CW & FAn Imports and Exports-Virgin Islands-111,140,21

Fantasy Rhode and Kara on the beach






Today I visited another new sim. CW&F Imports and Exports-Virgin Islands, 111,140,21 is owned by Fantasy Rhode and CW Henhouse. I'm told CW does the majority of the building and Fantasy focuses more on a lot of the texturing and decorating. When I popped in at the recommendation of another friend, Fantasy greeted me and offered a tour. Fantasy explained their sim houses 3 large shops, 4 smaller ones and a huge detailed pirate ship full of treasures in addition to all the scenic areas, bumper cars, sky diving, huge slide, art gallery, bargain yard sale area, dancing, and pose balls. The place appeared to be a decorators dream come true and seems to offer something for everyone to enjoy from playing, sightseeing and home decor as well as the large variety of styles of furniture and art represented.

At first glance I mainly saw a nice pottery shop on a beautiful beach but just around the corner were small shops including an adorable food, bakery and wine shop, garden area, lights and lamps, candles, and Egyptian decor shops. Across from that docked the beautiful pirate ship that was filled with interesting things to see and buy. I could not pass up buying a vanity that offers products and allows a person to actually brush their hair, apply lipstick at the mirror and even paint toenails on the floor with wonderfully realistic animation. Fantasy advised me they pride themselves in the realistic animations they try to offer in most of their furniture, and it shows in the quality.

We tp'd up to another huge area that houses several buildings including a large 3 story art gallery that offers a wide variety of styles of art at very reasonable prices. After Fantasy told me a customer had purchased 20 items and told her the prices were too cheap I had to scan one which was listed for only 50L. Fantasy indicated later they may offer some SL artists shows in a gallery, but the place is not quite finished, although ready for visitors. They have been open for approximately 8 weeks and a grand opening is in the works. Toward the end of the tour CW joined us for a fast paced bumper car round and a very high sky dive from the upper levels back to the ground level. This classy sim is great for for people who like to decorate and/or explore and play. check it out here: CWFAn Imports.


CW Henhouse, Fantasy Rhode, and Kara (me) bumper car fun!

LOWE RUNO PRODUCTIONS LLC

A couple of my Second Life friends have a new SL/RL Limited Liability Company, Lowe Runo Productions, LLC, a company currently owned and managed by Lowe Runo and his business partner Sonicity Fitzroy.

Today I was given a tour of their new facility and was impressed at the beauty, functionality, and professionalism of the facility and their corporate goals overall. Lowe Runo Productions are creators of both animated video graphic features and real world media including production and post production services.




Most everyone in SL has heard of machinimatographer Lowe Runo for his impressive machinima/
videos that rival any animated RL movie, his web sites, Machinima Artists Guild and Pro MAG, his exceptional special effects, and his support of education focusing on machinima and media incuding presenting at SL/RL various conferences. Lowe also takes an active role in assisting his company partner in RL/SL media class education. He recently produced a silent machinima and donated it to the university for students to add all sound as an assignment. (My avatar was in this production since I am friends with both Lowe and Soni and it can be viewed here: SilentLearningVidHere. ) He has produced featured and award winning machinima in SL and has worked for Best of Second Life as a machinimatographer. Lowe Runo is a graphics artist with over 30 years experience in still photography, animation and video production. I've been fortunate enough to be in some of Lowe's productions and photos and he is great fun to work with. Lowe has been supportive of SL media and arts for many years and in the past year has established himself as a leader in SL machinima. Lowe recently signed a contract together with Soni for a RL book on machinima. To learn more about Lowe and his work follow the links below.
LRhere.
MAGhere.
PROMAGhere.
MAGeducation.
LoweYoutube.
LoweVimeo.
Moolto.
Lowe can also be found on Avatars United, Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Koinup, Flickr, Avatars International and all over the worldwide web for his machinima. Contact information in the links or at: lowe_runo@hotmail.com














(photo of Soni, courtesy of Sonicity Fitzroy)






Sonicity Fitzroy, who I previously featured on this blog regarding her role as a BOSLradio DJ, is a former RL DJ personality and is currently an associate professor of media at a university. Dr. Fitzroy conducts some of her RL undergrad and graduate level media classes in or around SL. She is the machinima reviews editor for the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, is a ProMAG machinima reviewer and has several of her own blogs. She has been a speaker in numerous SL/RL conferences. Internationally, she has presented at Cambridge University, IT University of Copenhagen, and Bangor University, among others. In SL Dr. Fitzroy is also active as a BOSL events writer for both the monthly publications and their blog. She and her RL/SL husband Shock Soderstrom, also own and operate the Chicagoland Club and mall area with shops featuring Soni's own designs and clothing. Soni's primary role in the LR Productions partnership will focus on education, class instruction, literary needs, and media outreach. Dr. Fitzroy is a multi-published author, with her most recent RL book, Second Life, Media and the Other Society to be released June 7th with a SL book launch party and media fair Sunday, June 6 from 11am to 6pm SLT.

