The store is progressing nicely, I will have a line of prim skirts and ladies boots coming out soon, mens boots are on the way as well. I will also have pics available soon for all to see. The calender project is still in the works, its just slow going right now.

Tiger and I had been working on a new project dubbed Satan’s Lil Hotrod Shop of Horrors, but sadly that had to be stuck on the back burner for now as funds don’t currently permit it. If anyone has a decent chunk of land that they’d be willing to donate at a cheap price, we’d love to continue the project further haha. For now, we will continue working on it in the background until the opportunity arises to bring it back into the light.

I have begun working with Zoom Dweebie at Builders Oasis on a team for this years Relay for Life charity event, so keep checking back for more updates on that. Lots of exciting things going on there and with the theme being Flash Gordon, you know the geek in me is going crazy.

Stay Tuned…

For those of you that might be a bit out of the loop, as I often am, it was a week ago that Linden Lab began enforcing its Bank Ban in our wonderful world of Second Life. Why does this fall under “Oops”? Simple, according to my last count, there has been roughly $1 million USD taken from SL residents, most of which will never see it again. Now I could go on like so many have and put the blame on the residents who chose to invest their L$ in these so called banks, but thats just not my style. I like to put the blame where it truly lies, in the hands of Linden Lab. They make claim that the L$ is not real money, nor should it be treated as such. They also make claim that they hold a hands off policy regarding resident disputes. So basically, according to many official statements, they are here solely for the purpose of increasing user experience and further advancing the virtual world to it fullest potential. Have they lived up to this? Its arguable, in the case of making the platform more stable and increasing the user experience, yes they have made great advancements recently. In the case of upholding their hands off policy and providing a prosperous platform for us to enjoy, they fail, big time. This makes the 3rd economic crushing “regulation” they have instituted in the past year. Linden Lab… say it with me… “Oops”.

Miss SL Universe, now here was a delightfully eventful event. Kinda drawn out and boring at points due to various issues beyond anyones control, but thanks to announcers Ducky and Carter, they made the event a lot more comedic during the low points of the event. The whole event lasted 5 hours, I made good use of the time by working on a few builds while watching via SLCN, and overall it seemed like a smashing success. So how can such an awesome event qualify for an “Oops” award?? Simple, someone screwed up somewhere and the wrong girl was crowned! Seriously? Come on now. The judges deliberated for atleast 30 minutes, and still someone managed to “make a minor mistake”. With L$250,000 and a one of kind custom home, along with a handful of other prizes on the line for the crown, one can hardly call this mistake “minor”. My hats off to Miss Israel Elisne Allen, she put on her tough face and was quoted by The Avastar as saying “It’s all about focusing on the positive things in your life. I didn’t win the house or the money, but I didn’t go home empty-handed. It’s all
good!” Kudos to you Elisne, we here at Phreeq know how crushing it must have been when you first heard the news. Congratulations need to go to all 12 girls, you did a great job and everyone of you should be proud. To whomever is responsible for that “minor mistake”….. say it with me… “Oops”.

Now for a matter that I have been following pretty closely, which is odd since I am probably the last person effected by it. There has been a major upset in the art community. It would seem the human behind the avatar ArtWorld Market, has taken it upon himself to trademark a word he claims to have coined back in 2006. That word is…. yes… SLart, meaning Second Life Art/ists. Now I can beat a dead horse over this but I will save that for tomorrows talk show on BTR(BlogTalkRadio). Lets me just cover a few basics on this matter. First and foremost, Mr Market’s human has saw fit to trademark a term that contains another trademark within it that he does not own, nor does he have adequate licensing to, “Second Life” or in this instance “SL”**. Secondly, I have been a resident since 2005 and I have this term used on several occasions long before his supposed coining. For more information on the latest happenings with this event, go check out Vint Falken’s blog. Mr Market, say it with me….”Oops”.

**I hereby officially apologize for not supplying the official “TM” trademark & “R in a circle” registered trademark symbols in my posting, I have no knowledge on how to do so presently. No infringement is intended or implied.

Now onto more fetching stuff.  Now that we are back online and even have nice beautiful forums to play in, I am gonna have a few projects coming up very soon.  Big projects.  You will have to wait and see what they are in due time however.  I don’t feel like being bombarded with 101 questions about them yet.  So definitely keep in touch.

