I’ve written about dark rides in second life before and I just found another one. It’s not a Halloween dark ride like the others I have seen. This one is all about Alice in Wonderland. It’s a great design and the exterior is amazing.

Visit Alice in Wonderland Dark Ride Here!
Black Pearl Beach (170, 115, 32)

 Just click on the sign to request a gondola. Sit in it and then click on the pocketwatch. Keep the view in mouselook and set the day as midnight to get the best effect. There are sound effects too so be sure to turn up the volume. There are many other designs I have seen which are amazing and shows how much talent there still is in the world. I’m still having fun exploring the world. Maybe I’ll find a good way to make money or just continue having fun.

 None of my accounts are there to lie or be very different from myself. All are aspects of my life that I like but don’t blend very well. That might not be clear but it feels comfortable to me. Each avatar has their own place and groups they like. One loves to dance at clubs with DJ’s. Johnnyrs plays zyngo and looks for games to make money. Another looks for fetish places to have fun. Then there’s the one who is usually found in an adult area.

 Two of my accounts can make money every day. Zyngo can bring in some good money daily if I’m lucky. Some people are making thousands of lindens a day. I don’t make that much. I am starting to use the profile picks camping system to make some money as well. Regular sim camping makes money too but the money is so small that I’d rather do something else now. Dance clubs, tipping and special contests are other ways I’m making money too. In the future I want to describe some of the different ways of making easy money in a future post.

 Lot of money trees and other camping systems now check to see if you have credit info before paying. I found a few that will check to see if you have used that credit info to buy something yet or if you are a paying account before paying. I didn’t find any problems with this stuff. Age verification was easy for me. Soon SL will restrict access to adult areas using the age verification which could cause some problems with others. Right now it’s the owners job to restrict access.

 The one thing I find different from LOTRO and SL is the community. For me at this time I like a community with very little drama and changes. LOTRO provided too much drama and changes that drove friendships to fall apart. I found some small issues ended up to be bigger then it should be. It also got boring after doing the same raid over and over again. In SL I am finding very little change and less drama with the groups I am hanging out with. Lot of support from groups for many issues which I needed. Something different to do when I want a change. I will go back to LOTRO one of these days but only when I’m ready. I resubscribed to runescape this month also for another form of entertainment. Lot of changes in that game which I’ll be posting about.

Check out a Photosynth.net presentation of this show from 92 pictures I took.

I’ve seen many of his shows and still shocked at how good he can use textures, music and effects to make something so amazing. If you get to see his show be sure to pull back and move your camera around to see all the fantastic visuals. Best to be there before the show so you can be amazed how the world around you changes.

I was given a hat for this show I am attending which changes colors, textures and effects during the show. All of this is controlled by Tuna Oddfellow. His regular shows are 11am SLT on Sundays, and 7pm SLT on Mondays. Visit the Oddfellow Studios [research center at 128, 128, 652 (slurl)].

• Video from a fan of his show.
• Another video from this magic show.
• Another video of another show.
• Real Life Performance by Fish the Magish!

I didn’t see any mention of this on the SL blog, and I didn’t submit a support ticket, so I don’t know what the problem was. But Alice Klinger, who writes the excellent Beatenetworks blog, suggests it could be a concurrency problem (too many avatars on at once) and if it is, bots could be to blame. Bots, as in the phony avies sim owners use to populate their islands and increase their search rankings, or bots that people create to make money.

She also mentioned a promise by the Lindens that paying members would get log-in priority over free members. I’d be on board with that for sure.

Alice also suggests that because the login-failure message is new, the Lindens might be experimenting with some changes and preparing for a concurrency problem. Like I said, back to the bad old days. It would be nice to know. I mean, Mono is great but I just want the program to run correctly. Am I expecting too much?

Here is the line up thus far…..

