Rediscovering the Mainland

Updates

2009-02-11T18:03:00.008-05:00

The policy is slowly trickling out regarding landcutting. I am still kinda optimistic. Altogether I have rejoined about 208m of land in random places since jack's first post.

In the checkerboarded picture in this and the previous post- there has since been about 80m added right in that area. It would be cool as hell to rejoin 208m all in one area. Not very likely, but judging from having gotten 4 tickets answered in 2 days, hopefully things will keep turning around.

The other update is relocating KC's Wooly Garden's. Part of the reason was having begun to give up that there would be any sort of policy change. But also, it is a much more lively area which the garden is in now. Sadly, not everything moved to the new area. I hated to dredge up things like the loss of a wonderful person for people. But it was time for a better place for it to be. Maybe where it should have been all along.

KC's Wooly Garden is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dongyeongju/3/101/66

Checkmate

2009-01-28T16:27:00.003-05:00

During the past year or so, Linden Labs has been slowly addressing their long forgotten Mainland regions. After several different ad farm policies, floaty spinning things are mostly gone.

Getting landcutting and extortion addressed finally has been in the tubes since at least October. It has finally been posted on the official blog by Jack Linden today.

While fairly short, there also weren't any surprises overall that had not been discussed during his office hours. I am not sure how much more it can be talked about. The time for action, really, was long before I ever heard of Second Life. Many of the cut areas have been like that for years. Likely many more were set for sale with ads on them until that was no longer allowed.

It is a starvation diet for a group of parasites that is long long overdue.

A Dark Day On The Mainland

2009-01-22T15:38:00.013-05:00

Secondlife is not a static place, things change all of the time. But the loss of really really good things is the change that hurts the worst.

My first RL job after college was writing obituaries. I never really thought I would end up writing them for the mainland as well. It's not what I wanted to write about in an incredible location that is over half a region.

This is one of those places that I had been trying to work on writing about for awhile. It was just somewhere that amazed me at every turn, so I really was at a loss for words and hadn't written it yet. There are some things that take a bit to do really really well.

I was struck first by the floating islands as one of the coolest things I had seen. Given the limitations of terraforming on the mainland, I am a big fan of out of the ordinary ideas that draw your eyes up... truly broadening horizons. On a previous visit, a friend and I had enjoyed the dance floor that is sadly no longer there. (The music is still really really good though.) There was also an amazing movie available to watch that left me sitting there going "wow". The offering when I went today was by a neurologist which had applications to what I do in RL. It also had some ideas which were of an amazing help to my dad.

This is a location which covers "The Study of Psychology Theology Philanthropy Quantum Physics Science Nature History Philosophy Painting Sculpting Drawing Photography Music Writing Chess & Art." An SL educational offering that essentially covers the study of everything is quite simply; life changing.

Sadly, it may be one that goes in the missed opportunity column. There is always speculation when someone lets their land go. As long as they are ok, that is my main concern.

It's the constant braindrain while the asshats remain that gets to me.

Borked Into The Twilight Zone

2009-01-18T19:48:00.006-05:00

When the grid is having "issues", unless you REALLLLY feel like seeing just what you can do before you get logged out, you end up standing around feeling like a bot. So I figured I would push my luck.

At first, I was going to write about how the Forgotton Step Children Route is actually along Route 9. Pictured here is driving the underwater stretch through Tamna. There are a few scattered places which are labeled Route 9, along with pavement from the moles. There are also stretches which seem much smoother. I am kind of hoping the lake stretch might be an underwater tunnel or something. I have gotten so used to driving down below I am not sure what I would do with a view.

I went fairly far before I really hit any problems. Even the sim crossings weren't bad. Surprising when the grid is borked. But then I began noticing that the road was labeled Route 10, which was a bit odd as I was nowhere near. Before I got to wonder too long about this, I hit banlines and a lovely "you have no car because it went off world" message. But when I looked around, somehow it flung me from Ungnyo to Sunwi Do. As pretty as Route 10 looks, I stumbled my way back to the sad little bumpy road to look for somewhere to rerez my car.

Ahhh... a Sunday drive in the twilight zone.

It's not the end of the world...

2009-01-17T18:50:00.004-05:00

... but you can see it from there.

My partner and I went riding along Route 10 when we found the new section. It was a great drive for the most part... a few rides on the vomit comet when we crossed sims, nothing too new.

