the tour of the Corsica Continent

Today I have started the next stage of my Grand Sailing Tour of the SL continents: the tour of the Corsica sim.



As mentioned in a previous post I have sailed already from the Blake Sea to the north of the Nautilus Continent and up to shores of Corsica. Today I have started where I had left, in the Kinrara sim, and I sailed along the southern shores of the continent until I reached the Elsewhere Harbour, in the sim of Majipoor where Yezdia and Cashew have their home, and I moored the boat on their beach.

The navigation has been smooth enough with the possible exception of two tricky points entering the Silver Serpent sim , where the water is narrow and shallow, and in the Majistral sim where most ways are obstructed by prims and ban lines and I had to loop back on the southern edge, where I found protected water and I could pass.

Optiman, just south of Majipoor was also a problem because it looked open water on the map and instead a big mall has been buit on the water. But it was rather wasy to go around it.

Here are a few images from the trip :

On the Star of Faeria in the Kinrara sim , ready to depart

In open waters

A nice harbor with some great vessels docked there

the southern shores of Majistral, after I found a way around the obstructions there

the entrance of the Elsewhere Harbor. I like the Winterfell flag on the lighhouse :)

Docked in the Bay of Majipoor

with Cas, who came down to greet me

I am getting ready for the next stage and I'll be underway soon. The plan is to loop around the continent and maybe even into Gaeta if I find an open passage

Until then ...

yours truly

W

rezzday party next week

The seventh of April will be my second rezzday. Last year I did not even notice the day, maybe because even if I created the avie in April I did not really started exploring SL until June/July.

But this year I decided I wanted an opportunity to party, so I organized an event. It will be the 5th, a Sunday, in order to minimize the problems of many people spread across the globe. I contacted Radio Riel to provide the musical entertainment. I love their pirate music program and I asked to base the soundtrack around that :)

More to follow in the next days :)

W

Koinup

Koinup is a social media targeted to interconnect the users of many virtual worls, like World of Warcraft, IMVU, Second Life, Opensim Grids, etc. It is possible to share images, videos, storyboards, cross post them to other services like flickr, and manage from one site all the different worlds a user dwells in.

Koinup is an Italian based service and yesterday there were an exhibitor at SMAU, the most important Italian technological fair, that these days is having a session in my own hometown.

It was a great opportunity for my first Real Word/Virtual World mixup and so I went to visit the guys. Pierluigi and Edoardo, the founders, are great guys who welcomed me warmly and we chatted for over an hour about several subjects related to their technology and the virtual worlds.

They have been recently very busy releasing the new "groups" feature of their site and told me that new surprises are coming soon.

I invite everyboy to visit koinup. They do deserve the attention. And it would be also a great opportunity to participate to the currently running contest about the Twelfth Night performance taking place at the SL Globe Theater . So far almost all the pictures in the contest are mine, so you can easily do better ! :)

My account on koinup is Baldr (the name of one of my alts). Came to visit me there too.

Have a great time

W

A great night at the Molaskey's Pub

The Molaskeys's Pub is one of the first places I discovered in SL. It was probably the second place I visited after Book Island, even before Faeria and Winterfell, and I have been visiting it ever since.



Even my very fist SL image published on flickr was taken at the pub :)

The Sunday's live music event are one of my favorite moments in my SL week, they are at an Euro-friendly time, and I try to be there as much as I can.

Last Sunday was simply great. Two of the guys usually entartaining us at the Sunday's events, Lyndon Heart and Patrick Lasalle, teamed up (Lyndon physically reached Patrick's home in RL) and the started to have the show together.



They were simply great. It was a wonderful moment of music and fun. They started talking of having more of these shows and I really hope they do!



Music in SL is going to become something very big in due time, and these guys are helping paving the way!

Have fun !

W

the Relay for Life Clothing Fair

I like the fair ! It may be my favorite event in the Second Life year. It is not because of the shopping. True, I do some shopping and the fact the the money go to a good cause make it easier to spend but I am picky in my tastes and the male choices are very limited (very luckily for my wallet :) ) with respect to the female ones.



Yet I like to be there, to walk among the shops and to get in touch with the work of so many skilled people who create the widest variety of clothes. This year the choice is HUGE. The fair spans 9 sims, 8 of which dedicated to shops.



Of course I also love the entertainment area where a week of music, hunts and shows has been taking place. This year the overall theme for the fais has been "pirate" and I could not like ti more :)



The fair will end tonight. I invite all who have not been there yet to pay a visit. The fair and the people exhibiting there DO deserve to be supported, at least with a visit. But of course dropping a few lindens in the RFL kiosks is even better :)

And I assure you that visiting is fun !

There is also a photo contest associated with the fair. One has to mix at least three outfirst bought at the fair, among those offered in the RFL vendors. Here is my entry. Like it ?! ;)

Have fun

W

the Grand Opening of the Blackfriars Theater

Ina Centaur never ceases to amaze me. She authors some of the best SL I have seen in the two years I have been in SL. Her SL Shakespeare Company and its performances are jewels that should be taken into account by anybody who wishes to talk or write about SL. She builds and textures beautifully. She creates skins with a flavor that is unique around the grid. She manages a literary group and events.

