Reader Submitted Pictures: At The Linden Snowball Fight

 

 

 Zada Bury, noted for her "Drivers of SL" videos, sent the Newser some pictures of last month's Linden Snowball fight. "The moles was nearly the whole time around," she would say

For those who don't know, this is a reference to an old joke about optimistic people trying to find something great in the dirtiest of places. Yellow snowballs, that's fighting dirty!

 

At the end, there was a time out for a group photo.

 

A picture with names.

 

 Zada would also take a video of the first melee (click here if the footage does not show).

And would take another of the second one (click here if the footage does not show), and near the end, a friendly jab at a certain reporter who cartooned what she was wearing , "You got this time also a pun 'on you' "

Zada Burry, with comments from Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: Avajean Westland's Virtually News, and Doing Broadcast News About Second Life

By Bixyl Shuftan

About a week and a half ago on September 13th, AvaJean Westland showed off to a public audience at the LEA4 sim the debut episode of "Virtually News," a parody of TV news done in the style of "the Onion." The show was described as "an irreverent take on current events and pop culture, which pushes the boundaries while using animation as the filter."

The show was rated "for mature audiences" for not without good reason. The initial episode spoofed exercise infomercial products such as the "Thighmaster" and the "Shake Weight" as having been backed by the porn industry, and had an infomercial of it's own for "The Twerkinator" : a device that will supposedly allow a girl to safely and effectively shake her behind without risk of injury.

Those attending the premier included bloggers Mona Eberhardt and Inara Pey, and Second Life Enquirer editor Lanai Jarrico. Second Life Newser was also there after having gotten a tip by Lanai.

Avajean Westland in real life is Gameela Wright, an actress from New York with experience in TV shows such as "Blue Bloods" and all three series of "Law and Order," theater, and commercials. In Second Life, she is described as having worked with Chantal Harvey and part of the machinima series "The Blackened Mirror." She also created Second Life video for the Project Homeless campaigning "The Quiet Dark Wind."

(Click Here to see Avajean's "Vitrually News" - CAUTION, Not Safe For Work)

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Avajean's resume is an impressive one, and she does have a point about these funny exercise devices. How many men use a "Shake Weight," especially in public, after all? There's certainly lots of room for news parodies, others having been done such as those some years ago by Second Lie. But talking about the episode with my friend and teammate Nydia Tungsten, we wondered, couldn't someone make serious news videos of goings-on in Second Life?

Not *every* reporter can do news in front of a video camera as writing and public speaking are two different skills. I myself, well, to paraphrase the expression "he has a face for radio," I have a voice for newspapers. But still, one wonders. If someone did weekly or monthly news videos a few minutes long, how many of you the readers would watch them?

Probably a great deal many of you, we reasoned. So we're making a few enquiries about what we might be able to pull off. We'll let you know about any developments. And those who want to give giving their voice to journalism by all means feel free to contact us.

As for Avajean's "Twerkinator," I don't think we've seen the last of it. Jimmy Kimmel's firey prank showed one way it can go very wrong.

Sources:  SL Enquirer, Prim Perfect, Modem World, Mona Eberhardt, gameelawright.com/

Bixyl Shuftan

Grease Coakes Turns Seven

By Grease Coakes

First off I want to thank my RL boss that I’ll name Mary to protect her real life identity. She was nice enough to let me work the day before and have today off. Also one of my co-workers I'll name Stan was singing me "happy birthday" yesterday.

 And I think I speak for anyone that birthdays are special whether it's your birthday in the real world or a virtual birthday. Your birthday is your special day no one can take that from you that one day out of 365 days that's yours. Most people celebrate the holidays in December whether it's Christmas or Hanukkah with family and friends. People who live a second life in the virtual universe get two birthdays per year. How can you beat that? In today's fast paced world of either life people should take their birthdays to take time to smell the roses and relax.

Another crazy fact it's my brother's real life birthday today. So my SL birthday and his real-life birthday are the same day.

So I started the day with no events so I figured there would be something going on at the furry club IYC which stands for International Yiff Center at IYC Addictions (153/115/2492) I was right as the furry DJOK Fretwerk AKA Jim Morris was djing. Not many people were active at 5:30am SLT, but it was ok I still handed out my freebie shirts and hung out.

For my fifth and sixth and SL birthdays for readers of the Newser who may not know, I handed out t-shirts that I made myself. I handed out these shirts for a limited time. In IYC I handed out the shirts to everyone in the club. A few furries IMed me in confusion. I explained these are my birthday shirts. I'll get birthday wishes and in fact Chedder Digipaw with account name CyberRatt resident gave me a whole clothes set named League of xtranary Furs. Shyraii Devinna asked for the asset UUID to make my Zapbird shirt better looking for women to show breasts. It's a rare case that I get a party pooper that declines my shirt. I shrug it off and move on.

