Emerald Christal Golf Course Okay, For Now

 

Last month, we reported that the Emerald City Golf Course was in danger of shutting down due to lack of funds. Several days ago, caretaker Laz Dresler announced that the course had raised enough to keep going for another month.

 
Thank you all you amazing individuals that love golf here and continue to donate to the  games at ECGC.

We made our Tiers Goal for Our November Tiers., But please don't forget...  Tiers NEVER END! SO FORE!! 

 

So the golf course is up for another month. But as Laz mentioned, they still need cash for December.

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

A Sunweaver Christmas Miracle: Fundraisers Save Home From Foreclosure

 

 

On Friday December 23, there was a fundraiser event at Club Cutlass. The usual two hour Friday night event was turned into a six-hour marathon as five DJs played music to the crowd. A few days before, Perri Prinz had come forward saying she and her partner Recoyote Mindes were facing a real-life eviction due to their landlord both raising the rate and moving up the date of their next payment from the middle of January just after after Rec's paycheck would come in to the first, and they had exhausted their savings.

Tonight we are having the Battle of the DJ's benefit for Reco and Perri, if you can't make it here, please drop what you can here!  https://paypal.me/RECoyote

The final idea was for a "Battle of the DJs" going from 4 PM SL time to 10 PM, with six tip jars placed just in front of the DJ booth, and the dance poles beside it. Five were for the DJs, the six for Perri Prinz where people could donate to her any time. To avoid taking a cut when buying Linden dollars, there was also the option to donate directly to Rec via Paypal. The five DJs taking part were Alexandra Tymets, Mattie Carlton,  Snowy HunniBunni Lefavre (Skylark Lefavre), Cynthia Farshore, and Perri Prinz herself.

There were a few issues, miscommunications, and snags along the way, which was no surprise as there were just a few days to get everything ready. Paypal itself was also an issue as they had supposedly enacted a rule in which they could heavily fine users for posting "misinformation" online, and hours later revoked it. But with the home of a neighbor at stake, the event went through.

DJ Lexi started things off at 4 PM SL time. Next at 5 PM was DJ Mattie. At 6PM was DJ Snowy, playing at her usual time slot. at 8 PM was DJ Cynthia. And DJ Perri closed things off at 9 PM. The themes for each set were Christmas, or some variation of it such as "Country Christmas" or "Rockin' Christmas." Club owner Rita Maniner would put prizes of 1000L on each of the two boards for each set, one session getting 2000L. But winners would usually donate all or part of their winnings to Perri's jar, as well as the DJs donating what they were tipped. 

By 10 PM, a little over 76,000 Lindens had been raised at the Cutlass fundraiser. This was a little more than $300 USD before the Lab would take a cut. By itself, this was less than half of the $860 USD needed. But people also sent in money through Paypal, including one who wished to remain anonymous who told me he sent $500, which Perri confirmed. "Yes we did," Perri answered when asked if enough had been raised, "My poor math skills put the total at $1,435.77." This was much more than what was needed. Perri told me she would likely use the extra money to help with future medical expenses.

Once again the Sunweavers came through, and demonstrated the good that virtual worlds can accomplish.

 

Addition: Perri won the "Battle of the DJs," followed by Mattie, then Snowy.

Bixyl Shuftan

Gofundme Fundraiser for Maxwell Graf Succeeds

 

Over a decade ago, the Newser wrote about Maxwell Graf, or Timothy Jackson in real life, in 2010 over his deleting his sim to protest content theft. A few years later, he asked for some help to avoid an eviction in real life of himself and his wife, and residents answered generously. But soon after disaster struck and they lost their home anyway. The following year she was badly hurt in an accident. Still, they found a new place and rented it monthly, making plans to get a lasting home. But then the property they were renting was bought, and the new owner told them they had to leave. They did get an offer accepted on a mobile home. But their savings weren't enough. So they started a Gofundme and asked for help. "We are so close to having some stability," he stated, "We need your help desperately to keep from becoming homeless again. Please fund us if you can."

Over the next several days, the fundraiser would collect $4675 US Dollars. Max was happy with the results, and closed the fundraiser.

We have reached our goal ... so have locked accepting further donations, other than continue to keep this open. We have what we needed, what we asked for and more than we dared to home. Thank you to all who shared, reposted, blogged, upvoted, linked, and most of all to all who donated. .. Your kindness and lvoe made every difference. We are lifted by others.

