Second Life Birthday Begins

 

The Second Life Birthday celebration officially began yesterday. There were some technical difficulties as some, including exhibitors who had been in earlier in the day, found themselves unable to teleport over. But eventually the glitch would be repaired,and the residents could all head over to the SLB grounds.

 

The first of the events was Philip Linden's opening speech at the Orpheum Theater. But relogging after a crash, I couldn't see his area of the stage. I ended up getting a picture through Vic Morningon's youtube. You can also see a replay on the Second Life Youtube.

 

Brett Linden spoke first saying a few words then introducing Philip Linden. Philip gave short speech, complementing the audience on their avatars, saying "one of the coolest things that I think signals change in Second Life is the changing avatars that I see." He would give thanks to the creators, as well as the Lindens and Moles involved in The Birthday. He would also give his thanks to Patch Linden, "who was the one who initially created this event and helped us grow it to where it is today." He gave a few statistics, "nineteen exhibit regions with 240 exhibits built by over 500 exhibitors ... over 480 creators participating in the Ship and Hop ... 600 scheduled music and dance performances held across five different event stages ... and there are about 125 volunteers helping as stage crew and greeters, thank you so much."

"As I look at you and all your avatars, I'm reminded of the early days of Second Life," He would talk about how he and Leviathan Linden first imagined Second Life as an "artificial life garden. We weren't even sure exactly what role people would play in the whole thing. ... We didn't know what avatars would look like. ... But ultimately look at us all here today. This room represents an evolution and an enormous amount of content production and changes that you created in the very nature of Second Life. ... we are very much driven by all our collective work." He would comment that he felt one of the reasons Second Life was still around was because it's residents "collectively exist in a place here that can be shaped by all of us." 

He would also comment that when Second Life first started, the total number of sims was smaller than those dedicated to the Birthday event. He would talk about some of the first areas the Lindens made for the residents such as a kind of "Coney Island" amusement park and a "giant black pyramid disco" called AltZoom, SL's first nightclub. Very quickly, the people got control, demolished the first builds, and created things of their own. Philip would also comment Second Life was like an alternative history, noting the social media was often known for it's nastiness and SL was in some ways what could have been in terms of people on the whole treating each other better. "Thank you for being part of this." 

Philip then went over to a kiosk on stage, the "Golden Ticket," saying people would soon be able to click on five of them around the SLB grounds for a chance at a million Linden dollar prize that they could enter every day (more on this later). He stated he would take no questions today, but would answer some at the Meet the Lindens event next week, his being at Monday at 1PM SL time. "Congratulations everyone, it's wonderful to see you. And I hope to see you around the Birthday celebrations. Thank you."

 

 Following the eight minute speech was a period of quiet, then Merryjest Starchild performed the first of the SLB's music events. 

 

 Sometimes he would sing alone, other times he was joined by dancers. But there was one point in which things hit a snag. There was one tribute to the 80s in which the dancers appeared over the stage on giant cassette tapes, then they just vanished. I would later hear the way the dancers were arranged, one cassette touched the sim border, which then cased them to be "yeeted" halfway across the SLB grounds. Some had a soft landing in the water. Some didn't. The short time that was available for rehearsal didn't reveal this possibility. For those wanting to see the performance again, Merry will be repeating it later this weekend at a favorite venue.

 

And the shows are going on today, this weekend, and next week. Two DJs familiar to the Sunweaver community where the SL Newser office makes it's home will be spinning some tunes. Today at 2PM, DJ Minty, aka DJ MTV, will be performing at The Salty Saloon stage at SLB Smoldering (20/252/23). DJ Scratch will be spinning his style at the same venue on early Wednesday June 24 at 2 AM. Another friend of the Newser, DJ Tantari, will be performing at the Golden Palms at SLB Mesmerize (76/184/25) at 3 PM SL time. 

 

Stay tuned for more about the Second Life Birthday.

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Scenes From The Relay

Taken by Carmella Santana (Carmelasia Resident) and posted in Fantasy Fair chat, "See, doing so good." Earlier, she had been talking about a race today at 1PM, " Ima run over alia with my atomic kitty bus!" Seeing this, others chuckled, "Yepp, thats about what I expected to see when I clicked that link."

Pod Accident At Newser Exhibit

A couple days ago, when I was seting up the crew pictures at the Newser's SL12B exhibit, I heard someone shout "Runaway pod!!" Then someone wiped out right on our plot. It was Catboy Qunhua, one of the volunteers.

Fortunately her avatar didn't have any broken bones. Only her pride had a few bruises as she got up and dusted herself off a couple moments after this picture was taken.

As of now, the exhibits are closed for inspection, to be reopened on Friday for minor tweaks and any recommendations by the inspectors.Press Day is Saturday, and finally on Sunday the sims are open to all with the opening of The Birthday.

The Prize Plane

JessicaBelle Dayafter is noted for two things in Second Life. One is being a top pilot in the New Bastogne WW2 combat RP. The second is for being a designer of planes designed for use in this and similar combat RP areas, as well as fun for casual flight. Her German FW190 is her best known plane, but also developed a rendition of the US Navy Grumman Hellcat.

During the planning of the Second Life Newser party JessicaBelle Dayafter agreed to put up one of her JessicaBelle Aeronautic Productions planes as the big prize. The choice of planes was awarded during the second party to Kikas Babenco. We told her to contact Jessica for the plane, as well as sending Jessica a message.

Later on, I had a few words with Jessica. She gave me a few screenshots, “ I took the pics near the Flying Tigers sim, ‘cause the sim owner has my planes on display. She loved them so much.” She told me she had gotten in contact with Kikas and they met up. Kikias was given the choice between the FW190 and the Hellcat, and chose the FW190. There was one small complication, “It was her first time flying in Second Life. So I was trying to teach her.”

The results of Kikas’ training were, interesting, “The FW-190 is real fast. I told her many times this, and not to go above 40% throttle.” Trying it out in the Flying Tigers area, the plane flipped over, and she accidentally pressed the throttle, and the plane “was dragging us along the dirt.” So she had her guest-pilot a slower Stuka. It worked better, “had a leisurely ride around the combat sim,explained in great detail,and was about to have her try again but she had to log.”

The two met up later in the day and training resumed, but they soon found they weren’t alone. One of the opposing team’s pilots had spotter her, “He must really not like me. I was showing her how to fly in the Stuka, we're still almost 2 thousand meters up, and he comes gunning at us. Hee-hee.” And without VICE turned on, the fighter inflicted no damage for all his efforts.

It was an eventful day for Jessica.

Bixyl Shuftan