Brazen Brunette packs the pub ...

... Or 'Babette brings quality entertainment to OneFinalDarkness'; depending on which style of newspaper reporting you prefer. Clearly as any of you who know me will expect I am strictly a serious broadsheet reporter who just reports the facts ..... Okay, okay ... so I am actually a blonde with a dodgy history who sleeps with the editor *S* lmao

Anyway after waking you all up and hoping that Babs doesn't read this (cuz she will KILL me just for the title *S*) ... on with the main point.

The main point in fact is that over these last 12 months or so Babette has been hunting down some seriously talented performers from across the entertainment disciplines. I have played my part of course but Babette is really the driving force and she really has excelled herself.

When I first proposed the idea of having a Google Calendar for the events on the sim along with a set of notice boards even I had to admit it just seemed like overkill ... right now we have so much going on it would be almost impossible to manage without it. I have also had to write a database to keep track of the various arrangements and agreements we have with the performers just to avoid us all having to keep reinventing the wheel!! lolololol

For some time there have been visitor tracking systems at The Pig and although some traffic would have been missed from the very early days the current number is fairly close and has now easily exceeded 17000 in a little over 12 months. We have close to 400 people who have subscribed to our event notifications and a further 500+ in our original groups all of whom regularly get our event notices; on top of these systems Babette works with the 'Live Musicians & Singers Org.' group and the 'Second Night Life' group to add a further 1500+ notices to each event.

In all truth it is really only now as I am writing this article that the scale of what we present each week to the SL community begins to become fully focussed in my slightly addled and often dippy brain (it's the fumes from the nail polish ... it  must be *S*). I suspect that if either Babette or I had sat down and really realised how big this was going to be we may well have decided it couldn't possibly happen. It has happened and I for one am having a great time being a part of it.

We have met some truly wonderful people as a result of our searches for the very best performers and we have met even more completely amazing people during the staging of the events. There are the performers themselves all of whom we should all admire since it is their talent that we are all inspired and entertained by. There are the managers and close associates of the performers who work hard on behalf of both the performers and ourselves as venue owners to further promote the events and ensure all works smoothly for the guests. Last, but certainly not least, there are all of the wonderful people who turn up to appreciate, support and of course enjoy the events themselves.

I am happy to report that in the process of meeting this very wide range and substantial number of individuals I have added considerably to my list of friends and have a significant number of people who routinely check in to make sure all is still well with the world of 'The Pig & Whistle'. To date I think we have only had to ban two individuals for truly horrible behaviour and each of those incidents left both Babette and I quite upset that it had to reach that point .... but as venue/sim owners there has to be considered the greater good of ALL of the people who come along and expect to enjoy themselves and not be harassed.

We have settled into a steady weekly routine now and Babette and I are routinely tweaking the way we manage things in the background to handle such things as holidays by performers/DJ's and more urgent situations such as unexpected technical problems from a variety of sources. I would like to say that my days of 'flapping' are over but apart from the fact that I really am quite 'Blonde' - lolololol - there is a certain adrenaline rush when things pop off the rails with a room full of expectant people and major 'Stop - NO GO' lights are flashing over the imminent event ... so I guess I'll just keep flapping and hang onto the calming influence of IM's from Babette saying 'Stop flapping you dozy blonde and IM the manager to find out what's happening - NOW!' ... She is soooo take charge lololol *S*

I think our next big challenge will be - how can we improve on that! As ever there will be opportunities that present themselves and as time progresses we both expect there to be a certain amount of shifting in the regular events to accommodate the new challenges that our performers/DJ's/Managers find in their lives and without doubt Babette and I will manage them with our usual style (I'll flap and Babs will make it happen *S*).

I can't imagine why you'd be reading this if you didn't already know about OneFinalDarkness and 'The Pig & Whistle' or indeed 'Loves Trinity' but ... if you have never visited us or been to any of our events ... come along! There are links dotted through this article and this blog to the website and slurls to the places themselves but for clarity and simplicity check out this link to the google calendar and try this slurl http://slurl.com/secondlife/OneFinalDarkness/81/222/52 if you see something you like the look of ... we will love to see you *S*

*hugs* to you all from Ai & Babette.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Idle Blonde finally gets out of bed ....

(Wellllllll ... It got your attention *S*)

... is a strange title for a Blog. To be honest I could have entitled it 'The campaign centre for 48 hour days is now open!'.

These last 5 weeks seem to have been non stop ... 24/7 there has been something either happening or about to happen in both my Real Life and in my Second Life. Mostly these things have not been bad (Real Life is of course always a little smelly *S*) and certainly Second Life has been an interesting challenge with new performers starting with us and all that is entailed in organising times, dates, fees, and expectations. As well as RL and SL there is now BM bidding for slices of my time ... BM??? I hear the consternation and quizzical notes in your minds following your eyebrows skyward.

BM is Blue Mars! This is the latest online virtual reality that is currently in a semi open beta and I believe is on schedule for full public razzamataz later this year. I know you must all think I am perhaps 'Mad' ... 'Traitor' ... 'Thrill Seeker' (I like the last one by the way! *S*) but really there are some complelling things about Blue Mars which I suggest warrants anyone who enjoys Second Life taking the time out to at least dip a little toe into the 'Martian' experience.The most 'eye popping' reason for seasoned Second Life residents to get their 'Inter Virtual World' visa (free client download in other words *S*) are the graphics. As soon as you start the client up and experience those first few minutes I am certain you will agree the vistas are stunning. Once you stop cooing over the graphics you will start to appreciate some of the other equally superb features ... like the physics modelling!

We all remember entering Second Life and waddling around like ducks which have stumbled onto the left overs of a drug fest! With Blue Mars you will look cool from the get-go no need to despair about finding the right Animation Overrider or considering the consequences of whether the AO in your shoes will override the super duper one you bought from 'AOS-r-US'!! This wonderfully life like experience for the new visitor to Blue Mars is thanks to the fact this virtuality is based on the CryEngine 2 game platform.

In common with a lot of 'first person' game platforms you really do experience the world very much as you would in RL ... this does for the time being mean those of us experienced with 'camming'in SL will feel a little restricted but this feeling quickly passes and indeed feels quite natural. There are improvements that need to be made with both the client and the server platforms but considering it is still in Beta I have to report the experience is very satisfying.

Once the experienced SL resident takes a breath and starts to scout around the client you quickly begin to appreciate all the things which aren't available ... but most are not as surprising as the fact that there are NO built in building tools. Blue Mars is a virtual world which is for the most part expected to be built by it's residents but all of that building and indeed ALL content creation takes place 'out of world' using a variety of graphics and 3d modelling packages. I suspect that this will be off putting to some people but if my experience of SL is anything to go by there will be sufficient curiosity and talent out there to bring more than enough value added content into Blue Mars to inspire and continuously amaze anyone who chooses to be part of it.

On a slightly 'softer' note I must say I have been paticularly impressed with the people I have met in Blue Mars; without exception they have been friendly and incredibly helpful and indeed many of them are either active SL residents as well or are at least still maintaining a presence in SL as BM takes up more and more of their time; the result is that for new 'immigrants' from SL there will be people around who will be comfortable talking about BM in familiar SL terms such as 'rezzing' and 'tp's'.

As a final word I would like to say even if you have no intention of settling in BM please make at least one decent exploratory visit to make sure you aren't missing out on this wonderful experience.

Hope to see you in BM soon *S* [Amanda Nieuport - in BM]