At The SL19B, Part Two

By Gemma Cleanslate

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.

Bear Castle

Cake at Undersea 

Happy Hippo Team

Stephen Venkman's exhibit

Gemma Cleanslate
 

Sumo Wrestling at Steelhead

By Bixyl Shuftan

Recently at Steelhead, the steampunk community held their Sakura Festival over several days. Most of the events took place at the Steelhead Shanghai sim. There was a hunt, and some folklore and poetry readings. And for a little action, there was a sumo wrestling event, dubbed "Sumo Sunday."

Come one come all to Sumo!
Part of the Sakura Festival in Steelhead. Come join the festivities and beat each other up while having fun doing so. Starts at 5pm SLT in Steelhead Shanghai.

Sumo wrestling is an old sport, it's beginnings going back centuries in Japan. The rules are simple. The two wrestlers start from crouched positions in the center of the ring, then when the match starts each tries to force the other from the ring without a body part other than the feet touching the floor. Matches are typically quite short, sometimes lasting just a few seconds. But they can go on for over a minute.


For Steelhead's sumo matches, a scripted ring was placed in Steelhead Shanghai, complete with a 'bot referee, with stands set up to the side for the audience. Of the seats, Tensai Hilra joked, "custom is to throw seat cushions after a match, but that broke, so throw whatever you got (grin)." There was a "dead parrot launcher" that got used a time or two.

Those taking part had to touch the board for a "pusher" attachment, which was worn. Then they would touch the two white lines in the ring to crouch. When the ring gave the signal, the participants would charge at one another. As in real matches, some ended in seconds. But some went on for a while. There was also a technical glitch. If a larger avatar was up against a smaller avatar, sometimes the bigger one would go flying up into the air. Landing outside the ring in this matter was not considered a defeat, so after flying up in the air a wrestler could get back in. As the matches went on, the wrestlers began to use smaller avatars.

One of the more talked about bouts was held early in the event. Steelhead owner TotalLunar Eclipse went up against street urchin Jimmy Branagh. Lunar boasted, "If I lose the sumo match, Jimmy Branagh gets to be mayor for a week." As it turned out, Jimmy turned out to be a more skilled fighter than expected, "He's small, but he's scrappy." Eventually, he won the majority of the bouts, and the match. Fuzzball Ortega's reaction was to groan, "I'm moving to Caledon." Jimmy took the key to the city with a grin, though made no boasts about what he would do with his newfound position.

Yours truly got into the act with a freebie sumo wrestling avatar up against local Willow Leafstorm. But with her smaller fairy avatar, the result was the bulkier avatar ending up flying into the ring. So I switched to a small mouse avatar (Luskwood Bunkie), one not much taller than a "tiny." I won a single bout, but Willow got two and the victory. Tensai then challenged me in a small avatar of her own, "Cat versus mouse." While the mouse beat the cat once, in the end the rodent left the ring bested.

The matches went on for about a couple hours. In the Steelhead community meeting a few days later, they were declared a hit and a success, with lots of fun and laughs held around. There was no word on what Jimmy Branagh was doing as "mayor."

The Festival goes on until Saturday June 29.

In real life, professional sumo wrestlers live highly regimented lives, with matches having much tradition and ceremony. For instance the leg-stomping actions wrestlers do on entering the ring is actually a ritual to drive out evil spirits. But there is also amateur sumo, which is more worldwide and lacks most of the old rituals. Professional sumo wrestlers are not divided into weight classes, though a skilled wrestler can still beat a much larger opponent. Amateur sumo is divided into three weight classes plus Open Weight (Wikipedia entry).

Bixyl Shuftan

The Sunday Night Demo Derby

It's probably something you've fantasized about during a traffic jam: revving up the engine, then charging and smashing into the mass of cars. Well, there's a place in Second Life where that behavior is not only allowed, but encouraged. Every Sunday night in the Random sim, there's a Demolition Derby in a track a few hundred feet above the sim.

The track for the event isn't circular, but a few times longer than wide. Guard rails keep vehicles on the track, at least when drivers don't have a case of lag that causes them to travel a distance away before reappearing back on the track. At one end is the entrance in which participants can walk onto from the entry area, which has a notecard giver explaining more details about the derby.

Dropping by one night, I heard the people running the event ask for all those interested in racing to be on the field. About a couple minutes before the event, cars were rezzed in two rows, one for each side of the track and pointed back end in. The racers were asked to get in, and about twenty seconds before the start, those cars still empty were derezzed and the racers told to get ready to start.

And once the staff yelled "Go!" the cars charged, rear end first to keep the engine from being hit. Or in this case, to minimize the number of hit points taken away. It was a chaotic scene as cars moved around to ram one another and avoid being rammed. None of the cars tried to circle around and stay out of it as the rules stated everyone in the derby had to "actively and continuously fight" or otherwise be flagged and disqualified.

Once a vehicle's hit points reached zero, it blew up. Drivers were asked to at least fly up into the air so they wouldn't get in the way (free flight feathers were in the lobby entrance for any newcomers). Voice chat was openly encouraged, and I could hear a few excitedly calling out as they went around the track. I didn't hear any insults or taunting.

Different rounds had different vehicles. Round two involved racing in semi-truck cabs. Round three had a unique race. The participants jockeyed about in small flying saucers, obstacles resembling planets were added into the course, and vehicles could suddenly go up the sides and on the underside of an invisible force field, going upside down. It could be quite confusing and disorienting.

Round four involved something not usually seen on wheels: driveable pool tables. Back to a normal course, it wasn't long before the less skillful drivers were behind the eight ball. Round five was back to smashing around in cars, but police cars. There were no tickets for reckless driving that day as all but one ended up disabled. The sixth and final round had another unique run. The drivers were in shopping carts, and when they bumped they would loose of of the items inside, and it would appear on the course a few times larger as an obstacle. The course was soon quite a mess, "Clean up on isle 9."

The winner of the final round got an 800 Linden prize, with 400 going to second place.

Following the event, I had a chat with one of the people  there, Barbie Alchemi. She explained her brother AlmostThere Inventor ran the place, and she herself was the head of the Creations for Parkinsons sim. So besides a great place to have a smash-up-derby, the track has connections to a major charity in Second Life. One which will be for another story.

To get to the Sunday Demolition Derby Track, head to Random (6, 92, 301). Once again, scheduled races are from 6 to about 7 SL time every week. Between events, the track is available for "practice and grudge matches."

Bixyl Shuftan.