Dragonhenge LIVES!

I am still amazed in Second Life when I teleport home and land on Dragonhenge, my own sim. I really wanted the name changed when I rented my own openspace sim, even though Dragonhenge is part of the dAlliez estates. I've lived now for over a year in the estates and Alliez is a wonderful landlord. She's quite tolerant of me, and really helped me get settled on the island. :)

Dragonhenge came as a ready-made caldera sim, sorta. The caldera part is only about 75% complete, and it is smoother than what you expect - you can walk on the ridge easily. In the middle, the caldera ridge comes down on both sides to ground level, so you can walk through the ridge, if that makes any sense. You kinda have to see it. (And you can - Dragonhenge is in Search, although I do have a security orb at my home to prevent things, like the large ant that came and crawled on top of me one day, from invading.)

My beach house, built by Roundog Tonic over two years ago, is on the only large level area of Dragonhenge, which is at the mouth of the caldera. As you walk outside, you see a terrain path through the canal that goes through the center of the caldera. The path leads to a circular area in the middle of the caldera, which has an enormous treehouse in it.

My observatory, the Codex Observatory, built by Noelyci Ingmann (of Ingmann Designs) sits on one side of the caldera ridge. Behind it, for now, is a second ridge, thin and jagged intentionally, at the edge of the island. I left water running through the area between the caldera ridge and this second ridge. This is where I hope someday Wyrm Delve (my enormous dragon cavern, built by Maximx Sansome originally on the Hostel sim, before the sim got silly) will live again. Right now it looks a bit odd, but I did want to try my hand at terraforming.

Dragonhenge is still a work in progress. I need to add some landscaping, and perhaps some furnishings in the treehouse. But I love the look - it is so peaceful. This is the third or fourth place I've put my beach house down...I just love it. Roundog totally captured what I wanted.

I love my island. I hope to have many more Ode butterfly hunts on it. :) Come look at it anytime!

Endless Nights - here we must remain

It was a dark and stormy night....

And the nights go on forever. No matter how long we wait, the sun never arises here in this place. The forest is always in shadow, the fortress continuously glowers at the moon, and IT is always out there waiting...plotting...looking for weakness.

Only the strong can transcend the black cloud that enshrouds our world; only the faithful can create the rituals that must be completed to free our souls; only the pure of heart can stand up to the blackness that seeks to destroy all.

Are you one of those that can stand up to IT? Or has IT already darkened your heart, pushing you further and further into the darkness? Are you predator - or prey?

We seek refuge together in our inspiration point, and seek sanctuary constantly from that which infuses our souls with dread. Yet here we must remain, until IT is conquered....here, in this Endless Night.

Can YOU Bring Back the Light?

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Yes, it's true - we're setting up an RP sim! This one is going to be different than any I've visited in SL, though. Our primary goal is as low-lag as is humanly (or dragonly) possible. To that end, Noelyci Ingmann, a close friend and owner of Ingmann Design Group, is doing then entire sim build. He has captured the time rift we want in the sim, and is taking some of his amazingly low-prim prefab buildings and tweaking them in such cool ways. He's also doing some custom builds for us - this will be, besides a great RP sim, a showcase of his works.

So far, we have almost all the builds in place - not the furnishings, or the details, of course, but the BIG stuff. And we're barely over 3000 prims! The only way I've gotten the sim script performance over 15K-ish is by firing weapons, or loading my DCS meter. :) Now, I know it will be higher than that when we have more avatars floating around, but for a baseline, it's as good as I could dream for.

To date, we have a mutant cave, a supernatural commune-style outpost, one of the most beautiful churches in SL for our angels with a path to Heaven, a portal to Hell, castles (of course!), an arena that will be used for tournaments and such, the courthouse with parking garage, an OOC roadhouse from a different time, townhouses, cottages....I'm just amazed at what is out on the sim for so little primmage.

Then we have the hospital - the sight of the rift that keeps us in Endless Nights. You can tell something very bad happened there - the vibes are all wrong, and the glow is...disturbing. Heaven and Hell can be located if you look closely enough - and I've never seen anything quite like these places. (Hint: Look for portals.)

