Reading Radar

Ever have a friend with some kind of condition that they just don’t seem to notice? Well… we have a friend… Llama Snookums, and .. he’s great and all, but he’s got kind of a drooling issue. Check out these videos from the Lonely Yak, the first two were shot by Chug and the last one was shot by me. See if you can spot the little drool problem I’m talking about in the first and third videos. You might have to watch closely.

Chug watches Llama Snookums act out in the Roadhouse.

Somehow she winds up dancing with a snow white llama though, despite knowing about the Llama’s drool problem.

And here’s my take on how Llonely Llamas behave in public.

Actually, this last one’s in the feed of “SLPN In Your Face” video podcast, and in higher quality than YouTube can provide. Check out that video podcast for all your SL related video needs, we like to put explore-casts, instructional-casts and just about everything else in there. Right now there’s a multipart exploration of Privateer in the feed that has about two more segments yet to be placed in the feed.

Back on the art track, since a lot of the places we’ve gone recently seem to be about art… Awhile back, the same time we did the Far Away explore, Chug read in a blog about a place that was going to be shutting down, so we thought we’d wander over and take a look. Turns out it was up to its description: Callistie - Madcow Madhouse. I really have no idea why I’m providing a SLURL since you can’t go anymore, but hey. Whatever. It existed. Really.

Madhouse it was, but an interesting, well done madhouse. We usually like a lot of interactivity, and there was some here, but some of the things we assumed would be interactive weren’t, like the drums and pipes near the landing point. Still, it was a really well done build and, now that it’s gone, maybe it should live on in pictures.

Come on in! You land on a weird platform, and immediately notice that this build is a little different than the rest.

Finding a theme here isn’t too hard - this fellow gives it away (hint: think bones).

Some things in the sky caught our eyes, and we headed over to check them out. They seemed to be friendly enough, in the same way that a dead grizzly is friendly.

Chug’s always been the smarter of us on our explorations. Here she gives more reason she’s brainier than me.

Ok, now where?

Flying around, we see some interesting things, some of which aren’t entirely explainable in terms of purpose.

I guess this makes Chug crabby?

At any rate, she decided to take control of the situation with some mystical powers.

I tried too, but all that happened was me burning my hand on the glowing orb. These things need a user manual.

There were some creatures I call “reindeadeer” and look… three of the people I work with showed up to say hi. That was unexpected.

All this makes an avatar hungry, so we decided to get a table.

I’ll have the ribs, please.

Apparently a restaurant that’s killed itself for some reason is the place to eat. Seems odd. But ok.

Ok, well. That’s how it was. And now it is no longer, this madcow of an art gallery.

Yay, Episode 4 of SLPN in your Face is up, and it’s on an exploration jaunt over to “the Far Away” (blogged about recently here).

The best news is that starting with this episode, the podcasts will be ipod formatted. I tested it out on my iPod Touch and it worked and looked great. Thanks to Gomem DeSoto for pushing me to get with the program and make that happen. It just makes sense and it’s actually a lot of fun viewing these on the iPod.

I blogged about Abbott’s Aerodrome before, and we found out the other day it’s changed a little bit in appearance recently… In the new “release candidate” with windlight, I noticed it was very neon bluish in places now.

I’m not really personally inclined to think it’s added a whole lot. It certainly is a feature, but sometimes features get added for features sake and not because they really enhance anything.

The runway is lined with blue neon as well.

A couple more tower views:

Compare to the previous look of the tower…

Oh, well. Next time, back to some of the art presences in second life, in case you don’t find neon blue prim strips artistic enough for ya.

Maybe I’m just now paying attention, but it seems to me like the art scene in SL is starting to approach the music scene in terms of presence and popularity. I’m sure I’ll get some flak that it always has been, but I’m not so sure. Usually when I notice something going on around me, it means it’s at least approaching mainstream. And I’m now really noticing a lot of the artistic endeavors in SL.

One of the intersections of art in SL and RL is Filthy Fluno’s counterpART real life and second life galleries.

You can’t help but recognize Filthy when you meet him (constant unavoidable floating name tags notwithstanding).

