Day Pass

Written 29 April, 2011

Day Pass

Starring Cheyenne Palisades
With Sweetie in a Special Guest Appearance as the Robot
No Automata Were Harmed in the Filming of This Epic

So, one of the patients at the robot sanatorium, having been on its best behavior for six months, earned a day pass. And there being no staff present (visitors having every one opted to become robots instead), guess who got stuck with the job?


Does the nice robot want to go lie on the beach at Whimsy?

No.

Does the nice robot want to go hang out and paint one another's toenails?

No.

Does the robot want to go to a concert?

No.

Well, what does the damn robot want to do?

Robot wants to stimulate its accelerometer. Robot wants to go to the amusement park and ride the roller coaster.

And not just any roller coaster. It wants to ride the big roller coaster.

Sorry, I don't know where that is.

Wouldn't you know it, the smug creature has a landmark at hand and drops it on me, and I have no choice but to take it to ride the damn roller coaster.

How did it go? I'll show you in pictures.

This is a pretty nice coaster.

Maybe this won't be so bad after all.

Perhaps I should have sat in front, in case it throws up.

Do robots throw up? I hope not.

Yeah, I should have sat in front. It's hard to see past its big-ass head.

At least it's behaving itself.

Wups! Spoke too soon!

Hey, you! Down in front! Down!

Down, I say!

This time I'll sit beside it to make sure it keeps its seat belt fastened.

Is that a cold metal hand on my leg?

So far, so good, except for the hand-on-leg thing.

Wait a minute! Wait a minute! What am I doing?

I'm not believing I'm doing this!

Okay, this time I'm in front and the robot rides in the back.

I'm thinking this is gonna work...

How are you doing back there?

OMG! Is it getting out of its seat?

Yes it is, and so am I!  OMG! OMG!

Jeez, is that a HANDSTAND? Yes! Yes it is!

I am gonna be in sooo much trouble if the damn robot falls out!

I'm never ever gonna ride a roller coaster again!

So, robot, wanna go around just one more time?

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Giving Newbies A Leg Up

24 October, 2006. Two-day Old Cheyenne on a Bench at Ahern.
Fortunately, Someone Rescued Her. Nowadays She Tries to Pay It Forward

Written 29 April, 2011

Giving Newbies a Leg Up

Amidst the twentysomething know-it-all know nothings, inept griefers, gesture spammers, and potty-mouthed creatures at the welcome center is an occasional new person who needs help.

A number of people, including myself, are happy to give advice, but there's another type of newbie: one who has no idea what Second Life is about.

"What can I do here?"

"What am I supposed to do?"

About once a week I invited such a person to Whimsy. By the time I give them a ride on our train, show them the volcano Pele, and set them loose on a hang glider, they're inevitably jazzed.

I like to think that four years of doing this means maybe several hundred folks are in Second Life who might not otherwise be.

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Little Kaseopaya

Written 25 April, 2011

Little Kaseopaya

Second Life's space builds remind me ever so much of NASA's Astronomy Pictures of the Day.

Here's Chey's Astronomy Picture of the Day from Little Kaseopaya Space Park on the Hot Midsummer Night's sim:

Here's Big Blue Marble, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, 13 June, 2010:

Here's Little Kaseopaya:

Here's Saturn's moons Dione and Titan from Cassini, NASA's Picture of the Day from 20 April, 2010:

Little Kasiopaya:

NASA:

Of course, a lot of the textures in the space parks are taken directly from the NASA site, so it's no wonder.

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Baja Mechanic Lives in the Lava

Written 25 April, 2011

Baja Mechanic Lives in the Lava

A guy named Baja has taken up residence in the lava pool of the volcano Pele at Whimsy.

My Mystitool often shows that he's near, but I never see him.

The reason is because he's crouched, taking his head below the surface.

I was halfway across the sim doing some fancy camera work and came across him by accident.

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They've Redone Tableau Again!

Written 25 April, 2011

They've Redone Tableau Again!

I first went to the Tableau sim four years ago, after I read in one or another of Second Life's newspapers that its volcano had exploded and destroyed everything and everybody.

