Cartoon of The Day: Big Fox

Taken at the Relay Kickoff. In SL, one can make their avatar more or less as big as one wants. So how would this happen elsewhere? I could think of a few possibilities.

By Bixyl Shuftan 

Interview with Fop (KingForri), Giant of Natoma

 

 So how tall was the tallest avatar you've seen in Second Life? For some residents who haven't been around much, they may not have seen avatars much taller than they. For those who have explored some and been to some notable events, they may have seen an occasional macro that can get to be around fifty feet tall. And then there's the avatar of Fop (KingForri). Encountered at the Natoma sim, he easily stood over the Ivory Tower. Yours truly got in contact, and he had a few things to say. 

 

Read the interview in People. 

 

Giant Avatar at The Ivory Tower

 

 Going by Natoma the other day in one of my Rezz alts, I saw this huuuuuuge avatar. There's a running joke about many Second Life residents wanting to be above average in height to the point in reality they'd be seven foot tall basketball players. Some take things a little more, going for eight or nine feet. But this guy was the size of a mountain, even crouched down, towering over the Ivory Tower of Primitives. He was well over a hundred meters in height.

His name was Fop (Kingforri Resident). As it turned out, I'd seen him once before, at the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Natoma's "The Man" statue. But before I could message him, he was gone.

Such avatars are impressive, but highly impractical. Without chat extenders, you can't talk to anyone. You can't really interact with anyone. So most likely Fop only appears like this once in a while. So outside the Fantasy Faire, it's rare you'll encounter a mega-macro avatar like this.

Bixyl Shuftan

Scenes From the Fantasy Faire

Among the sighs at FF Valhalla are a pair of huge statues at the mouth of the river there, well over a hundred feet high. They would dwarf most other avatars. But this giant lady stands tall over them.
 
The huge avatar was easily seen from all the way on the other side of the sim. I usually see giant avatars at least once at the Faire. A reminder it isn't just the landscape that's the attraction. Some of the other visitors' avatars can be too.

For more information about the Fantasy Faire, check out the blog: https://fantasyfairesl.wordpress.com/
  
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Fairelands%20Junction/61/101/34  

Bixyl Shuftan 

   

Cartoon of the Day

From a picture of Nydia Tungsten's office sent by JB Raccoon. There's been numerous jokes about Australia's wildlife, such as "the big effing spiders." When someone uploaded a video of one having caught a mouse, that made it even more so. While the meme "Everything in Australia is out to kill you" may not be true, the size of the spiders are enough to discourage tourists.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Scenes From the Fantasy Faire

The Fantasy Faire got off to a good start in it's first few days. Besides the many great sims to explore, some of the people took the time to wear some interesting avatars. Among them, the Colossus avatars that have been available since 2012, but I've seldom seen them except during Fantasy Fair events. There are two in this picture. The smaller one, the lady in the white dress, was several times my height. But the male was well over a hundred feet high, maybe two hundred. I was a small speck near his shoe.

There were also some "Jail and Bail" events. The one getting attention was when Jessica Lyon, the head of Team Firestorm, was detained by the Farelands "Pawlice." Jessica was given a number of charges from deliberately slowing down debugging of the Firestorm viewer to taking Oldesoul's parking spot to squirrel porn. This was despite counter-accusations from someone in the audience that the Linden viewer team had bribed the Pawlice with waffles. Residents were invited to put money in two kiosks, one to bail her out, the other to keep her in longer. After over a couple hours, the bail side won 75,000 to 58404."Thank you Jessica  for helping all of  us Battling Cancer!"

And yours truly gave the Fairelands Quest a try. In the quest, you answer a dragonfae's plea for help to search for the Queen's father. As you progress, you get small prizes. The game is HUD-based, and with the lag there were times I had to replay a video in my browser, or detatch and reattatch the HUD. Despite the bugs resulting from the lag, I found it to be a fun game. Already, there has been at least one whom claimed to have finished.

