Scenes From The Fairlands: "The Desert Foxes"

 

 

 On Monday April 22, I dropped by the Sunstone Oasis sim for more on the continuing saga of the Desert Foxes in this year's "Children of Stories" roleplay. I arrived a little late to see the group looking for "The Singing Sword" in hopes of restoring the memories of a sphinx, the guardian of a lost library that had it's books all turn blank. Ultimately they were looking for the cure of a strange fever. 

The train led to an aqueduct, and someone found a secret passage near it.

 

Which lead to a cave, and a mysterious anvil, with something stuck in it.

 It wasn't the Singing Sword, but it was it's scabbard, embedded in a jewel in a hole in the anvil. Someone managed to pull it out without too much trouble. 

The group took it back to the lost library. Someone had also discovered the Sphinx's name Madulin. And at one point, a number of books appeared. It was a circular staircase of books.

It led to some circular platform on top with a spiral pattern. 

It looked like we'd gotten the books back, at least some of them. But the Sphinx still hadn't gotten his memories, yet.

 

 

And with that, it was time for the cast of characters to put the roleplay on pause, at least until the next day. 

For the complete story of the Desert Foxes, Click Here. 

Bixyl Shuftan

The Relay Rocker's Annual Bid Me Bald Team Challenge

 

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

On Sunday, April 14, the Relay for Life in Second Life's Relay Rockers team hosted an event. It was the conclusion of their multi-team Ninth Annual Bid Me Bald Challenge. Eleven other teams had volunteered to take part in their fundraiser, and over time they had raised tens of thousands of Linden dollars. And now was the time for the final donations.

Which team will be going bald, which team will be holding the scissors?

Find out today at 4:30pm slt as the 9th Annual Bid Me Bald Team Challenge comes to a close!

Party starts 4pm slt
 

Join the party and get in those last minute votes!

Team with the lowest amount in their kiosk gets the haircut by the team with the highest amount!  Still time to donate.

 

 The party took place at Arinultra Cay, not far from the Legends Rock Club. There were numerous Relayers there on the beach, representing most of the teams involved. "It's so great to see all the teams here."

 

The twelve teams each had a kiosk people could donate to.  The Relay Rockers, the host team, were not in the lead, but had a few others ahead of them, including the Sunbeamers.

"Roos With A Dream" was among the teams with the most raised. Another was the Cure Chasers, someone saying, "We have to sink the chasers to be safe, patty. get your siphon out. but don't let anyone see you." The one with the most raised was United For A Cure, "We are almost 5k ahead of the ROOS!" Nuala Marcus stated at one point. , "So looks like United For A Cure might be giving the haircuts   $50,000 in their kiosk.. but still 20 min left."

 

Nuala later reminded, "If you are a new team to Relay this year... ..say hello and drop an IM or friend request to some of the teams here. We all work together and love to help new teams out."

Sienna (Sienna Thor) seemed a little nervous about getting the buzz, "not getting my hair without a fight!" Trader Whiplash asked, "Sienna  are you nervous?" Arizona Ballinger-Whiplash (Arizona Ballinger) laughed at the sight, "Sienna, nice hat." Somebody rapped on the helmet, "*Raps on the top o' Siennas head....'you in there?' ..." A second was joking around, "Sienna, what is the  helmet for ? We playing football next ?" Someone else tried to reasure her, "You are safe Sienna." DJ Morph commented, "Sienna has the Truth Hair Group Gift. She's protecting her investment."

Finally, 4:30 PM came. And the kiosks were all raised dozens of feet up in an instant. United For A Cure was first by a longshot, 70,000 Linden dollars! In last place was Hellfires against Cancer, which had raised 9701 Lindens for this event. 

Pandamondium Blackwood, the captain for United For A Cure, was handed the scissors. WiccanSeductress stood in for Hellfires. 

And to the tune of the "Hair" song from the late 60s, the haircut was delivered.

Some people left. Others danced for a while. Including this person in a Wookie avatar. 

Here are the totals from all twelve teams:

United for A Cure - 70,000
Roos With A Dream - 33,617
Sunbeamers - 32,150
Cure Chasers : 32,000
Relay Rockers - 22,000

Seekers of Hope: 15,000

Heroes Helping Heroes : 14,700

SHB Gems : 11,500
Tiny Explorere 10,782
Team ES: 10,500
Supernaturals for A Cure: 10,400
Hellfires Against Cancer - 9701
 

Arizona Ballinger-Whiplash (Arizona Ballinger) would state the total raised was 271,350  Lindens, or
$1,085.40  US.

"Thank you so much for participating!"

 

 Go Relay!

Bixyl Shuftan

VWBPE - Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable

 

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

Like many, I missed most of the events during the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education. But I did get a chance to catch one of the afterevents. On Thursday March 21

Starting in FIVE MINUTES - VWER Visits VWBPE - Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable in collaboration with the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium - Highlights of Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference and exhibit visit - in text chat at Infolit iSchool (230,25,21)

 

I dropped by a few minutes into the event. I'd run into a few of the people before, such as Stranger Nightfire and Beth Ghostraven. Beth commented, "I haven't had time to explore any of the exhibits yet except mine, so I'm looking forward to seeing some of them." They talked a little about the conference first, such as the session, "Enhancing Criminal Law Education Through Machinima."

We soon headed to VWBPE Rainbow Basin. Sheila Yoshikawa commented, "So the idea is that you can take the pathways through the mysterious rain forest to find the origins of VWER."

Sheila Yoshikawa commented, "So the idea is that you can take the pathways through the mysterious rain forest to find the origins of VWER." There was talk about AJ Kelton, and how he was recovering from surgery, "AJ Kelton was very active in the earlier days of SL ... it would be great if he returns."

 

"There is also a statue in the 2nd room of the treehouse. You can drop a notecard in it with your VWER story."

Next, we headed to VWBPE Canopy Point.

Beth would say, "The exhibit is basically the same as last year, but the outfits are all new.  I think Dinkies must ahve been here last, all the Dinkies outfits were showing, (laughter)" She would say the cabin was a freebie on Marketplace by Jadyn Firehawk. 

We would check out a nearby treehouse. 

Shelia commented, "Perhaps we can finish with  Mythic Origins of the University  New Mexico." We then headed to the final exhibit of the day, at VWBPE Desert Hinterlands.

There were a number of exhibits, Shelia commenting, "I hadn't looked round this properly but there seemed a lot of detail."

Beth laughed at one, "Coyote is squirrely? Ell Oh Ell!"

Shelia would go on to say, "There weren't a huge number of exhibits this year, but interesting variety. ... I liked a feature in the Wholebrain Health one, where you clicked an item and it showered you with compliments.... it was surprisingly cheering."

Shelia would comment, "The sword on my back came from this exhibit VWBPE Tundra Expanse (213,71,27)" I responded, "Let me guess Shelia, while the pen may be mightier than the sword, sometimes it's handy to have both?" The result was some chuckles.

The meeting then wound down, and we went our seperate ways. I looked around a little before moving on.

Bixyl Shuftan