The Seasons Hunt - Spring 2011

Coming very soon!

The Seasons Hunt Winter has started!

Yay, winter edition of The Seasons Hunt has just started! There are fantastic gifts from so many talented designers! You can refer to hunt blog for full list of participating stores.



My gift for the hunt is Sleeping Basket - always ready when you need a quick nap. And dreaming is so sweet when snow is falling outside the window!





The basket comes with sleeping animator, which will make your avatar 'sleep' - together with snoring and zZz... particles if needed. And I also included an AFK sign to be worn when seated at the basket, to make sure no one disturbs your dreams ;)

The basket is hidden in a cute snowman, somewhere inside the store (you don't need to search the garden or the porch, it's definitely inside). And here's a little clue for you: "It's going to be a warm afternoon!" :) Good luck and happy hunting! ^^

The Seasons Hunt - Winter

Prepare for winter edition of The Seasons Hunt! It's coming very very very soon and [MAGIC NOOK] is participating! Expect awesome stores and fantastic prizes! \o/



All vendors will hide an object in their store. Inside of this object will be an item that is winter related. Store owners will hide the items however they would like to. The stores are not linked to each other so you will simply follow the list however you would like.

For updates you can check The Seasons Hunt blog.

Be ready for hunting, starting January 15th!

The Seasons Hunt has started!

It's here! ^^ The Seasons Hunt has started! There are amazing stores participating in this hunt so if you're looking for something fun to do, definitely give it a try! :)



My gift for the hunt is Autumn Skybox.



You know that moment in autumn when it stops raining, and the window is still covered with water drops, but the sun starts shining through... You sit by the window with a cup of raspberry tea, a book and a warm blanket. This is the moment I tried to capture when making Autumn Skybox. The beautiful, golden autumn.

The skybox is hidden in an orange leaf, somewhere inside the store (you don't need to search the garden or the porch, it's definitely inside). And here's a little clue for you "Where are all the magic sweets?" :) Good luck!

The Seasons Hunt - Autumn

Yay, The Seasons Hunt is coming and [MAGIC NOOK] is participating!



All vendors will hide a leaf in their store. Inside of this leaf will be an item that is autumn related. Store owners will hide the items however they would like to. The stores are not linked to each other so you will simply follow the list however you would like.

For updates you can check The Seasons Hunt blog.

Be ready for hunting, starting September 25th!

[MAGIC NOOK] at Designers United 4

I am proud to announce that [MAGIC NOOK] is participating in Designers United 4 event!

Designers United is a 12 day long fashion event featuring exclusively created products from a group of talented designers, based on a theme. Each designer has created items specifically for this project, and they will only be available for sale for a limited period of time. The theme chosen is "Narcissus", and the designers have interpreted this theme to make items based on the colors, textures or feelings evoked by this flower or myth.

The event is open till September 15th, so make sure you visit before that date! All items are exclusives, which means they won't be sold once the event is finished.



Take a look at my items:









Click here for a direct TP to [MAGIC NOOK] items at DU4 event!

PS. I know this is a late notice but I'm in bed with cold and fever awww, and was too weak to get up and blog it earlier. On the positive note though, the lag should be smaller by now :)

Welcome to Melt!

It's been so hard to keep shhhh about this, expecially after posting the teaser, so I am very excited to finally announce that I am taking part in Melt - an installation on thin ice!



Let me show you a note from the originator of this project, Radio Signals:

"If the world were clear, art would not exist."
-Jorge Luis Borges

Artists absorb the world around them. Their environments, that which they can feel and touch and see - and that which they can't. Sometimes that which they can only dream of. They absorb it and translate it into a language that affects us all in some way.

This project is a study of translations. I presented 25 artists within Second Life with a concept of creating art with these words in mind: Drowning. Melting. Polar bears. Arctic. Culpability. Corporate greed. Inevitability. Extinction.

What they have done is breathtaking and beyond any realm of my expectations.

