Diamond Dave's Ninja School

                     
I know this blog is supposed to be about the people and places of Second Life. However, from time to time I’m going to post some First Life blogs. Sometimes you run across something that just cries out to be shared with the world. This is one of those times.


I apologize to my (three, now four.. yay!) readers that were expecting a Second Life blog, but sometimes you have to break the rules in order to serve the greater good.




Ladies, Gentlemen, I present to you… Diamond Dave's Ninja School.

 

Confucius said, “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”

Jesus said, “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.”

Diamond Dave said, “Don’t go Ninja’n nobody that don’t need Ninja’n.”



I think it’s pretty clear...the man is a prophet!


Yeah, I said it!


If you watched the video, then you should be fully aware of this fact.


Diamond Dave has been sent by the Ninja gods, to teach us the ways of the Holy Ninja!


Kneel!


Kneel and be guided by the holy ninja light that is Diamond Dave!



I’ll be starting a “Followers of Holy Ninja Master Diamond Dave” group in the not too distant future.

IM me if you wish to join.




Ninja (Judie-Chop) Jon

Tuneiras West Farm

When you hear the word “farm”, you don’t immediately think, “That sounds like a great place for a romantic getaway.” In most cases you would be correct. But in the case of Tuneiras West Farm, you would be wrong.

To say this sim is beautiful would be an understatement.

Parts of the sim are reminiscent of the places you might find on the back roads of the Texas countryside, minus the mountains in the background. I was particularly reminded of this when looking at the old farm houses that are scattered throughout the sim. To call then abandoned seems too harsh a word. I prefer to think of them as in a state of artistic decay, a natural part of the landscape.

There are several picturesque vistas with a small deck built in, where you can enjoy the view as you dance with that special someone.

Cuddle poses and intan dance balls are scattered throughout the sim, and there are many secluded spots to explore.

To be honest, my pictures really don’t do this place justice, there’s an almost dreamlike quality to the place.


Special thanks to my friend Solar, who gave me the landmark to the farm. He said it’s one of the more special places in Second Life.


After seeing it for myself, I couldn’t agree more.




Farm Boy Jon

Sharp Dressed Man... Kind Of.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m something of a fashion disaster when it comes to dressing myself in Second Life. To illustrate this point, I’ll tell you about the suits I own… um, both of them.

This tan suit I picked up my first week in Second Life. If I remember correctly, I think it was a freebie. But hey, it’s a Ralph Lauren suit, so that makes it cool and fashionable.. right? right? I pretty much wore it to any dressy event I went to.


Fast forward a couple of years. I got asked by a friend of a friend to be a groomsman in an Second Life wedding. In order to participate, I had to get a tux. I didn’t know either the bride or the groom, but I’m a team player, so I pony up the 600L for the tux. Unfortunately, the bride caught the groom getting it on with one of her bridesmaids, so the wedding never happened. I found this to be equal parts tragic and hilarious. (does that make me a bad person?)

So anyway, the tux became my new dressy outfit for formal events and such. Fast forward another couple of years and I decide it’s time to get a new suit. I attend some black tie events regularly now, so it seemed like a good investment.

On the advice of my friend and Landlady extraordinaire McKenna, I march my happy ass down to Hoorenbeek. I immediately like this place because it has “Hoor” in the title. (I’m such a 12 year-old.)
I’m impressed with the stuff there, very good quality and detail in the clothing.

I find a black pin stripe suit I like and make the purchase. I was a little shocked at the price, but upon looking closely at it, I discover you can wear the suit in about 12 different ways. Jacket open, closed, no jacket, belt buckle no belt buckle, sleeves rolled up, ect. There’s even a cool flexie prim tie you can change the color just by clicking on it. When you dance it flies around in a cool, natural way. There were so many options, it actually kind of gave me a headache.

I finally settled on the open jacket, loose collar and loose tie look. I call this the “I just got off work and now I’m ready to do dirty things with dirty people” look.


Part of me is relieved that now I don’t have to worry about being outdated, at least for another couple of years.




New Suit Jon

Puss N Boots Island

I’ve met some amazing people in Second Life. Two of my favorites are Matilda and LordGrim.

I’ve known them for a couple years now. In fact, it was an offline email from Matilda that got me curious enough to end my break, and come back to Second Life. She sent out a broadcast email telling all their friends that they had opened a new club, so I wanted to check it out…. and I wasn’t disappointed.

Puss N Boots Island is a beautiful beach sim with a club and several other attractions. Dress code is clothing optional or swimwear, and is strictly enforced.

Some of the best musicians in Second Life come here to perform. Tonight there was a live music by artist Erin68 Frog. She has soulful, angelic voice and energetic style.

They have several fun events every week and daily DJ’s spinning tunes and taking requests. There is a well appointed dance floor with the always fun conga line in addition to oversized glasses you can dance on.

A beautiful beach where you can lounge around and catch some rays.  There's also skydiving, and several places you can cuddle with that special someone.

If you enjoy Greedy, they have a great gaming area for playing.

For the more adventurous types, there’s an adult play area where you can make new friends and express your lusty intentions.



Most importantly, Matilda and LordGrim are there, making sure everyone is having a good time.
Check out Puss N Boots Island. It’s a great place to hang out, make friends, and have fun with great people.




Beach Bum Jon

Dexter Ihnen

I love live music in Second Life. There’s an indescribable energy you can feel when you’re at the concert. By no means is it the same as actually going to a real life concert, but it’s close. There’s some kind of feeling you get when you gather with a group of people to hear an artist sing their heart out.