Her latest creation is a in world replica of the Shakespeare’s Historic Blackfriars Theatre. Click on the link or on the poster above to get to Ina's page with first hand information about this beautiful accomplishment.

I have been to visit it and the quality is truly amazing. Everyone who loves beauty in SL should pay a visit.



A grand opening will be held during the next weekend, with special performances of the Twelfth Night - Act 1 currently running twice a week at the nearby SL Globe Theater. The performances will be Saturday 21 at 1 pm SLT and Sunday 22 at 2 pm SLT, and a party and live music will follow. I invite all to be there to enjoy a great performance and a fantastic building.

W



P.S. This is my 100th Blog Post :)

Princess Ivory reading Dr. Seuss

In the recent months Princess Ivory has rapidly built a career as a reader in SL. When voice became mainstream in SL Princess was among those who most strongly opposed it, in part for reasons she detailed in her own blog, in part because she is naturally very shy.

In a bold move, however, Princess started to speak at the end of the year, and nobody has been able to silence her again so far! :)

Princess has entertained us with a number of different readings starting with Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales during the Holidays season, until these days when she is celebrating Dr. Seuss birthday dedicating the entire month of March to his work.



Princess has a wonderful voice for reading and listening to her is an experience that any person fond of storytelling should should have.

Princess reads at the MilkWood Stone Circle every Wednesday at 1 pm SLT. Podcasts of her readings are available at this page.

Come and enjoy ! :)

W

Relay for Life

The Second Life Relay for Life season has kicked off in the past weekend with a number of events all over the grid. I love everything around Relay for Life. It is a great initiative that makes SL a great place to be part of. I have great memories of last year's activities and I fondly remember many night, primming down to visit with friends the clothing fair.

Yesterday I was at the Caledon RFL kick off, in the sky over Wellsian: the Space Pirates of the Caledonian event.



A lot of lovely pirates tunes were played and it was great fun. And of course it was for a worthy cause.

Run to the RFL kiosk near you !

W

Images

Nothing really interesting to say today, but I think I have some nice images to show, so let's get started :)



A couple of days ago I took the Battlestar (my SPD frigate) to a cruise in the and around Blake SeaNautilus. As usual I can't resist the temptation to take some picture of this wonderful and very elegant ship, and among those I have taken I particularly like the one taken in moonlight :)



Sailing is always a great fun and I love when the other boats get closer to get a look at the Battlestar :)

The same day I also took the Battlestar in Caledon waters. I had some doubt to be able to complete a long trip with a tall ship, because some passages in Caledon are very narrow. Instead I was able to sail all the way from Oxbridge to Winterfell even being able go sail through the straits in Morgaine.



And since I have mentioned it, I break the chronological order (I took this just a couple of hours ago) to show a great view of Oxbridge, a place that never cease to amaze me.



And of course, speaking of things that never cease to amaze me, no praise will ever be too high for the guys of the SL Shakespeare Company and their performance of the Twelfth Night - Act 1. Yesterday I have been to the SL Globe Theater for the third time to attend the play and this time I invited Aianna, Mykyl and Princess to come with me. I hope they enjoyed this fantastic show as much as I did, despite a couple of annoying griefers (maybe even too silly to be defined griefers) who had to be muted.



The more I attend the show the more I appreciate the level of the details. Yesterday I concentrated on the animations and gestures that are truly amazing . What a great job they have done!





Before the Shakespeare performance I went to another of my SL favorites. A performance of the Backintimes. I love the feeling of the Dakota Playhouse (in the Phoenix Pass sim) where this couple of reenactors entertain the public with songs and stories of the US Civil War Period. Yesterday's show was Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Songs.





Yesterday I was also in the mood for some fleet action, so I took the Wild Fleet in the Bay of Mishra and I indulged myself in taking some pictures. I do like them. What do you think?





I like the glossy look of the water, even if I can't afford to keep the ultra setting for too long. So, this morning I went in the SW corner of Winterfell, the cursed plot Miss Serra calls it :) , and I took some nice images of the recently redesigned plot and of Laudanum from that corner. The Fluffy Big Clouds setting is one of my favorites and I like the way these images turned out.





Well .. this is all. Until the next time :)

Take care

W

more from the Twelfth Night

Tonight I have been again to the performance of the SCSC's Twelfth Night.
It has been even better than the last week. Tonight I was on my desktop and all the experience was better and smoother. I think that the crew is really up to speed by now because the performance was absolutely flawless. I was able to take more pictures, much better, in my opinion, that the ones I took last week.

I invite all to go and attend one of the show. It is definitely some of the best SL you can experience!

have fun

W

more OSGrid explorations

Just a quick update about the latest OSGrid explorations

Last Sunday I made the first friends there and I visited the sims they created. They were running the sim in their own home PC but the performances were not bad. Better that in SL in a typical laggy weekend actually.

This is an image of Bearpaw Island, a sim belonging to Marcus Llewellyn, beautifully designed.



Yesterday I started to identify the first sailships. This is a nicely designed schooner docked in the SeaPrior Plaza Sim.



The place is becoming interesting :)

W