The Vortex Blog

I’ve put a lot of time and effort in to The Vortex in the last 2 years and pretty well worn myself out. I suffer from insomnia and have not been in the best of health of late, so I’ve finally decided its time to take a back seat for a while and get some rest. I look forward to going to bed at a sensible time and waking up early (AM as opposed to PM - LOL).

Over the coming weeks I plan to go in to the centre of London to do some photography and also work on a machinima project (animated movies in SL) and leave the main running of The Vortex to  simson Babii and Dante Achterbahn, whom we recently promoted to full managers, so please direct any enquiries etc, to them. I will still be around but unlikely to be at many events.

On Monday March 3rd we will be celebrating our 2nd birthday at The Vortex and we will be planning a fun filled party, details of which will be posted next week. We’ve been through many DJs and locations in that time and The Vortex is running as strongly and as popular as ever and hopefully we will be around for many more years to come. It takes a lot of work and dedication to keep things running smoothly, and of course, we couldn’t do it without you and your donations. Thanks to everyone who has supported us.

Today we took over the Smallville Village sim and had it renamed to Whippersnapper. Most of the sim was previously sold, and with the tier income we hope this should help to reduce our costs and give us more prims, although we’ve yet to see how this will pan out.

We’re not planning any radical changes at this time, so things should tick along as normal. As for our original plans with Loki Eliot’s Nemo, we plan to add another sim later in the year.

For me, this is the fulfilment of my dream on my first day in Second Life, where I envisaged a sim and a club. It’s one of the things I love most about SL, if you have a dream, you can make it a reality, albeit virtual. We could have made this move much earlier, but we decided to wait until we were in a stronger position to see it happen and ensure it will last.

Christmas has passed and the new year is in full swing. We have a number of plans this year and had a few surprises good and bad. This year we plan to move Vortex to her final home, but with news of Smallville Village up for sale that changes things. Our original sim project has been postponed to a later time due to Loki Eliot being tied down with RL issues. We will review that situation when that is possible later in the year.

In the meantime we may purchase Smallville Village for ourselves. We don’t plan to change anything like tier/rent and may make minor improvements like the roads. This will suit our needs nicely and safeguard the current residents and remove any uncertainty about staying.

I had more important news but Kris has not been available for me to discuss this with him, if you see him in his usual state of AFK state, kick him hard and send him home.

This year should be a big year for us, please continue the support and show us that we still need the Vortex. And please remember we welcome comments to these posts, so please take 4 or 5 minutes to post one. Thanks

Yippee!!! It’s Christmas time again, the 2nd Christmas for The Vortex, and we have lots of fun events lined up to make the festive season go with a BANG!!! As ever, we are open 365 days a year, so if you find yourself at a loose end and no one to share Christmas with, come on down and join us. The new schedule will be available and sent out via the group early next week. So keep your eyes peeled for that.

Should you all be wondering what I would like for a Chwistmas, pwease pwease pwease buy me this super pirate ship, it only costs £28,000 GPB (€20,218 Euro / $56,823 US / L$15,058,015 SL$) at the famous toy store in London’s Regent Street, Hamleys.

As most of you know, Dummie Beck passed away on the 7th November. I had intended to post about this earlier, but I decided to wait until we had the full facts. Dummie was a regular at The Vortex and was popular and well liked.

Dummie had been ill for a while and recently had a blood clot removed. It appears he had gone shopping and succumbed to a heart attack from which he didn’t recover. He had known that something might happen to him and as he lived alone, he had given his log in details to his neighbour just in case, so it would be known what had become of him. That day his neighbour logged in and contacted somebody on his contact list. She did not speak English well nor know how to play Second Life, so the news was a little sketchy.

We later heard from a RL friend of Dummie who confirmed he had died and she told Dummie’s partner, Caleb, that Dummie’s relatives showed no interest and there was no money to pay the expenses, so there was no funeral and his body was cremated without ceremony. This was sad news indeed.

On Sunday we held a memorial event at the Vortex where many of Dummie’s friends and many of the kid community who were touched by this, came to show their respects and celebrate his life. Amazingly we had our largest traffic count of 18,747.

On behalf of Dummie and Caleb, I would like to thank all those who attended and showed their kindness at a very sad time. Dummie may have left us, but he will always be remembered.

Disturbed

I was somewhat disturbed by the news that some were saying that it was a hoax, and that they had seen it all before. Even if it had been, which we know it was not, this was extremely insensitive of them and very upsetting for Caleb and those that were sad and upset at his loss. These persons were basing their cynicism on nothing more than an assumption.

If there should ever be another unfortunate occasion like this, I would suggest to them, that you kindly keep your thoughts to yourself until at least you have got your facts right, and if you should find a hoax, then stop and think first and not come piling in with the tact of a twenty ton truck.

For a very long time now I’ve intended on installing a dance machine specifically for tiny avs, but with tinies regaining popularity in SL with tiny sims and stores popping up all over the grid, I figured it was time I got my thumb out.

Last night there were 4 tinies in The Vortex standing around like stuffed melons and nothing more to do than twiddle their thumbs. So today I bought some tinies dance animations and finally installed a tiny dance ball next to the hippo tip jar.

BOOGIE!!!

UPDATE: 2nd November 2007

Our 2nd Skydiving contest was won by Jin Falta, who achieved 0.03m and took L$501 from the donation pot. Congratulations to him.

We are starting our 3rd contest and the minimum qualifying winning score must be 0.05m or less. The current jackpot at the time of writing is L$401.

We are currently running regular skydiving contests outside the Vortex, reach the number 1 slot on the skydiving scoreboard and win the donation pot. You must be a Vortex group member to qualify and you can donate to increase the pot. The scores will be reset after a winner has taken the pot and will be entered on the Vortex Skydiving Leaderboard.

First Winner - Josua Rang

Our first winner was Josua Rang who won the pot of L$202 after clocking up a score of 0.02m. At the time of writing Josua is currently the 5th top skydiver in Second Life.

Cubey Terra Sale

If you don’t currently have a parachute you can purchase one from the vendor by the skydiving pod, Cubey Terra is currently running a half-price sale and you can purchase a compatible parachute for as little as L$75. These parachutes also get you listed on the Cubey Terra website stats. Please note the L$1 parachute is not compatible with the scoreboard.

We are also planning some events where we will be posting on the Second Life Events listings and inviting active skydivers to participate with larger cash prizes.

Vortex Skydiving slurl

On Wednesday 10th October, Gemini Enfield will be 666 days old and already rumours are surfacing of the evil that might surface on the day. Surely this innocent looking angel can’t really be a devil in disguise, can he?

To mark the occasion, The Vortex will be having a Resident Evil day with a prizes for the best costumes. More details to be posted later, so stay tuned!!!

Many thanks to all who donated to The Vortex in the last month, you’ve helped a  great deal.  THANK YOU

Please remember to continue to donate as and when you can and help to keep the dream alive.