For those of you that haven’t been to the new store in Binneed, shame on you.  I am putting new (and some old) stuff out almost daily.  Along with the womens HiLo Camo sets, I am making mens camo sets too, just have to finish up the shirts (first set didn’t come out so hot) and then they will be put up for sale, for L$100, just like the womens.  I’m also remaking the old ChopShop Couch with sculpties, I don’t promise a lower prim count, just better looks,  the new version will be texture changing so you’ll only need one.  I was considering adding a pose generator to it as well, but that will have to wait for now, my scripting skills are not good enough yet to offer both features.  If anyone cares to teach me however, I’ll gladly reconsider.  I have also put out 6 pairs of DJ headsets complete with shout command and a few other pieces of club equipment, so check back often.  Also, I will be adding a catalog of sorts on the site here, you won’t be able to buy anything but you’ll atleast be able to see it and the price before you go to the shop.

Now for the best news ever!  My bro & sis, Tiger and Elektra Noh, are finally back from hell and man are they ready to raise a little.  So please be sure to let them know how much we missed them and watch for their stuff in the shop.  Tigers already informed me that he plans on selling some killer prefabs as soon as possible.

Well that about covers it for now… I think.  Get to trollin those forums!!

I decided to leave my worries alone for now and explore the vast reaches of SL and all its glory, outside the grid. As most may know, I spend a lot of time wrapped up in my own dealings and issues, but now that Pontiac is gone I have developed a little free time to appreciate other things like I used to. During my searches I discovered a lot of the same old petty bickering; “LL doesn’t care about fixing bugs”, “when will they give us *insert some obscure feature*”, blah blah blah…. little bastards can’t seem to appreciate what we have and how far we have come.

However, it wasn’t all negative findings, the negative just seems the easiest to find, wonder why that is.. hmm. Anyhow, I did stumble upon someone very insightful and enlightening. It started off at SLProfiles.com where I was wondering through a field of pictures and profile when I found some of the most amazing photos I have seen in a very long time, taken within SL. Upon looking further, I discovered a vast network of people related to her in some manner or another, even saw a few names I recognized. Her name is Vint Falken and shes a photographer/blogger extraodinaire. I definitely recommend checking her out, she is a perfect trifecta, beauty, brains and personality.

One thing on her blog that got my interest was an article she did about JIRA issue #MISC-208. Which deals with raising the group limit within SL above the current 25 limit. Now the author of Issue 208 proposes the limit be raised to 100 or 200 groups. While I think this might be way out of reach for now, I do think the limit should be raised and there are plenty of valid reasons why. Now I know Linden Lab just raised the group limit about 6 or 7 months ago from 15 to 25, but look at how much SL has grown. I admit, when the limit was first raised, I was excited about it, thought there was no way I could ever need 25 groups. Lately I have proved myself wrong on many occasions. Take your average business resident for example, you have your business group, you have your land group for your home and/or store, if you have a particular product thats extremely popular and produces updates or requires special attention, you have a group for that. While you can technically survive with one business location, everyone knows that the more traffic the better. So to achieve that traffic, you have to rent vendor space in high traffic areas, that requires another group for the land its on, that alone can generate a lot of groups depending on how many locations your involved with. Then theres various other product groups, family and friends, favorite clubs, Live Musician fan clubs… etc etc The list goes on and on and on.

During my time with Pontiac, I was a member of atleast 8 different groups, JUST for Pontiac. Thats not counting my store group and my car show group. They add up really fast and before you know it, your trolling your groups trying to figure out which ones you can leave just so you can join new ones. Part of me thinks that no matter how high they raise the limit, its never gonna be enough, unless they make it unlimited of course, but I do agree that the limit should be raised a little higher… 50 maybe.

In other news, I am opening a new location for *Phreeq* in Binneed, with a new look and a lot of new items, including skins, clothes and even a few gadgets. So stay tuned for more updates soon (Not 3 months from now, I promise!).