-11am SLT-Media fair showcasing art & media of some mentioned in the book
-12noon SLT-SL Journalist Persia Bravin and Machinima Artist Guild founder Lowe Runo will emcee the opening festivities, which includes a special screening of various media works
-1pm SLT-opening remarks will feature BOSL CEO Frolic Mills on the community role of media in virtual worlds. Dr. Fitzroy will provide an informal introduction to her book, and acknowledge the more than 20 contributors, as well as the approximately 50SL residents who are mentioned in her book.
-2pm SLT-Live music by AcousticEnergy Nitely
-3pm SLT-Live music by The Follow
-4pm SLT-Live DJ and closing
All events will occur at the Moolto Community region: BookLaunchPartyHere.

For more information about Sonicity Fitzroy she can be found reviewing for ProMAG as linked above, as well as the above mentioned MAG link. Soni can also be found on Flickr, Koinup, Avatars United and across the internet as both Sonicity Fitzroy and her real life being. Note: Soni has an impressive RL Vita, but that is her real life and my blog is about SL. She can be reached at: sonicityfitzroy@yahoo.com
Additional informatoin can be found:
SoniMagnum.
BOSL.
SupSoni.
SoniSongs.
Soniblog.
SimplySoni.

Second Life, Media, and the Other Society examines the convergence of media in the largest residential virtual community to date in the gaming world: Second Life.
More about this book here on Amazon: Amazon.

Today during the tour I snapped a few pics as seen here. The large area houses the corporate office at the base level, with studio, green room, numerous sets and other portable things as needed in other areas. At the ground level in back is a beautiful stadium with nice seating features that will be ideal for machinima reviews, educational presentations and possibly other activities such as some types of fashion shows with the beautiful walkway to the stadium and scenic beach area. The large main building currently features offices, large class or board room areas and some beautiful art works by SL artists gifted over time to Lowe.




For a professional quality machinima you will forever treasure contact this company for price lists for machinima in the areas of advertisement, education, documenting weddings, birthday or rez day parties, live music performances, Youtube videos, any SL memories, making a story, just for fun, or anything SL will let you dream up. RL inquiries can also be discussed.

On a personal note I secretly refer to Lowe and Soni as the dynamic duo with Lowe as Machinima Man and Soni as Word Woman.. shhh don't tell them I said this. They are both great people RL and SL and deserve their well earned RL/SL company and success. They are very hard working professionals who I sometimes have to remind to take a break and play and relax a little. And lucky for me of course they do!

Sci Fi Heaven: Heaven's Romance Garden in Sylverbird

A friend of mine recently asked if I wanted to visit his place. I said sure, fully expecting it to be a typical beach house, skybox home, or something of that nature. Boy was I in for a surprise when I landed on a HUGE spaceship with several adjoining spaceships that I would have previously called huge but now somehow seemed small compared to the largest one. The area was put together and is owned by barry Richez. First barry showed me a bit of the large spaceship with its many corridors and nooks and crannies filled with pose balls and space equipment to play with. Then he took me out into space for a heavenly experience that equals any of the top sims I have visited so far in SL. There are many places to relax as an individual or as a couple and the teleporters named them as follows: -Espace Omega Meditation in Space, -Galerie Alphaluna Creations, -Espace Vision, -Espace Tai Chi, Skybox, -Espace Meditation, -Espace Paradise Island, -space Concerts, -Space Fantazy, -Xena 2 Accueil et Club Alphalune. Clearly barry is French but he communicates well in English too and we had a great time checking the place out.

There are several gallery areas in the spaceships dedicated to art and some of the artists currently featured that I happened to notice include barry himself (he is a RL artist too), Fushia Nightfire, Edith Hifeng, Fredyulajoie Merlin and others.

I made a little video of some of the areas, but it really can't do justice to this wonderful place to explore. barry is multi talented and has made and owns many different types of avatars so if you see him around there, good luck recognizing him the next time. When I first met him he looked like a large tree, but I haven't seen him like that since. I should have known his place would be anything but average. This place is a lot of fun to explore alone, but take a friend to enjoy even more. Check it out: HeavensRomanceGardenHere.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sylverbird/74/156/3184 Sylverbird, barry's sim from Kara Trapdoor on Vimeo.

