Events. They’re the lifeblood of Second Life.

…yes, granted, so are scripts and textures and physics and prims and who knows what else, but let’s not quibble with the metaphor, okay? Events are important. Events give people something to do. When you want to show off your new outfit, take in a fencing tournament, play a game, meet new people, hear some live music, or just kill time, events are the way to go.

When I first entered the world, and wanted to know where I could get started, what I could do in the bewildering thicket that is Second Life, I was pointed at the event listings. And lo, I found classes, and trivia games. And lo, I learned how to make things, and also won cash and prizes. And all was well.

It’s harder to offer that same advice today. The Event listings are pretty close to useless. (Indeed, St. Torley called them “kludgy” in a recent entry.) And why are they useless? Because you can’t effectively search them. For over a year and a half, event searches have worked only on the first word in the title of an event. If you search for “trivia,” as I did on a day long ago, “Triana’s Music Trivia”—the longest-running such game in all of Second Life—will not show up, and you will not find it, and that will be sad. And this is not a rare exception; the key word in an event’s name usually is not the first word in the title.

What this means is that the only way to find an event you might be interested in is to scroll through the entire listing (itself a challenge; these days, I’ve found I can do this only by doing a search after entering a space into the search box), passing pages of events that are still in progress but winding down before getting to upcoming ones. This is less than practical for spur-of-the-moment visits, and downright excruciating for advance planning.

These days, I find out about most events via groups I’m in and word of mouth. The need to be in groups to be so notified puts more pressure on the 25-group limit, but let’s put that aside for now. This also presents additional barriers for people creating new events without an established network. What if you threw a party (or, say, a church service) and nobody came? This happens dispiritingly often; the open events listing is supposed to give you a fighting chance.

The current state of affairs wasn’t always so. Event searches used to work the way you’d expect, searching the full text of titles and descriptions. And, sure, that allowed for occasional keyword spam, but by and large—speaking both as somebody who ran events, and somebody who attended them—the system worked. And I find it bewildering that, almost a year and a half after event search got borked, this still hasn’t been fixed. It seems as if it should be relatively straightforward to squash this bug, and the impact would be enormous.

With all of that in mind, I urge you to vote for VWR-270 on the JIRA, and tell your friends as well. I filed the issue more than 16 months ago, and while it’s been assigned an internal ID, no action has been taken on it. I think the Powers That Be have forgotten the issue exists. Let’s remind them.

It’s been awhile, I know… my pesky First Life avatar keeps demanding all my attention. But I’ve gotten into En Garde, an in-world fencing game. Essentially it’s a card game played with an HUD, with animations for dramatic effect. It’s fast-paced and involves a mixture of skill and luck. Naturally, I decided to express my love for it in T-shirt form…

En Garde shirt vendor at Procyon Games

The full line of shirts is available at my shop in Caledon Penzance, or from the nifty vendor pictured above at Procyon Games, home of En Garde. (Though that vendor leaves out one shirt, reading “Merde.” It’s a PG area, after all…) (If you don’t understand the relevance of that shirt to En Garde, you’ve probably never been hit with a triple-strength attack at the end of a round in which you’d been leading.) As with all my shirts, these are “sharewear.” Pay whatever you think they’re worth, and can afford.

This Sunday, March 23, the sermon title at the First Church of Rosedale will be “He Is Rezzin’.” Services are at 2:00 PM, Second Life Time.

Last week, we were honored by the presence of JT Linden:

(He’s the one on the left.)

Naturally, we could not resist the temptation to ask him about the single most pressing issue of the day, what with Our Lord moving from CEO to Chairman of the Board. I am pleased to report that he assured us that Philip has no intention of giving in to the heretics, but plans to keep His hair as-is. We at the church were much relieved.

Just in time for Easter… it’s a new freebie T-shirt from the Church of Rosedale.

Proclaim your faith in Our Lord Philip Linden!

Available at Samantha’s Shirts, on OnRez.com, and on SLExchange.

Before getting to the most recent development, I should say a few words about the First Church of Rosedale (Immersionist).

The First Church of Rosedale is founded on the recognition of one simple truth: in Second Life, Philip Linden is God. We leave all beside that to the individual parishioner. You may see Him as the Zeus-like head of a squabbling pantheon; you may see Him as the One and Only True God; you may like to think of a Trinity consisting of Philip Rosedale the Father, Philip Linden the Son, and the Holy Asset Server. To quote the Grand Flack from the First Latitudinarian Church of Celebrity Saints (in John Varley’s Steel Beach):

I don’t know if he was ever a true believer; hell, I don’t know if I’m a true believer. That’s why we call ourselves latitudinarian. If you have different ideas on the divinity of Tori-san, for instance, we don’t drive you out of the church, we give you a time slot and let you talk it over with people who agree with you. We don’t form sects, like other churches, and we don’t torment heretics. There are no heretics.