Welcome to Melt - Please explore and involve yourself in this temporary world created here. Interact with it, wear it, enjoy it and immerse yourself in it.

Melt is only open March 6 - March 21. Please feel free to share your experience by adding your snapshots to the Mirror Installations Flickr group.

Thank you
Radio Signals

Melt opens tomorrow 6PM SLT at Mirror region, and I really hope to see you there! I am thrilled to take part in this project and I hope it will be an inspiring experience for you as well!

Here are the items I created for Melt:













See you tomorrow at Mirror region!

Melt

Vaudeville!

This post is just to remind you that the Designers United III event will finish on January 6th! So come and get the vaudeville themed items from various designers, including [MAGIC NOOK] of course :) Your taxi: 'Le quartier des boutiques' ;)



I also want to let you know that I started [MAGIC NOOK] Flickr group, so come and join it, submit anything [MAGIC NOOK] related, and of course admire awesome pictures by other residents! ^^

Designers United III

I was invited to take part in the third edition of Designers United event, yay!

Designers United is a week long fashion event featuring exclusively created products from a group of talented designers, based on a theme. Each designer has created items specifically for this project, and they will only be available for sale for a limited period of time.

This time the theme is 'vaudeville', and the event starts tomorrow (28th of December) at midnight SL time. The event place is 'Le quartier des boutiques' (thank you very much Polina Kaestner).



It's amazing how the designers interpreted this month theme and created so many beautiful and inspiring items! My item for the event is Vaudeville Poker!



I also made a little cheapie neon, as it might be useful for pictures.



I hope to see you at the event!

Participant List:
Anexx
Boing Fromage
Casa CheerNo
chicada by nilGiha
Couverture
DADA
Dollita
Duboo
Equus
Hair OH
Kyoot Army
LaGyo
LG Femme
LMK
Madsy
Magic Nook
MijnT
MilkMotion
Ohmai
Oi-Ei
Oyakin
Pig
Plastik
Royal Blue
RunoRuno
Scribble
Singing Moth
Split Pea
SugarCube
Tacky Star
This is a Fawn
Tiny Bird
Tres Blah
Turnip
Twosome
Tyranny
Veschi
Waffles!
/ME
50Flats

Blogger List:
dango Jewell
Nina Fessbeinder
Puma Jie
Vanity Esparza
Lili Brink
Galliano Boucher

Big thanks for Lu Waffle & Nil Giha for their awesome work and support throughout all the preparations! <3

The Corn Field

Aaaaah, finally! I've been to THE CORN FIELD! I wanted to do that ever since I learned about its existence. Quick info for those of you who never heard of it:

The Corn Field is a region of mythological status where once naughty avatars were sent to think about what they had done. "The corn field" is a vast star-lit field of corn and was cut off from communication with the rest of the world (a reference to the classic Twilight Zone episode, "It's a Good Life").

Source: Second Life Wiki

Since bad avatars are not sent to The Corn Field anymore and it stayed closed to the public, noone could actually visit it. People only knew about its existence from a single post of an avatar that was once sent there. However, it was opened for October 28-30 this year, yay! It's decorated for Halloween, but I don't mind - my curiosity is sooo satisfied :)

The Corn Field is fun to explore.





But once it gets dark, it can be quite spooky ^^



I won't spoil the fun for you, you have to go and explore yourself, but be aware that almost all the Lindens you'll meet there are zombies. Also, Mia Linden is the most scaaaarrryyyyyy. And if you have a feeling that Lexie Linden is watching and following you, but when you turn around she's not there... SHE IS FOLLOWING YOU! Have fun :)

Residents' favourite scripter

Today I have some great news to share :) I'm very happy and proud to announce that Sql Miles won the Resident Choice Award 2009 in the Favourite Scripter category. Yay! If you ever came across his scripts, you know he fully deserves the award. Sql mainly does commission work but he's best known to SL community as the creator of uTV - probably the most user-friendly SL TV ever (#12 rank on XstreetSL!). You might also remember his transportation system made for COP14 conference island in SL, or perhaps, he might have wirtten a script for you - then you know it's first class. There is no script that Sql would have trouble with and the award only proves that - I think the majority of Polish SL community voted for him, and a lot of his customers outside Poland :) Congratulations, Sql, you're the best! :*


