For over five years I’ve had the extreme pleasure of knowing an evocative, intelligent individual in both RL & SL. The first time I met him in Second Life, he could have filed an abuse report on me. The talented writer of the New World Notes blog (with a bevy of other writing credits under his belt) has written his first book, “The Making of Second Life“.

Please join us for a “mixed reality” party in celebration of Hamlet Au’s (Wagner James Au in meatspace) latest achievement!

Past
Thursday, April 24
5:00-8:00 pm SLT

It’s going to be a “mixed reality event”, meaning that he’s also having a parallel party in a penthouse in New York City! While he’s chatting with us in world, he’ll also be hanging out with friends and wine IRL and posting pictures of the party there on a laptop at the penthouse.

Contact me (Lyra Millionsofus) with any questions! See you tomorrow.

If you haven’t already, check out AC3D’s plugin for Second Life. Their actual software has a highly managable price, but the best part is the 14 day free trial to find out if this is the right program for you. I’m going to snag myself a copy and will get back at the end of the trial. I’ll come back in a couple of weeks and post my findings, and if you’d like to do the same we can discuss it.

Being able to build projects outside of SL and then import them is reason enough to check it out!

It’s been a crazy week! Monday morning, bright and early SLT we had the ribbon cutting for virtual Palomar West. An excellent crowd joined us for the event, including some rather notable members of the SL press! Mat beat me to the punch about linking the Massively article, but I wanted to share some of the others I’ve found as well:

The Grid Live: Combining a slew of wonderful pictures with a quick description of the build and his experience, Stone Culdesac writes about his experience at Palomar West.

Cisco Newsroom: Announcing the opening of the sim at the HIMSS Conference, this site has some great facts about the future of the build, and details on the amazing technological additions to the hospital.

Your2ndPlace: Evansmom Goodspeed is not only a fun person to talk to, she’s also an excellent writer! Check out her scope of the project at this popular Second Life blogging community.

New World Notes: Last but not least, a late entry, for I am blind. The formerly embedded but still journalist Hamlet Au explains how Lauren is evil to him. Poor guy.

Thanks to everyone that attended throughout the day for making it a fun and education experience!

With the announcement of the strike’s end, I’m sure that many of my fellow TV addicts are bouncing happily in their seats today - if only metaphorically. Several of my online friends have family members who were directly involved in this strike, and there is clear jubilation in the various news feeds I’m reading with folks excited to be getting back to work. While I’ve enjoyed catching up on some streamed show seasons via Netflix over the last couple of weeks (hence the picture that I swiped from time.com’s site - I hope they’re getting paid for those streams), it is wonderful to hear that our non-reality shows are returning with new episodes.

I am most personally excited to be getting Gossip Girl back! More than a few of us MoU folks share a love for this “guilty pleasure”, and I was pleased to see from this TV Guide listing of when shows will start to shoot/air that S, B & the gang will be on the air sometime in late-spring.

The sad fact is that some shows simply cannot make the return after the strike, and have flat out stated as much. While I don’t claim to have firsthand knowledge (and thus might be proved wrong later) it looks like Bionic Woman and Journeyman will not be making it back to the tube. Another sci-fi favorite whose future is still to be determined is the new Terminator series - which would be awful, since the show has really be shaping up to something special.

So, here are some well-wishes to our cherished writers. We’re glad to have you back!

When I was a kid, a lot of my summers were spent up in northern Minnesota where my godfather had built his house. He had three children, all of whom were close friends of mine. The daughter was a young horsewoman, four years my senior; she basically taught me how to ride horses and was the older sister I could never have, being the oldest daughter in my own family. The other two were boys, and with my two little brothers the five of us would get into all sorts of trouble together. I accredit my tomboyish youth to all of them, gladly.

My best memories involving them were of playing the game “Kick the Can“, which is best done at night. To sum it up, it’s like hide and seek; your mission is to distract “it” from the can as much as possible, especially when s/he has already captured your fellow players. When you kick the can, they have to chase the it and those captured can run into hiding again. We used coffee cans, since they wouldn’t hurt your foot and were actually fairly aerodynamic. This made it that much harder to find them after they sailed over the huge backyard and into the thick woods behind the house. Eventually we incorporated laser tag into our game, but that’s more amusing than relevant.

I’ve been in Second Life in one form or another for years - nearly 5 to be precise - and I’ve been privileged enough to be a part of the birth of Nexus Prime, survived (and was assimilated by) an invading army of WW2Oers, helped conceptualize and launch Burning Life, and a co-owner in one of the grid’s most popular couture companies. After all this time, one could imagine that pretty little would faze me.

Right now, I feel right now like I’m “it” and my coworkers are very talented and experienced kick the can players. Over the next few weeks I intend to get myself some night vision goggles and start figuring out where they are, what they’re up to, and maybe even find some new games to play.

I’m the new community manager for Millions of Us! Feel free to say hi to me in-world, talk to me about any wild ideas you might have, and especially to share your stories. I have a feeling that my fifth year here is going to be the best yet!