Quaker land in Quaker

I decided to buy land for the group I created, so that if someone clicks through to a location they can find a space and materials focused on Quakerism, instead of just finding my personal space. So I went searching for 512m2 beside protected land in a PG sim. There are some interesting little spaces out there. None just grabbed me, though.

And then I found it: There’s a sim named “Quaker.” It was fully owned, mostly by two groups, and it’s a Mature sim. But really, how could I not want to have a Quaker space in Quaker? I contacted someone from each of the large landowner groups, and one of them was willing to sell land. I completed the transaction yesterday, and now I’m working on a meetinghouse and benches that will stay under the 117-prim limit. It will be a bit of a challenge to create something that’s attractive.

Here’s the SLURL to Quaker/156/22/31.

First Look viewer

I’m using the First Look viewer, which is a test version of the SL client software that runs on the live grid (in contrast to test viewers that run on the beta grid). And it is great so far. Seems much faster and smoother.

Quaker update

I’ve created the group “Religious Society of Friends Quaker”. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to show up in a search for “Quaker”. I’ll have to see what to do about that. Maybe a classified ad. I should probably go to the FGC or FWCC and find out if there’s a good freely-copyable tract or two I can bring into SL (not that I wouldn’t be able to get permission, considering who I know!).

Quakers in SL

I haven’t had much luck finding other Quakers in SL. When I search on “Religious Society of Friends” I don’t get anything. “Friends”, of course, gets all sorts of things that aren’t related to Quakers. And then “Quaker” does get a few hits. There’s a group (that doesn’t seem to have a way of admitting new members, and which is very small) called Quaker’s sword, but I’m not sure they’re really about being Friends.

In doing a Google search, I found two SL bloggers who mention belonging to a Quaker meeting: Rik Riel and Caliandris Pendragon. I haven’t looked them up yet.

I’ve been wondering about converting my Rockridge model house into a meetinghouse. I already removed the kitchen, so there’s a large room in the back that would be nice for a meeting room. I’d just need to make benches and get pose balls and animations for sitting in worship. Being uninvolved with Friends right now in RL, it seems a little weird to be thinking about, in effect, creating the setting for a worship group in SL, but I do keep being drawn to the idea.

Hatchling machinima

I figured out how to select clips; add titles, subtitles, and transitions; and export a Quicktime movie from iMovie, but I can’t figure out how to zoom the image area, so there’s a black area over to the right. But you’ll still be able to get an idea of how the hatchling egg roll went.

New Year’s Eve on the Isle of Wyrms

There was a drum circle/dance and a hatchling egg roll on the Isle of Wyrms last night. The dance ball for dragons and hatchies was giving out the same animation to all the hatchies, so three of us lined up and were dancing in unison for a while. Hatchie line dance!

I took a movie of part of the dance and the egg roll. I’ll see if I can edit it down to a clip and figure out how to post it. The egg roll is a contest where hatchies get inside hollow prims (egg-shaped, semi-transparent, and physical) while set to “always run” and try to push one another out of the “nest”. There was a L$3,000 prize. I, alas, did not win (although I was also not the first pushed out).

Another new me

I decided I wanted a better skin than the “Hot n Hairy” one I bought early on, and I also wanted prim hair that worked well with the skin. So after trying lots of demos, I decided on “Dusky hairy” by Max (available only in brown) and two hair styles from Naughty Designs. In this photo I’m wearing “Gabriel’s Hair” in sable.

Close runners-up were “Tawny hairy” and “Tawny red” by Max (if they had a hairy redhead, I’d have gone for it); “Dante” tan and light from Naughty Designs (fewer choices in facial hair and lack of chest hair did them in, although having a crew-cut option was very attractive); and CMFF’s “Hairy Male” and “Hairy Male 2” (which are nice photorealistic skins, but they have no options except a well-done built-in crew-cut). The Naughty Designs hair options were plentiful and well-done, so I pretty much confined my looking to them. Even so, I needed to tweak my head shape a bit (come to find out the shape was doing more than the size to give me a bad fit with this hair).

All in all, I’m happy with the L$4,600 I spent. I may even go back and buy a premade shape from by Max. Although I’m pretty happy with my shape, it’s a bit tall. I’ll live in it with this skin and hair for a while before I try anything else, though.

Dragon dance

There was a dance in Limbo tonight (every other Friday night at 7 SL time), and it was lots of fun. I tried dancing as a Spirit Dragon for a while, but it’s awfully big and disorienting. I also tried playing an elven drum for a while. But here I am dancing with an artsy shot up at flying/dancing dragons.

I hope it survives

I’m having a ball in SL (and I’ve certainly ploughed in enough money already), but the instability of their infrastructure is worrisome, especially in light of their exponential growth. I just hope they can keep up and keep the grid open more consistently than they have so far since I joined.

Live from the Wyrm hatching

I’ve been on Cathedral for a couple of hours already, waiting for the midnight (Linden time!) hatching of Daryth Kennedy’s Wyrms. I still can’t decide between the Spirit and Royal Wyrms!

By all accounts the noon hatching was a chaotic nightmare–the sim was burdened and LL was having some problems as well, as I hear. Daryth & co. had a backup plan, which entailed buying a red box, but some people seem not to have heard (or paid attention) to the instruction to buy it. Sometime after Daryth said “Go” the sim crashed. There was a big crowd in Limbo for quite a while until things began to get sorted out.

So now I’m sitting here, along with about forty others. Here’s some of the crowd (many “away”):

And here’s the Grand HedgeWyrm herself, Daryth Kennedy (in one of her many guises so far tonight):