In fact, GE does exactly the opposite of what those freaks worry about. If the world use strictly organic cropping methods like those morons want, we’d only be about to feed 2/3 of the world population. Can I get 200 million people to raise there hand and volunteer not to eat?? Anyone? I didn’t think so. Now I could rant and rave on this for hours and bore the hell out of you, but I won’t. Pen & Teller have managed to sum up everything in about a 9 minute video on Youtube. I don’t know if they posted this video or not but its well worth the watch. Special thanks to BGage for posting this in the SG Blog comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIvNopv9Pa8

Now I am sure many of you are wondering why I am posting this on my company blog and the answer is simple, because it’s important damnit! There are only a small handful of charities within SL that try to feed the hungry, while there are hundreds of groups trying to cure cancer, AIDS & the like. While all those are great causes, why isn’t everyone putting forth as large of an effort for those starving, here and abroad. I don’t know, maybe its because in this new techno geeky world, those who can’t eat, obviously can’t afford a PC, let alone the internet required to get to such a marvelous place. So in turn, we just overlook them in overly dramatic busy lives, and are we really THAT busy? Call me cynical but I doubt anyone is that busy that they can’t take a couple minutes out of their day to think of the starving, children and adults alike. Your local food cupboards need your help, and not just around the holidays, all year long. So do yourself and some random stranger a favor, go into your kitchen, open your fridge, your cupboards, go into the pantry and look around, everyone has stuff they know they won’t use, maybe its a can of soup you bought when you had a cold or just extra veggies because you overestimated your need. It could be anything, box it up and take it your local food cupboard. What cost you a buck or two at the local Val U Mart, could mean millions to those going without on a daily basis. I, for one, plan on starting up a self promoted charity drive to Feed the Starving. I’ll create a donation kiosk later and distribute it freely to any of you who might want it, just ask. Thanks for listening and Happy Holidays!

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As with the passing of a good friend, its always nice to say a few nice words. Motorati was such a friend. Now before you all think I’ve gone mad, I know Motorati wasn’t a real person, but it was a real entity. It brought together some of brightest and greatest builders in Second Life. It was were ideas flowed together like rivers meeting the ocean. Everyone from the newest of builders to the oldest of prim masters, from the newly discovered musician to the grandest of artists, had a place on Motorati somewhere. There was almost always something going on no matter the time of day, and if you couldn’t find anything, you started it yourself. I can remember quite a few nights where I’d start out building random stuff and people would just gather and before you knew it, we’d have a live dj playing tunes and everyone dancing about. Then there were those days when your just doing some laps around the speedway and without realizing it, races would just start. It wasn’t always so poetic like that though, at times you would just cruise around and before long, there would be a convoy cruising around the island. So many great things and so many great people have come and gone. Its definitely one experience I will remember the rest of my life. An experience where my passion was set free and my mind could take it where ever it chose. For that, I will be forever grateful, For that, I will never forget.

Even if you were there for business alone, there was plenty of shop talk and networking to be had. With some of SL’s best business’s on display; from Phreak Radio, Never 30, Metaverse Messenger, V3 Group, OnRez, Gigs Taggart, Fabjectory, and of course the star of the show Eros. Trust me, there was no shortage of business cards being passed around. If you had a business goal going into the SLCC that did not get advanced, you only had yourself to blame. With 4 Tracks; Social, Business, Education & Machinima, there was plenty of knowledge to absorb as well. There was so much to do, boredom was not an option. My only regret was that I was not able to attend all the tracks.

If the Chicago music scene wasn’t to your liking or you were just too scared to brave crossing the streets, plenty of Live Musicians from our very own SL were on hand for your enjoyment, from Frogg Marlowe, Niko, Slimmie and many others covering a very eclectic range of music genres. All of which was streamed live in world for everyone’s pleasure thanks to Phreak Radio.

Now that I have covered all the general brochure stuff, let me tell you about MY time there. I arrived early Friday morning thanks to a couple canceled flights due to thunderstorms in Chicago. I arrived at my hotel just in time for the morning social breakfast and meet & greet with my fellow Motorati builders; Suku, Toby & Patty, as well as the gang from Campfire Media. I could tell that instant that I was in for an incredible weekend. After breakfast I finally made it to my hotel room and took a very brief nap before heading to the Hilton for a video interview with Campfire, which proved to be the biggest challenge of the weekend; aside from the minor issue I had on Saturday of trying to figure out how to hold 2 beers and shake hands. Overall it was a great experience getting to chat and bounce ideas back and forth in person without the wonderful “features” of SL hindering our progress.