When I first visited, it was a desert town. Then it was something else. Then something else yet again. Now it's back to being a desert again, and it's most exellent.

Sweetie and I spent more than an hour in just one corner of  Tableau. That's because we came across a ruined stage.

And we all know how Sweetie is when there's a chance to perform!

I found a trunk full of puppets. Sweetie took the cool tiger one and left me with the fat castrato.

"Is anyone out there yet?"

"Just one noob. He's getting frustrated because he can't figure out how to sit."

"Where's my audience?!"

"Don't get your hopes up. It is the matinee."

"But if there's no audience, who will write the reviews?"

"I'll put it in the blog."

"Will you will refer to my performance in glowing terms?"

"Oh, absolutely."

"Yoo hoo, audience... We're about to start!"

"Is anybody there? Hell-ooooooo!"

Later, Sweetie found a place to perform...

... and a rapt audience.

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We Have Evidence

Written 25 April, 2011

We Have Evidence

I thought the Temple of Doom seemed familiar....

Now we know why.

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The Temple of Doooom!

Written 23 April, 2011

The Temple of Doooom!

Can your heart stand it? Can your brain take it? Are you courageous enough to visit...

...the Temple of Doooom?

Beneath the calm waters of Whimcentricity lurks a ruin... a haunted ruin filled with the ghost of pirates.

Dare you enter?

Might you share the fate of this unfortunate fellow?

What wonders will you see?

What beauty?

What dangers might you face...

... before you confront the mighty rock-throwing tiki god?

Will you make it to the peaceful undersea gardens beyond?

I would have liked to have shared more with you, but this blogpost was subject to approval by the Pirate Antidefamation League.

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How We Designed Whimsy

This historical marker gives a date
one month after Whimsy's actual birth

Written 20 April, 2111

How We Designed Whimsy

By Cheyenne Palisades and the Notorious Sweetie

When our sim arrived, the first thing we did was rez every stupid high-prim object in our inventory and play with it all. Then we spent a day or two racing around in planes, on motorcycles, and in cars.

Chey added Sweetie as an estate owner (not an easy task, as the Estate Menu insisted I give it her real virtual name), and we had a good time playing with terrain textures, setting the day cycle, and sending each other blue menu notes.

Then we got busy. But not before taking a moment for ourselves.

Our previous home was on the (no longer existing) Forsaken sim in Dreamland Estates. Our property had come complete with volcano, and we had grown to cherish it.

The first volcano Pele, on the Forsaken sim in Dreamland

So before we moved we asked the volcano goddess Pele if she would move with us to Whimsy, and she said yes. So we knew Whimsy would need a volcano.

Because we had a tropical volcano on Forsaken, we decided to keep the tropical theme.

Visually, we were shooting for Hawaii

At this point Cheyenne sat down and wrote the covenant, being as thorough and as funny as she knew how to be. She send the wording to Sweetie, and we talked about and modified it

The tropical theme more or less suggested the terrain textures. We chose lava rock for the highest elevations and sand for the lowest. Because our previous land had been all sand all the time, we wanted some green, so for the two middle textures we decided upon short and long grass textures Cheyenne had purchased at Botanical Straylight.

We made a platform in the sky (to stand on) and placed a 10 x 10 x 2 m prim atop it as a table . Chey made and imported a 8x8 square grid texture and dropped it on the tabletop; this divided the mockup into sections 32 x 32 meters in size.

We were optimistic. We laid out templates for four sims!

Then we made and pushed  prims around to signify islands, bridges, and houses. We moved them about for hours, trying this and that, while we talked in Skype.

Then Chey did a rough terraform of the land, using the in-world tools, raising the major land masses. Using the Region menu, she exported the terrain as a RAW file and e-mailed it to Sweetie, who imported it into the Macintosh-only Backhoe program and turned it into the Whimsy terrain of today. She e-mailed the RAW file to Cheyenne, who imported it, and Whimsy became Whimsy.

Whimsy under construction.
It took us about a week to get everything into more or less final form.

Since Whimsy’s birth in March, 2008 we’ve modified the land and covenant in small ways, but the original land design and covenant still stand.

We think Whimsy is stunning.

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