Hanging at JJ's & Wayne's Pool

After a bit of motorboating with Tomais, JJ, Wayne, and Lazurus ("Call me Laz" his profile says), we ended up at JJ's & Wayne's pool in there new home. We were joined by Petr,

Heads from left to right, Tomais, Petr, JJ, me, Wayne & Lazurus

Lots of fun and laughter while discussing everything between heaven and hell (both non-existent), some friendly bickering, and informing Laz about the great benefits of having a Premium Account. Among other things, you get into crowded regions easier, which is worth a lot. Between motorboating and the pool, I managed to get into Ûber and buy the fatpack of Deadwool's new jacket. Beautiful textures and colors, as usual, Masa Plympton is a wonderful designer.

Linden Lab Keeps Promise

I love Linden Lab, they always keep their promises, at least since Ebbe Linden has been at the helm!

Yesterday Linden Lab announced on the SecondLife Community blog (url) that last names, by popular demand, are now back again after being gone since 2010.

Those Premium Members who wish to change any part of their names, both first and last, can do so for a fee of $39,99. Residents will be able to choose from a rotating list of available last names, which will be on display on your SecondLife account page under "Change Name".

A Holiday Gift from Linden Lab

"The latest Premium Gift is a Winter Cabin - available now to Premium members at any Premium Gift Kiosk. Sit by the fire and get cozy in this exclusive Winter Cabin. Fill it with furniture and invite your friends for some hot cocoa and good times."

A Message From Our Dear Ebbe

I hope you all got this wonderful email from our darling Ebbe Linden.

Ebbe Altberg, aka Ebbe Linden, sexy as hell in scruff

Dear Second Life Residents,

It’s been an exciting summer at Linden Lab. Second Life celebrated its 14th anniversary, and shortly thereafter we also opened Sansar's creator beta to the world. In addition, we are 

thrilled to announce a set of investments into Second Life and its communities that will include enhancements to our engineering support, customer support, billing systems and upgrades, and customer acquisition outreach. In all, we’ve budgeted many millions (USD, not L$...) in the coming year to make SL even better, and we’ll keep everyone up to date on improvements as they roll out (or sooner).

This summer’s milestones have given us all another opportunity to reflect on just how strong the Second Life community is, what an incredible history SL has had so far, and what an amazing future lies ahead for the virtual world and its Residents.

For more than 14 years, you’ve created memorable experiences, diverse communities, close relationships, thriving economies, engaging art, exciting events, and amazing creations of all kinds. You’ve made the world, and we’re proud to provide the platform and tools that help you to do so. We at Linden continue to be impressed by what we witness from Residents every day, and we want you to know that we share that commitment to and love for Second Life.

Here are a few of the things you can look forward to soon:

• We are hard at work upgrading all of the SL infrastructure and moving it to the cloud, which will bring a wealth of opportunities to Residents near and far, and allow us, among many other things, to make SL more performant for Residents across the world from us. It may also allow us to introduce new products with more flexible pricing. 
• We’re working on several features to increase the value of Premium subscriptions. Most recently we gave Premium members priority access to near-full events, and shortly, we’ll be ready to unveil another bit of exciting news for subscribers. 
• We're building out a series of great extensions to Windlight (code name: EEP!), which will give value, flexibility, and new marketability to land, and will make Windlight settings tradeable assets. 
• We have an extension to the animation system in the works (code name: Animesh) that will allow non-avatar objects to use more powerful and efficient skeletal animations the way avatars can today, and even more changes planned for creators and merchants later in the year. 
• We’ve also got new experiences and events coming. An exciting new grid-wide gaming experience is coming soon! The team can’t wait to share the details with you in just a few days. Also in the works for this fall is an updated Halloween Haunted Tour, with new spooktacular events to celebrate. Not to mention, we’re turning 15 next year - SL15B, baby! That’s an incredible milestone and we are looking forward to collaborating with you to produce an amazing celebration. 

Long live Second Life and long live the creative process in the amazing worlds that you've trail-blazed! Thank you for filling SL with your creations and communities all of these past 14+ years, and here’s to many, many more together.

Best,

Ebbe Linden, CEO & the Second Life Team

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Well, what can one say after that breathtaking declaration of love, other than "We love you right back, Ebbe baby, and the SecondLife Team too!💗💗💗"

I hope you all noticed the remark about "amazing creations of all kinds", which we all know must certainly include my fashion-forward and spectacular "The Jester's Hat"! Nothing else comes to mind really so it must be Linden-lingo for Bock's creation.

It is also good to know that the Lab is going to keep on investing in, working with and improving SecondLife despite the doomsday prophets who for a long time have been crowing about how the Lab will lose all interest in SecondLife once Sansar is launched.

Premium Meetup with the Lindens

I got an email from my good friends at Linden Lab today. It contained an invitation to a meetup! This event is only for premium account holders.

"Join the party! You're invited to a Tiki Beach Bash, just for Premium members! Join us inworld from 10:30-11:30 a.m. (SLT) on Thursday, June 11. You'll get early access to a free SL12B surprise avatar, too! Be sure to claim it before 11:59 p.m. on the 12th or you'll have to wait until it’s available for everyone."

Take this link to get to the location. First hit "View on map" and then "Visit this location".

There has been some speculation on the new avatar, judging by the picture in the email the speculations were correct. The new avatar is indeed a dinosaur.

I hope to see y'all there!

60 Groups for Premium Members

Yesterday my sweetheart told me to look at the bottom in my group tag, and lo and behold I saw that I now have 18 groups free.

Linden Lab has once again heard our supplications and have given us more groups. Last time that happened was in January 2011. When we all got those 42 groups I thought I would never join that many, somehow it happened anyway...

I have learned my lesson well and will now be extremely careful about which groups I join, some groups are simply too spammy.

SecondLife: 50% Off for Premium Membership

This limited-time discount offer is available only for memberships on the Quarterly billing plan. Discount will be applied to the first quarterly billing cycle only, and all future charges will be at the regular Premium price; price will return to USD 22.50, excluding VAT where applicable. To qualify, Second Life members must have an active Basic account or create a new Second Life account. Discount offer begins on Wednesday the 15th of October at 8:00 am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) and expires on Monday the 3rd of November 2014 at 8:00 am Pacific Standard Time (PST).

...
This is a generous offer to new Premium Members. Join the rest of us Premiums and get excellent service - and gifts once in a while.

New Premium Gift

Linden Lab today sent out a new gift to premium members.

It looks like a great little sailboat, I may have to ask seasoned sailor Vanadis for some lessons though! ...or perhaps a sexy male avatar would suit me better...?

SecondLife Makes Premium Better

Today I got a mail from Linden Lab, owners of SecondLife, informing me that they were now making SecondLife better for those of us with a Premium Member account.

This is of course a start to follow up on the promises made by Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab, at the recent SecondLife Community Conference 2011 (SLCC 2011) of adding value to the Premium accounts.

My main reason - although not the only one - for having a Premium account is to be able to hold land directly from Linden Lab, i.e. the Southern Charm sim that Ars and I bought together before he passed away.

"September's free Premium-only gift is an interactive furniture set that includes a sofa, tables, plants and lamps to make your home feel cozy. Each light turns on with a simple click! Don't like the color or texture of the furniture? Click it to change the look!"

Even if I don´t intend to get the customizable furniture set and do not need a Linden Home or access to a Premium Only Sandbox I do think it is a good idea to offer the paying customers some benefits and I am sure that those that only have a Linden Home must need a Sandbox to build. As Linden Lab says in it´s message "...this is only the beginning".

I am confident that something will be offered in the future that will suit me better.