The sim is currently locked down for building, but if you are interested in a guided tour, IM me or Illyana Menges or Stevo Arkin (or Noelyci, but spare him, he's working his cute a** off nowadays on it!). I love to show off just the bare-bones sim.

If you want to sell your stuff there, and it's RP-related, talk to me or Illy. We plan to have only weapons vendors on the ground, behind the courthouse in a Diagonally-type area, and a place in the sky for other RP-related things like clothes, accessories, and just stuff. If lag goes up - vendors will be the first to go.

What kind of RP is on Endless Nights? That will be for the citizens to decide...sorta. :) We already have a few surprises planned. There will be magic...dragons, on occasion...combat...DCS monsters (but NOT the automated, grind-out-XP kind)...some RPC monsters, unlike what I've seen before...and as many other surprises as the staff can come up with.

But the bottom line will be this: Endless Nights will be fun, surprising and FAIR roleplay. The GMs will administer the rules - which will be sparse at first, and stay that way, we hope - to everyone equally. What little commerce is on the ground will be totally RP-related.

Are you interested in bringing back the Light? Can you help us escape? (Do you want to talk about being a GM in our sim?) Talk to anyone mentioned above...but remember, this will not be for the faint of heart.

And the nights go on forever.

The Virtual Hockey League - it's a blast!

A dear friend of mine in SL, Rusty Seisenbacher (bless his drow-y soul), somehow managed to convince me that I might enjoy playing hockey with him. I went to watch a game or two, and as usual, I can't just watch. With Rusty's urging and support, I bit the bullet and agreed to try something new.

Rusty plays in the Virtual Hockey League, SL's newest and by far the best hockey league in SL. I hear there's another one, but it couldn't be nearly this much fun! Anyway, I wanted to get on Rusty's team, the Brain Freeze, but was convinced that I should instead join the Sim Crashers. I'm still not sure why Montecore Babcock, the owner and commissioner of the league, wanted me on his team, but I was flattered. Silly me. ;)

So I find myself out on the ice in my new custom jersey with my name on it. For starters, I didn't know which side of the ice to be on. Did I mention I've been to one - count them, ONE - hockey game in my entire life? I could only see the puck because Monte scripted it to show particles. My crappy laptop (yes, a bit more whinging!) might show me where it was, but by the time I could move towards it, it was gone. The ONLY way I could get the puck was on the faceoffs (or facefoos, which really confused me at first). If I could grab the bloody thing and skate - at least my 5fps version of skating - and shoot fast enough, before anyone got close to me, there was a slight possibiity I could score. A couple of times I even scored in the correct goal, too!

So there I was, barely able to move, not knowing the rules, hardly able to see across the ice - and I'm playing anyway. It is a BLAST! I compare it to combat because of the intensity - when you are in mouselook chasing the puck, nothing else matters. It all goes away. Learning to fight with melee weapons with such a slow machine really has paid off for me. Now that I can move with the best of 'em, I can still use the focus required with that old system.

I have learned that size truly does matter in hockey. Poor Neit goes on major steroids when the jersey goes on, and can now check with the big boys. Monte goes elephant-sized when he guards the goal. The script takes into account avatar volume, so for once being a small-sized avatar is a total disadvantage. (As an aside, I was out dancing the other night with an old friend who tends to favour formal events, and was decked out in my finest. When it was time to play hockey, I asked if he wanted to see me in my uniform. So there, in the middle of the dance floor, still in Random's arms in a ballroom dance, I change into my hockey jersey and skates. I'll upload a picture soon!)

Monte and the rest of the Sim Crashers have been incredibly patient with me as I've learned da Roolz, and practiced checking (by crashing into everyone). Loren Fitzgerald and KK (Kealan Klata) have held my hand and tried hard not to laugh (not very successfully) as I've made the typical noob mistakes. Some of the players from the other teams have been a bit surprised now that my new 'puter allows me a bit more freedom lately. Beavis Beckham (who has hockey down to an art is and impossible to get by) even allowed that I have been getting a teeny bit better. Beth Milos, Nic Renegade, Bunyip Fanshaw, CyberShaman420 Alter, Sugar Zuhrah, so many others - all wonderful players in their own right - have been so supportive and just FUN to be around. You guys are fantastic! Thank you for all your help.

