Montecito Bay Whispers

 

I recently had a few words with MoffettMephit (aka "The Moff") of Montecito Bay. The community's number one resident told me they've been doing well, the twice a week parties and the shopping at the shops and gaming at the arcade going well. But there have been some stories not all is well under the surface. Most notable are tales of some mad scientist.

"I hear there's a lizard scientist working on teleportation technology.," Moff told me, "And this scientist intends to unleash it upon Montecito Bay!" I inquired about him and his plans, and Moff answered, "His name is hard to pronounce because it's all numbers, planting things in places that'll take you to other places. It's all very unsettling." I then asked which places. Moff answered that all he knew was "to the places that people want to go. Sounds pretty sketchy to me. But really, things have been quiet around here. I mean, unless you wanna get really weird." I asked if such weirdness included a time-traveling Delorean. Moff grinned, "There's already one 'round here, really."

So exactly what kind of teleporter will this supposed mad lizard scientist unleash? Time will tell.

Bixyl Shuftan

 

 

Partying At The Second Life Birthday

 *

There's plenty do see and do at the Second Life Birthday. There's a number of DJs performing at the stages, and I dropped by a few. On Monday June 20 at 9AM SL time, Grease Coakes was playing some music.

Grease's performance was at the The Vernian Rotunda. 

On Tuesday June 21, DJ Tantari did her tunage at the Arboretum at 5PM, dancing on top of the sturdy metal DJ booth.

"This is GAME ON! The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes. -- G-Man (Half Life 2)" 

"I have never felt so high, and maybe it's all a lie... but I am never gonna die, 'cause music makes me feel alive!"

DJ Tantari will perform again at the SLB on Saturday June 25 at 9AM SL time.

At The Steamworks at 10PM SL time, DJ Moff (MoffettMephit Resident) was spinning the tunage.

The One and Only Magic Moff On Stage at SL19B !!!

SLB only comes once a year and we have made it to SL19B !! Tonight i am proud and honored to present to you the one and ONLY Dj Magic Moff here to spin some of the best space/dark synthwave tunes on the grid!!   So come on down to Sl19B and lets party the night away !! 

Check out the calendar for the DJ schedules. 

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Reader Submitted: Sunset Over Montecito Bay

 

Taken by Moff (MoffettMephit Resident), a view of a Crux watching the sun set over the waters off Montecito Bay, also on Twitter (link).
 

DJs At The SLB

 

There's a lot going on at the SL18B. There's the "Meet the Lindens" events. There are the numerous exhibits. And there's the music. On Monday, I stopped by two DJs playing music at the DJ stage. One was Grease Coakes.

DJ Grease played to a crowd at the DJ stage at 4AM SL time, a mix of humans, furs, a gryphon, and one glowing shape. He would later post his set on Mixcloud, "played for the amazing people who make up Second Life. Trance and video game remixes are meshed in tightly for an amazing two hour dj set. The theme of "Other Worlds" for SLB this year fits in nicely with this trance set. The picture is based upon Dragon Warrior Monsters 1. Thus the last song is a piano remix of the town theme from Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 DWM 1 and 2 is all about traveling to other worlds as you jump into an epic adventure!" 

A few hours later at 10 AM was DJ Moff (MoffettMephit Resident) of Montecito Bay. He and Emmy (Emorald Resident) greeted me. 

There was quite a crowd there, including the Relay's black unicorn Avariel Falcon and Squeaky Mole.

Moff compared his set to a spaceship run, "Welcome board Crux Space Flight 168 to Tech Noir! We've begun boarding for all classes, so please, step inside, buckle up....and leave the rest of this trip up to your Captain, Super Rockin' Magic Moff! We expect a VERY smooth, uneventful flight.....(famous last words....)"

"OMG Finally! we're approaching the Pacific Coast! ... It's been a long drive, but we're almost there. I hope we don't run into anything WEIRD though. ... I told ya I'll get ya to the SpacePort! OMG the Mole fell off! *throws a teleporter* We can't wait! The ship will depart soon! ... Alright, let's see if 88mph will do the trick! HANG ON! ... OMG I think it worked! I can see the space port!"