For those still wanting to help out Maxwell, they can purchase items from his Rustica furniture store at Rustica (130/116/58), which has a Marketplace page.

Hat Tip: Ryan Schultz

Bixyl Shuftan
 

RFL Season Concludes

 

While the Relay Weekend in early June was the high point of the 2021 Relay for Life fundraising season, the end didn't really come until yesterday, June 30. With the volunteers on the verge of beating a season fundraising record that had lasted for seven years, they came together to make one last push.

Read the story in Extra. 
 

Benefit Concert At Veterans Isle Raises Over 135,000 Lindens

On Sunday October 21, Veterans Isle was the scene of  their monthly benefit concert. The event, organized in part by Frets Nirvana, had a DJ and several musicians singing live for donations. The money raised goes to the Homes For Our Troops charity.

We are sponsoring our monthly benefit for Homes For Our Troops tonight.  Waya Snowpaw has already kicked it off.  Up next is Amforte Clarity at 5 PM!  Come on out …support this great cause and have a great hour of music!

As the performers were on stage, people in the crowd put cash in house-shaped kiosks on either side of the stage. Last on stage was guitarist Reggie Sunset, whom sung until about 9PM SL time. By that time, 135,840 Linden dollars had been raised.

"Thank you everyone for coming out and supporting HFOTS! We appreciate you all. And Mr Frets! Thank you!"

The mission of Homes For Our Troops is, "To build and donate specially adapted custom homes nationwide for severely injured post-9/11 Veterans, to enable them to rebuild their lives." The charity has been given a four-star rating by Charity Navigator. To learn more, go to  https://www.hfotusa.org/


Bixyl Shuftan

Charity Concert At Veterans Isle Raises Over 273,000 Lindens

On Sunday September 30, Veterans Isle held their monthly benefit concert. From 11AM to 4PM SL time, one DJ and several live musicians performed for the crowd, DJ Waya Snowpaw, The Vinnie Show, Erin and Satin, Singergirl, and Austin Moores. The event was organized by Frets Nirvana.

Dropping in the second to last hour while Austin Moores and his performers were on stage, well over 100,000 Lindens had already been raised, going into two house-shaped kiosks on either side of the stage. There were some match challenges in which someone agreed to match if a certain amount was donated within a certain amount of time. This included Austin, "OK I just put in my 10,400 as a match. And thank you!" People were happy to lend a hand to needy veterans, "They are not forgotten." "We'll NEVER forget what they've done for us...for our country." "NEVER !" "And the King will answer then, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'  Mathew 25:40"

As the concert went into it's last hour with Singergirl (Singergirl Mode) on stage, the donations continued. The total passed 150,000 Lindens, then 200,000. When Singergirl's set was over at 4PM, there had been 231,000 Linden dollars donated. But the donations continued. Checking later, a total of 273,500 Linden dollars had been raised for the event. This is the second month in a row at least a quarter million Lindens had been raised.

The mission of Homes For Our Troops is, "To build and donate specially adapted custom homes nationwide for severely injured post-9/11 Veterans, to enable them to rebuild their lives." The charity has been given a four-star rating by Charity Navigator. To learn more, go to  https://www.hfotusa.org/


Bixyl Shuftan

Update on Becky Nosferatu's Sister: Success

It was almost a month ago in which Becky Nosferatu's real-life sister was admitted to the hospital for an aneurysm in the brain. Becky didn't have the money to make what could be the last trip to see her, so she called out for help for people to donate a little cash. People in both Second Life and real life responded, and she had enough to make the trip over. Over the weekend, she offered the following statement.

So for those who are in the know, my sister was hospitalized due to a mild stroke that caused an Aneurysm. She's been hospitalized for a month now, due to them not able to get her levels stable enough to have a surgery to REMOVE said Aneurysm.

Long story short; on Tuesday the 11th, she was strong enough to get the surgery and lived through it. I asked for donations, scrambled up any money I could from RL and Online Friends so Monica and I could go see her. She's doing fantastically well, far better than any of the doctors could have imagined and by next week, she will be out of the ICU and being sent to a rehab hospital to get her legs back (She was in a medical coma that had her paralyzed from the neck down for a whole month, mind you) and to heal her tracheostomy wound.

I was only gone for a week, but I can't thank any of you enough that has donated money and linden dollars. That whole week was me preparing to see her, which I did yesterday. They told us that we had to put on like... these weird gowns that where really scratchy and rubber gloves. I left my cane in the doorway so it didn't bring in any bacteria.