I have been impressed with the scripting for the hockey itself. Monte was the instigator for the whole league, and did a good chunk of the scripting himself. It's easy to use, works seamlessly, and has had amazingly few glitches that I've seen. For SL lately, that's amazing!

But the thing that has impressed me the most about the VHL is the lack of drama. It's a competitive sport, so there has to be some - but the drama has been almost entirely about the game itself. Tempers do flare, and decisions are contested...it's a part of the game. At least in SL, there's no real blood, and it's a good thing!

With Monte's guidance and calming influence, the folks in the VHL are some of the most fun, intelligent and solid people I have met in Second Life. Crises have been handled quietly and with style. All the people who have served as referees have been quietly authorative and shown their leadership.

All large endeavours, in any world, reflect the person who leads them. The VLH reflects the quiet dignity and leadership of Montecore Babcock. Thank you, Monte, for what you have done. It's a tribute to all the folks of SL that there are such enclaves of pure fun to be found. You've done an amazing job.

Now, having said *that*, playing hockey naked is not unheard of - thongs are more common though. ;) Come to Axenfall to watch a VHL game! I may have made it sound quiet and dignified - it is SO not. I double-dog dare ya!

While you're there, throw something at Rusty, if I can drag him back...he deserves it for getting me involved in yet *another* time-intensive, competitive activity. Thank you, Rusty, you grumpy drow, you. ;)

My new 'puter - what a beast!

Anyone that knows me inworld has heard me whinging about my old system. It was SO painful to do anything - windlight totally removed any chance of seeing anything decently, my graphics card just couldn't handle it. I annoyed myself with my whinging. It was way past time to do something about this situation. I started by ordering a Dell monitor - 22", pretty decent resolution, for $200ish. (I found out the hard way that you cannot run SL on a secondary monitor with my ATI video card - it turns the avatar black. That's yet another rant). Then came the next big step.

After much gnashing of teeth and reviewing of specs and reading of reviews, I finally found the MOMD (machine of my dreams), and ordered it - through Best Buy. It was a Gateway system - remember Gateway? At one time, you could see so many of those really cool cow boxes delivered by UPS, but lately...they're gone. So I thought, after a friend showed me this system, maybe - just maybe - Gateway is offering a teaser system to get a foothold back in the market. I wasn't the only one on the 'net that thought so, either. It was a solid system, spec-wise.

So I optimistically ordered this lovely system from Best Buy requesting in-store pickup. It was immediately backordered. I called all four local Best Buys (living in an area that is so heavily populated has to have a few benefits), and was told it either wasn't currently available (2 stores), it was backordered, or it didn't even exist. I waited a week, and called Best Buy to check the status, and was told it was still going to be available, so I tried to be patient.

Then I noticed that after I'd called, someone cleverly added shipping costs to my order. Since it was supposed to be in-store pickup, they had told me it would be shipped for free. I called back. They removed the shipping charges after much discussion (it wasn't pretty), but then told me chances were slim that the system would be delivered. I chose to wait some more.

After a few days, I noticed that Best Buy had reserved the money on my credit card. I took this as a good sign. They didn't take the money, though - it was just authorised. So after another few days, I called Best Buy back and was told that the system order had been cancelled. They promised I'd get the money deauthorised within a week if I cancelled that day.

I went ballistic.

When I used the phrase "bait and switch", I was told that Best Buy had never been in actual possession of my money. This response was so immediate, it was obvious why they did things the way they had. After having a rather heated discussion with one poor woman who had no other answers, I requested to speak to a supervisor. This person assured me he would do his best to get my money deauthorised (AFTER I requested his employee ID, of course). Within two days, my money was back.

So, back to square one. The company I work for is a Dell reseller, but the discount we get for a new system isn't that great. To top things off, the deadline to buy any new systems with XP instead of Vista had just passed. So I did what any good geek does - I went to the Dell Refurbished website.