Yesterday I went to a concert put on by Dexter Ihnen at The Bay in the Kaiya Islands sim. He’s one of my favorite Second Life artist. He’s an Australian that sings in a funky Rock’n Roll style that I really enjoy. Yesterday he sang some original songs and some covers of songs by John Mayer, Marvin Gay, and Stevie Wonder just to name a few.

There’s some intangible pureness about a musician that sings and plays guitar without a backup band. It feels more intimate somehow.


Unfortunately I missed the last 20 minutes of the concert. My crazy uncle called me wanting to know my address. I have the strange feeling he’s going to send me something ridiculous, like a stuffed squirrel or something else equally silly. That reminds me, I need to cuss out my parents for giving him my cell number.

Did I mention he’s crazy?

Oops, went off on a tangent there… sorry about that!

Dexter put on a fun show and there was a good crowd there, 25 to 35 people at any given time. If you’re looking for live music, check out Dexter. You’ll be glad you did.




Live Music Fan Jon

Brains!

There are people in Second Life that LOVE to shop. I’m not one of those people. For example, I’ve worn the same cargo shorts and flip flops for about the last three years. I do change my shirt occasionally, but for the most part, I’m pretty much a fashion disaster. I went against my nature yesterday when I decided to try the Zombie Popcorn Hunt.


I was looking through the Showcase tab under Search when I happened to see it under the Featured Events section. I thought to myself, “I like zombies (who doesn’t), I like popcorn, this sounds kind of fun.” So off I went to check it out.

I checked in at the Zombie Popcorn Sim to register and get started. I learned that I would need to search for bags of popcorn (with the prize inside) located in stores throughout the grid. When I joined the group, I was given a note card with store landmarks and cryptic clues on where to find the popcorn bags in each store.

Now prior to this, I have only done one other hunt. It was a fishing hunt where you simply followed the Landmarks to stores and cast your 7Seas fishing rod into a small pond in the store. You usually got the prize within 2 or 3 casts. This hunt was much different, on this hunt you had to actually SEARCH the store. Some of the popcorn bags were in really obscure locations in the stores.  I’m not a patient person, by about the 5th store I was becoming frustrated. I’m not the most observant person, and this hunt showed me unobservant I really am.


I was on the verge of giving up entirely when I happened to run into Rain, a fellow Zombie hunter. She was nice enough to complement me on my blog (I put the URL in my profile), and I complemented her on her pointy ears.

Rain and I began to work together to find those gawd-damn bags of popcorn. It’s was at this point that the hunt became fun for me. Rain was pretty good at finding the popcorn bags, I think her pointy ears had some kind of radar ability that we regular eared people lack. We continued hunting together and chatting and having a good time, when we bumped into Soreena.  That's her in the green.

Soreena had done the hunt before and was helping a friend of hers find the bags. Rain and I joined her and her friend, and we became a pack of Zombie Hunters. With Soreenas guidance, we moved swiftly from store to store, scooping up bags of prize filled popcorn. Some die-hard hunters would call this cheating, I call it preserving my sanity.

Sometimes we did the happy danced to celebrate finding a popcorn bag.

But all good things must come to an end, Soreena had to leave us to go to a Second Life wedding, Our group kind of fell apart after that. I ended up finishing the hunt alone… well, finishing is too strong a word. I ended up following the landmarks to each store and only searching for the prize if I liked what I saw there. I skipped handbag stores and  ladies clothing stores, and the like on the second stage of my hunt.



I did find a couple cool stores that I'm plan on returning to. I think my favorite store was [Name Pending], that’s the actual name of the store, where I got my cool Zombie Girl T-Shirt.

There were several good prizes, more guys stuff than I thought there would be. But the real prize I received was the making of new friends like Rain and Soreena, and the fun I had along the way.


Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an ass load of popcorn bags to unpack.





Zombie Hunter Jon

Bedrock

One of the great things about Second Life, is the ability to relive parts of our childhood. This takes many forms. Some people choose to spend their time inworld as a child AV (creepy!). Others play dress up with their AV’s, I’ve heard more than one person refer to Second Life as “Barbie’s for adults”. As for myself, I like going to places that I always wanted to visit as a kid…places like Bedrock!

You cant imagine my surprise and joy when Melian TP’d me to Bedrock. As the world came into focus, I was transported back to a time when girls had cooties, (some still do), soccer was the only thing worth talking about, and my bedtime was 8:30. I spent a lot of time in front of the tube watching Fred and Barney get in and out of trouble, and now I was getting the chance to visit them.

We hopped in the flying saucer for a quick tour of bedrock. I highly recommend this first, it gives you a good idea of where everything is located.

Next we stopped by the Boutique to "go native”. I chose a Fred like tiger skin suit, while Melian went with a cheetah skin dress. She looks good as a naughty little cave-girl.

Now that we were dressed in our stone age outfits, it was time for some prehistoric activities… like Putt Putt. The controls took a little getting use to, but it was fun and challenging.

After Putt Putt, we took a little break to ride the Dino powered Ferris-wheel.

Then hit the Bedrock Bowl to knock down a few pins. If you can get a score of 100 or more, you win a cool prize.

If you want to try some prehistoric air travel, try the Bedrock Airport.

And to end our strenuous stone age day, we took a long relaxing soak in the Mud Spa.



I could have literally spent all day here, there’s also 7Seas fishing, a drive in movie, a well appointed dance floor, the Quarry where Fred works, Fred and Barney’s houses, the Bedrock Fire Station, Police Station, Water Buffalo meeting lodge. If you feel like driving from one spot to another, there are stone age vehicles that can be rezed for travel; but be careful… the sim in on a platform and its easy to drive off, like my friend (who shall remain nameless) did. There are also several hidden spots around Bedrock for you to explore. See if you can find them!

If you’re a Flintstones fan, this place is a must see!




Stone Age Jon