Resident Choice Awards 2009 Winner's Circle @ Brampton

I found THE egg :)

I found the 5000L$ egg in the BunnyJam hunt ^^ We've been flying with Sql all over Second Life, trying to figure out one of the clues, when suddenly I realised something. Mia had been working so hard on this event, so at least one of the eggs have had to be in her SL office. And so it was, lying innocently on a shelf among Linden bears. I didn't expect it would be the 5000L$ one though ;) Funny thing, as Twitter notice appeared, I was flooded with messages from fellow residents, asking about the egg. If you messaged me at that time and I didn't reply, I'm sorry, it was just too many to handle ;) Congratulations to all residents who found the eggs!


Me and Sql awaiting the results at the BunnyJam party

Happy Easter! [UPDATE]

[UPDATE: April 14, 2009] I added the correct SLURL to the egg.

[UPDATE: April 19, 2009] Send me an IM in-world, if you want this egg, I'll send it to you for free!

Together with Sql we made an egg for the Egg Decorating Contest (yay!). I just had to show it to you!



It's an Easter Chicken Egg House :) We added some little Second Life finishing touches: the basket is full of prims instead of eggs, and the picture on the wall is the chicken with children/eggs at the trip to Natoma to see 'The Man' statue :P It was really fun to make! Later we went to EggsActly islands to see the other eggs and there are thousands of them, all beautiful! Go there, it's worth it. In case you'll be looking for our egg, it's on the EggsActly Right island EggsActly island (click for SLURL) :)

I wish you all happy Easter! Smile a lot, eat some yummy food and have a wonderful Easter with your loved ones.

SL'ang Life bye-bye event and the after party

So yesterday we said goodbye to SL'ang Life and to our readers. A big and warm thank you to those of you who came for all your kind words and the support you gave us.





The bears we are holding are SL'ang collector bears. We gave them to people at the concert as a thank you gift. If you want to have them, they are still waiting at SL'ang Life Plaza (near the stage).

When the event was over, we felt a little down. So together with people who stayed longer we started fooling around. That included flying all over the island, playing African drums and using various gestures to the extreme. A typical night on our island ;)



But most of all, it included this:



Oh joy, it was like in those movies where everyone knows the steps :) Yes, that cheered me up :)

I kissed a Linden

There's an old Second Life proverb saying: If you can kiss a Linden, you will have good luck all year. Nah, I'm joking, but it's a nice one, don't you think? :) If you choose to believe it though (who said you can't?) rush to the Isle Of View and kiss one (or more Lindens!) and celebrate Valentine's Day 2008. I've been there, I've kissed them and I'm telling you: it's fun :D



I got to kiss Jeremy Linden who works on Knowledge Base and I kissed Socrates Linden who is a liaison and a member of the gov team. I even got to meet Cupid Linden - a cute little love Linden :) He was sweet, gave me some Valentine goodies and we took a picture together.





The Lindens will be back at the island at 5PM, so you still got a chance to kiss one and win some luck :)

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

PS. To those who doesn't know why the island name is Isle Of View. Read it aloud :) Hey, did I hear I love you?

The Sailors Cove Boat Show (Oct 14 - 20th)

This is a quick message to let you know about a boat show taking place this week. Here's official information:

The show will feature working sailboats -- no props (speed boats), no houseboats -- although we love those too. We felt we would focus strictly on sailboats which actually sail in second life along with their accessories. If room permits then motor vessels may be displayed.

Tents will be available for accessory/apparel makers -- nautical clothing, nautical decorations, hud makers, useful scripts, yacht club organizations, etc.

The show will be held in the entire marina of Sailors Cove -- home of Tradewinds Yacht Club.