Before long, someone in an ostrich avatar came out. And then was going around riding a banana. As Moff put it, "Now THAT is properly weird!" 

Eventually, the set would end, Moff saying, "This was fantastic! Thank you SLB18 crew for having me." Over the stream, he would say "Thank you all for having me! Happy Birthday Second Life!"

Check the schedule for more DJ events (here).
 
Bixyl Shuftan
 

King For A Day at Montecito Bay

 Every Saturday night at 6PM in Montecity Bay, they have a party at Club 86. But Saturday June 19 was a little different. It was the birthday party of Twocoin, aka Qrik. So they threw a small birthday party in his honor, with Moff (MoffettMephit Resident) as the DJ.

It's Qrik's birthday! That means Qrik gets special party and you-you get NOTHING! ... Well, Qrik has decided you-you can come to tonight's special event-party, too! Qrik's musical minion, the one and only Super Rockin' Magic Moff will be playing special-custom set for Qrik with 80s music and synthwave and some surprises, too! Come pay respects to Qrik here-here: Montecito Bay (224,79,23)

For some reason, someone put a throne on stage. Yours truly didn't stick around to find out what the joke was, though it did give the party a slight "Game of Thrones" element. Moff's music was however, fit for a king.

Studio 86 is at Montecito Bay (31/128/26), and has at least one event a week, Saturday from 6-8PM SL time.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

"After Dark" At Montecito Bay

On Saturday night, I dropped by Montecito Bay at Studio 86 (224/79/23) for their music and dance party with DJ Moff. Months ago, the Newser would have plenty to say about our sponsor with it's schedule of events, and occasional shenanigans. Lately however, things have quieted down, aside from some rebuilding. And the place no longer runs a weekly event schedule. But the "After Dark" party at Studio 86 goes on almost every week, so the Newser is including it in "SL Clubbin'," at least for now.

As for writing about the rebuilding in detail, we'll have something soon.

Bixyl Shuftan

Montecito Bay's Motel Closed, Taken By Mystery Owner

One of Montecito Bay's less glamorous but more eye-catching locations will soon be history. The city motel has been bought up and closed by a mysterious new owner. In front is a fence with a sign, saying the property had been seized, "Any person who attempts to tamper with this property will be prosecuted."

"Some weird entity is claiming parcels via eminent domain," Moff (MoffettMephit Resident) told me, "Nobody has ever heard of them!" I asked who they were, and he answered, "Azucar, Incorporated, apparently." He had tried looking up information online about them, and found nothing, "They must be brand new or something."

Stopping by the party at Studio 86 that night, which is just down the street south of the motel, people had various ideas what was going on. "Oh man, the hotel! I heard they found one of those mutants in there and the army came and closed the hotel down." "Mutants? Is that what's been messing around Montecito Bay?" "Yes, government projects. Maybe aliens. Or that SCP stuff the kids talk about on Redit." "I seen it with my own eyes, it looked like an alien, but much much bigger and stronger." "I was thinking of the church of the bleeding jackal skull. I have been watching too many 'You Don't Know Jack' commercials." "Azucar is Spanish for sugar! So maybe we're getting a Latin candy company!" "Afterwards the alien asked for sugar, in water."

In the northwestern part of town, the vicinity of the hotel hasn't seen the destruction of other parts of Montecito Bay such as last year's Groundhog Day incident, and the flying saucer crash weeks earlier. But there were a few "crop circles" in the vicinity. Before that, there was a weird statue not far away that some passersby described as compelling them to approach it. As for the motel itself, it's better days were years ago. While it's a cheap place to stay if one has almost no money, that one of the rooms is blocked off with "crime scene" tape is a frequent sight. There are rumors the place has freakishly huge spiders, but no doubt those tales are from combinations of liquor and  arachnophobia.

Stay tuned for more information.

