OMFG, You Have To See This! 22 Dec 2006 edition

This issue's column: Clangers Inventions (134,123,41)

Those of us who have gone native in Second Life know that there is one undeniable fact about the Grid: it's huge. So huge, in fact, that even the most experienced players may feel lost when trying to find new places to go and new things to do. I've found that one of the most effective ways of randomly exploring the juiciest parts of the immensity that is the Grid is this:

1. Find an interesting object
2. right-click on the object
3. select Edit in the pie menu
4. wait for the Creator information to load
5. push Profile next to the creator's name, and
   
6. check out the Creator's Picks page.

People who make cool things often have cool locations in their Picks, and at those cool locations you'll find even more cool things to repeat the process on.

Most recently, a Picks trail led me to the astounding island of Clangers Inventions:

Clangers Inventions (134,123,41)

(Turns out that it's wildly famous, but everyone's got to hear about it for the first time somewhere...)

The main thing to say about it is, natch, that omfg you have to see this! It's a disciplined riot of form and color and design and strangeness, an acidic landscape dotted, covered, rife with breathtakingly amazing things. Dominated by a giant swirling sort of mushroomish thing with a moving spiral stem, the island also holds (as you'll find after you get over the initial shock and start wandering around) dozens of fascinating small things, any of which would dominate the aesthetic of any normal location, and all of which here combine into somethat that, babe, you've just got to see.

Things to do at Clangers Invention:

• Find the eight-seat conference and discussion area (on top of a tower, open to the sky, with a globe lamp illuminating it). Have your group's next meeting there (that'd be a trip!).

• Find one of the flexible windsock-creatures that circle endlessly around the edges of the landmass. Alt-click on it, and let it carry your viewpoint gracefully around the strangeness.
  

• Find the giant flying hotdog that's buried under the island. If it's still here.
  

• Find at least two amazing things that I haven't mentioned.
  

• Send at least two friends a landmark, and tell them that omfg, they have to see it!
  

For further reading, note that Clangers Inventions has been written up in (at least) SlateNight Magazine, here.

Enjoy!
Dale Innis