Being the flickr addict that I seem to be, I take a lot of photos in SL. Lots of photos. Lots of photos at Quan Li. Now, you’ve seen a ton of mine… let’s see yours!

You might notice there’s a new little photo board on the beach at Quan Li. There’s photos here of Quan Li locals… surfing, dancing, being neko, chatting, goofing off, getting hitched… and everything in between. The latest ones are of beach regulars, Desne and Xinalina as nurses (you gotta see it), Paper Foil, and Rip… the tiny surfing puppy dressed as a samurai. Yeah, you gotta see it.

Feel free to add your own shots to the board, or drop them to me in-world and I’ll add ‘em for you. OR, if you’re a flickr addict like myself, add ‘em to the new groups:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/quanli/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/surfingsecondlife/

We’re eating with …

Oooh, step lightly, there’s a lot of building going on around here. First off the easy stuff, there’s a few more shop locations in-world now… Surf City, South Beach, MO Island, La Bahia, Bishara Resorts and Mexico. All the locations and SLurls are available here…

MO Island, pirate-themed shanty town

South Beach

Surf City

There’s SO much more stuff and news coming in the next few days… Stuff and news. Stuff and news. Here’s a teeny tiny preview…

minus40 by Namiko. Winterwear. Snowboards. Yeah.

See a couple of the new things in-person at the Alpine Executive Centre in the MeetingSupport sim!

Our friends from Laguna Beach Club have been involved in the development of the new Mexico and Chichen Itza sim (sponsored by the Tourism Board of Mexico) and asked Namiko Surf Co. for a Mayan-themed release… so here we have the Maya Bikini and Jewelry sets. Five colours, three different bikini bottoms to switch up, anklets, bracelets, earrings, and necklaces!

Now available at all shops in-world… or see it up close and personal at the Mexico sim!

Happy Wednesday,
Keala

P.S. Yes… (Thor), there is LOTS of new things happening and new products coming soon!
P.P.S. We have new shops at Bishara Resorts, La Bahia, and also Pushkin (a Japanese beach sim). Check out our list of locations in-world to see them.

Whaahoo. I’m back from Fiji and back into SL! On the way, I discovered the location of my Venice Beach shop in RL. Yeah, we had gorgeous beaches, perfectly warm water, and nice hot sun (I got myself a pretty wicked tan)… really, nothing to complain about except one thing irked me the whole time. One of the world-class surf spots, Cloudbreak, located at Tavarua Island is blocked off from the public. You have to pay (300 FJ per night, minimum 7 nights — yeah, about $1,300 USD — we said, ‘no way’) to stay at the “Tavarua Resort” in order to surf the waves at Tavarua. This bothers me to NO end. Surfing should be free. You can’t charge admission to Mother Nature. It was ironic (and somewhat sweet) that Tavarua was flat for the time we were there, …

Woooot! Surfing in SL is the main story for the business section of the SLNN.com site today.

http://www.slnn.com/article/epicsurfcontest/

Peahi Beach welcomes you

Moana’Ina Beach at The Weather Channel’s (TWC) recently launched Weather Island will be see surfers from all over Second Life gather on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 1 pm SLT (PST) to compete in the first ‘big wave’ SL surf contest. Come see the top surfers in Second Life battle these epic conditions for the top placing!

Meet the epic wave at Peahi Beach

Surfing in Second Life has been developing and expanding by leaps and bounds over the past few months with the work of Sebastian Saramago and Heather Goodliffe of Surf Systems Inc. They have developed a line of surfboards which are scripted to work with the wave systems they have designed. The surfable waves in SL range from foamy, whitewash to crystal clear pipe waves to the massive, bone-crunching big waves found at Weather Island and …

It’s time!! Here are the heats for the first big wave event, the Namiko Epic Surf Contest at TWC Island:

Heat 1

Gypsie Summers (R)
AlexSurfer Hirons (G)
Valent1ne Apogee (B)
Cierra Theriac (O)

Heat 2

Aries Ashton (R)
Thor Bishop (G)
SamyJo Ah (B)
Warren Barthelmess (O)

Heat 3

Kimmy Leroux (R)
Eield Decosta (G)
Creed Lisle (B)
Tabby Babii (O)

Heat 4

Flynn Sheridan (R)
JD Snook (G)
Gerran Voss (B)
Polysilox Apogee (O)
Frankie Miles (P)

Heat 5

Pablitin Couffer (R)
kiddd Ikarus (G)
Malcolm Sydney (B)
Seano Osumi (O)
Vincent Olivier (P)

(R) – Red Rashguard + Surfboard
(G) – Green Rashguard + Surfboard
(B) – Blue Rashguard + Surfboard
(O) – Orange Rashguard + Surfboard
(P) – Purple Rashguard + Surfboard

Competitors, please start by wearing the coloured rashguard for your first heat. We will provide EPIC surfboards for you. For those of you that get to the subsequent rounds, we will re-assign the colours and you might need to change your rashguard and board. …

Defying the usual SL “Update Day” technical difficulties, we just finished screening Valent1ne’s newest surf film at Chi. At the surf contest, she shot over 9 gigs worth of video footage and has spent the past week in the cutting room, producing a fantastic 9 minute machinima of the event. You can watch it on Google now OR you can go visit Chi anytime this week to view the movie in-world. Poid’s theatre set up will remain on the beach for the next week.

The Machinimator, herself, Valent1ne Apogee (left) and Kiana Foxley (right)

Opus, SamyJo and Poid getting the best seats… and Sammie passing out popcorn

Pablitin with popcorn, Surfdaddy in the lei, and Zen and Carl in the background

Thanks to Val for all her hard work and creativity! Valent1ne promises that the NEXT surf machinima will totally blow you away. …