I gave Shyraii a cookie and she responds by saying, "My fiance ate all my chocolate chip cookies (frown). He's a butthole (grin)." "Dude what's up with that?" I asked. 

So in IYC I hung out with Shy as we were wearing the same shirt dancing together to Loferz Resident AKA TeiTei who announces over voice anyone who says hi gets a cookie. So I say, "Hi Teitei do i get a cookie?  TeiTei went, "YUSH!" *stuffs one in your muzzle* ^_^

Who can say no to a cookie?

Earlier I IMed a human buddy of mine Lia Mistwalker, asking is there any events at SGB which is shorthand for Sounds Gravis Beach at Sounds Gravis Beach (134/21/32). Lia told me, "Sakura spins at 8am to 10am."

I told her, "I'm so there! it's my party and I’ll shake my tail if I want to I turn 7 today." "Happy rez day!" she says

When the party started I went over to SGB and SGB Melody the club owner said this, "And all the girls, please line up and kiss our Furry Grease... It's his rezzday today!"

SGB is always a great place to hang out at. Smooth music and minimal emotes. There's always a conversation going on plus the DJ mixing live. Raphad Noyes who may be related to StJohn Noyes one of my friends from Brahma Yoga class stopped in at SGB with his lady friend Mielerosa (honeyrose58 Resident. He's usually a werewolf but today he was a human. Raphad is a very polite and cultured werewolf/human as he always calls me sir. He mentioned in IM, "You look a bit different, Sir." "Yes indeed Sir Noyes," I answered, "I’m wearing the first avatar I bought in SL." "Interesting."

I IMed Aurora Avila informing her I can make her DJ set today as I usually work on Thursdays, the only day she DJs. She says awesome. We also chit chat about the game she told me about , Guild wars 2.

"I should try the species you showed me," I told her, "the goblin species they are hard to find in PVP (which stands for Player vs Player)." Aurora answered, "They tend to be pretty fugly." "Yeah they are! But all my characters can't be the Charr cats that would be boring."

Over time In real life I get hungry so I plan to leave SL for a bit for food. But before I leave, the girls at SGB plan to make Cesare Drucker the club manager cross dress. They type various things like

Jet Goode: "We can duct tape him to a pole."

Lia Mistwalker: "Mini dress, don’t forget to wax his legs."

Mariete (Mariete Babii): "Just don’t WAX Grease!!!You could kill him."

Luckily I leave before the ladies decide to play dress up with me

After I go out to get Chinese food and popcorn I come back into SL and bounce from SGB to the Ark at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Quarabia/141/123/500. I hang out for a bit then I go to Woods at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/WOODS/126/163/25 

Then Nydia Tungsten IMs me and says there's s video that I could take part in. She warps me to The Happy Vixen at Purrfection Estates (180/59/22). I warped over and a short while later she starts her chimera and begins recording. Nydia sorts out things as she has to relog and over time the video is complete. Her video is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfArSuKsqHM&feature=youtu.be.

When it's finished I made a SL card through email to my brother for his real life birthday today.

Afterwards I took another break from SL and logged back on and stop at a few other places but for my SL Birthday it doesn't seem right. I instead warped to my friend Amehana Ishtari and I jump in on a pony party.

I handed out my shirts and Amehana admits to being busy. However she does agree to an interview about her new book Selkie Skins Castle and Wells soon. Amehana has also written about a woman named Blowing Wind as she goes on a spiritual adventure with a dragon spirit named Ryu. I joked, "Amehana your pony looks pimped out." And she says this, "Ummm... Thank you? *raises her eyebrow, never thinking that word would ever be used for her*" I instead say that her pony is dressed like a diva and she says, "*watches you backpedal*"

I goofed off and relaxed before Aurora Avila starts to DJ at her new club club Midi Bikini Bay (85/196/1022) where she still plays her video game remixes and Japanese songs.

I went to Club Midi and I had a good time just like it was yesterday. Aurora played her mix of video game songs and everyone chit chated about video games or whatever. Aurora still has a nice surprise to anyone who tips her. I felt stress ebb away and relaxed as Aurora played her unique mix of songs.

I guess the point of this article is that in today's fast paced world of Second and First Life that once in a while take time for yourself. I remember talking to a customer at Royal farms in real life and he said don't sweat the small things and always have fun for yourself. Give yourself some me time.

Today I did take time for myself and had a great seventh birthday. It's a rough world out there but if you always have a smile on your face the world will seem a much brighter place. I guess that's the gist of this article is just have fun in life whether it's your real life birthday your second life birthday or your unbirthday.

