From One Extreme ...

Freddie, Jason, Michael - the gang's all here!

 Lludmila took the Scared to Death ride just to calm down.  It's all the familiar stuff: Elm Street, Carrie, Camp Crystal Lake, fire, torture, clowns, and graveyards - all with creepy sound effects.  Up to five people can ride in the pumpkin and giggle.  This was quite restful after the location below.

Village of Nyght - not sure if they're up and running yet (they have Great Plans), but they're all decorated, the zombies are wandering, you can pick up weapons and a HUD and have yourself a zombie-blasting good time, I suppose.  I mean, if you're into that sort of thing.  Which I'm not.  Jason, this is probably right up your alley.

Nice details! Opium upstairs!

 Lludmila made it to the haunted mansion and only saw one zombie, but she noticed them gathering around the house while she investigated the parlor.  Being a zombie herself, Lludmila gets a little squeamish about the idea of just blowing away her own kind.  But, if you're into role play, maybe this is for you.  Just knowing those zombies were out there was stressful.

Don't use fire, eh? Handy to know!

Grimm Experiences

Bats and shooting stars!

Grimm Shores seems to know what they're doing.  Yes, there's the obligatory insane asylum and all the pose balls seem the same, but you can hunt for five gifts in the skulls hidden around the sim.  There are secluded areas for romance, places to dance,  to break down (again and again), and diiiiiie.  All under a star-filled blood-red sky!

And don't miss the portrait of Marie Antoinette!

Shot through the heart (gift from Grimm Shores)

Moving on to Seventh Circle of Hell ... it was a bit laggy, but there was a reason for that.  There's a lot going on.  This is a place for big parties of friends to run screaming through the haunted house, be pushed around by ghost pirates, and share a huge dance floor.  The build is highly interactive and moderately imaginative (only one clown and no madhouse).

And don't miss the American Gothic over the fireplace!

Pay this clown 5L and enter if you dare!

Psycho Haunted House is at a "fun fair" - so you'll have to walk a bit (no flying!) to get to it.  Enter the fun house and become totally disoriented to some driving organ music!  We crashed once and the passages are narrow and intentionally confusing.  If you hated "fun houses" in RL, you might get annoyed by this, but more likely you'll have actual fun negotiating the labyrinth and ignoring the blood and tortured newbies.

This way to the Egress!

Accept no zubstitutes!  This zombie knows her haunted houses!

Haunted Houses Part the Second

This looks like it has potential ...

Lludmila tried two more haunted spaces.  It's going to be hard to beat Wunderbar, though.  She's starting to wonder about the clown business.  Man, no wonder people are scared of clowns!  Everywhere you go there's some figure or face with clown make-up and blood splashed all over.  Let's see what else we can turn into something sinister ... Ladies in tutus?  FedEx deliverypersons with bent envelopes?  Angry David statues? We beg you, find something newwww!

This haunted house at Island of Fear was okay.  There was room to move around (important feature if you go with a group) and a few novel items to click on and have a good laugh.

Don't miss the circus!

Spookyville is a whole Halloween town art-directed to death, filled to the brim with skeletons, ambiance, the mental institution (We're tired of that, too - if you or your family has ever spent time in one, it's not funny and it's just not new.  What about a terrifying office building?  Secretaries gone homicidal?  Disgruntled children's librarians taking it out on laissez-faire parents?  Zombie occupation of Wall Street?), the cemetery, picnic grounds ... wait, picnic grounds?  Anyway, it's beautiful, but there isn't much interaction ... unless you visit the circus.  Oh, and do visit the circus!

It's That Time Again!

Halloween is barely 31 days away, but here in the virtual world, ev'ry day is Halloween!  However, during the fall, a plethora of spooky locations pop up and Lludmila considers it her duty to visit as many of them as possible and review them.  We're not going to actually rate them, just give our impressions based on originality, spookitude, and artiness.  You can tell right away that it will be really scientific, eh?

The first venue visited is Wunderbar Haunted Mansion.  There is a HUD you must wear (but if you don't get it at the landing point, it will keep nagging you about it and offering) for the full effect.   The HUD is just a small label in the corner that keeps track of the "exhibits" for you in seconds and you can use it to opt out.

Effective spooky ambiance

The house interacts with you, giving instructions and hints.  The experience seems to be non-linear, or maybe we were doing it wrong.  Anyway, you have to find your way out of some rooms and work your way through the house.   Once you figure out some part, you might have to do a room over again to move ahead.  Click on everything clickable - no, go ahead (hrr hrr hrrr!).  Some areas have to be experienced by one avatar at a time, but for the most part you can run through it as a group.

Interesting and unusual effects

Kudos are given to the designers for originality.  If we were rating it, points would be lost for the obtuseness, but as at least one of us has her brains scrambled by menopause, maybe that should not be considered the creator's fault. Heh!  This haunted house is worth a visit even without the free gift.  Highly recommended.

Virtual Release

Links and Libations

 Last night our good friends showed up to usher Bob's newest cd, "Metamorphoses," at Grizzy's Cafe.  DJ Symmetry Munro (AKA ... well, it seems to be something new monthly) played the new cd in its entirety and then her favorites from his previous albums and his brother Bear's album, "Untroubled."

Very nice turnout

 Although I bet Bob didn't think you could dance to his music, many folks did (amazingly - or not - Miss Kero's ballet chim seems to go with anything). They also claimed they were going to buy music, but if they downloaded it from iTunes, we won't know for sure for months.  We did get an order at his website, which is for people who want physical cds or, or, the magical Harmonic Capo!

Our Trend-setting DJ and Mr. Trend-setting DJ

Thanks again to all our friends for coming by, listening, and liking what they heard!  And now that we've dipped his toes, maybe Bob will join us in the virtual world again.

Metamorphoses CD Release Party!

Cal with a freebie guitar - heh!

Cal has come out of the closet - he is not just an avatar, but a fabulous guitarist who has a new cd out called Metamorphoses.  One of our favorite DJs is having a coming out par- umm, a CD release party Saturday, September 10 at 6 pm PDT at Grizzy's Cafe.  You can stop by and get a t-shirt with the cover of his most recent CD on it (thanks, Waldronnn!) - oh, and a link to iTunes.  The album is available on just about any other music download site.
Or you can just visit his website.
Also available is a cd, "Untroubled" by Bob's brother, Bear, who plays keyboards on all the albums.  Bear also has a tee, and an iTunes link. 

Lucky Letter Listener and Boof Goodness

Boof has the most funnest things:

Suicide Piñata - you give it love taps, no really!

 If it's not in the hunts, the freebie boxes, or in the lucky chair, there's always the Midnight Mania boards at Boof.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy player - Can the Log Song be far behind?

 Or, forheavenssake, just buy something.  There's something silly for every taste and pocket.

Magic 8 Ball typer.  

So, thanks to the Virtual Vagabond, I went looking for the Lucky Letter Listener - which I had to wait to appear on the lucky board (the picture on her blog had a tantalizing "L" on it - making me think the prize was just waiting for Lludmila to show up).  I had to wait quite a while.  But there is a lot of fun stuff in the area and I won a panda bear toy from the nearby Lucky Jumpseat as soon as I got there.  Later I won some kittens.  Then there were some amusing free or dollarbie AFKs that I just had to have, not to mention a demo Harpy costume that will come in handy for the upcoming Odyssey discussion.

So I get the Lucky Letter Listener and I put the instructions through the Google translator.  I think I understand it, but the next time I'm out I plan to implement it.  Well, there's so much fun stuff at Boof that I drop by the mainstore to pick up whatever hunt prizes I haven't already gotten.  I don't know why I bother to get stuff there for free when none of the stuff costs hardly anything to begin with.  So, I finally rez and I remember, "Hey, there's a lucky chair here, I can try out the Lucky Letter Listener!" but my brain really only gets as far as "Hey, there's a lu-" before "L" comes up.  I think I won the Suicide Piñata.  See above.

If your translation didn't seem to make sense, let me try to clear it up.  

You know how Lucky Boards/Chairs announce the next letter up?  The wording might vary from one place to another, so I recommend you wait out a cycle and then copy the announcement from chat.  

"Wear" the device provided.  It is a blue pawprint and says "wait" on it and appears in the middle of the screen.  Enter the copied chat into the channel /88 but change the letter to the one you are waiting for.  The pawprint will go off, beeping and flashing red, to let you know it's cocked and ready, so just click on it and it will go back to blue.  

Basically, this device is set to listen for that announcement in chat.  You'll have to stay in the area, but you can be in a different window or sexting someone in IM and not have to keep looking ... unless you also want to keep an eye out for the wildcard round.  I don't think you can run more than one of these, so you can't wait for your letter/number and the "?".