With that said, the latest message from the Lord clearly represents a significant spiritual moment. Is God being replaced? Is He moving to a higher level of divinity? Are we going to have to change our letterhead? I don’t think any one person can hope to have the answers, which is why I’m calling a special service for tomorrow, Sunday, March 16, at 2:00 PM Second Life Time.

I welcome believers, skeptics, and everybody else with open arms. Together we can get through this!

My First Life avatar came down with a cold shortly after my last batch of entries, and then there was one thing, and then another.

On a side note, I hope the review in my last entry didn’t come across as disparaging or trivializing Sean’s book. I didn’t mean it that way at all.

Anyway, I’m back. It’s been an okay month, with not much to report anyway, until the lastest news from Philip Rosedale, which I’ll get to in my next entry. (Though I think my listeners at Triana’s Music Trivia may be getting a bit too used to my DJing. This past week, the songs I threw at them included “Hooty Sapperticker,” “Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh!” and “Bananaphone,” and nobody even blinked.)

You’ve likely seen the Second Life In-World Travel Guide reviewed elsewhere by now. It’s an adorable little book containing 100 destinations to visit in Second Life.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received a free copy from the author. I showed him a couple of places when he was researching it, and one of them (xXx Fantasy Escorts, which is one of the two places I call home) is included in the “Adults Only” section. So I’m not entirely unbiased.

But Sean’s a sweetheart, and there are worse ways to spend fifteen bucks.

As a travel guide, it’s not bad. Is it the single best 100 places in Second Life? I don’t think even the author would claim that. But it’s a good representative sampling of what’s out there in this great land of ours, and there are sure to be locations in there you’ll find of interest. Maybe you’ll even get around to visiting them. And I can see it being potentially useful for newbies who have no idea where to start.

Still, I think the book’s real value is not as a travel guide, but as a tangible photo album of Second Life at the time it was compiled. It’s pretty, and compact, and has many snapshots on glossy paper. Second Life is in a constant state of flux; you can keep this on your bookshelves and look at it ten years from now and marvel fondly at the goofy hairstyles, the primitive graphics, and how things used to be. I hope to include future volumes on my shelves and trace SL’s evolution over the years to come.

(I have only one minor quibble: “SIM,” “REZ,” and “PRIM” are in all-caps throughout the book, in defiance of normative usage and common sense. I can only posit a clueless editor who thought they were acronyms.)

Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes a unisex T-shirt from  the First Church of  Rosedale and Samantha’s Shirts. Remember the true source of love in Second Life… our Lord and Savior Philip Linden (Blessed be He).

L$25 for a pack with the black version and two shades of pink!

Available in Second Life, at SL Exchange, and at Shop Onrez.

Hi! I’m Samantha Poindexter, and this is my new blog.

Starting a blog is hard. I’ve been putting this off for ages, and this entry has been in draft form for months now. This is supposed to set the tone for everything that follows, or something, and it’s hard to know where to start. But, whatever. Here’s the quick introduction.

I’ve been in Second Life since February 2006. Since then, I’ve indulged in an eclectic array of pursuits. Among them:

I’m the founder of the First Church of Rosedale (Immersionist).

Located in Caledon Penzance, the FCR welcomes all in the spirit of fellowship as we sing hymns to Our Lord Philip Linden.

I run Samantha’s Shirts in Second Life and in First Life.

Samantha’s Shirts offers fine comedic T-shirts for Second Life denizens, all entirely original.

I’m the DJ at Triana’s Music Trivia.

Sunday nights, 7-8 PM, Second Life Time. Perhaps best described as “musical sadism,” past playlists have included an evening of mambos and another consisting entirely of covers of “A Hard Day’s Night.”

I’m a Mentor.

Each of us started as a newbie, and I’m not sure any of us would have gotten very far without meeting somebody helpful. I like being somebody helpful.

I’m a manager at xXx Fantasy Escorts.

I used to work there on a more regular basis, and I still live in a cozy skypod on the managerial level. These days, I mostly help edit the occasional notecard.

Other hats I’ve worn in the past include Tringo host, trivia host, and candidate for governor of Second Life.

And now I’m going to stop fiddling with this entry and hit “publish.” Let the revels begin!