Stay tuned for more,

Bixyl Shuftan

Two Giant Places. Happiness Giant Rooms and Simpsons Giant Kitchen

For fans of the classic "Greenies Home" which gave players a mouse-sized perspective of a sim-sized family room and kitchen, there are a couple builds the Newser recently found out about which give visitors a similar point of view. One is a double set of giant rooms in the Happiness sim, one taking a little effort to find. The other in Athen Shire is a tribute to "The Simpsons," with a huge build of their kitchen. Unfortunately, word has it the second build won't be around for very long.

Read more in Places.

Scenes From Second Life: The Jolly Blue Giantess

 With Lomgren Smalls as a neighbor, small avatars are not exactly a shocking sight. Giant avatars, however, are a different story.

At Furry Fashion last weekend, yours truly dropped by a "Best in Blue" event. And quite a number in theme showed up. In the words of one, "It's like Avatar (the movie) in here." Then someone named Arisu Starfall showed up. While also in a blue avatar, it was unlike the others due to her huge height, standing close to forty feet high. The sight of her drew cries along the lines of "Don't step on me!" Arisu didn't step on anyone, but tiptoed to the side and made some adjustments in her outfit. "Why so tall?" someone asked. The giantess promptly answered, "Why so short?"

Arisu would later share in the contest prize that night, proving "Size does matter."

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

By Bixyl Shuftan

Land of the Giants

Many older residents in Second Life remember the "Greenies Home" sim, a place that was two giant rooms that made visitors seem mouse-sized. While the Greenies have long left Second Life, there is a place in the Grid where one can explore giant rooms of which the size difference makes the ordinary look extraordinary. Second Life Newser found out about the location, and Gemma Cleanslate went to explore the huge builds, which had a number of fun activities as well.

Read more in Places.

Cartoon of the Day: RFL Walk

Remember last year when the Steelheads brought you "The Hair?" Well, not to be outdone, this year the Passionate Redheads bring you "The Hat."

It's huge! It's enormous! It devours avatars alive! ... Actually, no it doesn't. But it sure gets attention on the track. On another note, that's Dusk's actual line, slightly altered. ;-)

The Relay for Life continues on this Sunday morning, with the closing ceremonies at 10AM, and the Victory Lap at 11AM. After that, all scheduled events end, but the exhibits will be up for a few more days. And keep an eye out for impromptu parties, notably what's become an after-walk tradition, the "flood party."

By Bixyl Shuftan

A 500 Meter Mesh Avatar

Remember the giant Colossus avatars that made the news in May? Someone else made an even bigger avatar that stretches higher than most people normally set their draw distance (field of vision to those outside Second Life).

Introducing "the Giant XXXL500M - biggest mesh avatar of Secondlife." Someone mentioned this avatar at the SL9B, and showed a link to this Youtube. Looks like people are trying to test the limits of Mesh and how it works.

Stepping Large in Second Life

Grease Coakes recently heard about a huge, giant avatar that made an appearance at the RFL Fantasy Faire. Meeting up with the owner, Ceri Quixote, she showed him the avatar, which she called her Colussus, and talked to him about how she came to design the av.

Read more in Design.

Ahab’s Haunt

There are strange things out there in those waters between the mainland and the islands. I am lucky to live on the water’s edge in Thorstar, so we sometimes take our sail boat out on the protected waters. We just sail up the channels to see what is going on, or what new builds there are. There are several large marinas not too far away with lovely yachts and small boats.


Last time we were out on the water we saw a strange looking place on the map so headed in that direction. As we approached, we saw that it is a leviathan skeleton! There it rests in the waters of Ahab’s Haunt, white, massive and imposing. It stands about 70 m high, and I did not measure the length. I fell into the water and discovered that the bottom of the ocean there is as interesting as the skeleton, with many sunken boats and even a submarine down there.

You can sunbathe on the beach, or lie in a hammock and enjoy the quiet sunlit view. There are boat races in the area so you may see one. It all belongs to Governor Linden. I discovered that he and Silent Mole seem to have built most of the items there, and he is part of the Department of Public Works. It is definitely worth a visit.

Ahab's Haunt (119, 139, 22)

Gemma Cleanslate