I had looked here before ordering the Gateway system, and just not found anything that really struck my fancy. My needs weren't that great - at least 4Gb RAM, quad core, GeForce 8800GT-something dual cards, with at least 738M memory, and XP Pro if possible. I was hoping to get a decent sound card and harddrive capacity, but those could be added later if necessary. I decided the Dell XPS 630 was the perfect compromise.

Oh - did I mention I wanted all of this for around $1K? Hey, hope springs eternal. :)

So within ten minutes, I found a system that had everything I wanted, plus a few other things. I started digging deeper into the specs, and it was almost perfect - it wasn't a dual graphics card but had the capability. The sound card was a Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer, which was perfect. It also had a blue ray player, something nice but definitely not required. And best of all, it had XP Pro.

I was almost sold. Then I noticed, in the fine print....it's RED! Now how much of a sign does one need???

Thus was my beastie purchased. (It was a bit more than $1K - $1500ish.) When I got the confirmation, on Friday, June 27th, it gave me a receipt date of July 7th. I was SO excited! A real date! When I got another email the next day, the ship date had been moved to July 2-4. Since I was having it shipped to the office, that was perfect...I might get it for the 4th holiday! I remembered to tell Katie, our receptionist, that I was expecting a fairly large box, probably in a couple of days.

About an hour later, Katie came to my desk to tell my HUGE box was there. Yes - from ordering Friday afternoon, I had the system in my grubby hands on Monday afternoon, June 30!

So I took the machine home, unpacked from this enormous box, and plugged it in. The bloody thing has RUNNING LIGHTS! It looks like it was dropped from a mothership. When I powered it on, I got nothing on my new Dell monitor - nothing. What I did get was 6 beeps, so being the cybergeek I am, I looked up the beep code - video bios failure.

I cracked the case. Now, no new system is really yours until the case is cracked and something is moved around...it's the geek way of marking hardware (far preferable to the cat/dog way). I tried to reseat the video card - but ohmygod, the thing goes the entire length of the box, at least 18" (not that size always matters). I could not budge it.

There was only one thing left to do - call Dell. When I did, and got through the 38495 different phone options and got to a real person, I found out my system had shipped so quickly that my warranty wasn't on file. They were great, though, and after I read them at least a dozen different numbers, allowed that perhaps I had purchased this system.

After two hours of trying to unseat this beast of a video card - which I never completely did, since it's secure on BOTH ends, and I would have to remove an entire plastic case around the process area - and reseating it, it WORKED. Everything worked!

The next step was seeing what SL actually LOOKS like now - and WOW! I see why windlight is so popular, even if it eats low-end systems. Things were GLORIOUS!

I immediately took myself to the laggiest, most horribly-maintained sim I knew of in SL - Obsidian City. I could always guarantee that there would be an amazing amount of high-lag, useless scripted objects lying about there. I wanted a low-end frames-per-second (fps) baseline, and sure enough, I started at OC with less than 10fps. But I could MOVE! On my laptop, I usually averaged 3-4fps max there. I could walk around and look at the silliness far better now! (I'm now banned for pointing out the obvious, typical for that staff. What a shame...I just have to find another lagged-down sim to find my bottom-line worst case.)

Then I went to some of the sims I knew were low-lag, including Dragonhenge - and I saw over 100fps! I was in love. I still am!

The system works so well, I have to dial the graphics level UP to play hockey. I keep going through the walls into the stands, and overrunning the puck. Now, finding butterflies is SO much easier, so I am not complaining! But getting used to high performance is as interesting as it was to learn to function with low performance.

Bottom line - I love this system. It's not failed me yet. Best of all - no more whinging. I promise!

So much to say...TOO much to say!

It's hard to believe I've had nothing to say for over three months...okay, at least here I haven't said anything. I've been thinking why that is, and have come to a very simple conclusion.

I've had too much to say - and didn't know where to start!

So today I will remedy that. I will outline all the things that I want to talk about, and then later I can actually talk about them. What a concept! (All that time writing requirements has to pay off in all lives, right?)