 It was painful, for both of us. She, like me, wasn't expecting at all what would happen. She was laying on the bed, on her back. Her hair was wild and there where so many tubes and wires going everywhere all around her. She had her hands wrapped up because of the tube from her tracheostomy, you know, so she didn't rip it out. And she was writhing on the bed. I think she was still really to delirious to understand what was going on, but when I entered, she stopped moving around.
She saw me walk into the room, didn't realize it was me (cause I keep my hair so short now,) and went wide-eyed when she saw me. I took her hand, and smiled and said "hi, sis." She immediately started crying. She mouthed the words... something along the lines of "Why are you here?" Or "Why did you come here?" or something to that effect. I just leaned over and told her "Because I love you." There wasn't anything more needed to be said. We both just started crying and I wiped her tears away with a napkin. I told her that I was so proud of her for getting this far, and that after all that's happened, for her to never stop fighting. She was still... uh... pretty sedated; kept looking around the room and I noticed she focused on Monica a lot. So I looked back at her and she started crying again. I caught the words "She's so pretty" or "She's very pretty," but I couldn't be to sure. I told her I wouldn't be there long, that I flew all the way to just see her and she told me "You shouldn't see me like this." I told her that I would see her no matter what, cause I loved her. Then we both REALLY started crying. By the end of it, I just rubbed her arm and said "You stay strong, you hear? Prove to the world us FAMILYSURNAME are the strongest there is." And I told her bye.

The rest of that day was... hellish. I couldn't sleep, I had allergies and nightmares. Dad and I both where super irritable and our road rage was even worse than normal. But I'm glad I saw her. It made it very real in my head what she went through. What her son and husband went through. And the rest of our family.

This was far more than I intended to write, but, I'm glad she's recovering. And I hope that she gets to go home soon to her 3 year old son and her husband. And I honestly couldn't have seen her, or the family I haven't seen in over 10 years. I feel she'll only get better now, as the stent they put in her did exactly what what they expected. She can only get better from here. She will never be, 100%, but she is still my sister and my family are nothing but super fiery ***holes that don't know when to quit.

Again. I thank you guys far more than what you could ever know.
Becky Nosferatu

Firestorm Fundraiser Decleared a Success

It was late last month that Team Firestorm started a "Gacha" fundraiser to help pay for a new server and other expenses. A few days ago, team leader Jessica Lyon declared it a success.

Once again I find myself flabbergasted by the level of community support we receive from our users. In just over two weeks we have raised just over L$1.3 million lindens between Gacha sales and donations! This will be more than enough to keep us going for a few more years.

Our server admin, Mygoditsfullofstars, has already upgraded us to one new server and you should see faster download times as a result. He’s now very busy working to upgrade and migrate all our other things over to a better server too. There is even enough now to cover our Kakadu license renewal, possibly for two years!

The Firestorm team and I are forever grateful and appreciative for the support we receive from our community.

While there are a still a few more goods for sale in the fundraiser area, Team Firestorm is collecting no more.

Special thanks to all who gave donations, many were very generous! Special thanks to Kio Feila as well for all her hard work trying to keep the shelves stocked. Thank you also to all our Gateway volunteers and managers for enduring the additional traffic! Thank you all SO MUCH for your support!

Fundraiser at Veterans Isle Raises Over 287,000 Lindens

On Sunday August 26, a fundraiser on Veterans Isle took place. It was a monthly event for the "Homes For Our Troops" charity organized in part by musician Frets Nirvana. Several other live performers took part, including Zak Claxton, Toxie Darkmatter, Dirtydee Sweetwater, and Savannah Coronet. "Come on out, enjoy great music, and help support our extremely wounded vets!"

The fundraiser took in 287,300 Linden dollars, collected by the two kiosks on both sides of the stage. This was the first time more than a quarter million Lindens were raised for the charity at a single event.

The mission of Homes For Our Troops is, "To build and donate specially adapted custom homes nationwide for severely injured post-9/11 Veterans, to enable them to rebuild their lives." The charity has been given a four-star rating by Charity Navigator. To learn more, go to  https://www.hfotusa.org/

Bixyl Shuftan

Team Sunbeamers Reach Emerald

It was just a few days ago in which Rita Mariner, the captain of the Relay for Life's Sunbeamers, challenged the team to get them to Emerald rank fundraising status. And once again, the team pulled through. Late Saturday night, Rita announced that the team had crossed the 625,000 Linden dollar mark. And for the third time this season, the team achieved a level it never had before.