Note: This is a fun article done at the request of Montecito Bay

Bixyl Shuftan

Montecito Bay Update

Since my last look at Montecito Bay's damaged corner a week and a half ago, work has continued on the cleanups and repairs. The severely damaged buildings have been torn down. Although some of the area remains fenced off, a road and sidewalk now goes through what used to be rubble. While much remains to be done, much progress has been made.

But Montecito Bay being Montecito Bay, it didn't long for me to find some kind of weirdness. I noticed what looked like a severed horse's head in a burning bonfire. Was some mafia don wannabe trying to make an offer the town couldn't refuse? Or perhaps someone got the place confused with Nags head North Carolina? Since I didn't see who put it there, or who lit the fire, no idea, at least for now.

Running into Moff (MoffettMephit Resident), he did tell me there was an update on the "UFO crash site." "The Galleria site is cleaned up," he told me, "and the authorities are about to remove that thing." They still won't let the townsfolk what it is, "officially, we don't know what's going on at that site. But thankfully they seem to be finishing up and, we are hoping we'll have that part of our town back soon." As for their reaction to press coverage, "They did rough up Lem, tho, trying to figure out how the press got in (grin). Cuz, ya know, he's also the Mayor." He then backtracked a bit, "I'm sure it was just a thorough questioning with an order to never discuss what was said."

Stay tuned for more when additional information is available.

Note: The sim wasn't really griefed, or were any authorities for real involved. Just the people behind the sim having a little fun.

Bixyl Shuftan

Update on Montecito Bay Cleanup

Montecito Bay experiences no shortage of weirdness. But lately things have been getting weird and destructive. A few weeks ago, the southwest corner of the city was wrecked. Thankfully no one was hurt, and cleanup soon started. A few weeks later, the city is just about ready to rebuild. But the cleanup has also exposed some possible evidence of a previous incident, the crash of a strange craft in December.

Read the story in Places.

Destruction in Montecito Bay: Number of Buildings Wrecked, Cause Not Yet Known

Groundhog Day, unlike the movie of the name, was anything but the same old thing to the residents of Montecito Bay. What started out as a celebration for the grand reopening of their Magnum Opus Lounge ended up as carnage with part of the sim reduced to rubble and wreckage. The cause is still a mystery as everyone in town was inside the newly restored venue partying.

"Uhh .... hi," Moff (MoffettMephit Resident) nervously grinned when I approached him just after the incident, "We uhh, had a thing." After some moments to compose himself, he stated, "I dunno what's going on. ...  We were at the opening. It was a good party. Fun, great music. And all of a sudden it was....we all thought the DJ was playing with us. 'Cuz we heard these, ya know how in the movies, they do laser fire? It sounded like that. Ya know, that 'pew, pew, pew.' And, of course, explosions and weird sounds. But we thought it was the DJ. But I noticed it was loud, but not coming from the speakers. So I snuck a peek outside and saw, well, this. So I told everyone to get out....and then well, here we are. Most of the folks went to go check on their homes."

The clues as to what happened are few. Moff did have a picture from Flying Pickle owner Sheba Metaluna (shown left) and showed it to me. "There were like 30 people out here. All taking pictures," he explained, "I imagine there's better than that one. And we didn't really see much, until we got out here. But by that time, I guess it was over." As of the writing of this article, no one else has posted a picture or shared it with the Newser.

One other clue was that the mystery "crop circle" patterns that appeared on the city streets a couple months ago have changed from their previous black color to glowing. " I mean, I can't explain it," Moff struggled for words, "The Galleria.... this glowing paint or whatever.... I mean it's not even glowing. It's giving off light....and now all this."

What could have caused all this? "This must have been a gas leak or something," Moff stated at one point, "Oh, I have to believe there's gonna be an investigation." The buildings might not be repaired that quickly, "I dunno what they'll let us do until that's done. Well, we'll get our police investigators on it. There's gotta be a reasonable explanation for all this. There were a lot of witnesses thought, at least after the fact."

