I missed the Virtual Tree Lighting by a few hours due to real world air traffic nightmares, so today was my first visit to the new NBC island (there are actually 16 NBC islands to handle the traffic that they anticipate, but they are all identical).



The top of the NBC tower features an impressive replica of the Rainbow Room. If the elevators are missing from the lobby, stick close to the building, fly up to the top, and enter through the outdoor elevator lobby.



If you are interested in building, note the reflective floor. Because reflection isn't possible in Second Life, this effect is accomplished by building an exact replica of the room and placing it under the semi-transparent floor. Nice effect, although expensive from a prim perspective.



Down at ground level, you can skate at the infamous Rockefeller Center ice rink under the festive gigantic holiday tree. They were giving away free Moopf Murray ice skates - not sure if that was a promotional thing or not.

I recently bought a pair of Moopf Skoopf Trails skates. I had such a great time last time I went ice skating that I sprung for the limited edition pair. You can customize the colors or the skates, as well as the trails that they leave behind when you skate.



And this is now one of my new favorite Second Life pictures.

Because it's SL maintence morning and I'm traveling in the real world today, I thought I'd share this picture from a while back. Although it looks like a pyramid, it's actually a picture taken from the ground looking up at me sitting on the edge of a skybox.

I've already had four offers to buy my first land, and I haven't even moved in yet. The neighborhood has a bit of a junkyard feel - with prims and assorted freebies littering the landscape at various altitudes and FOR SALE signs and searchlights beckoning passersby.

Here's an aerial shot of my property (the non-junkyardy side) and some adjacent homes. You can get information about any piece of land, and display the property lines using About Land under the World menu.



The first thing that I needed to do was adjust the terrain. This was very simple - I right-clicked on the ground and selected Edit Terrain. This highlights your property in bright green and changes the cursor to a little tractor that lets you raise/lower/smooth sections of the landscape.



I started simple and just flattened the plot. I'm planning to build my own structure, but until I have more time I'll be living in a very nice prefab freebie home that I found on slexchange.



All you have to do is unpack the box and place it on your land (I did need to reposition the door and patio railing). It takes up the entire footprint of my lot, but it has a working fireplace, a lockable door, and windows that can be transparent, semi-transparent, or opaque.



I need to modify the land a bit more to make it easier to enter, but I'm quite pleased with my temporary living quarters. Feel free to stop by if you want to check it out.

I've been meaning to check out Neo Realms Fishing Camp and finally made it over there last week.

First you buy a fishing pole and the appropriate bait in the Bait Shack. I selected a large bamboo pole that set me back 100L$ and the bait was another 20L$.



Next, you wear the pole and use the appropriate controls to cast.



On my first cast I caught nothing. On my second cast I caught the small "santa fish" pictured here. On my third cast I caught this gargantuan fish and decided to call it a day.

Santa delivered early!

Last night I was exploring SL while watching the USC/Notre Dame game and I actually found some First Land! I now have a home.



If you have a paid membership, the First Land program enables you to purchase 512 square meters (basically a postage stamp) for 512L$ with no monthly land use fees. Of course, First Land is subject to availability and I've been checking for a few weeks and there's never any available.

Linden Labs' customer service hours are 9-6 PST, so I wrongly assumed that those were their normal business hours and didn't search too much in the evenings and on weekends. You can imagine my surprise when I searched on a Saturday night at 8pm PST and found nine plots of First Land !

It reminded me of the Oklahoma land rush scene in the movie Far and Away. I teleported to the first location and there were three other people there checking it out. It was in the middle of a snow sim area, so I decided to check out the others. When I refreshed the list, three of the nine plots were gone! There were several in the same location so I went to check that one out, but the area around it was very developed. The last place I checked out I determined was good enough. The lot adjacent to mine is already developed (although the owner has big blinking "FOR SALE" signs on it), and there are a few other small homes nearby.

I'm not even really sure what I'm going to do with it - perhaps build a giant kitty condo :) Well, not too giant because the parcel only supports 100ish objects.

I came across a Imagination Breeding and Zoo the other day. I'm note sure what the racetrack is for, but they have quite a variety of animals. My favorites included the koala and the monkeys.

The Fabjectory statuette that I ordered is now prominently feaured at their store in Second Life.

I was compiling a list of places to find free stuff for some colleagues who are new to Second Life and came across this wildly complex FREE avatar at the Gnubie store. I present Psyra Extraordinaire's "Brew Panda".





There is just so much going on with this guy! He's wearing a keg on his back, a holster around his waist holds a variety of containers, and his right hand holds a bamboo pole that dazzles with bling.

Virtual Bailey visited Santa in Second Life.



His wish is that Linden Labs will make some First Land available.

Over on Bloghud I saw a post about a "giant holodeck at Commonwealth Island". I hadn't heard the term holodeck before, but the picture that accompanied the bloghud post looked cool.

When I arrived at the teleport location, I was standing on a transparent location in the sky and surrounded by a coastal scene. I saw the small control off in the distance and began clicking to change the background image.



Duh - after randomly clicking for a while I realized that I could zoom in on the control and actually select the background that I wanted to display. I thought it was random.



There are a whole bunch of undersea images, so I dug out my scuba equipment and posed for a few pictures.

I came across a great free tour HUD at Idea City (developed by real world advertising agency GSD&M headquartered in Austin, TX).



