Phacule

Phacule or Phac for short. Proof positive that the avatars in SL are not just pixels. Phac's avatar will be no more. My old friend Phac has passed in his sleep the other night. When you meet people in SL, they are just that, people. Real people. Phac was as real as they get. Then when they lose their lives suddenly and unexpectedly, you can never talk with nor IM them again.

Some people smile and tell me face to face that SL is just a game. Nothing could be further from the truth. Phac is not coming back.

While it's true I did not hang out much with him in the past several months or even year, I have some of the fondest memories of he and I doing battles, trapping each other, pranking and generally just partying together. His group, Pacifique held some awesome parties in some of the nicest locations. Hopefully the friends Phac has left behind will carry on his legacy.

There will be a memorial held for him on Friday night at 7pm SLT. I would imagine you can contact his group for more details.

Dragon & Rosa's Wedding

I love SL weddings. It's a perfect excuse for people to get together and have some fun. And Dragon and Rosa's was a very good one. What makes a good SL wedding? Short and to the point. And the more people there the better! Dragon and Rosa's wedding had lots of attendees. Their vows were short and to the point, and I was a fill in groomsman so there, the perfect wedding!

So why get married in SL you might ask? Countless reasons. SL already has a partnering option to it. You can elect to partner with another avatar via their web site. You put in your intended partner's name and they will receive a notification in their email. They can click the link and either agree or disagree to partner with you. You can have only one partner at a time. It does not cost to partner someone I don't believe, but it does cost to un-partner so be sure before you say yes.

Rosa and Dragon Wedding

But does this mean you are now SL hubby and wifey? Oh hell no! But it does mean you have chosen the avatar/person that you love (and yes, you can love without ever having physically met before. A subject for a future post I'm sure) and that you want to spend your SL life with known to everyone who reads your profile as their name will be on the front page of it. Basically, the act of partnering is stating to the world that your intentions are for this one person whom you would rather be with above all others. Beyond this, most couples have an SL wedding ceremony. The wedding is much like RL. Everyone gets dressed up, the couples do their vows and there is an officiant who declares them wed. Like I said, it's fun and a great excuse to have a party.

So I went to Dragon and Rosa's wedding not knowing for sure if I was in the wedding party or not until the very last minute. That's the way most weddings go, someone from the groom's side is unable to logon so I end up filling in. I've been in more SL weddings than I can count including two of my own. Emi had gotten an invitation a while back so she made for the perfect date to take with me. For whatever reason, we were both unable to stay for the entire reception but we did get some good dancing in to some good music.

The lovely couple exchanging vows

Weddings are a huge business in SL. Just check out the SL marketplace web site. Look for engagement rings, wedding ring sets, pews, pulpits, services, animations, photographers, cakes, DJs, garters, flowers, the list goes on and on. It's all available in SL and probably many more things than I have mentioned.

The witnesses and reception area in the back

One more thing: Weddings can be funny too. Yes, it's a serious ceremony, the pledging of vows to each other, but they can be fun vows too. One of the most memorable weddings I ever attended were between Dylan and Norman. They did their vows using a Dr. Seuss cadence. As you can imagine, it was hilarious and made everyone happy. They were still able to get their intent out in their vows to each other, but had the rest of us in stitches too. So if you ever get an invite to and SL wedding, be sure and attend. Every one of them is unique and almost always enjoyable.

cat's Rezz Day Party

Country Dancing With The Rezz Day Girl

We almost didn't pull it off but what a great party it was! It all started early one Monday. My daughter Neva asked me if I knew it was going to be her momma's rezz day on Thursday. I immediately thanked her for keeping track of that stuff because I sure don't, then mentioned we should throw a party. She suggested a surprise party and the first thing that went through my mind was how wonderful that would make cat feel. I was so excited. Neva volunteered to decorate. All I had to do was create and send out the invitations to all her friends and also make sure I got cat there at the right time. I really did not think this part would be a problem as she has been online every evening for the past 2 weeks without fail. And the invitations would be easy. Ambriel and I worked on them as we visited, ever watchful for cat to logon so I could quickly get rid of the evidence.