Moff told the Newser he would inform us of any findings. Despite what looked like a flying saucer on Sheba's picture, Moff felt there had to be another explanation, even though a strange craft crashed in another of their buildings in mid-December, "I'll let you know what we find. ... I uhh....yeah, whatever we find out, but really, I mean....flying saucers?" He looked at the scenes of destruction, "I guess I better call the Crux Construction Company, again." Gin Ghostraven made some random comment, "At least no one found a gun laying around!"

Looking around, a number of buildings, all in the southwest corner of the sim, were damaged or destroyed, with piles of rubble and pools of water all over the place. While searching around, one of the walls had red stains that looked suspiciously like blood. There were no bodies or body parts nearby, though, at least not uncovered by rubble.

Stay tuned for further details.

Bixyl Shuftan

Addition: The following was posted on Montecito Bay's Discord by Becky Nosferatu:

"Ardor here, bringing you the Dragon-Eye scope today... As I've recently been hired by the council to do snaps of the city from high up- When I left my cave last night and flew to the island, I was stunned to find this disaster!  I've been told by City Officials that there was no casualties, unless you count Wasa Bay Sushi and the Sunset Diner a casualy. I do... what is it that all the younglings say today? 'Press F for respect?' I don't know what that manes, but... do it. On the upside of no living casualities, I must stress that you try to find an alternate rute to Avagora. I've used my Magic to edit the teleporters at the main landing. Use that instead. I'll keep you all posted, but... try not to panic."

Note: The preceding is a fun article based on goings-on by the people of Montecito Bay themselves and not the actions of any griefer.

Update On Montecito Bay's UFO

It's been a few weeks since the Newser reported on the mystery craft that had apparently crashed into the side of one of the buildings in Montecito Bay. So what's happened since then? A little.

Dropping by one event there, I asked what had come about since the crash. Someone commented, "I saw a ufo fly over my house, was a silent wingless black thing." Someone else joked, "I heard that gosh darned Loch Ness Monster was tryin' to get minimum wage at the donut shop on the shoreline again. Gosh darned Loch Ness Monsters."

Moff (MoffettMephit Resident) went into more detail, "So from what I've been told, it's all top secret as far as I can tell. But they don't know what it is. Current prevailing theories are, it's a giant radio controlled model that went horribly awry, or perhaps a top secret military thing. Now the believers are showing up and pushing some alien/UFO theory. You can tell by the angle it hit the building that whatever that thing is had some reasonable altitude."

There was one other matter, the posters of their club events becoming increasingly marked by weird symbols, as well as announcements in Discord. Moff told me, "About the posters, I dunno what's going on there. We create them, they are perfect, and the moment we upload them to the places they go, they somehow get corrupted. I'm wondering about sunspots. I mean, they're uploaded, so there's a data stream involved, so yeah, I guess sunspots could interfere. We're not really finding anything else. Same with the radio streams. They're clean, but then that weird stuff happens."

Of the mystery patterns with a resemblance to crop circles that have appeared in the sim's streets, Moff replied, "The streets department tried. None of their strippers will touch that paint, or whatever it is." Talking to him later, he was saying they would only go so far in trying to remove the symbols as they didn't seem to be doing any harm, "We're still trying to figure out which solvent to use to clean 'em up. So far, none have worked. We don't want to cause an environmental crisis. "

 "This has been a very bizarre year here," Moff told me, then smiled, "I can't wait til the new year!"

Later on, there was a conversation about a NASA craft in development that would stop meteors. Some wag, probably referring to the situation in the city, commented it would be useless against aliens.

What happens next? Time will tell.

Bixyl Shuftan

Montecito Bay

BekNos (Becky Nosferatu) and Moff (MoffettMephit Resident) invited me to a new sim they and others have been working on: Montecito Bay. Built to resemble a coastal resort city of the American South in the mid-20th Century, there was quite a bit there, from store areas, to rentals, to venues, room for special events, and much scenery, a couple with small stories as to how they got started.

Read the story in Places.

Reader Submitted: Taco Dance

(click here if the image fails to load)

From Moffett (moffettmephit) of Furry Fashion, a number of Crux avatars dancing around a huge taco. How did the taco get there and why are they dancing around it? Moffet didn't say.