So, I must apologize for not posting this sooner… things have been a bit crazier for me than I’ve anticipated over the past couple of weeks!

I wanted to post a BIG thank you to Phaylen Fairchild, Evie Fairchild, Kit Maitland, Stampshady Grimm & all the other hard-working folks at New Media Cinema for their participation in the first of what I hope will be many mini machinima festivals - MMFs? Need to come up with a better name than that! But back from that little digression, we had a really nice turn out on and audience participation was so fun… I really appreciated it when they would give me a hard time for starting the wrong segment!

Of course I was so frizzy frazzied that I didn’t get any screenshots, but I snagged the gorgeous picture from Evie and defaced it horribly, just to celebrate our Divathon. Phaylen made me do it! Thanks to everyone that showed up, as well! I really had a blast and I hope you all did too. I know I’m very much looking forward to their next project, Ctr-Alt-Delete. From their blog, “This hyper-tech new series from the team that brought you DiVAS follows the high octane adventures of Jonas Darcy, a man whose consciousness was exiled to virtual reality and his code wizard sidekick, Noir.” Can’t come soon enough!

I’m also looking forward to our next MMF installment - I’ll announce what it will be before too long, and I swear I’ll come up with a better name for these things! Hoping that all of you are enjoying your lovely summer, winter or whatever it is where you are!

If you haven’t heard of the obscenely popular machinima short series called “Divas“, then you my friend have been missing out. Now, you could rush over to the site to check out all the episodes, or you could join us on Friday night for a 3 hour marathon at the New Globe Theater! We plan to stream all six episodes back to back and have a Q&A session for all machinimaists (is that a word? help me out!) out there. Best of all? Phaylen, Kit & Evie have agreed to allow an exclusive to this event: a preview of their latest project! There will be schwag, hot ladies and lots of laughs. While I’m all for going out on a Friday night, I highly urge you to stay in this weekend, dress to the nines and join us - it’s sure to be divalightful!

Friday, July 18th @ 6pm SLT – Millions of Us, New Globe Theater! IM Lyra Millionsofus if you are having difficulties finding the place!

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!