I sent out all the invitations to everyone I could think of as soon as I finished creating them. They had a notecard inside with a landmark and the notecard let everyone know to keep this surprise party a secret. So time, place and a mention of the theme of the party which was country/western all went out in that invitation. So I'm talking with my loving submissive the next morning when I ask her what's going on for Thursday with the premise being that maybe we could have a hot date. She told me that Thursday night would not work due to RL obligations.... OH CRAP! Now what?

As I'm fretting, fearing that I'm going to have to call this whole thing off, she coyly asks me if I know what Wednesday is. Wednesday? Well, her rezz day is on Thursday so it can't be that, right? I said, "some kind of anniversary... your rezz day?" She said yes. What? So I double checked. Yep, Neva had the date wrong. Maybe we can pull this off after all? So I told cat we needed to do something special. That I'd take her out on a hot date and to do her best to be there. She was fairly confident that she could make it. The plan is coming together. But there's the problem of sending out new invitations.

Lots and lots of friends and family showed up!

So I modify the invitations to include something about cat not being able to make it on Thursday and that we are moving the party up to Wednesday. I sent these out on Tuesday so as you can imagine, I was worried that some people may not get them in time. I updated Neva on what was happening and she got super busy on the decorations. She did a wonderful job too by the way. I'm so proud she is my daughter!

There was some confusion after sending out the corrected invitations as you can imagine. Some people who could not make it before were able to now, and others who were able to attend, were unable to now. That was bound to happen. It's not easy coordinating a group get-together in SL. Everyone's RL has to come first of course.

Neva did a wonderful job with the decorations

So the big day comes. All day long as I'm working in RL, I see cat online on the Second Life web site. I'm chewing and spitting nails hoping like hell she will not go down to the new club, which is now all decorated with barrels and hay bales and a huge poster wishing cat a happy rezz day. Lots of balloons and party favors too. So cat is wandering around SL all day long! I was so worried. I was certain she would stumble across the decorations for the night's surprise party. As it turns out, I had nothing to worry about. She was shopping for new houses for us for when we move to another parcel.. She made it to the end of her day long SL session and left for RL home. What a relief!

So I logon after my dinner and start hanging out with Darren and his friends. We have lots of catching up to do and we are admiring the work Neva did decorating the place. We play a few games of greedy then Emi shows up and we visit for a while. Then I get an out of world message: cat won't be able to make it.... Some RL stuff going on that was unplanned for. Damn! So I break the news to everyone at the club then declare that we are having a party anyway. It's at this time that I realize cat is going to feel badly because she couldn't  attend a party she didn't even know about, and I resolve never do plan a surprise party ever again. She will be feeling as if she let everyone down and that's the last thing I intended to do is make her feel down about it.

There was line dancing and ummm horizontal dancing

So we have another hour to kill so Darren, Emi and another couple of friends hang out there in anticipation of  guests showing up at 8pm and my having to break the news to them that cat won't be there. But about 30 minutes before the party is slated to start, cat logs on! Emi, thinking fast, teleports us all to her boy Gefter's place. She also reminds me that I'm dressed in cowboy gear, so I quickly change. She then teleports cat to join us. Fortunately, cat has no idea what's going on and does not suspect a thing. She simply thinks that we are exploring Gefter's new sim.

So cat IMs me telling me that she has either minutes to be online or several hours, she just cannot tell at that point. So I decide to throw her her surprise party now because she might not be around when it's slated to start. How was she able to logon at all? I would imagine RL events changed and besides, I was just grateful she was there and didn't bother to find out until later. So I teleported to the club, everyone followed, then I tp'd cat. It took her a few minutes to rez in but she started to realize what was going on. Her reaction was priceless! At first is was a simple chat message, but then as the scale of this all sank in, as more and more people started to arrive, she was so happy she was nearly speechless. And some of the things she did manage to say made me smile until my face hurt. Let's just say I could tell that she was very very happy.

Happy Rezz Day Mine!

