Brandi Streusel Back Online, "Two Vixens And A Wolf" At Cutlass, Other Sunweaver News

Early this month, it was announced that Brandi Streusel had taken an indefinite break from Second Life. The Newser is happy to report that the little mousegirl of the Sunweaver/Angel community is back, and doing some music DJing, " I've missed both so much." She is currently playing at Python's Dance Club on Wednesdays.

Also, the "Two Vixens and a Wolf" radio show, which the Newser reported on recently, is getting a new location to listen in from inworld besides their studio in Rabbit Valley: the Sunweaver's main club and hangout of Club Cutlass. Svetlana Snowpaw (Sarah Golem) made the following announcement on Tuesday July 17.

Hello I just wanted to let everyone know about our fairly new Radio show "2 Vixens and a Wolf" we are going live at 5PM SL Time (27 Minutes) you can listen in at allfurradio.com for our 3 hour furry talk show which we do EVERY MONDAY (Today is exception due to technical difficulties) from 5PM-8PM SL TIME

Unfortunately, not all the news from the Sunweaver community has been good. On Monday or Tuesday this week, community leader Rita Mariner was taken to the hospital due to an infection. She was released Wednesday. Also Dusk Griswold's real-life spouse has been in the hospital for several days. Her condition was initially serious, but she has been recovering and will hopefully be home again soon.

Bixyl Shuftan

Science Friday

Becky Shamen's journeys across Second Life recently took her to the Sci-Lands, and the meeting place every for a group of listeners for the weekly radio show "Science Friday." Science Friday has a history in Second Life, some years ago the host having an avatar here and taking questions from the inworld audience. Sadly this came to an end, but fans of the show continue to meet up every Friday to listen and discuss the topics.

Read Becky's story in Extra.

Better Late Than Never

Quite a bit has happened in recent days, such as Rod Humble's resignation and the head of the UCCSL's conclusion about Linden Lab and the ToS controversy.  Regrettably, this meant a few noteworthy events weren't mentioned. Still deserving of mention, here they are.

Wounded Warrior Benefit Raises Close to 120,000 Lindens

On January 26, the monthly Wounded Warrior fundraiser took place at Veterans Isle. From 5PM SL time to a bit after 9PM SL time (Midnight EST), four musicians performed live in front of the crowd. Besides Frets Nirvana who organized the event, there was PonDman Haalan, Ganjo Mokeev, and the popular Mankind Tracer. When the last singer was finished, they had raised about 115,000 Lindens. But the donations kept coming. About a half hour later, the total had gone up to a few shy short of 120,000.


We raised 115k Linden at last nights Wounded Warriors Benefit. That means we will be sending a little over $400 to Wounded Warriors for the month of January 2014. Thank you to all who supported and to the great performers. Pondman Haalan, ( Alton Rex), Ganjo Mokeev and Mankind Tracer ( Seth Regan). You were fantastic. ...  Remember, this need does not get smaller. It only gets bigger. Count the blessings that so many have sacrificed to allow us to have. Thank you all for supporting.


Veterans Isle holds Wounded Warrior benefits by Frets Nirvana on the last Sunday of every month.

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ROMA Celebrates Paganalia

While the Steamlands were having their Winter Games on the weekend of January 25 and 26, the ROMA area was having its Paganalia festival. Things started off on Saturday with a roleplay ritual for Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, and Tellus, or "Mother Earth" to the Romans. The ceremony was done in Latin with an English translation. The two other events that day were fishing and a crocodile race. Sunday would see a recreated ancient Egyptian ritual, then the Grand Feast which offered lots of food and dance.

The final event was the "Legio XIII Death-match," in which ROMA's legionnaire's fought one another with sword and shield in one on one elimination combat with the winners of the first round taking on one another in the second, and so on. The match was held on a bridge over spikes. If a player fell, he or she was out. The semifinals had one close match with each legionnaire's combat meter close to one another as damaging blows were felt. The result was both players knocking each other out: a rare occurrence in ROMA's legionnaire fights. The winner was Tarvos Cilvrnigvs (Tarvos Resident), whom walked away with a 1000 Linden prize.

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The Drax Files Radio Hour (With Jo Yardley)

Following the first episode of Draxtor Despres' radio show, the program continued to be broadcasted every Friday morning in Second Life, with the episodes available for later listening on the show's webpage. Yours truly planned to listen to each one before writing about it, but time constraints left that a nonoption.

Episode 2 discussed the legacy of the late entertainer Osprey Therian whom passed away recently. Other topics included the Redzone controversy, NSA snooping, net neutrality, and Philip Rosedale's High Fidelity.

Episode 3 featured an interview with Esteban Winsmore. discussing a documentary about virtual reality by Loki Eliot, and a Google Glass user getting arrested.

Episode 4 discussed the resignation of Rod Humble, and the impending shutdown of Cloud Party.

Sorry these stories didn't get attention until now, but better late than never,

Bixyl Shuftan

Bruce Boxleitner to be Interviewed on Krypton Radio

Krypton Radio, which broadcasts in the Steelhead Estates and other places in Second Life, as well as outside the Grid, will be having a guest known to science fiction fans on one of it's shows. This Saturday on "The Event Horizon" radio show, Bruce Boxleitner of Babylon 5 and Tron fame will made a guest appearance. Boxleitner has a new show in development, Lantern City, a Steampunk series.

Fuzzball Ortega, who is known on Krypton Radio as personality Gary DaBaum, felt that Second Life's large population of steampunk fans, would take great interest about this week's topic.

The Event Horizon airs every Satruday night at 9:00 PM SLT. It is a panel discussion show with writers, artists, filmmakers and others in the science fiction, fantasy, comic book and gaming world.

One can listen in at Krypton Radio here: http://listento.kryptonradio.com:8000 .

For more information on Lantern City, click here: http://www.lanterncitytv.com/ . One can also watch this trailer on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TzTT_gYMyw .

Apperance at Cypress Rosewood's “When Worlds Collide”

On Monday evening at 7 PM SL time, I made an appearance on the “When Worlds Collide” talk show, hosted by Cypress Rosewood. Cypress is a musician in Second Life, playing his unique style in a tall elven avatar, but he also does this talk show once a week. His normal routine, first he plays another musician’s music or have the musician play it himself. Then he reads an article about Second Life or the Internet in general. And finally, interviewing his guests.

Cypress does his show on a set in front of an audience in the Native Lands sim. It’s also broadcasted on Radio Free Nashville 107.1 WRFN-LP (http://www.radiofreenashville.org/). It’s a “100-watt station” covering the Nashville Tennessee suburb of Pasquo. The show runs from 9 to 10 PM local time.

I can’t remember whose music was playing, but the article was from the “Guardian” about how computers and the Internet may be rewiring people’s brains. Then it was my turn. Cypress was polite and friendly as an interviewer, the questions ranging from how I got here, to how I got to be an online journalist, to some of what I’ve covered. All in all, I would say things went well despite my having “a voice for newspapers,” and I got to mention a few certain people and places (notably the reporters here).

Cypress has had some hard luck in recent months. First a robber broke into his home, stealing thousands of dollars worth of goods. Then came the Nashville floods, which hit both his home and business. Despite these blows, Cypress has come back and continues to perform in these two different roles in the media.

The “When Worlds Collide” set is at Native Lands (232, 140, 29). The show runs Mondays on 7 PM SL time.

Bixyl Shuftan

Science Friday - “Making Science Radioactive” in Second Life

On July 23rd 2010, I was able to attend the broadcast of Science Friday in Second Life. From about 10AM to Noon SL time (1-3PM EST), the National Public Radio program Science Friday is broadcast in the north west corner of the Science School sim, in the Sci-Lands, which includes places such as the International Space Museum and the NOAA area.

The setup for the show was fairly simple, a couple blocks with its name, a blackboard, a chair next to the blackboard, and during shows numerous chairs in the air. This is not lag hiding stands under the chairs. To get up and into the circle of chairs, one has to sit on the chair on the ground, and it promptly flies up into the air, a copy left behind in it’s place. In the middle was a kitty tip jar, asking for donations.

This show talked about a variety of subjects. Their first subject was “How Pleasure Works,” which they talked about why people consider things pleasing, including why some people apparently like being scared or having pain inflicted, which got some chuckles among the audience. They also talked about the race nearly a century ago to see whom would be the first man to the South Pole between Amundsen and Scott. Next was a robot fish which could get other fish to follow it. The second hour of the program talked about the latest news on AIDS. There was also a discussion about the geology behind oil fields, why were some more productive? Finally, they talked about the climate scientist Stephen Schneider whom died that week.

Science Friday has a history in Second Life. In the past, the program host, Ira Flatow, appeared in his own avatar at the set. Residents could IM him questions about the topic discussed. But in late May, I was told by a resident that the broadcasts in the Metaverse would soon be ending, one of the reasons being the cost of the virtual land. But as it turned out, it was not the end. Others stepped in to give the Science Friday set a new home. Kat2 Kit provided the tip jar to collect donations.

The Science Friday set is located in the Science School sim at (26, 210, 26). The Science Friday Radio program has a website at: http://sciencefriday.com/. Kat2 Kit had a video of some of the program in the ‘net: Here.

Source: Science Friday

Bixyl Shuftan