As the days pass at the SL19B I have had a chance to greet at the
Welcome Area, the Tapestry, the Arboretum and wander along some of the
roads to say hello and offer information.
It is fun to meet many Second Life residents who come in from all across the grid to enjoy the birthday. I also stopped in at these venues when an event was going on.
One day I arrived at the Arboretum to find a raucous crowd clapping and hollering at at Wrestling match hosted by Premier Wrestling. Nadie DarkMoon Ireland (elcazador2003 Resident) and Khia Norsewood (Khiandres Resident) entered the ring to great applause and began tossing each other all over. The referee, Greyson Cooper (GreysonCooper101 Resident) oversaw what was going on. I have no idea who won or if anyone did since I am not familiar with the rules. Everyone there was enjoying the whole thing. I know there is a huge following of this sport in Second Life and it was evident.
The Arboretum is built to hold various events there on different stages. All of Saffia Widdershins interviews with Linden Lab are held here at a different stage that can accommodate hundreds of visitors at a time.
From there I stopped over at the Steamworks to find Classical steampunk music with Colin Scientist not only offering the music but also doing ballet dance steps for an appreciative audience. Some of the audience joined him with ballet steps . The Steamworks is an amazing installation of … also known as Faust in other years. I always look for his builds every year.
Sunday will be the last day for parties at the stages but this is a good time to start exploring the many installations across the more than 20 regions. I have visited some this week in between greeting at the various venues. Below are a few of the artists work that I have seen and enjoyed.
Not even the mighty Lindens are immune to crashing.
Thursday June 16 was the start of the Second Life Nineteenth Birthday, of SL19B. Yours truly dropped by early at the Arboretum, where Patch Linden was due for the opening speech. There were others whom had the same idea, and we were entertained by Squeaky Mole dancing and doing a few antics on stage. Three of the four sims in the area were quickly filling up. They must have been the high-capacity sims the Lindens were talking about as soon two were at 130 residents each while the third had over a hundred, for over 360 residents.
I hoped they could keep these once-impossible numbers up, wondering if there'd soon be a crash. And it turned out I wondered correct once more. I had Strawberry Linden's Youtube going, and she crashed as well.
Logging back on, I found myself in Horizons. I tried to TP back to the Aboretum, but couldn't. I went to a nearby sim and tried to walk over, only to find the sims were considered full, even though they had about 80 each instead of 130. It seems something happened with the sim, and they cut it's capacity. So I would listen to Patch's speech through the Youtube stream. Due to other technical issues, it would be delayed past the planned time of 12 Noon as well (21:50 in the Youtube).
Patch, whom appeared clouded throughout Strawberry's stream, would talk about various things. This included inspiring others to make their own virtual worlds, or as he put it, "some new legless entrants more recently to the fold." He would mention accomplishments of Second Life, saying the virtual world had a gross domestic product of over $650 billion USD. Patch would also discuss the various places of the Second Life Birthday area, such as the community gallery, where he invited people to share their screenshots, which he called allowing others a glimpse in the virtual lives of the residents, such as times when two friends are having a cup of coffee. Then he made a reference to his Fantasy Faire Jail and Bail, "then there are completely insane moments where a horde of angry tinies throws you into a jail and pokes you with pointy sticks. I may or may not be familiar with that." His aim was for the gallery to be a mix of "The beautiful, the crazy, and the poignant moments."
He also talked about a few changes at the SLB, such as moving the gifts to the Tapestry of Time, and the Music Fest events would be speak over the three stages over the three days, one day for each. He also talked about the three stages, the Arboretum, the Steamworks, and the Vernian Rotunda. Over the course of 11 days, there will be over 350 performers.
He then brought up the exhibits, "There is nothing that better showcases the imagination and abilities of our community than the exhibit regions." Then came the Shop and Hop, "With over 400 merchants, this is the largest shopping event we have ever hosted ... a must-visit for both the sales and the mountain of gifts that are available to the ardent shopper."
He would then go on to describe the accomplishments in the virtual world such as "leveraging our newly-found Cloud environment muscles with the debut of event regions, which you're currently sitting in. It's a lot of people here. In fact, over 350 of us at one point, something we wouldn't have been able to have done without all of the various improvements to performance our engineering teams have been so hardworking on."
Patch stated there would be more Linden Home themes to come, but did not mention the next one. "I don't want to give anything away just yet," he would say, "Next week, please come and see 'Meet the Lindens,'" saying he would be at the first, "I have many great things I have yet to announce."
"I continue to commit to all of you that I will carry forward our mission of making Second Life the biggest, best, and most vibrant virtual world there can ever be. Oh, and we will always have legs." He then thanked the moles, who he described as having been planning the event for months, in addition to certain residents who contributed, and invited people to take a slice of provided cake (the resident-run SLB events were noted for their "Cake Stage" locations), "have fun and stay virtual."
Strawberry would apologize for her viewer not being able to rezz Patch, and would look around a few more places before ending the stream.
Patch will appear again at the SL19B for "Meet the Lindens," once again at the Arboretum, today, Monday June 20 at 2PM SL time: SLB Exhilarate (228/224/23) *
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