As it turned out, cat was able to stay online for hours, so we had a wonderful party with dozens of friends and family showing up off and on. I started out DJing playing some country western requests she had asked for months ago. Then Olu was able to take over so I could enjoy my 3rd year rezz day woman. Most everyone invited was able to attend. It was great seeing Bruce there and Alo and sami and so many others too numerous to mention here. The pictures should say it all.

We all got together to celebrate the day our dearest friend, mother, lover cat came into SL to enrich out lives here. We all love you cat!

Neva's New Place and More Cherry Street Dances

Chillin' With Neva

My wonderful daughter Neva has acquired a new parcel of land recently. As I mentioned in a previous post, she will probably be joining with me and her mother cat, to get a larger parcel of land in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, she is enjoying carving out her niche on this good sized parcel. Neva enjoys visiting with friends so she sets up some inviting and cozy areas to sit and socialize. She molds the environment about the sitting area to be pleasing to the eye yet practical for chatting. She even has a pool for swimming or floating on inner tubes. I always look forward to visiting with her whenever our schedules allow.

Dancing With kasie

The new clubhouse at Cherry Street is getting broken in just fine now. Lots of people have seen it and love it. Thanks again Nim! And I finally had a chance to hang out with and catch up with kasie. She's a very smart and sexy submissive of a friend of mine we'll call Z. Because clothing is a privilege with  most subs, she's usually naked. So I stripped too seeing as how the new club is now down on the nude beach. Besides, clothes create lag.

kasie is an avid greedy player. Since moving the club down to the surface as opposed to that skybox I had the old one in, it only made sense to move the greedy game table down too. So kasie and I played a few good close games of greedy before taking to the dance floor. I really like the couples dances I have in the controller here, but there's always room for more. I had found a couple more good dances at Bits N Bobs with cat a few weeks back but one thing lead to another and I never did return to purchase them, so I need to take her back out there and try them out to figure out which ones it was we wanted for the club.

The Intan controller is loaded and that fur rug is Spin the Bottle

With the Intan couple's dance controller, you can take a set of dance animations and remove them from their native ball set and place the animations directly into the controller. Once you do this, the dances can be used by everyone on the sim that your dance controller resides on. It's important to have good dances and couples dances at your club because that's what most people do when they come to hear great music and socialize. But what's really cool about the Intan couple's dance controller is the fact that you can put more than just couple's dances into it. You can put just about any couple's animation into it as well. So come on down to Cherry Street and try out our couple's dance controller with that special someone to see what I'm talking about. Cherry Street is located at Cherry Street Night Club & Nude Beach

Greedy game hot tub and RLV sex palm trees.

Be sure to check out everything there. Almost nothing is what it seems. Many of the palm trees are sensual cuddle, sex and even RLV traps. The infinity pool does lots more than just allow you to dangle your feet in the water. The picnic table is a gang-bang table. The life guard stand is for cuddles. The jet ski dock is for three-some sex. As mentioned, the Intan dance controllers have more than just dances in them. The hot tub is actually a Greedy Greedy game table. The floating dock is for sex. The loungers are for some very intense sex. The tree swing is for cuddles and sex. That bear skin rug? It's a group sex spin the bottle game. And the jet skis? Well, they are just regular jets skis. But you get the picture. Almost everything there has a purpose. Just be sure to check out everything. I hope to see you there soon.

Cherry Street Evolution

Group notices sometimes get ignored due to the fact that SL is chock full of them and an avatar can receive them offline and they are saved until the next logon (unless there are too many, in which case they get "capped" and are lost forever). Most nightclub groups I belong to do all their advertising and announcements in their group notices. So when I send out a Cherry Street group notice about changes to the shopping mall and club, it's not surprising that many members do not see it. So I'll post about the changes here.

Cherry Street is being moved down to the ground from the giant sky platform it was once in. Because Cherry Street's shops and club were metal and glass themed, and I require a tropical island beach setting on the ground, I saw fit to put the mall up in a more urban setting in the sky. It's too difficult to reproduce a beach sand and water setting up in the sky. It's much easier to make a concrete, steel and glass environment up on the sky platform. So the shopping mall, club, sex/orgy room and BDSM dungeon were all together up in the urban skybox. That is until recently.