Saturday 21st June – SL times
11.00 am  -  Welcome To the Tiki Lounge
11.30 am  -  Official Opening   RFL Party
12.00 am  -  TBA
01:00 pm  -  Patrick LaSalle

02:00 pm  -  Maximillion Kleene
03:00 pm  -  Torben Asp
04:00 pm  -  Lonnie Rocket

05:00 pm  -  Kim Seifert
06:00 pm  -  Paul Hedrick
07:00 pm  -  Bill and Pam Havercamp
08:00 pm  -  Truelie Telling
09:00 pm  – Jaggpro McCann
10:00 pm  – Melodee McDonnell
11:00 pm  -  CTM Underwood
Sunday 22nd June – SL times
00:00 am  -  Astromimus Randt
01:00 am  -  Ernst Edman
02:00 am  -  Artel Brando
03:00 am  -  Mash Rhode
04:00 am  -  Fyrm Fouroux
05:00 am  -  XanderNichting Writer
06:00 am  – Lyn Carlberg
07:00 am  -  Pa Decosta
08:00 am  – Quinton Whitman
09:00 am  – Norris Shepherd
10:00 am   BubbaC John
11:00 am  – Barra Jonson
12:00 am  -Starr Singer
01.00 pm  – ATOMIC ( Blondie Tribute )
02:00pm  – Cintura Torrente Boa
03:00pm  -  Freestar Tammas
04:00pm  -  Silas Scarborough
05:00pm -   Kim Seifert/Silas Scarborough/FinalSaga Sodwind/Romote Hudson
06:00pm  -  CLOSEING- FAYANDRIA FOLEY AND DAVID JACOB

This will be an excellent event for a more than worthy cause, so if you find time on your hands and would like to hear some great live entertainment…. drop in and please don’t forget to make a donatation you can afford which will benefit the  American Cancer Society.

I’ve always liked the live performances in Second Life ever since I first found them. Usually It’s one singer or a couple of people playing live from one place. I recently found a unique live event with a live band. They consist of 5 members from 3 countries and 5 different locations. One plays from Germany and another from UK with the rest playing from the U.S. They use a program to sync up called ninjam and then send the stream over to SL.

The majority of their songs are original but they do covers also. You can check out their website and find out more about them. Be sure to check out the days they will be playing so you can check them out!. Sign up for their group, “VLB group members”, in SL and find out instantly when they will be playing. You shouldn’t miss this band because they are good and really rock SL!

On January 11, The Podcast Network’s (TPN) Cameron Reilly held the first church meeting for a new religion he created called the Laws Of The Universe (LOTU) at the TPN HQ [SLurl: Yeongheungdo 108, 57, 62] and he reports that six people showed up.

Cam explains what LOTU is about:

“LOTU” stands for the “Laws Of The Universe”. The idea is that this religion, this church, will be fully based in science and critical thinking. It will not worship any mythological deity but will respect, and try to interpret, the laws of the universe as delivered to us by the latest scientific research. LOTU will also endorse the United Nations Charter on Human Rights. Unlike every other religion on the planet today, LOTU will not condemn people who do not agree with us to an eternity of torture and vilification. LOTU doesn’t care what you believe. LOTU respects your right to believe whatever makes you feel good.

I decided to stop by the TPN HQ and see what was happening. The first thing I saw is the TPN sign and a sci-fi like structure with a video screen pictured atop this post. On the video screen would you expect a video of the recent sermon delivered? Perhaps something about the church of LOTU or TPN?

Not unless the preacher is Brianna Banks. I couldn’t find anything about LOTU at the TPN location in SL. Having porn videos showing on the video screen doesn’t bother me. After all, several of the VTOR authors either currently are or have been adult webmasters, but the presence of the vids did make me curious if LOTU has something to do with the adult business? Does it?

Or is this strictly for the entertainment of virtual TPN passerbys and has nothing to do with LOTU? I have Cam on my Twitter friends list, so I dropped him the following direct message:

Curious what the tiein is between streaming porn vids at the SL TPN HQ & LOTU, if any? Where is the LOTU stuff at your SL area?

Will update this post when/if Cam replies. Of course he’ll also have the comment section below to explain.

Happy New Year to everyone around the virtual worlds! I wanted to write a fast post on some of the special events in Second Life that I think would be fun to attend. There are many events happening today. I’ve found some of the best talent that I know of. There are lot of parties with DJ’s too but I’m looking for the live musicians mostly. Having someone play a live electric guitar or a piano just gives a virtual party that something special. So to anyone who isn’t attending a party in real life you can check out SL for some fun!

