There have been a lot of sims opening lately, but very few have impressed me as much as the Downtown sim has. Inspired by the streets of Brooklyn, New York, it is a funky mix of commercial shops and residential neighborhoods. It's design, by Natalie Defiant, flopsie McArdle, Gage Rousselot, Pushbutton Skolnick, Trevor Turner, and Abbey Underall, really gives you a feel of the actual city! Some of the sim highlights are the El Train, Chinatown, and my personal favorite, a record store.

There are almost 30 shops for your perusal, mixing eclectic, urban, retro, and many other styles. The shortlist of designers includes: Back and Forth, Lucid, Tres Blah, dirtchild, Tohru's Shop, Surf Couture, Electric Jane's (formerly Happy Junk), The Young Urban, Pushbutton Industries, Gear Shift, Brutal Gears, Civvies, Truth, Renegade, Marly's, Happy Bivouac, BroGear, Fade Dana, Accessory Arsenal, Miw, and Hey Joe's, although they mention that they have some surprises for us!

The party begins at 12pm PDT/SLT on Saturday, May 5th, in the Downtown sim. Expect DJs spinning records, balloon animals, jugglers, cockfighting (shhh!), and even a scavenger hunt!

Linden Lab put on a party at a trendy hot spot in down town San Francisco during the Game Developers Conference. I wasn't invited, but I knew some people who were, so I tagged along. After slipping security a couple L$s they let me behind the felt ropes and I was able to partake of the open bar and top shelf appetizers. The picture above is of the in world DJ being projected on the wall over the bar tenders.

I must say I had a great time, but I was sad that I didn't run into any of my old Second Life friends who used to hang out with at these conferences. I was forced to socialize and make new friends. I guess everyone switch over to the SXSW conference moo has been covering, or possibly Virtual Worlds 2007 coming up next week.

I went to not one but two parties yesterday. I dunno, you wait six months for one Linden party to come along and then there are two on the same day. I was invited to the Volunteer Groups party AND the Concierge party. I am assuming I was invited to the latter because of my involvement with Numbakulla, although it is Oclee who is the caretaker owner of Numbakulla, and now pays the tier fees.

The Lindens had transformed a couple of the SLCC islands into a beach party with tropical island huts, lots of flaming torches and a stream of unique djery by Adam Linden. Yeah, unique ... think William Shatner, Beach Boys and that village people song YMCA ... think about running away, crashing, discovering the cat has been sick, ANYTHING not to have to listen to that music. Oh OK, the Beach Boys are all right, and appropriate to a Hawaiin beach kind of scene.

I spent most of my time sorting out notecards for my current project, but I crashed seven times in the course of three hours spent at parties. I am beginning to come round to the idea that some sims are cursed, and they seem to have picked some doozies for SLCC. I have crashed out a few times in Nemesis this week, but that's been a bit better since the update.

The Volunteer party included quite a lot of people I haven't seen for ages, including Flipper Peregrine, who bemoaned the fact that as he was at work, he couldn't have the stream playing. He didn't know how lucky he was, although I do like Adam Linden's voice, he has accursed choice in music. At one point Flipper had to leave the party, leaving his avatar asleep on the ground, and so Zapoteth Zaius and others piled objects on him, including a sign which said "I sleep at parties" shown in the picture.

It came as a bit of a surprise that Flipper had other work to go to, actually. I thought with his SL Boutique stuff, Electric Sheepery and general high-profile SLness that he was one of the people who had made SL his working life.

The parties were enjoyable in a way that non-SLers just can't ever understand: it's about being in the same place at the same time, sharing an experience, even if physically thousands of miles apart. Despite crashes, the fact that my drinks were drunk far too fast, and my wide dance bracelet ensured that I had to dance way out on my own or risk abuse reports from all and sundry, I enjoyed both parties, but the second more than the first because my beloved Oclee was with me. It does make a big difference if you have someone to share an experience with, not necessarily a partner, but a friend, someone to IM and make catty remarks about other people's dress, behaviour or choice in music .... Although I never do that, honest. That having been said, we were both dropping with tiredness and left after an hour of the concierge party. Now I really must have one of my own, soon!

To celebrate the launch of the new blog, we are throwing an informal celebration in Nemesis at the Second Life Insider offices. Come along and meet the bloggers (except Aimee who is away this week) and pick up some freebies at 2 pm SL time.

There will be a formal party later in the month. Watch this space!