I'm taking part in the show with the boat you could read about in my previous post, so be sure to visit. I've set up an exhibition tent at the boat show and I'd love to see you there. I'll be available in-world (at my boat) for a demonstration and to answer your questions at these dates:

• 15th October at 14 SL time
• 17th October at 14 SL time
• 19th October at 11 SL time

Be sure to walk around and see all the boats - they're amazing and the show surely is a great event for all the sailboats lovers out there.

12 avatars to rule them all

I was observing the 12Avatars contest with growing interest and some kind of admiration. The contest is over now, so I think I can write about it without people thinking that I'm promoting/criticising it. The contest caused lots of controversy around and lots of press/blogs coverage (both positive and negative). I'd like to stay neutral in this post, though I can't hide my fascination from business point of view (and I'll explain that later). They did their mistakes too, some of which were very basic ones but I'm not really going to point them out here, since they were noticed by the community anyway, and I like to focus on positive aspects :)

If you haven't heard of the contest yet (impossible?), here's some description from the contest notecard:

12Avatars is the first-ever printed calendar of Second Life's hottest avatars. With stunning women from cover to cover, it showcases the heights of virtual world beauty and fashion.

The 12Avatars calendar features an avatar-voted contest for selected slots on the calendar, as well as two real-world beauties who have been transformed into avatars.

Distributed for free in-world, and sold for a modest price in the real world, 100% of the proceeds will be divided between the avatars who sell the real calendars in-world and real world charities chosen by the calendar buyer.

The 12Avatars calendar is produced by a solid team that includes Apollo Interactive, America's Leading Interactive Agency, and Centric, Agency of Change, who are looking to encourage in-world commerce and cross-promotion in Second Life.

So basically, it's a beauty contest with good cause. There's also lots of advertising behind the scenes, which I'll tell you about later in this post. Some things I liked, some things I didn't, but this contest is a very good example of how a real life company should enter SL (excluding the mistakes of course).

I first heard about the contest soon after it launched, so as a curious avvie I decided to join and see what would happen. Those of you who know me, also know I'm more into intelect/creating/scripting contests, but on the other hand, what could be wrong about "stepping into the spotlight" every once in a while? :)

The first days were pretty calm. I went to the studio at Tellus, took some pictures and filled the entry notecard, as instructions said. I met other contestants there and loved the atmosphere - lots of support for each other and fashion advice involved (but I'm not going to bore you with that). I was waiting impatiently for the voting to begin (will I make it to the voting stage?).



Finally September 17th came, the people who made it to the second stage were announced. And that's about the time I understood what it's all about and how it's supposed to work. When I joined the contest, I thought they would choose up to 30 avatars, basing on their pixel beauty. Let's see.. We have 77 stands, each one with 8 contestants and 4 empty slots in the last stand, which gives 612 avatars chosen for the voting stage. Now that's crazy.



Even though the 4 corner sim (aka quad sim) strategy was used, the lag was just unbearable. Why? Everyone was bringing their friends to vote. The map was full of green dots, and getting from the landing point to my stand/booth took me about 30 minutes (with average speed of 1 step per 1 minute) :) I'd go as far as saying it was the most laggy place of SL at the time. But that's what it meant to be from the very beginning. Publicity. Very well thought publicity, thus my admiration for those marketing people. For relatively low cost (see list of prizes) lots of people heard about the companies, usually in a positive way. But it doesn't matter if they talk bad anyway - it's important they talk, right?