• [Tahoma at 110, 182, 298 (slurl)] – 12pm to 5pm SLT live music with a big ball drop at the end.
• [KaChing at 149, 131, 22 (slurl)] – open mic event starting at 1pm SLT. You can catch some great musicians playing sometimes here.
• [Noxious at 151, 30, 22 (slurl)] – A 10 hour party with live DJ’s starting at 2pm SLT with contests too.
• [Fire Island at 81, 221, 24 (slurl)] – Hollywood Glam New years eve party all day.
• [Clyde at 124, 165, 32 (slurl)] – Big event with live music starting at 6:30pm SLT.
• [Eclectic Dream at 224, 60, 21 (slurl)] – live music starting at 7pm SLT with some great musicians playing with a ball drop too.
• [Gannet Island at 72, 220, 651 (slurl)] – A magic and special effects show in SL. Something new I’ll probably try to attend starting at 8:30pm SLT.
• [Del Agua at 123, 66, 28 (slurl)] – “This Device” band plays at winterland at 10pm SLT with a live performer from japan after.

It’s that time of year where we decorate our places for holidays. We also get in the spirit with new clothes for our avatar. This year I did some searches for Christmas places to go in SL. The interesting thing is the regular search for places didn’t give me the results I expected. Most of the places at the top were not about Christmas and even some had mature content. I even made sure it didn’t include mature content in the search and it still gave me them. Then I used the new search under the all tab and searched for Christmas stuff again. I was happy to see exactly the places I was looking for.

Merry Christmas from all of us at VTOR and have a great virtual holiday experience wherever you may go!

Here are some of the interesting places I found:

• [Island of BF at 124, 204, 23 (slurl)] – Christmas village with lots of Xmas stuff and ice skating.
• [Antiqua Paradise at 140, 87, 27 (slurl)] – A Christmas parade you must check out.
• [Krypto at 12, 232, 421 (slurl)] – A fun place for Christmas with ice skating. I got my Xmas hat here for free.
• [sammamish at 245, 98, 152 (slurl)] – Great Christmas place with a train to ride.
• [French Town at 215, 226, 28 (slurl)] – great place for your holiday items.
• [FloMaramia at 99, 183, 22 (slurl)] – Another place for Christmas decorations.
• [Total Bliss at 185, 126, 52 (slurl)] – Trees and other decorations.

Using the new search function I found these:

• [Spring City at 211, 151, 24] – Really good place with plenty of Christmas items
• [Fortimus at 80, 58, 21] – Plenty of trees to get for your place
• [Buyeo at 187, 164, 23] – Another place with great Christmas stuff

Here are some Christmas live events for you to enjoy on Xmas eve day and Christmas day:

• [Experience Island at 118, 22, 27 (slurl)] – religious experience event in Second life with video of a real life special event. All day (Dec 24th)
• [Kona dAlliez at 66, 202, 266 (slurl)] – Johnny99 Gumshoe plays live at 1:00pm. (Dec 24th)
• [Kona dAlliez at 66, 202, 266 (slurl)] – Andy Glasgow plays a rock show live 2:00pm. (Dec 24th)
• [Edloe at 128, 114, 68 (slurl)] – Cylindrian Rutabaga sings at 5:00pm with great vocals. (Dec 24th)
• [Tryggvason at 132, 88, 59 (slurl)] – Scarlett LaRoux performs some holiday songs at 7:00pm. (Dec 24th)
• [Marimon at 17, 11, 22 (slurl)] – A Christmas party in SL at 8:00pm. (Dec 25th)

As many VTOR readers know already there was an episode of CSI:NY that prominently featured Second Life in the plot recently (I still haven’t seen it). Some predictions that there might be as many as one million new avatar registrations because of this one TV episode. 440 sims were reserved to be prepared to ramp up to the load. That number has since been slashed to 32 sims, which might still be too many.

I’m sure CBS got some kind of special bulk deal but at $299 a month per sim, the one month charge for 440 sims? $131,600. That’s only the tier fees and doesn’t include the help to man those 440 sims — now many of those people (avatars) out of work.

This is a perfect example of how cost prohibitive and expensive it is to prep for an event that is expected to scale inside Second Life. If you figure 50 people capacity per sim times 440 sims that’s 22,000 maximum capacity across all the sims. CBS had to be hoping those anticipated million new avatars wouldn’t show up at/near the same time. Second Life doesn’t work very well in its current incarnation for mass audiences interacting, but is quite effective well with smaller, more personalized events like what Jeff Batronious is doing with Amazon Web Services.

With not enough people showing up for what arguably was the biggest event in SL history, will this be the last big push to get people inside Second Life? Something tells me the answer is yes. What do you think?

Other more scalable platforms, we’re ready. More than ready.