Grease Coakes

Game Review: Final Fantasy VII Returns on Steam

By Grease Coakes

Lots of people remember the old Atari game systems with the old games combat and space invaders with very primitive graphics. A little later the Nintendo entertainment system stormed across the world with Super Mario bros and classics like Metroid and Zelda.

Fast forward about ten years or so and the First Playstation became the popular gaming system of the time. Squaresoft a gaming company from Japan well known for its Final Fantasy RPG game series came out with the seventh game in the series. Back in 1997 when it was released it had state of the art graphics not with the characters but with realistic looking environments. By today’s standards the blocky avatar you controlled as Cloud was a graphical joke. However the environments made a solid attempt of looking realistic especially in Midgar where you start the game. Considering this was back in 1997 before the year flipped to 2000 and beyond, Final Fantasy VII was a major feat.

In combat however the avatars are better looking 3-d models as your characters do battle with bad guys that you encounter to gain experience Gil and so on. In fact one of the main features of FF VII is the active combat system. Instead of turn based combat like in a dragon quest game where you can take your time deciding what to do your team will be attacked as you tell your characters what to do.

So yes if you do nothing and step away for a bathroom break or your roommate badgers you to death about taking out the trash when you get back your game may be over as the pixel Cloud and his buddies were told to do nothing.

The story itself starts in Midgar as you control a blond spiky man named Cloud who was an Ex-Solider. Caring for nothing but himself, Cloud was hired by Avalanche, a resistance group against the powerful corporation Shinra. Barret the group leader doesn’t trust Cloud’s arrogant attitude, but lets him help in the mission anyway.

Barret and Cloud sabotage a mako reactor as Barret explains it’s unethical for Shinra to drain energy from the earth to power homes etc. Cloud could care less as he just wants his payment of Gil. The game from then on starts as possibly one of the greatest role playing games in the history of video games.

The game play is simple where you command Cloud and your team to attack cast magic or use an item like a potion during combat. However each character can only cast magic if he or she has Materia equipped to their weapon and or armor. Having a Restore Materia equipped to Cloud lets him cast cure to heal hit points on himself or others. Fire Materia allows a character like Barret or Tifa to cast fire attack spells. Materia is created as condensed life energy and allows magical abilities. Most materia very slightly reduces physical attributes while very slightly increasing your magical power. Over a long period of time you gain AP or attribute points to make your material level up to give you stronger healing or lightning abilities. You could just constantly fight enemies early on to beat the system and level up your materia to fire and cure 2, but it would take a very long time to do so.

Another addition to combat is the limit break where a bar fills up a little or a lot depending how much damage your character takes. When the bar fills up instead of attacking your character can do a Limit break instead. Aeris a weak physical character her limit break heals everyone on your team. Cloud does a Braver, which is a super physical attack with his large sword. As you level up your characters gain new limit breaks along with higher hit points and magic points.

The game from years ago is still the same from 1997 with a slight brush up of the graphics along with the same music and sound effects. When I talked to a dog I heard a good attempt of recreating a dog’s woof. It missed by a mile or so, but I enjoyed the sound effect anyway. The movies in between scenes were graphically good though for the time. Pixar or another computer animation company could easily blow those scenes away in one of their movies today though. However Squareenix left the old school movies as is and only improved upon them cleaning them up. Cloud’s sword twirl at the end of each battle and Tifa’s stretching are still there. In fact when I loaded up the game for the first time there were the charging chocobos with the Squaresoft logo very much if I started up the game 16 years ago.

Another feature that I liked playing with was the color change feature to change the color of the background behind the menus and dialogue and combat. There’s a screen with four corners and you can change the color of each corner to customize your very own color scheme as you helped Cloud and his friends fight Shinra and whatever other baddies came your way. I remember changing the color scheme every so often.

There’s something shocking that happens later in the game, but if you never played FF7 I don’t want to give it away. If you really must know ask a friend or use the web. But if you want to find out for yourself and you tell your friends “No! Don’t tell me! I want to find out for myself!” More power to you I won’t give away what happens.

When I played Final Fantasy 7 for a little bit before I wrote this article, I greatly enjoyed playing through the game as I played on my computer years ago when I didn’t have a playstation. I’ll savor the game by playing a little bit now and again and not rush through the game as I barely got anywhere in the game anyway so far. Final Fantasy 7 is a classic game that even if you hate video games and RPG/s you can at least give a try, or you could be reading this article and you beat the game 100 times before and you want to beat the game 101th time on steam on your computer.

It’s available for download on steam at www.steam.com for a low price of $11.99. Swing Cloud’s big sword or shoot Barret’s hand gun (no really his hand is a gun) for the first time or you’re a hardened vet of the game. This game is a smart buy.

Grease Coakes