The new Cherry Street nightclub, tropical version

Recently at Twisted Thorn's gift giving weekend, I picked up a large tropical island themed mansion. It was beautiful and large and, well, tropical! So naturally I grabbed it. And so did my friend Nim. She IMd me later in the weekend about it and I told her I had grabbed a copy too. Well, Nim is sort of an engineer and engineers see things a bit different than the rest of us. She saw that mansion as a small shopping mall. We went and looked at it again and I saw that she was right. It would make a beautiful tropical island shopping mall. So she being the extraordinary builder that she is, realized that I could use a nightclub building to match it, then I could put everything down on the ground, keeping with my tropical island theme. So I commissioned her to construct a club to match the large shop. And what a wonderful nightclub it turned out to be!

Oh yes, this place has everything!

I know, I know. I'm not promoting the club nor mall anymore. Why have them at all at this point? Because someday I will open them up again. Plus, it's always handy to have a ready-to-go nightclub in case of impromptu parties. So I've moved the club and shops down to the ground. It's a tight fit now as I only have 1/4 of a sim to work with, but it does all fit. The only thing still not moved is Whispering Jewels. As soon as she logs back into SL, I'll let her know what's going on. She will be getting the North side of the new shop for her wares. She is sometimes absent from SL for weeks at a time, but she does maintain a regular presence in InWorldz where she owns an entire sim.

The sex/orgy/dungeon will stay where it's at. Once the jewelry shop is moved, I will simply roof that area off and it will be accessible via teleport boards which are scattered all over the land.

It's just a short trip over the bridge from the club to the new
shop.

And on the subject of change, there's a very good chance that Cherry Street will be moving to a new parcel or sim. We will be increasing our square meters of ground and possibly our prim counts too. We will either aquire a homestead sim, which is the type of sim that Cherry Street started out on, or 1/2 of a regular sim. A homestead sim will provide us with a lot more area to work with and decorate and landscape, giving the visitors a more rich experience. A 1/2 of a regular sim will double our prims and double our square meters of land area. The 1/2 sim will be more expensive in the end but it provides us with much more flexibility. The homestead sim would allow us to quadruple our current land area, but the prim counts would stay the same. It would be very affordable too. Not much more than I'm spending now on tier, but because my wonderful family will be helping with the finances, our buying power is trippled so a 1/2 sim would be a painless transition from what I'm paying today.

Cherry Street Shop with Nada's upstairs.

Yes, my lovely daughter and her vivacious mother (whom I've seen naked) are moving in with me! Neva already maintains a wonderful parcel, and so does cat. Why not combine the expenses we are already paying and enrich our SL lives together? Neva had come up with this idea a while back but I was reluctant because my prim needs were quite high due to the shopping mall and club and it would not have been fair to her. She would not have been able to have enough prims nor land to setup her SL life. But now with cat in the equation, it makes it simple. A homestead sim would give us 1250 prims each, but it's wise to keep a few hundred prims free at least for rezzing things and building, so about 1000 prims each. The 1/2 regular sim would provide us each with 2500 prims each which is well over what each of us needs for our SL. Neva and cat would do the terraforming as each of them is exceptionally good at it, and I would take care of the club and shops and "play" areas.

But all that will be at least 2 weeks or so down the road and there's no hurry to transition. Neva has a beautiful parcel she's working on and I'm looking forward to living with cat. Rest assured that if and when I do move Cherry Street, I will send out group notices and post the new location here.

Kaboom, zombies, caves, killing, etc.

Your avatar can be killed. That's right! If you are on a virtual land parcel who's configuration allows for  you to be killed, you can die. The setting is configurable by the land owner, so the land can also be made perfectly safe. But what's the fun in that? I always set my land up so that you can be killed. What happens to you when you die virtually? Not much really. You are sent to your home position. The same place you login to when you start SL, just as if you are starting over. Not a big deal really but there's no mistaking that you have died. It makes for some great gaming.