But then we got to Otaki Gorge. Silly me, I thought that the road just hadn't rezzed yet, so I didn't slow down. Picture what happened when Thelma and Louise drove off the cliff... I think we went to -1000m deep at least before crashing ourselves. I started to fear we might end up in There.com or something if we fell too far off the end of the world.

When we both managed to come back... we found that the sim we were in was cut off from everywhere else. If we tried to walk to the next sim, we kinda bounced along on thin air. The map still looked normal, but if we tried to TP to anywhere we would get logged out.

We finally just made do with the free bikes and blimps to ride around on. It even let us ride a little farther out into thin air where we could see under the sim even. SL was acting weird enough that day that I don't have photos of it. The photo here is of the other weirdness of 1000m landspikes that I have seen in a few places.

Wanting to spend time together, we put up with being trapped on one sim. Fleur still swears she will never set foot back into that sim ever ever again. I thought at first it might have just been a bad day in Second Life. Till it happened again, in the same sim. I also had it happen in another sim on another continent.

My ticket about Otaki Gorge is still open. I am waiting to see if Yoda Linden will be the one who gets it. "Very cut off, you are."

AXEL Mainstore; Wollondilly

2009-01-13T13:22:00.005-05:00

I first found this store during one of the grid wide treasure hunts. I thought at first that I was out on an estate.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wollondilly/91/68/71/?title=Wollondilly

When I saw that it was mainland I was more impressed as it wasn't something made to fit in a covenant. Mainland has a reputation of gawdy, laggy builds and screaming lucky chairs in every store and mall. Axel is not one of those places.

I loved their little bridge across the road when I first saw it. It looks even better now that Route 10 has gotten paved. I especially liked being able to park while I looked around.

The store itself is by the Axel Design Team Lila, Niki, and Hadi Axel. They pretty much cover everything in women's clothes. From the land description; Funky Indie Urban City Formal Gorean Neko Grunge Beach Punk Alternative Couture Outfits Clothing trendy sculptie shoes stilletto original stylish new fashion kooky fun colorful kajira, panther bikini FW, Gor, freewoman lolita hand drawn . Now, Gor isn't particularly my thing, but their silks and such make me seriously reconsider.

My inventory is kinda like McDonald's... billions and billions. It's definately hard to limit my purchases at their store. Overall though, it is a great place to shop along Route 10.

Art In The Park; Hobak

2009-01-12T18:02:00.005-05:00

Art In The Park is a large outdoor gallery featuring many different artists. It has a relaxing stream that runs through the area and is one of the better non-Linden water features that I have seen.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hobak/133/69/50/?title=Hobak

From photography to oil paintings, it is a rich and diverse collection of art. The artists include Carlo Pimpernel, Petal Rich and Conde.

One of my favorite in the park is Conde. His paintings with amazingly detailed textures and skulls in a variety of ways, including the Mona Lisa are fascinating to me. From his bio card this quote "If you fear death, you are afraid to live life to the fullest, therefore depriving the Universe of all of Your Positive Creative Potential." sums up the amount of life which explodes from his art. His website www.deathisnormal.com is a fascinating look as well.

The gallery is located along Route 9 which appears to be getting a paved road courtesy of the moles. The pavement starts in Yeodeol and is only a little ways through Hobak so far. The sim itself still shows some scars of ad farms and land cutting, but hopefully as the road goes in, the rest of the sim will begin to improve as well.

KC's Wooly Gardens; Shinichi

2009-01-11T17:02:00.004-05:00

Klaatu Congrejo was one of the main people who fought for the mainland. He inspired myself and countless others in many ways.

One of the areas that him and I both worked to rejoin was in Shinichi. When we started working on it, it was a long ugly strip that had been ripped in the middle of the area. Except for a few tiny remnants, most of the area has been rejoined since then.

KC's passing in September left a hole in the hearts of many people. KC's Wooly Gardens was created as a place for people who knew him in his many forms to remember him.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Shinichi/244/49/107/?title=Shinichi

The Arbor Landscaping Group

2009-01-11T11:45:00.007-05:00

One of the biggest problems on the mainland has been landcutting. Even though ads have been severely restricted, landcutting continues.

Pictured here is one of the parcels of the Arbor Landscaping group in Kallabow.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kallabow/66/181/17/?title=Kallabow

For as much as waterfront tends to go for, I am constantly baffled when it gets cut up. Even though it is landscaped, this is 192m which randomly covers a larger and disjointed area.