The HUD is very easy to use. Horizontally, it can be expanded to show all locations on the tour or collapsed to show only the current location. It can also be minimized vertically and completely reskinned if you want to change its colors.



They offer two separate tours, one that focuses on real world businesses in Second Life and another that highlights some unique aspects of Second Life culture. Because the HUD comes with full permissions, anyone can make and easily share their own tour.

I recently bought a motorcycle, and of course a really nice set of leathers. My only dilemma now is finding finding some decent open road. So far my riding has been limited to the Nissan test track.

After a bit of shopping around, I decided to buy from HD Cycles. They had a good selection of "female sized" bikes - because nothing looks worse than riding a bike when your hands don't reach the handlebars.

The bike produces engine noise when you ride it, you can peel-out by pressing the page down keey, or do a wheelie by pressing the page up key. It also accommodates a passenger, so beware of hop-ons :)

Yesterday I got my hands on the in world Nokia 770 that I missed out on at the Popular Science launch event on Thursday night. Like the appetizers I mentioned yesterday, it works best without the paws so it will be modeled by my human avatar.

The in world Nokia 770 comes with a handheld, a stylus, and an animation overrider. When relaxed, your avatar just holds it.


(Picture taken at Vanda's Pocket Park)

When you begin to type, your avatar scribbles on the Nokia instead of the usual "typing on imaginary keyboard" animation. Apparently you can add additional animations, but I haven't gotten that far yet.



I haven't seen the real world version in person, but it looks like a pretty slick little device.

As a side note, if someone if standing right in front of you, you can give them something by dragging it from your inventory onto their avatar (knew this). If not, then drag the item onto their profile (which you can find using the People tab on Search) or their calling card if you have it.

Popular Science launched its Future Lounge last night. I didn't have time to stick around for the launch event, which is unfortunate because they were giving away an in world version of the Nokia 770 and I'm a huge Nokia fan.



From the outside, the space is certainly imaginative. The goal of the Future Lounge is to create "a unique in-world destination showcasing cutting-edge technologies and futuristic designs—many of which exist in the real world only as ideas or prototypes." The roof of the structure features virtual versions of Skystream wind generators and a water feature.





The water on the roof is visible inside, creating a tranquil effect in the lounge area. The person who created the pose balls is a comic genius :)




Because their launch was in a few hours, they had some catering tables available. I sampled a Tech Tini and something from the chocolate fondue fountain. Why has no one solved the problem of not being able to have more than one object attached to a single body part? I always have to take off my paw to eat or drink :(




Out back there is a fabulous deck area including dozens of chairs to lounge on as you watch the solar powered video screen. There's also a flying windmill exhibit that you can read more about here.

I updated my human avatar to look a little more like me - well, more like me in the sense that she's got brown hair now :)





The outfit is from Paper Couture, one of my favorite stores in Second Life. It is designed like a real world upscale boutique and their designs are things I'd actually wear in real life. They have some great looking handbags on the first floor, but I don't have much to carry in the virtual world, so I couldn't justify the impulse buy just yet. Maybe for a special occasion. The only thing I don't like is the circular staircase. For some reason I just can't make it upstairs without accidentally falling off the staircase at least once. I also like that their outfits come fully accessorized, with belts and jewelry.

Is it wrong to change your clothes out in the open? There aren't too many private places to change your clothes. I knew of a few, but now they are crowded and I've been caught naked a few times. Kind of embarassing even though it's not even really me. Come to think of it, the only dressing rooms I've seen have been at New Citizens Inc. I guess virtual modesty isn't a pressing problem.

I read an article yesterday about the new Dell Island. I was unable to locate it using Search, but I was able to find it using the Map. The four-possibly five-island complex located in the Eastern ocean includes a welcome center (with an orientation tour similar to SL orientation islands), the Dell Factory, an auditorium, a museum, a conference center, a learning center, "Dell City", and a giant computer that you can explore.

All major locations are joined by an aerial tram system that was a little difficult for me to figure out.



At the tram station there are signs for each possible destination. The signs say "Touch Here". If you right click the sign there is an option for "Sit Here" (although sitting on the sign makes no sense) and if you do right click it tells you to move closer. But now I'm so close that I don't notice/can't see the giant white transportation pod that I'm supposed to board. The first time took me about a minute and a half to figure out, subsequent times were also a little awkward because the transportation hubs sometimes span island borders, so you think you should be able to board the pod, but it keeps telling you "move closer" - when you are right under it. I also didn't know a lot about where I was going, so choosing based on the titles was a challenge - for example changing "Dell Giant Computer" to "Explore the interior of a giant Dell computer" might have lured me faster. Hey - still beats wandering and walking :)



Once you've selected a position, your avatar assumes the fetal position in a transportation pod and is whisked to your selected destination. My first stop was the giant computer where I wandered around oversized chips, cables, and (gasp) fans.







Next, I visited the Dell Factory where you can customize your own XPS 1710 at a drafting table or in a more private office area with a sofa.







The touchscreen interface is fairly simple, for example you click "memory" and are then prompted to make a selection between a number of options. The options are presented as scripted text and then you enter the corresponding number in the alert pop-up (a tad complicated - I'd like the options next to the buttons I have to push, likely a SL limitation). When finished, you have the option to purchase, which passes the information through to Dell's website where you complete the customization and perform the actual transaction.

Supposedly there's also an SL PC that performs functions such as alerting you when friends are nearby, but all I saw was the XPS 1710.