After all that was said and done, registration and check in for the SLCC had started and within mere minutes the hallway of the 3^rd floor was packed. Already folks had started freaking out as most met some of their long time friends for the first time, or atleast since last year for some. I, for one, was very excited when I got to meet some of my fellow SC’ers; Alexa, Surreal, Jorus & Sally, Flip & Jen and yes, I was even excited to meet Josh. After we got through registration you could see everyone already starting to group up and cliché out while we listen to some amazing DJ’s like Stormy Wilde and Chelle Moore, who were great once tech support figured out what they were doing. After dinner at Artsy’s with Suku, Toby, Thor and “She whos name is not known”, the rest of the evening was spent mostly in an intoxicating state at Kitty O’Shea’s.

I was off to a late start on Saturday thanks to the previous night, but I still managed to catch the afternoon portion of the Machinima Track, which was my main goal anyhow. To my dismay however, Moo Moneys portion was cut drastically short due to internet issues on part of the hotel. She instead skipped her portion and did some Q&A which was still very insightful for me. Little side note, I know nothing about Machinima aside from I love to watch it and hope to someday make my own, I have a few ideas brewing. I have always been a huge fan of Moo’s work, though I’ve kept it to myself as it would totally up my geek status, which I am not ready to do as of yet. Next up was Luth Brody with Editing insight, which totally blew me away. I admit, I went into that portion expecting to learn how to edit and splice together videos, instead I got professional movie editing techniques such as cut and music synching, most of which I had never even taken into consideration previously. On the side, I noticed I was the only person at the Track that wasn’t using a Mac laptop, I felt oddly out of place. Although the techniques and styles I learned was enough to distract me from that little quirk. The rest of the afternoon was met with more meet & greet’s and swag grabs in the ballroom where opening day ceremonies had taken place, which I had missed thanks to sleeping late.

The Masquerade Ball was the premiere event of the weekend, and it definitely lived up to the hype. Costumes were everywhere, from the simple to the most elegant and elaborate. I even dressed for the occasion, though my outfit was no where near as nice as a lot that I saw, Josh and his SL to RL retractable wings were a big hit amongst attendee’s. My personal favorite was Nethermind in her sleek leather dress and wolverine like claws, she was definitely I sight to be seen. Alas, let us forget the other greats such as Alexa in her leather and BDSM mind controlling riders crop, Jennyfur in her militant uniform and sexy heels, Batgirl, and all the rest. With all the excitement going on, my night was pretty much a long happy blur followed by more partying to be had as we bar hopped around Chicago, imagine my delight when I discovered that Chi-town had no cut off time for drinking, unlike Ohio where they stop serving at 2am. My party ended around 8am or so when I noticed the sun had rose and I needed to get sleep before my flight left in approximately 6 hours. After a quick nap (3 or 4 hrs) I woke up and realized I did not have the time I had hoped to go say my goodbyes, so instead I called the few I had numbers for and wish them all a safe trip home. To which I then began my journey home, where I was greeted at the airport by my wife & daughter and the rest… well the rest is none of your business =) So to those of you I met, Thank you for the wonderful time and I can’t wait til next year. For those I missed, Sorry but I hope you had a good time and theres always next year.

As for the malt shoppe, its coming down to make way for a bigger and better version that is near completion. Its much more appealing and has more space, allowing for actual vendoring, if thats even a word. So yes, I will soon start having items for sale and you will actually know they are for sale, unlike now where people don’t seem to noticed whats for sale as its part of the decor. I thought that would be a great appeal but it turns out, not so much. So look for that coming in the next week or so.

The gas station is finally going to have a purpose aside from looks. I am turning it into a bowling alley on the inside. I have one lane presently with more to come as soon as I can afford it. Once I get a few more lanes in there, I am going to start weekly contests and also award prizes for special scores. Who knows, I may even start up a 300 Club if enough people make it that high.

As for the drive-in, I am sure many of you have noticed that Night of the Living Dead is no longer playing, instead now we are showing Headspace, a documentary about the techno rave scene. its a rather great movie, I suggest you check it out while you can. Soon I am going to start showing a new movie every week. Various cult classics and B Rated wonders such as the original Little Shop of Horrors, Santa Conquers the Martians and Drive In Massacre. So be sure to check back often.

As always, feel free to leave me a comment or suggestion and I will look into them all and take them into consideration. For those of you who don’t think I listen, the bowling alley was a suggestion from a random patron.

Have a great day and remember theres a little Phreeq in everyone.

We will be featuring 2 separate contests; Best in Show as well as Best Modified. Stop by Phreeq Malt Shop for more information.