Amnesia

In a place long forgotten by men, Mother Nature took over and the spirits of the forest can be seen wandering around.

A lighthouse, barely seen among the trees, scatters its light around, letting us see glimpses of what once must have been a beautiful place.

But then you get struck by terrifying sights.

Lonely witnesses of times past can be seen, turned into stone by some old curse. What happened here? What terrible events hide behind those images?

Are you brave enough to go there and find out?

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for my blog. Are they great or what?

Thank you all for dropping by. Hope to see you in 2015 and all the best for the coming year!

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,000 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 33 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Bushido Challenge

My friend Annie has always been a source of inspiration for my travels around the grid. I don’t know how she does it, but she always finds the nicest and unusual places.

This time she drop me a LM for Soyokaze.

Soyokaze is a Japanese medieval roleplay island and the home of the Clan with the same name (which means “gentle wind”).

The village is carefully and beautifully build. Stores aligned along the river that crosses the island. Temples, the amazing dojo and the homes of the clan members can be seen among waterfalls and luxurious vegetation that goes up the stone hills.

I was fortune enough to meet the builder and owner of the island, DomoKun Giotto, who gently gave me a tour and showed me the Bushido Challenge, which will open to the public tomorrow, Friday 19th December. Arigatoo DomoKun-San for all your kindness and patience!

As most of you probably know, the Bushido is the Samurai Code of conduct (read more here) and its 7 basic principles are the gi (justice and morality), yu (courage), jin (benevolence), rei (respect), makoto (sincerity), meiyo (honour) and shugi (loyalty).

In this challenge you have to apply your efforts and skills (hint: bring a friend) to succeed in all the quests and free Princess Ayuki.

You have to go through all the gates, each marked with one of the 7 Bushido principles and finish the quests. From getting through walls of laser beams to finding Po the lost monkey, or building stairs, you are bound to spend a couple of hours of fun and mind challenging riddles.

Go through the tunnels and gokouun o inorimasu (good luck) in finding the princess. Remember that things can only be achieved with patience and effort.

At the end of each quest there is a treasure chest which will give you a piece of the final prize, a gorgeous Samurai armour with lots of special effects.

Winter arrived to Owl’s Bay

Owl’s Bay is my little playground just across the bridge from my Gallery. With winter arriving to most parts of the northern hemisphere and having in my RL home town just blue skies and sun most of the time, I decided to bring snow to my little corner.

After getting some winter landscaping done, I move my camera and came face to face with this gorgeous unicorn, probably attracted by the beautiful lake and the little critters scattered all over.

It was not an easy encounter. The poor thing got scared and showed all his power by standing on his hinder legs

After sometime and patience he finally decided I could approach and hug him to seal our new friendship and he told me that he would stay there for as long as I allowed. He was tired of hopping the grid trying to find a home and he felt safe there. I made him swear he would be kind to visitors and let them play with him.

So feel free to drop by, play with him, skate on the lake (free skates available at the shed), dance to the mellow tunes being streamed or just sit on the bridge watching the sunset (mother fox and her cub are harmless).

Credits:

Unicorn prop by Studio Sidhe
Little Critters: Gacha from Ionic @ Chapter Four (thank you to Love to Decorate for the tip)
Winter Gazebo by United InshCon

Winter’s Coming

Winter’s coming is all over the Internet. The cold, the snow, the rain, traffic jams, blah blah blah. But also the fun building a snowman, sleighing down hill, skiing and specially the holidays with family and friends.

Being the pen (even the digital one) mightier than the sword, what if both are combined? So here is Winter ready to fight anyone that just sees the bad side of the season. Be ware!

(My friend Annie, who curates Second Life Destinations both on FB and Scoop.It, dared me to do this post. Thank you Annie!! Took some time to get the proper set and poses, but here it is 🙂 )

 

Set: Winter Scene Skybox – MiChiGaNs ShAcK

Outfit: :: PM :: The White Knight Outfit – Chess Inspired – Purple Moon
Hair: Exile Kyanna/arctic
Props & Pose: Blackburns  Medieval Mesh Sword Knife Set with Animations HUD

Let it snow!