The Landscapers Group was created to help beautify Arbor Group's larger parcels as they find new owners.

I got more interested in Mainland issues when I received a 16m parcel from Arbor Group. Shortly after, I joined their group and began slowly to meet others. One of the first who I met was Rem Nightfire who helped me panel over a high flying butt ad. Not wanting my kids to see such a thing if they saw the computer screen, being able to cover it was fairly important.

From there, I became more involved in fighting the ad farms and extortionist plots. My first RL job was canvassing for Greenpeace in Detroit, so it was a fairly natural step to take here in the virtual world.

Between myself and others, thousands of meters on the mainland have been rejoined into larger parcels. One of the biggest benefits of rejoining the land is helping life return to an area that would otherwise be scarred for a long time to come.

The parcel in Kallabow, as well as any Arbor parcel is available to neighboring landowners for little or nothing.

The Four Corners Of Route 10

2009-01-10T16:09:00.003-05:00

This is a four-cornered sim crossing that is not for the weak stomached. But it is worth the trip.
Composed of Changmi, Sonamu, Podul and Nari sims, it is an area which is starting to take more shape.

In Podul, you will find Pannies and Rosedrop Media Circus. In Changmi there is a small art gallery, as well as my own Darwin's Blues Rest Area.

Admittedly, I was trying to sell off my land here as I was tired of seeing the Paris Hilton Sex Shop next door. I was very very happy to find a sudden road and to see lots of people doing things other than camping in the area.

Hopefully, the rez area in Sonamu that the LDPW has will start taking shape. Having crashed in the Twilight Zone vortex of the multi sim crossings, having their area available to rez again is nice.

Spooky wasteland feel

2009-01-10T15:48:00.006-05:00

Full auction sims have been halted for awhile. That does not mean that they aren't getting abandoned however. On my drive today, I went through 2. Tamna, which is under a specific Linden. And Exxilon which was purple and very very empty. It makes even prim litter look appealing as at least some sort of life.

My Car

2009-01-10T15:43:00.004-05:00

This is what I drive in RL. Living in Michigan, I get real experience for driving in SL as the cavernous and numerous potholes are like sim crossings. Both almost always going to crash you or eat your car.

Blues By The Lake; Han Loso

2009-01-10T15:19:00.008-05:00

Heading south on The Forgotten Step-Children Route, I have to use my car as a sub in order to get anywhere past Dongyeongju. There isn't anywhere on the other side of the lake to rez a vehicle, but its worth the swim to get to one of my favorite places.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Han Loso/43/168/64/?title=Han Loso

I first found this place when my partner Fleur and I were trying to see how far along the continent we could go without crashing. The owner, Paolo Rousselot was out front, and very friendly while I waited for Fleur to relog.

This is a funky blues tavern over-looking a small lake. The road here brings new meaning to a world that has no gravity. Hopefully whenever it does get some love from the LDPW they will keep the feel of the area. Somehow, Blues By The Overpass doesn't have the same ring.

The chickens running around definately make the place. There are also lots of dance and cuddle possibilities. The music is good and has the feel of a neighborhood dive bar.

The Forgotten Step-Children Route

2009-01-10T14:30:00.005-05:00

I wanted to start this blog to highlight some of the areas of mainland that are quirky, my favorite etc. etc. I am definately very biased in all of my opinions, but always open to suggestions as well.

As cool as it is to find that Route 10 is getting worked on, I wanted to start by exploring along the Forgotten Step-Children Route. It's a rough, unpaved road that runs semi parallel to Route 10. It also starts right outside my front door. The name is for all of us Forgotten Step-Children of SL and the amount of complaining it took to get the tiny amount of road in Juho to be drivable.

This is where Erewhon Park in Dongyeongju meets the unpaved road. One of my first attempts at building anything was putting a road through my land where people can rez vehicles and at least drive slightly smoother. My house in the picture overlooks the lake where the road basically ends (unless one is up for under-water driving). Since the lake is fairly long, and does include a road-type strip down the middle, a boat dock would be nice. (I am close, but not on the lake, so driving a boat on the land to the lake looks a bit odd).

There are five active neighbors to the roadside here. Sadly, landcutters have had their way, so it still shows their ugliness along with random abandoned land and prim litter. But hey... as the forgotten step children, it could be worse :/