Brother Kaboom and Ariel

I have some guns, rocket launchers, grenades and yes, a tactical nuclear missile. It can be set to Harmless, Push or kill. It will clear an entire sim which makes it difficult to use. Some people would consider it griefing. So I have to refrain from using it now that I share a sim with 3 other owners. But I can still use my assault rifle.

I was invited to a hunt and kill event by brother Kaboom. I think he refers to himself as Handsome Devil now but honestly, he's not very handsome, so I'll just keep calling him Kaboom. Anyway, he has a zombie rezzer and the zombies are quite intelligent. They move fast once they have set their sights on you. They can even jump pretty high! Plus there were people there. BilliJo, Kaboom and Lexi. All 3 of them worth opponents. I was killed countless times but I'm pretty sure I killed more than was killed. First of all, the zombies got me because I was lurking below in the new tunnel system. It's like a maze down there.

So I eventually moved up into the castle proper and began stalking humans. At least I did not need to shoot their heads off before scoring a kill. Yeah, the zombies are pretty hard to kill. At first it was just BJ and me. She did good at first but I was able to see a pattern in her actions and predict most of her next moves. After a while she had had enough and left, but she was a good opponent for the first hour. Then I targeted Kaboom. But I found out later he was having slow rez problems so I left him alone for a while.

Lexi was there the whole time but she had told me she was going to sit out the hunt, yet somehow, someone kept killing me. I finally found out it was her and this huge chain gun of hers. So I started targeting her and could find patterns with her actions too. It started to get kind of one-sided with me killing her lots until she decided to use shields and magic. Shields and magic? Really? Yep. She taunted me with, "you can't kill me now! Go ahead, try!" Well, what fun is that? And she was right, I could not kill her anymore and she was someone tossing me around and killing me from remote locations. So the last time she killed me and I was sent home, I began shopping for a shield and offensive HUD.

One very cool thing about SL is that if a resident of SL has created something, it's most likely available on the Marketplace. The Marketplace is an online shop for everything in SL. You can use handy search terms or search categories and sub-categories to find something you are looking for. You would be surprised the stuff you run into. Anyway, I was looking for shields. I found some but they were very expensive. Something of the order of L$4000. But something kept nagging at the back of my mind. A very long time ago, I ran into a woman in SL who had been in SL a very long time, very nearly from the beginning. She brought me to a shop that had a Mysti-Tool HUD. It was expensive, I remember that. She told me that's all I'd ever need. Well, okay. I have used it for years as a radar and flight assistant. It does lots more though. I thought I saw an Offensive button in the extensive menu one time. Sure enough, a quick look at the Mysti-Tool menu brought up an Offensive button. Upon pressing it, it gave me the option to Trap, Immobilize, Push or Kill anyone in a 100 meter radius. Seriously? I had this capability all these years and only now realize it? Guess I should have read the owner's manual years ago.

DJing at House of the Rising Sun

So after returning to Kaboom's castle and trying out my newly realized capabilities, I had Lexi IMing me, "no fair" in just a matter of minutes. Screw her magic, I have Mysti-Tool! Muuuahahahahaaaa.... So needless to say, the hunt and kill event was no longer much of a challenge, so I moved on.

Quality Time With cat

For the past 3 Friday nights, cat has been able to logon and be with me when I DJ at House of the Rising Sun. This is special because for one, its just nice to be with her. For another, she helps make sure I do not miss anything pertinent in local chat as DJing can be distracting. And finally, she's not normally able to logon Friday nights due to RL commitments. So it's been really nice and makes the events there much more enjoyable. After my set we usually try to linger a bit and listen to Alobar's set but in the end we cannot control ourselves and take off to some other location for a different sort of dance.

A nice visit at Archer's Place

And directly due to the fact that I'm no longer promoting or running my own club, I have enough free time to socialize and hang out with my friends. One of the rare male friends I have is Archer. He has a very nice parcel he has fixed up and I was over there visiting with him for hours one night after cat left for RL. We talk mostly muscle cars and rock and roll. He's from Europe and knows I'm close to Detroit, Rock City and Motor Capital, and he loves both. He's got a very nice place to hang out at.