I don’t know if it only happens to me, but with the cold weather I am not comfortable in dressing summer clothes and need to feel warm and comfy.

Also the random travels tend to be to winter themed islands and sometimes we discover some gems.

Let it snow! is one of them.

Leave you with a song and some pictures. Stay warm and enjoy.

Into the blue Paradiso

When you arrive to Paradiso you get the immediate feeling of peace and quiet. You get a notice stating to use the region windlight and indeed you should.

The soft blue spreads across the water and skies. Splashes of green and white can be seen here and there. Each little island has its own feeling.

The whole of it offers the right atmosphere to just sit in any little corner and enjoy the peace.

Of course I couldn’t resist to change the windlight settings and here is the same scene with the original one and another by me, based on Bristol (I do love Bristol clouds).

Mad hats

Last saturday I went to the “Show and Tell” which is held by Virtual Ability once a week. People share what they have found during the week, from experiences to funny things. Slatan Dryke showed us this gorgeous and unique top hat that look like a wooden house with chipmunks all over it. As I love funny and different things, I asked for the LM and off I went to the Mad Hattery store.

The slogan of the store is “a hat for your every occasion” and oh boy! how true that is. The store has a ton of amazing, inventive and funny hats, and at very good prices too. Of course I couldn’t resist and bought a couple from the boards and two from the gashas there.

However this is just not another store. Where can you find a store where there are bump cars you can rezz or an Intan to dance? Well the Mad Hattery has it, so grab a couple of friends and head there to a complete different shopping experience.

Oh! And there is a sale on Christmas hats until the 1st of December, so hurry hurry!

Particles and music

On Friday, after the Linden Tour, my good friend Annie Brightstar called me to watch a particle show. Being slightly traumatized by the several previous crashes, I hesitated a bit but ended up taking the taxi to LEA 23, and glad I did!

Venus Adored particle show with music by DJ Sunshine was simply breath-taking.The show spanned across LEA23 and 24 and was hosted by Betty Tureaud & Mandel Solano.

No pictures can translate the beauty of the whole show. Each song had its own theme and we were surrounded by light and music.

If you have a chance to watch the light shows by Venus, please don’t miss it. And if even I didn’t crash in a full SIM with tons of particles, no one will 🙂

Lindens are back in town

For those of you who are recent in SL seeing a Linden Lab representative in world is no more than a myth. However back in the days, it was common to stumble upon them all over the grid.

With Ebbe Altberg on the wheel we now have the Lindens back on the grid and yesterday there was a tour to the new Headquarters of the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) moles.  “Mole” is the last name of the Linden Lab’s employees in charge of the Public Works in Mainland – road maintenance, public buildings and so forth.

The new Headquarters are in a beautiful sim called Meauxle Bureaux and the Lumiere Building, a creation of Kayle Matzerath for last year’s Fantasy Fair, is simply amazing and a sort of Museum for Second Life.

I arrived there early, since I wanted to take some pictures before the crowd started to arrive and I started to crash.

The village is amazingly build with lots of little corners and the Moles’ offices/homes open to everyone to look around.

Xiola Linden was the first to arrive and gave us a small tour to the main building and, by then, the sim was already full. Other Lindens started to arrive and soon I started to crash (*sigh*). However, being in SL for almost 8 years (my 8th rezzday will be this month on the 25th), I never saw so many Lindens together.

It feels good to see them again in world. Brings this strange feeling that LL still cares for us, a feeling that had been gone for the past 3 years. Take a tour at the place and who knows if you will find “your” Linden too?

Welcome back guys!

(The blue dots and tags are Lindens and Moles, this was the last snap I could take before my computer completely crashed on me)