A huge number of avatars had its impact on the contest. It turned from 'beauty contest' to 'who-can-bring-most-friends contest' (yesss, publicity) or even 'who-can-pay-more-for-votes contest' - even though the companies were obviously against the latter and stated clearly it's against the rules. But with this huge number of people, you can't avoid the drama, can you? So September 17th is when all the craze began. Contestants were very creative in ways of discouraging others. I 'quit' because of the lag and didn't want to spam friends either, but stayed in the group for the news. I think the best way to describe what happened is to state things in chronological order:

• The voting begins. Contestants are invited to the group "Monkeyface Woodget Fan Club", with a charter stating "This is the group to be in if you are entered in the 12avatars.com Contest."
• Notices with voting instructions are sent out since people can't find their way in the lag. Sim Maps are placed on the back walls at the voting area.
• A rumour is sent to the world that there are already people with 35 votes out there (few hours after opening) and there's no way to catch up with them.
• Contestants start to ask voting area visitors to vote for them.
• Contestants who run businesses start sending the voting propaganda to their update groups.
• Notices are sent, asking contestants not to campaign on the voting sim with possible consequence of removing entrants who do so.
• Don't-believe-the-hype notices are sent, so that the entrats don't believe rumours as "I heard that someone has gotten over 200 votes so far...".
• Contestants start to occupy the voting sims with friends, so that others can't get in and vote. Hot discussion on the group chat.
• Contestants start buying votes from random avatars. This is funny, since most of them forget that only 2 avatars will be chosen by votes - 8 will be companies' choice and 2 will be RL beauties converted into avatar form.
• Notices are sent out, asking contestants not to pay for votes in any form ("money, products, or favors are all considered bribes") with possible consequence of removing entrants who do so.
• A scandal breaks out (one day before the voting ends). Monkeyface Woodget disappears. He's not in the group anymore, and actually his avatar is deleted (or can't be found through Search).

CF: Anybody know what has happened to Monkeyface Woodget's account? I need to send him an IM, but search does not bring his name up ("None found" is the search result).
MH: probabl just search issues..can you pull him from group?
DB: gone with the wind?
DD: he isnt in group anymore?
EK: he's not in the group
EK: scam?
KM: Nope he's not
JH: ohhhhh shit
DD: nope.. not in group
SJ: lol

• People start inquiring what happened. Comments on the group chat range from anger to laughter:

"Man... this is funny."
"maybe he was getting too many IMs"
"im not in panic"
"o well i didn t care about this contest anyway"
"pfff"
"that must be fun for those who paid for votes"
"what about all the time you all put in getting votes for a week on sl ding this contest"
"thats just weird"
"we were part of it! it will go into the SL records!"
"I met some wonderful people in the contest"
"dont jump to conclusions, i mean it could be a glitch of some sort"
"why this commotion about a stupid calandar?"
"lol...oh, I'm all in a panic...stop it"
"lol its just the prinicple of all this, like i thought it was for charity"
"anyone can do this with their friends......just take pics and use a printing press : )"
"everyone one of you, we've had this experience no matter the number. That in itself is awesome."
"Hey, I got a magazine possibility, an invite to superb networking event with loads of possibility, and tons of exposure. I no longer care if I make the calendar or not. Heh. I didn't to early in the game. lol"
"yeah i dont need it just thought it would be fun i am well know already"
"o it doenst matter if your pic is good or not , the only things that matters is to have friends"
"thats true, this type of contest is about votes, dont matter how good looking or not you are, what matters is the vote count"
"i'd suggest just waiting til tomorrow when the "winners" are to be announced and see what happen"

• As the investigation goes, a new rumour is out:

"actually i have just remembered something .... i was talking to him the other day and he said he had a surprise for all of you, Maybe this is it!!!"

• Following group IMs becomes very entertaining.
• Same day, a few hours later, it turns out the whole scandal was just a SL glitch:

CC: ok everyone, monkey HAS NOT LEFT THE BUILDING OR GRID
CC: HE'S ON MY FRIENDS LIST
CC: PROFILE COMES UP
CC: WE CAN ALL REST NOW AND GO LOOKIKNG FOR ELVIS!!!!