Thanks to generous donations from Cynthia, Royce and myself.  we are now Emerald.  I have gone GREEN for a month.  Sweet!

And of course, Rita lived up to her promise of changing to her appearance. So for a month, she'll be a glowing-green bunny avatar.

In the meantime, the Relay season goes on. The "Bid Me Buck" fundraiser is still going on. And there are several more days to enjoy the Relay track sims before they fade away. The Relay Wrap-Up, the final day of the Relay season, is scheduled for the last weekend of the month on Saturday July 28.

Bixyl Shuftan

Press Release: RFL - Hitting the Ground Running.

Hi Relay World!

Everyone has hit the ground running, and the RFL Of SL is filled with feet, paws, hooves, shoes and boots taking a stand. We have everyone getting loud in group chat. We have over 200 amazing events so far, attracting people from all over the grid to finish this fight. A chorus is filling this grid, with each and every one of your voices being heard. "We WILL make this a future without cancer!"

So many of you have gotten down to work, and have no plans to slow down. We're not quite yet to April, and along with having already raised $111,000+, many teams have already made their way into precious metal and gemstone levels. One team has already hit sapphire. Five more now sit at platinum. Six others are currently gold. A dozen have reached silver. And, incredibly, 56 teams have already made their way to bronze, and undoubtedly, we will watch all those numbers - and our total - climb over the next few months.

The unity we have seen already has been inspiring, to say the least, as teams have worked together on events, and so many people have made their presence felt throughout all of Relay.

What an amazing March it's been. But, knowing you all the way I do, I know the best is yet to come.

The purple army is on the move. Get loud, and get louder, because cancer fears noise just as much as it fears the walker.

What an amazing beginning to what will be our greatest season ever. The Future Is Now... Let's make it one without cancer!

Madonna Milena

World of Warcraft Numbers Soar to Over Ten Million

Over time, "World of Warcraft," the world's most popular Multiplayer Online Game, has declined in numbers since it's peak of twelve million in 2010. It's numbers would briefly climb after an expansion, then fall again. While still the envy of other game companies, by June 2014 numbers had fallen to 6.8 million, about half of it's peak.

It was known that the latest expansion "Warlords of Draenor" was providing some boost, as 600,000 gamers signed up ahead of time. As it turns out, far more did. On November 19, Blizzard announced that the number of people subscribing to their game had passed ten million. "Blizzard Entertainment today announced that as of the first 24 hours of the expansion’s availability, more than 3.3 million copies had sold-through^† and the game’s global subscriber base had passed 10 million, with growth across all major regions." Blizzard had not seen these numbers since early 2012.

Mike Fulter of Game Informer commented, "I strongly suspected WoW would rebound, but not by this much. Whether Blizzard can hold onto these returned players in the long-term remains to be seen. Even if numbers start to trail off once more, it shows that there is still great interest in new content for the decade-old MMO." The magazine also mentioned that day that Activision, which is part of the same corporation as Blizzard but exists as a separate entity, settled a lawsuit concerning a buyout a year ago.

The opening day of the fifth expansion of the game was plagued with technical problems, blamed in part due to a Denial of Service attack traced to China. The size of the numbers of people signing up suggests that the problems were at least somewhat less due to hackers, and somewhat more about the expansion being a bigger success than Blizzard expected.

Sources: PC Gamer, Game Informer, Blizzard 

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab's Blocksworld Proving A Success

In Janurary, Linden Lab bought "Blocksworld," a game described as a mix of lego and Minecraft" designed for use on the iPad. At the time, it was one of a number of acquisitions by Linden Lab that appeared to some to be shots in the dark. Recently however, Blocksworld has been doing quite well.

According to New World Notes,  Rod Humble announced that Blocksworld had rose to become the third most popular of Apple's iPad application, "Woot, number 3 in the appstore for Blocksworld HD!" In the words of Hamlet Au, "For the first time in its 10 year+ history, Second Life is not Linden Lab's sole hit product." The game was being downloaded at a rate greater than "Candy Crush," which was making "an estimated $880,000 a day. If Blocksworld made just a fourth of that … it would be making more money than Second Life."

Among the responses Hamlet got was, "And how does this help the SL community exactly?" Hamlet reminded that Second Life's source of revenue, land tiers, has been in decline, and before there had been the danger of eventually "Second Life at ultimate risk of going up on the auction block in a fire sale - and who knows what would happen to it then." That it now had another source of revenue, perhaps it would be inclined to take chances in finally lowering it's land tiers. Hamlet was also confident that many of Blocksworld's fanbase would eventually be inclined to try Second Life, suggesting that Linden Lab revive Teen Second Life for young Blocksworld users.