And his studio in SL on Artropolis is really well done. The mastermind behind it and Artropolis is Esch Snoats.

It’s got an open/ruins/artistic/old/modern feel all in one. I guess that’s my way of saying I know zippo about design, but whatever. I liked it.

I’ll have to have Filthy on the podcast at some point. I was thinking of a roundtable on social aspects of SL. Whatcha think? Sick of roundtables?

More on his Art Gallery here…

There’s a new boat on podcast island.. tied to a dock.

Ok, that’s great, but where’d it come from? Believe it or not, a wheat field… the Far Away.

In this far away blend of art and (probably) nostalgia, AM Radio has created an interesting scene with more to it than what’s on the surface. He’s clearly making a statement or statements of some kind, but exactly what that is would be an exercise for the reader.

The first thing we saw was the windmill… it allows for some windy flights, try it out.

Then we sat at the table of retro/modern technology. Click things here. There’s presents in those prims.

The train is really interesting.

Weird things happen here. Standing, waiting…

Looking to the sky, and then…

It happens… is this an alien abduction? The classic “country encounter” with something from out there? Or is it just someone who’s never felt the sun before? I don’t think so… look at the chairs behind me in the second pic.

After this bizarre experience, something else out of place. A dining room in the wheat field.

The man behind this is no less interesting. Covered in dragonflies and wearing a unique period garb, he’s somehow exactly at home in the remote country setting he’s created here on the Dreamworld North sim.

So, back to the boat.. he’s got a banner with vendors for his various objects on it, one of which is the boat, which I didn’t see on the sim. But you can buy the train and some of the other scenes from the field as well.

I think it looks great on PI.

The video podcast SLPN In Your Face is finally live, and we kicked it off with a video of part 1 of our exploration of the Privateer Sim. More parts upcoming on that exploration as the weeks progress.

The podcast will feature works from the other SL Podcast Network types, and Crap Mariner’s got one ready to go that I was just waiting for him to publish… but I couldn’t wait and I published mine. Umm… sorry? Oh, well, he’s a psychotic rusty female robot with a windup key in his/her back anyway, which is okay, but the world domination plans are a little aggressive maybe.. just a little. No?

Anyway, check it out.. it’s the flotsam and jetsam in video of things we cover in our podcasts, or maybe just extra stuff.. who knows.. but it should be fun. The videos won’t be over 10 - 15 minutes in most cases, so watch it while you’re eating your Cocoa Puffs.

Ok, I know you’ve all heard of the Privateer Space sim. What’s that? No, you have. No, really. YES, YOU HAVE, NOW ZIP IT, BUSTER!!

Ok, calm… calming down now. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Privateer Space. You’ve heard of it, maybe even been there. It’s been blogged about endlessly, and Chug and I went there early on in its development process, even shot a little video. But the sheer amount of stuff to see is worth multiple trips. And that’s what we did last night again, shooting video for the first exploration cast for the upcoming “SLPN In Your Face” video podcast. Most likely this will be a serious multi-parter.

The SLPN In Your Face video podcast is going to have content from several members of the Second Life Podcast Network, and will have a variety of stuff from explorations, tutorials, bits of musical events, explosions, and a lot more. Expect at least 4 10 minute or so videos per month between the lot of us.

Ok, so in the meantime, until the podcast is ready, check out the following pictures of us exploring the sim and having a great time doing so. It’s a packed place, from top to bottom. Get in there… see it… pee in the truckstop toilets. Whatever suits your space fancy.

The fun starts at the Galactic Truck Stop.

It really is a truck stop, complete with a store with sci-fi toys and trucker caps.

The Agriculture Station. I was told by the sim owner/creator that there would be NO produce isle, no, never.

Staring into space and thinking… “do avatar sheep dream of”… no, nm. I’m not gonna ask. I’m sure certain Robots already think everyone’s dreaming of them as is.

Wow, what kind of funky Windlight first look is running on THIS computer?!

History is fascinating… really. I’m telling you, there’s a whole channel developed around history!! (But not on SLCN, so don’t check)

I have a bunch more pics in the Privateer Sim set in my Flickr Account.