• People in the group relax and get excited about the upcoming field trip to find Elvis :)
• The news are soon confirmed by companies' associate, nice and informative, and by Monkeyface himself. Everyone gets back to the I-care-about-the-contest attitude.
• The winners are announced: Babyhoney Bailey (Grand Prize Winner) with 403 votes and yolesa palen (Runner-Up Prize Winner) with 278 votes. 11179 Unique Total Votes, 3 avatars disqualified (though offering 15 minute lap dances for votes was kinda creative) and a party for the winner (another good move, though I couldn't attend).
• A thank-you gift is given to all contestants. Very nice. We care about everyone, we love you, it's just we can't include everyone into the calendar.. But we hope the gift can sweeten a little the bitterness of not being included. It did :)
• The avatars picked/"hand selected" by companies are announced 1 per day (sometimes more days). With the twelfth pick, the companies make a fun joke, which was so hilarious I need to paste the notice here:

The ultimate pick for the 12Avatars calendar--Ruthed Monkeyface! Yes, that's right! Monkeyface has decided to pursue his (now her) ambition to be the Most Important Avatar of Second Life, First Life, this universe, and any known or unknown alternate realities. Ruthed Monkeyface will be appearing on the cover featuring her famous poses such as Admiring Her 5 O'Clock Shadow, Crashing the Helicopter, How To Lose A Man in 5 Seconds, Famous Power-Mad Dictactors of Second Life. More at http://www.1avatar.com.

• The notice included picture of Monkeyface as lovely (but tweaked a little) Ruth - we all look like her sometimes, don't we? I kinda like her looks, but my friends would always say "Oh no, the ugly Ayu again.." So I need to rebake :) Anyway, the real pick was announced shortly, before a new drama spreads out ;)

There was lots of emotions in this contest: anger, happiness, laughter, who knows, maybe tears too. All this is a lot for one beauty contest, isn't it? As I said before, I kinda admire these companies. The whole contest was a well thought and well carried out action. There were some things I didn't like about it, but from the business point of view, these companies did well. Their entry to SL is a textbook example of how real life businesses should enter: use a creative idea, become a part of the community, get people involved, bring SLerebrities, advertise (make it loud), tease (don't give away all the news at once), show your human side (joke/show people you are fun) and keep out the troublemakers. How simple, how complicated.

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to perform in SL [UPDATE]

Today's post is for all the classical music lovers out there. On Friday 14 September (tomorrow!) at 19:30 GMT (11:30 SLT) the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra will perform in Second Life. It's one of the oldest orchestras in the world (origins in 1840) and will be the first professional orchestra to give a concert in SL.

Principal Conductor Vasily Petrenko will conduct Ravel's Scheherazade and Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, as well as world premieres by Merseyside-born composers Kenneth Hesketh and John McCabe (Note: it's not the Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov but a little less known Scheherazade by Maurice Ravel).

The audience will consist of 100 lucky avatars who won the entry ticket. The event will be hosted in virtual Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, which is a replica of the real building. Currently the location is open for ticket holders only and will be open to public on Saturday 15 September. In the meanwhile, here's a sneak peak:



The concert will also be streamed in various places around SL for those who weren't lucky enough to win one of the 100 tickets. I plan to attend the event at Menorca, so come and join me tomorrow if you have time. Formal attire is requested.



If you'd like to set a reminder, go to Search Events tab, type "royal" into Name/Desc and hit "Search". The event should appear and you can select "Notify" on the right (under event description). See you there!


[UPDATE: September 15, 2007] After-event-update

The event was a great experience. Menorca was full of people and the owner, Slim Warrior, did a great job to make this a pleasurable evening for everyone. Despite the lag I managed to take some pictures for those of you who couldn't attend (Note: You can watch the concert again in Second Life, beginning at noon on Saturday 15 September. The performance will be running continuously for the next two months at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall in Second Life.).





Everyone was dressed formal and some of the clothes were real works of art. Even newbies dressed and behaved properly. The atmosphere of the place made the event even more enjoyable.







I noticed two Lindens at the concert. Here's Hermia Linden, enjoying the music:



And I spotted the one and only, the original, accept-no-substitutes, our favourite Linden:



What was he doing up there? Probably taking pictures :)

Most of the audience discussed their feelings and opinions long after the concert was over. Residents love events like this and I think we all hope for more in future.