It's good news for Linden Lab that it's revenue problems are starting to ease. Whether that means the fortunes will soon spread to Second Life, time will tell.

Image and article source: New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

128,000 Lindens Raised for Alzheimers/Dementia Research

Yesterday at the "Sweethearts Jazz Original" club, a number of musicians performed to raise money for Alzheimers and Dementia research. Among the singers was Mandkind Tracer (Seth Reagan), and Debi Latte, whom closed the event from 5 to 6PM, "looks like they had a great day. I think they had hit the 100,000 mark right before I started, so that feels good!" When Debi finally got off stage, the amount had gone up to 128,000. There were over three dozen avatars at the club while she was singing.

Debi Latte sings live at a number of clubs in Second Life.

Philip Rosedale: "The Media Is Wrong, SecondLife Didn’t Fail"

In an article written by Sarah Lacy for her online magazine Pandodaily, the writer came across Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab and Second Life. Rosedale talked about what the writer called, "the all too familiar hero-villian press cycle," about how national publications ignore companies in Silicon Valley until it's certain to be big, "then they make the founders into two-dimensional cover boy 'overnight' successes. … And then when it starts to fall apart, they either become evil or stupid. Either way, they're mocked, written off, and forgotten about."

It's never that simple for a startup, Lacy wrote, and certainly not for Second Life, which was praised as the next big thing, and then dismissed and mostly forgotten. It's audience had stopped growing, and "many consider anything that's not growth" or going pubic or sold, as "death."

Rosedale argued that contrary to what the national media might believe, Second Life didn't fail, it was a success. It currently has about a million active users, almost the same number it had at it's peak. when IBM and other companies were setting up places there. That the number never fell should still be considered a success "in a world were fads quickly come and go, especially with 700 million a year in virtual goods traded every year.

So why didn't the numbers grow, even with virtual worlds a success in other countries? Either Americans have a failure of imagination, "or he was way too early." Rosedale felt most people desire what they know, and if they can't get it can escape through other means such as TV, getting as Lacy put it "the culture that's already built for them, but without the responsibility to build it themselves."

As for being too early, Rosedale was proud to think that might be the case, "We were early to an idea that most people thought would eventually happen … What I'm most proud of is that we found a way to make that into a profitable company years earlier than it should have emerged, through our hard work."

In an economy all about continuous growth, Second Life might seem easy to ignore. But after ten years, it's still going and self-sustaining. Lacy commented if her company built that, "I'd still be damn proud of my team."

Read Lacy's article in full Here.

Special thanks to Solar Hydro

Bryn Oh’s Immersiva's Crowdfunder-Style Fundraiser a Success

While SOPA and PIPA made headlines last week, there were other events of note on the Grid. Among them was news about noted artist Bryn Oh and her artistic Immersiva sim. A Crowdfunder - type project to fund the place reached it’s goal after only a day after it began.

To begin with, the Immersiva sim was closed in December when her patron ran out of money. She with Kiana Writer of Madpea wrote a joint letter to Linden Labs to try and convince them to let her keep the sim. It was rejected. Following that, she decided to try a crowdfunder style prioject at Indegogo.com. Set to run for sixty days, with larger donations would come gifts. A donation of fifty dollars would get one a rabbicorn scultpure for one’s Second Life account. A hundred dollars would get one five sculptures “and the private use of Immersiva on your rez day.” $500 would get one an ink drawing. $1000 an oil painting. $3,000 a commissioned painting. $500 and up would also get one listed in Imersiva as a sponsor.

To everyone’s surprise, Bryn got a large donation from film director Peter Greenway. As it turns out, Greenway’s a sponsor of art in Second Life. He donated six months worth of teir for Immersiva. Hamlet Au quoted him as saying, "In the exciting new arena of immersive Art which offers so much to the future of communications, Bryn Oh is an important, fascinating and innovative pioneer and should definitely be supported."

Not only have the donations continued, but she raised over $6,000 in a single day! This is more than the original goal of $5400. Only a few hundred more has come in since then, but the massive start ensures the fundraiser is a success.

For those who want to contribute: Click Here. Among those who’ve donated are Crap Mariner and Thinkerer Melville.

Sources: Bryn Oh, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan