Roald Dahl feast at Relay for Life

Combine two of our best loved stories for children (and grown-ups, too!) by Roald Dahl with some of Second Life's® most accomplished content creators, and you have magic.

Orchestrated by PatriciaAnne Daviau, two stories unfold: James and the Giant Peach, with little boy James, trees and a big juicy peach by brilliant 3D modeler Colin Fizgig, fantastical insects by Madcow Cosmos, Cloud Insoo's perfect seagulls, and LittleToe Bartlett's fanciful textures...




... and a Willy Wonka factory by Tezcatlipoca Bisiani, complete with a candy cane forest by PatriciaAnne Daviau, strange plants by Tezcatlipoca and robotic creatures by Bryn Oh.





There is so much to see and do this weekend at the Second Life® Relay for Life (RFL) event. More than 80 teams have come together to create an experience with the goal of raising $125,000 US.

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The Survivors' Camp by Stella Costello

The American Cancer Society Relay For Life® began in May 1985 when a colorectal surgeon ran around a track in Tacoma, Washington, for 24 hours, raising $27,000 to support the American Cancer Society. Today, Relay For Life is held in more than 4,600 communities in the United States and in 23 countries across the globe... and has raised more than $1.5 billion to help the Society accelerate the progress against cancer by saving lives, helping those touched by cancer, and empowering people to fight back against this disease.

Relay For Life has come back to Second Life® for a fourth consecutive year. In 2007 the effort raised more than $118,000 US and attracted more than 1,700 participants to its unique virtual walkathon event. More than 80 teams have come together to create an experience with the goal of raising $125,000 US.

A walkathon relay has just begun and will run from July 19th at 10am SLT through July 20th at 11am SLT. The track, spanning 35 sims, will take you past wildly imaginative and informative builds that have been created specifically for this effort.

Approximately 150 Survivors and Caregivers of Second Life had the honor of walking the opening lap. Later, they will congregate at different spots throughout the installation, including the Survivors' Camp created especially for this event by gifted sculptor, artist and builder Stella Costello.




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The mirror

One thing you must see this weekend at the Second Life® Relay for Life (RFL) event is the mirror by Talia Jiang.



Head over to Robin Hood's Castle and follow the pink strip to find it (teleport directly from here).

More than 80 teams have come together to create an experience with the goal of raising $125,000 US.

A walkathon relay has just begun that will run from July 19th at 10am SLT through July 20th at 11am SLT. The track, spanning 35 sims, will take you past wildly imaginative and informative builds that have been created specifically for this effort.

Rapunzel's Wig Shoppe

Creating things that have a short life span but are fun, fun, fun is what Peachy Sassoon does. Peachy and her friend Xerxes Sismondi have been completely rebuilding the Drama Libre club every single week... every single prim... since early October of 2006.

Peachy loved the German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm about Rapunzel ever since she was a little girl, so she thought she'd give it her own spin for the Second Life® Relay for Life (RFL) event. More than 80 teams have come together to create an experience with the goal of raising $125,000 US.

A walkathon relay has just gotten underway that will run from July 19th at 10am SLT through July 20th at 11am SLT. The track, spanning 35 sims, will take you past wildly imaginative and informative builds that have been created specifically for this effort.


That's me climbing Rapunzel's hair

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair...


The Brothers Grimm might have enjoyed Peachy's imaginings

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Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at Relay for Life

There is so much to see and do this weekend at the Second Life® Relay for Life (RFL) event. More than 80 teams have come together to create a unique experience for participants with the goal of raising $125,000 US.

A walkathon relay is about to get underway in a few minutes and will run from July 19th at 10am SLT through July 20th at 11am SLT. The track, spanning 96 acres, will take you past wildly imaginative and informative builds that have been created specifically for this effort.

While most everything here will poof by Monday, the Hogwarts School realized by the Liquid Heat team, is one installation that will go up for auction to benefit the American Cancer Society and help to fund Cancer research.

Have a great weekend, and remember your sun block!




The tricky staircases really do change positions!




Look for the three-headed dog, Hagrid's hut, and watch the portraits morph.

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...and the most expensive dress on the grid is... NPIRL - RFL reaps the rewards

Sometimes you are just in_the_news. Such is the case of Eshi Otawara this month, as she keeps knocking our socks off with her one hour builds , and the creation of CodeBastard Redgrave's new sim "Rouge..." but nothing could have prepared me for her latest.

Remember this dress?



We went wild in December when Eshi introduced us to this divine, very Not Possible in Real Life frock, which she created using fish hooks. Within days, she issued a limited edition in black, and it became an instant hit.

Fast forward! We are in the final days of this year's brilliantly successful in-world Relay for Life fundraiser, and Eshi wanted to do her part, so this afternoon she offered the very last of the black fishook dresses up for auction at an event hosted by Designers in Seclusion and organized by Alaska Metropolitan and Tigerlilly Koi.

I'm told that the bidding began and, per Eshi, "When the dress reached $150K, I got really excited... at $200K, I got nervous... and at $300K, I quit breathing. Finally, I cried!"

Two women got into a bidding war, but decided to join forces and put up all the money they had to get it: $460,000L!

The winners are Kay Fairey and Clarabelle Cazalet, two models for Premiere Modeling Management. When I asked if they were clothing designers, too, Clarabelle responded, "We're just really good clothes hangers and know how to accessorize!" Kay added, "We are getting ready to make our own fashion publication on the net."


Kay Fairey, Eshi Otawara and Clarabelle Cazalet

Of course, I had to ask what in the world Clarabelle and Kay were going to do with a no-trans dress. Was Eshi going to give it to them transferable? "Yes, because they put up so much to get it, but under the condition that they can only transfer it to a third person if it is for another RFL auction next year," she replied.

8:52pm Update: Eshi has just learned that Kay Fairey won the auction outright, but decided that she will share it with her good friend Clara, knowing that Clara had wanted the dress for a long time. Such a happy ending!

To be a Giant Snail or to be run over by one - That is tomorrow's question

RacerX Gullwing was patient with me when I started asking him about the Giant Snail Races in Second Life. He just handed me a notecard with the history of the event. At first I thought I was being politely dismissed until I started reading it, and then I realized that this weekly phenomenon has been going on for over three years. That's a lot of explaining he's been doing... so much so that this bunny's name is synonymous with "snail races."


RacerX Gullwing, photographed by Suzanne Graves

The first thing you need to know is that you, too, can become a snail and participate in the "Greatest Race in the Known Universe." This Saturday, March 15th at 2pm SLT, the first of 4 cross-country races to raise money to find a cure for cancer will be held, crossing 45 sims... and the privilege will cost you $250L. It is all part of the official kick-off of the Relay for Life.

Another factor you should consider is that this Saturday - whether you are in the race or not - you run the risk of being bulldozed by dozens of giant snails as they hurl their slimy way across the grid.


This photograph by RacerX Gullwing

For the uninitiated...

The History of the Giant Snail Races of Second Life by RacerX Gullwing

It all started with a contest called Giant Avatar contest I saw was coming up in a few days back when events were only a few a day and finding them was easy. I went to the sandbox where you could usally work for about 30 minutes at a time between sim crashes, and started attaching prims to my feet, but that didn't make you any taller... just made prims that went into the ground. I thought about it and figured the way I'd have to do this is be in the foot.

I didn't have a clue how to script legs to move and back then movement scripts didn't work on avatars anyway. I narrowed it down a bit to a one footed animal. The shell was maxed out at 30 meters or maybe I just remember it that big. Thing is, I din't have a clue how to see out of that so had to stop a lot and cam outside the shell to see where I was.

It was hilarious. I got to the contest about 20 minutes early and the guy holding it told me to please park off to the side somewhere. I thought he was steering me over there because I had obviously won and he didn't want to discourage the other avatars. Ends up I was the only one that took him up on it - literally - and made a giant avatar. Well I didn't win.


The current scoreboard at the Giant Snail Races

I was in group called Montmartre Artists and we were trying to get on the most popular places list and come up with an event before camping chairs were invented. I was talking with my good scripting friend and neighbor in Fujin, Catfart Greyson, and he suggested giant snail racing. I put together a better, cuter avatar with blinky eyes that everyone loves and they havent changed much since. We did get into the top 20 a couple times.

The races started on the ground on the stone paths that circled Montmartre. I made all the arrows and things needed for the race, and later, At 8pm on Tuesday nights, I'd go around after the race and shout "the race is over," and all of the signs of the race track would vanish, just leaving the stone path built by May Best, the city streets of Chase Rutherford's Manhattan, and the Hawthorne sim, an Aimee Weber build.


No peanuts and popcorn for sale here... but you'll want what he has to offer, nevertheless

These came to an end mostly because people discovered a trick around the physics in Second Life where, if you can find something to trip over, you can fall a lot faster than anyone can run. Also, once you get into that falling state you can close the chat bar and hold the space bar down and get yourself to glide a long ways. So I moved the race up to the sky onto a perfectly flat surface where there is nothing you can trip over.

At the same time, Seifert Surface was experimenting with a transportation system that used "push" and would throw you across the map. He had set up the flingers at the Future sim, just one sim south of Montmartre and owned by Chase Rutherford. I used his experiments at the new track, and built the course around them. The race stayed in the Future sim as it changed hands to Gus Plisskin, who said it was welcome to stay as long as I wanted to have it there, but the sim slowly filled to capacity and had a lot of scripts going and the flingers stopped working consistently and the sport became more of a luck thing and more of an endurance race.


Produced by Texas Timtam of SLCN.TV, and narrated by Wiz Nordberg, Pyrii Akula, Kiwi Alpha and of course, the Master of Ceremonies himself, RacerX Gullwing

I got Seifert Surface to give me a copy of his experiments and carefully packed it all into a prim and moved it all back to where it started in Montmatre. Also if you go to Snapzilla and search using the key words "snail race" you can see 99 percent of that history there. The snail race is only a few months older than Snapzilla. In fact, the snail races were three years old at the end of november, 2007, and have been held every Saturday since then, except for two or three cancellations a little over a year ago when I was very sick.

Meanwhile, SLCN.TV - the world's first virtual TV network - has been covering (and streaming live) the Giant Snail Races every Saturday since August of 2007. I spoke with SLCN.TV's Texas Timtam to learn more.

Texas Timtam: We just thought they were pretty special and started turning it into a "TV Show." RacerX was agreeable and although it has taken a little bit of time, it is becoming more and more popular. I just think that RacerX is one of the really special people in Second Life. He has such a youthful sense of humor and fun. I just love it on the shows when he laughs.

Bettina Tizzy: Where in the world are the folks from SLCN.TV?

Texas Timtam: We are in Australia and have to get up pretty early on Sundays to do these races. Sometimes we think.... "I JUST WANT TO SLEEP MORE," but I'm always really happy that we don't.

Bettina Tizzy: So what time do you start working?

Texas Timtam: Depends on the Daylight Savings situation. It *was* a 6:00 am start (= 11:00am SLT) until last week. Now it's 5:00am, and when we switch off of Australia's DST it will be 4:00 am!!!! Boo hoo I say! Darn this planet thing for being so big and round.

Bettina Tizzy: Thank you so much for making this abbreviated video and posting it on YouTube. The still pics do not do the races justice, and the commentary is almost as hilarious as the race itself.

Texas Timtam: Wiz Nordberg is a funny guy. Never use the words garlic, butter, or salt in the shows!

Bettina Tizzy: How long are the races on Saturdays?

Texas Timtam: There are beginner training classes at 9:30am, and the races start at 11:00. They usually go for about an hour and 15 minutes. Be sure to see the new Alice in Wonderland course.

To participate in tomorrow's Relay for Life race, contact RacerX Gullwing directly and pick up your Giant Snail avatar at Montmartre by teleporting here, which also happens to be the official headquarters for the Giant Snail Races.