The Second Life Newser Party

 Saturday June 5, 2010 was when the Second Life Newser would first start publishing.  Publishing big stories about events at the time such as the layoff of a third of Linden Lab's staff and the stepping down of it's CEO at the time, it would soon gain a following and eventually become the leading newsletter covering the news of the people, places, and events across the virtual world. Eleven years later, it's still going strong, and time to take a moment to celebrate with a party. It would be held on Saturday June 5 at the Bouncing Bunny Beach Club at the SunWaterThree sim, just a couple sims from the Newser office building in HV Communnity.

Just before the event started, I met up with Velani, and Grease Coakes, whom would be the DJ for the first half of the three hour event. 

Before long, he was spinning the tunes.

Snowbuns (Skylark Lefavre), the senior manager of the BBBC, soon showed up, still in the pink red panda avie from her "Bid Me" event, along with hostess Niki (blue and purple).

Reporter Anita Kimono, whom earlier wrote under her other account Kayly Iali, soon appeared.

Then came Gemma Cleanslate.

And GoSpeed Racer, real-life novelist and Second Life DJ. 

SL personality Prokofy Neva also came by.

Cynthia Farshore dropped in, having spent much of the day with the RFL Track Sunbeamer camp.

The Red Rocket drink machine got some attention, notably for it's better interactivity compared to earlier models of soda dispensers. 

It worked on Penny Shuftan's (Deaflegacy) pony avatar too.

For the Come As You Are contest, of which club staff were oked to enter as this was a special event, the result was a tie between Gemma and Snowbuns. After 1:30 PM, it was Snowbuns' turn to DJ.

More would continue to show up such as hostess Kylee (purple).

Penny would win the CAYA contest in the second half of the party.

After 3PM, people gradually went about their ways, drifting to other places and events, such as Relay events. It was a nice few hours to celebrate the Newser's success and endurance.

It should be noted that at times, the conversation turned to Ebbe Linden, who's passing was announced only yesterday. We talked a little about him. It was also brought up that in a sense history was repeating for the Newser. Just a week after it came about, it was covering the layoff of a third of the Lab. And on it's anniversary eleven years later, it was covering the passing of Linden Lab's CEO. 

No doubt we''ll cover a number of such stories as time goes on.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Scenes From the Sunbeamer Air Show

Saturday June 11 was the day of the Third Annual Team Sunbeamer Air Show. As before, the event was held at Farshore Field in the Pacific Waters sim.

The event would last for eight hours, from 8AM SL time to 4PM SL time. Being an airfield, the obvious activity was flying. People could BYOP (bring your own plane) or use the plane rezzer from Jessicabelle Dayafter. As these were VICE warplanes, they could be used in a dogfight.

Cynthia Farshore is the owner of Pacific Waters and the main organizer of the air show event, easily identified by her unique nanygoat avatar. Known as a DJ, as well as a builder, she had an ample supply of music from the 40s, in addition to 80s music and other popular tunes.

Shockwave Yareach, having a reputation in the Sunweaver Estates as a topnotch builder, helped Cynthia get the island and airfield ready for the event.

As the island had a roadway around it, another activity available was car and motorbike riding, which one visitor did.

Cynthia Farshore would display some of her collection of virtual aircraft.

 The planes had some information about them available, either on a sign or notecard giver nearby.

It wasn't just on the outside the planes were detailed on. The cockpits were well done as well.

Skylark Lefavre had her balloon at the show, and offered rides.

Here she is taking TS and Random Darrow for a lift around.

There was also a "Human Cannonball" cannon, which one could sit in, and once clicked would launch them into the air. "Trust the bunny, it works," Rita told, "*most* of the time." "Nobody who died has complained!" Shockwave added.

It was suggested one grab a parachute first. Trader Whiplash who gave it a try commented, "My head hurts, and back, and neck ... "

Some visitors brought their own planes up for display, such as these jets.

Trader Whiplash and Rowena Dubrovna brought a helicopter over.

But Rowena decided she "otter" stay on the ground.

Shockwave gives a British fighter-bomber a try.

At one point, Nydia Tungsten went up into the air in a Stuka, offering to donate 500L if anyone could shoot her down. To encourage things, she dropped a few bombs near the crowd.

Eventually, someone went up in a Wildcat and after several minutes of dogfighting, the Stuka went down. Nydia congratulated the winner, and as promised paid up the 500 Lindens.

Then Billy Ixito went up in his F-16 to do a little acrobatics.

Billy did some areobatics for a while, then kept going up and up, and up, soon out of sight even with my viewer at maximum range. Billy had froze up, and the plane kept going until he disconnected.

While we were all watching Billy in the air, something else was happening somewhere. Rita looked at the kiosk, which earlier was near 230,000 Lindens, and it had gone up, "301K? When did that happen?" "within the last 20 minutes, Rita." I answered. "Darn, Cynthia you pulled our team over the top again! ... We (were) 70K short last I checked, so some Angels dumped 70K worth of lindens into our kiosks in the last 20 min."

 With the air show winding down, Skylark Lefavre gave me a ride in her balloon.

The trip went around the main mass of Sunweaver community sims, Sunweaver Isle and Purrfection not connected to the rest.

 Going past the SL Newser office in HV Community.

The 301,000 Linden mark we'd hit was plenty, but not quite enough to reach Gold Level. But after a few more bucks were tossed into the kiosks, it was remedied. Like last year, the air show marked our reaching Gold level.

Beamers!  Today with the efforts of Cynthia, Shocky and many people bidding me PINK for 2 weeks, our team is now officially GOLD!  I am so proud of you.  Hugs and kisses all around!  To those of you who missed the Air Show, you missed one heck of a good time, lots of planes, cannons shooting parachuting, period music, good friends, aerial acrobatics.  Getting to the next level is NOT on my list, but we can still add to the pot and have fun while we do it.

And so, another successful Sunbeamer air show had come and gone. While this is likely the last of the big Sunbeamer events, there may be some smaller ones, in addition to the 'beamers taking a part in multi team events. And of course there is the Relay Weekend in July, of which among the teams with campsites will be the Sunbeamers.

For more pictures of the event, Oldesoul Eldemar would take a number and display them as well. 

Go Relay!

Bixyl Shuftan