Debi Latte Closes Mystery Anniversary Week in Fun-Filled Event

On Sunday at Noon, May 23rd, the 4rth Anniversary week of events at Mystery was all set to close as it began: with Debi Latte singing live aboard the Queen of Hearts riverboat club. Her velvet voice would be what was needed for a memorable finish.

It didn't quite turn out as planned.

The event was almost finished before it started with Debi crashing. And then an odd thing happened. Debi was able to log back in, but her avatar didn’t appear. It was like a disembodied voice speaking from nowhere.

With no Debi on the stage, Tygeria put something else on the stage: “newbie Linden” mannequins. After a few minutes, she put other things on the stage. For a corny but slightly macabre touch, three singing skulls rezzed over the stage, along with another blowing into a saxophone, and another on bongo drums. Then came a dancing leprechaun, smiling, which would occasionally stop for a sip of dark beer.

Eventually, Debi reappeared, flying back onto the deck. She had gone away some distance from the crowd to try to rezz. But having no luck, she had to dig out a newbie skin. She poked fun at her own predicament, then saw what Tygeria put on the stage, and laughed. Mystery staff member Ayjay Carpenter commented, “Who said variety was dead. Ventriloquism, a chorus line, great singing, a vanishing act. ... all in the first 25 minutes!” With all the crashes, Ajay was wearing a helmet. Someone else remarked, “Only in Second Life can your back up group be skeletons - some newbies - and a drunk leprechaun.”

And so, the event continued, with Debi occasionally chuckling about the menagerie on her stage, which soon included a rustbucket robot that later fell to pieces, and otherwise looking at the good side of things, “What a terrific day.” Tygeria put back a few of the newbie mannequins, but left some up. Debi sang her music like only she could, songs such as “Daydreaming,” “I Will Be Here Waiting For You,” and the club’s trademark song, “Queen of Hearts.” Someone in the audience muttered an emote: “D-E-B-I SL DIVA GODDESS.”

Debi sang for an hour, then the event came to a close. Despite the technical glitches and having to use a newbie avatar, she enjoyed herself that day. Tygeria’s sense of humor helped. She would later describe the event on Facebook, “Seems that SL wanted to be crazy today and not let my avatar back in after a crash.... but... the show went on.... my amazing audience stayed til I got in with a freebie avatar... and we had fun aboard the Queen of Hearts in spite of the technology!!!!”

Just in case this does happen again, someone passed her a package of freebie “Wingless” furred avatars. So perhaps next time, Debi really will be a “foxy girl.”

“You've been talking to Tygeria toooooooo much. LMAO!”

Bixyl Shuftan

Grid Issues: Old IMs Reappearing in Chat

We have had reports of old IMs, some as old as 2 months, reappearing in chat as if they were just resent. We want to assure residents we believe this is a technical problem and not associated with anything intentional or malicious. We are investigating the cause and if you wish to send in a support ticket with your experience we will pass that information on to the investigative team.

Posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 6:11 AM on Grid Status Report.

This bit of news was already known to some, judging by the chatter in some groups, "You mean they just noticed that?" One lady claimed to have gotten someone's reply to a question a little late, five months late.

Login Difficulties

On Saturday afternoon, I was invited to a formal party, and showed up at 5 PM. At 5:15 PM, Second Life suddenly seized up and crashed on me, the "view IMs or quit" window prominently displayed. It had been happening to me a little more than usual lately, so I relogged. Trying to get back in, I got a message saying that I couldn't log in, saying there was a problem with the clock. Confused, I tried again. Same result.

I waited a while, and tried again, with no luck. Finally after several tries I checked the SL Blog, and found the following:

Login Difficulties

[5:15PM Pacific] We’re currently experiencing an issue with logins. You may see a message that indicates you cannot log in due to the system clock being set incorrectly. As a temporary workaround, setting your computer clock to Pacific Standard Time should allow you to login.

We’re working on resolving this issue as quickly as possible and will post here with updates.

I decided to try one more time before resetting my clock to California time, and it worked! Well, sort of. I was a cloud, and the voice and sound were gone. Just about everyone else was cloudy too. It was soon clear others were having problems. Many of the others were gone, and the hostess was putting up the Internet address for the music stream so people could hear it outside the SL client, humbly apologizing to everyone for the trouble.

I waited a few minutes for the cloud to fade. It soon did, but I got a bit of a shock. It seems SL had lost most of my fox avatar, leaving me a shape I hadn't seen for a long while. I'd been "ruthed" for the first time in well over a year, the look so familiar to long-time residents.

Others at the party had lost items too, such as jewelry. Someone suggested that I clear cache and relog. I did so, and coming back, was able to become a foxy guy again, much to my relief (and the others around me and in IM).

Leaving the place after the party, I got my sound and voice back. Though as so often these days, things still could take a while to load due to the lag.

The metaverse thrown out of wack because of a clock? Something seems a bit "cuckoo."

Bixyl Shuftan