of his body seemed to be screaming that the very opposite was true, he was very much alive. Only he wasn’t, was he. Was he?

“Doctor!” a strong hand clasped his arm and he spun round to find himself staring into the deep, grey eyes of Captain Williams, skipper of one of the fishing boats that worked out of Shanghai, “The harbour…”

“Hmmm?” Beck stared at the man from somewhere very far away.

“The harbour, you nearly waked off the edge!”

Beck looked down and with a start saw his feet were mere inches from the sheer drop of the stone harbour edge, the waves rolling and crashing against the wall a dozen feet below him. He stepped back, shocked at such a total lapse in his concentration.

“Ye Gods and little fishes, Doctor, pay more heed to your path, sir!” warned Williams.

“Yes… yes of course,” blustered Beck, “I… I’m a little distracted this morning, I fear. A body has been found by some of the night fishermen, you see.”

Williams let go of Beck’s arm and looked into the man’s eyes. He’d heard about his kidnapping at the hands of the devil from the sea and the state the rescuers had found him in and yet here he was, a mere two days later, up and about and tending to his patients. “I’d venture you have good reason to be, sir, good reason indeed but I’d be sorely grieved to hear of your untimely passing lest I am to add your name to the Roll of The Lost at Chapel, sir.”

Beck looked again at the drop into the sea, “Of course, sorry, yes. I’ll be more careful, Captain.”

“See that you do sir, the people here about need you whole and in once piece. One of my crew, an Oriental convert of good standing, told me how much you have done for his family and how grateful his people are, you should be proud Doctor, you should be very proud indeed.”

Beck had no words, nothing to offer the man back so he just nodded slightly and started towards where Sister Jones waited for him with the body dredged from the ocean.

“I shouldn’t worry too much about that body Doctor,” Williams said. Beck stopped and looked back at the Captain. “From what I hear the departed was one of the Tong’s thugs, a nasty piece of work by the name of Chang. It seems that the escalation in hostilities has claimed another victim, although I doubt many will mourn this one. Still, it will only serve to anger the Tong and that is never good for the poor, honest folks around here is it?”

Chang. The name rang like a bell in Beck’s mind and he found his fingers moving to his eye involuntarily. How long ago was it? A month? Six weeks? Something else the old seaman said caught Beck’s attention, “Escalation? You mean between the gangs?”

“Indeed I do sir, indeed I do. These past few weeks have seen an out-break of violence the likes of which, well suffice to say that in my sixty years I have never seen before. Warehouses razed to the ground, explosions felling buildings, murders in the streets, shipping and trade threatened and robbed on every side! The law seems powerless to intervene even as outsiders come in and commit the most heinous crimes imaginable at will. Is it any wonder the folks around here are turning to vigilantism? Why, I shouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t this Fox Battalion that took the law in to their own hands with this heathen brute.”

“I’m sorry, the fox who?” Beck’s mind was spinning with all the new information but he felt better for it, he was feeling grounded for the first time in two days. Here was something he could understand, here was something he could do somethings about. No monsters, no ghosts of the mind, battles between light and dark, just people, people being people.

Williams lifted his hand and pointed to a poster stuck to the side of a tall mooring pole, “The Fox Battalion. I can’t say I approve of their message or intent for as the Good Book says…”

Beck didn’t listen to the bible lesson, instead his attention switched to the bill and its very direct message conveyed in one short paragraph written in, of all things, Latin:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Greetings,

We, the repressed and downtrodden members of society call on the name of justice to take up arms to fight back by any means, against the scum and terror who would defile and cause depravity by selling opium and illicit goods, take our families in the dead of night to be sold on the slave markets, bring thugs into our cities to threaten, steal, and kill for their selfish goals. And what is the Military doing about this, The US Navy and coast guard has it’s hands tied, the English Navy is spread too thin, the US Military and Canadian Mounties are too busy with their own agendas, even the Steelhead Militia force cannot act! That is where we come in, and that is where we ask you, the lawful and honest Individual who wishes to see justice done, come to us, and seek us out if you are interested in joining our cause. Let me be clear, if you are some miscreant, lawless, or have your own agenda, do not bother to apply, for we want loyal, just, honest, law abiding, hard working, and hard fighting individuals, of any sex, species, or race. Break the binds of fear the criminals would shackle us with, and fight for your rights of freedom and justice! Contact Me by leaving a message at the predetermined location if you are interested.

Lt. H
Fox Battalion
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well… things certainly had become more complicated since he’d left for Babbage six weeks ago…

****{}****

To be continued…
All the “Gang War” posts can be read on my blog here and over on the Steelhead Ning here.

*****{*}*****

Links to other blogs and stories:
1) Chang was first encountered in Dr Beck’s surgery here.
2) The Fox Batallion’s notice was posted to the Ning here.

 

Me, but BlipVerted!

Thanks to Kumi for pointing this out to me – Pummelvision will squash your flickr, tumblr (what the bugger happened to all the ‘e’s? on the web?) or facebook photos and give you a super-fast film thingie like this…

Here are my friends’ vids:
Kumi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IjrtXPCA0s&feature=player_embedded
Osprey: http://www.atomic-raygun.com/2010/12/profoundly-boring-everyone-was-doing-it.html
Enjah: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnEFAM_qCB8&feature=player_embedded