China Tang Empire-Grand Opening Events This Week

The beautiful and detailed new sim, "China Tang Empire", is having it's grand opening events this week running 5-26-10 through 5-29-10. The sim owner, Valor Renilo, provided me with some details about the sim. He created the sim to be a doorway to part of the Asian/Chinese cluture, knowing that SL provides this opportunity to explore and see, when often RL can't. The ground level of the sim is Tang dynasty including the Tang palace, zen garden, stone pagoda, other pagodas, temple plaza with some nice areas for couples and friends including taichi and kungfu balls and a love island at the corner of the sim. There are 3 levels of underground to explore with various nooks and crannies. This is an absolutely gorgeous sim with a great deal of detail throughout. There are many pose balls and opportunities to interact as well. One of the first things I did was play a konghou then a taiko while another couple enjoyed some green tea in the same area. I found a beautiful flowery area with intan and made a new friend. Check out this sim that I think most everyone can fully appreciate. ChinaHere.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/China%20Tang%20Empire/40/165/29

The schedule of events for the grand openening are as follows:
*** Opening Week Music Performances ***
--MAY 26 (Wed) 9AM SLT - 10AM SLT
MoShang Zhao
--MAY 26 (Wed) 1030AM SLT - 1130AM SLT
jaynine Scarborough
--MAY 27 (Thu) 12PM SLT - 130 PM SLT
Mankind Tracer (good time to catch up with him as I heard he may cut back on SL performances for RL ones)
--MAY 29 (Sat) 9PM SLT - 10PM SLT
MoShang Zhao
--MAY 29 (Sat) 3PM SLT - 430PM SLT
Andreus Gustafson
--MAY 29 (Sat) 5PM SLT - 6PM SLT
Young Zeid (see my prior post and mini vid that included Young)
--MAY 29 (Sat) 7PM SLT - 830PM SLT
Quinton Diavolo

Valor Renilo

Emerald Viewer Issues-Not To Be an Alarmist, But................

So I log in to SL today minding my own business only to find that apparently not everyone is minding their own business. One of my best SL friends asked if I have heard about the lastest Emerald scandal. I thought, "O no, not my beloved Emerald again". Sure enough there is yet another Emerald issue to deal with and I don't know much about it or even understand it much, but the gist of it is that reportedly somehow documents were recently leaked from the ModularSystems.com web site that includes a dump of a secret “datamine” data base containing over 39,000 entries tracking 16,740 Second Life players, detailing avatar name, avatar key, and IP address. OF COURSE Kara's name HAD to be on this list. Maybe I should not advertise that. Well I changed my password for whatever that is worth and will carry on and hope there are no Kara stalkers out there in RL. (Note to potential stalkers: Large vicious dogs and guns are not uncommon where I live) A note is circulating around SL today as follows: IMPORTANT !!!!

Important for Emerald users.
for all the people who use or used Emerald :
It is reccomended to change the password and to check if your avi name is on the list of the first link below...a datebase of Emarald has been stolen...it contains IP adresses, UID and timestamps of 16.000 avatars.
http://alphavilleherald.com/2010/05/emerald-devs-modular-systems-data-mine-tracks-16740-avatars.html
http://modularsystems.sl/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=regarding-the-concerns-over-the-database-compromise.html&Itemid=1
Spread this NC, and check your friends also on the list.

LeakedEmeraldListHere.

Well for all I know this may or may not be a problem or even real, but here is a direct link so maybe you can all now figure out where your SL friends live in RL. Just don't mess with me, I like to relax in SL and am too busy for stalkers in RL. Thanks

Delicatessen Reopens-Just Amazing!

Me in foreground as tree with brains- Mariana, one of the 3 full avatars they provide free for the plucking like fruit from a large tree!

Meilo as Madalena in Delicatessen


The Amazing Delicatessen sim reopens today Saturday, May 22, 2010. I jummped in early with high expectations since I know the sim owners, Meilo Minotaur and CapCat Ragu (via Flickr friends), and what great works they do. I saw a few sneak peak pics on their Flickr streams and knew it was going to be great. This is NOT a sandwich shop by any means.

Thankfully Capcat put a little write up in Flickr about the place for better understand and I will paraphrase here a bit: "de Maria, de Mariana, de Madalena" is a a project conceived for the 5th edition of All My Independent Women, a platform for feminist thinking and exhibition that occurs across Portugal. Most projects are on display in Coimbra at Casa da Esquina, between May 21 and June 18, 2010 RL.

This year's edition of AMIW revolves around the book "Novas Cartas Portuguesas" by Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and maria Velho da Costa, first published in 1972, banned by the dictatorship until April 1974.

This SL display invites visitors to embody themselves as a woman. They have 3 unique avatars free for all to pluck as fruits from a tree in the sim. Be sure to click the words, notes and trees for a English translation of the Portuguese notes. The sim is filled with many unique sites and I have a few pics here. There are pose balls around and photographers as well as explorers and artists will love this place. Check it out.

Poses by Del May, Frigg Ragu, and CapCat Ragu

Check it out for yourself here: Delicatessen.

"It's a Wonderful Second Life: Breathe 2" by Sam Lowry

SL in a nutshell for me. Check out Sam's other machinima on Youtube.
SamLowry.

Post note: This is the craziest story, but seriously happened. Not 5 minutes after I saw Sam's machinima on Youtube, made a comment and dragged a copy over here to my blog, I dropped into Lost World and right in front of me was Sam as a knight in shining armour on a horse. Of course I had to start a conversation as this was way too ironic plus I wanted to talk to him. He changed before my eyes into this creature as also seen in his machinima, and I snapped a few quick shots. He was very nice. I was just blown away by the coincidence.