Here's my list:

1. I HAVE A NEW COMPUTER! I blamed my old laptop on many many things, one of them being how hard it is to do more than one thing on it at a time. The poor thing is finally getting a rest, and is used as a reference. The specs, quickly: Dell XPS 630, 4Gb RAM, GeForce 8800GTX 738Mb, Intel® Core2 Q6600 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.40GHz,1066FSB), dual video card capable (and will be soon), and best of all - I've seen 100fps! Everything looks SO different. I can see the ocean - what a concept!

2. I play hockey now. Don't laugh - too long. :) It's a blast! The Virtual Hockey League, designed and run very well indeed by Montecore Babcock, is well-scripted and organised in an wonderfully friendly and easy-to-learn manner. Considering I wasn't even sure which side of the ice to play on at first, everyone has been so patient with me. At 5fps on my old system, playing hockey was about as easy as using Lotus 1-2-3 as a real-time data acquisition system. (Me? Geek? You betcha.) There will be a lot more about this soon as Season 2 for the VHL starts in August!

3. I have my own sim now - Dragonhenge! I woke up one day and realised...I'm paying for a quarter of an island sim already, and for just a few $US more, I could be on an open space sim. Thus was Dragonhenge reborn. Dragonhenge started on the island of Hostel, back when it was a fun place to be. Now, if I can just twist Maximx's arm into bringing back Wyrm Delve!

4. Along with a group of incredibly gifted and fun people, I am helping to create a new roleplay sim - Endless Nights. The sim name is "Endless Nights", and is currently locked down while we're building and creating. Noelyci Ingmann, of IDG Designs, is creating the entire build using some of his unique and ingenious builds. Illyana Menges is the primary driving force for the sim, with her indepth knowledge of roleplay and amazing list of friends. She's just a joy to work with. Stevo Arkin is the third partner in this endeavour, and will be helping in all aspects of creating and running the sim. Anyanka Bisiani will be guiding the sim-wide RP, Kooky Jetaime will be setting up and hosting the webpages for staff and citizens (and helping with Da Roolz - he is the Roolz Nazi!), and Shayna Senne will be helping us run the place. We're counting on help from many of our old (and new) friends to establish a low-lag, fair and fun place to play. It'll happen soon - we're shooting for a grand opening by the end of this month or early August.

5. If there is a god (and her sense of humour isn't TOO wicked) - I may be having not one, but TWO real-life musicians playing for me in Second Life at Max's White Orchid Club! One is a name most people who like classic folk/rock will recognise; the other is not quite as well known yet, but his jazz saxophone is truly amazing. I'm also bugging my friends in the Dreamscapes Project to let me stream them into Max's again. Stay tuned!

6. Butterfly hunts are FUN! If you never try anything else that I suggest here in this blog, try this one. There is only one way to earn your own Ode jewelry, a set of sets created by Random Calliope, and that is to find the butterflies that contain them. I've spent way too many hours lately looking for these bugs...I've almost listed "exterminator" on my cv! Random's jewelry always delights (ask to see it - I have most sets that are available, and 7 that are limited editions), but Ode stands alone. Again, having a very slow system was a great way to learn a LOT about SL, and ways to do things; now I can do them FAST. Come hunt these little critters with me sometime!

7. I'm now the Event Coordinator for the International Spaceflight Museum of Second Life. The ISM is dedicated to showcasing all aspects of spaceflight, including robotic exploration of the solar system, the history of rocket technology, manned spaceflight, and earth-orbiting satellites. If you want to sponsor a piece of space hardware that is represented at the museum, let me know and I'll tell you how.

8. I left the Saints of Hell Motorcycle Club. I would say I miss my friends there, but I talk to most of them still. Some things do run their course; I fear SoH is one of those things. When something goes from being fun to being commercial, it takes the joy out of it for me. I have a lot of good memories from the SoH club, and many many relationships that I cherish. Good luck to you all - and selling the sim is the wisest thing you could have done.


Well...I'll stop here. That should keep me off the street for awhile. I do believe I have way too many lives - both first and second. :) Stay tuned for details. Maybe now I can take one subject at a time and actually SAY something. ADHD and chickens - it's a bitch!