Today at 1pm (SL Time) we’re having our SL bloggers meet in Topgol!

Featuring live electronic music set by the one and only October Hush!

Music by DJ kEtcHup! (aka Alexander Burgess)

and…car chases with guns!

So come well dressed and armed!

It all happens at Clockwork: Topgol (225, 143, 54)

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! If you have a superstitious streak in you, rest assured that for some, 13 is a lucky number. Check out the old school bee from the early days that was enticed to Clockwork by the sparkly dance ball. Or maybe he was just there because some n00b didn’t clean up his trash. Strangely, it wasn’t the same n00b who left her BDSM rack in the balcony. . .

In celebration of lucky numbers (I stayed home on the 7th, any craps player will tell you sevens and elevens are nothing to mess around with) and n00bs, I thought I’d take a moment to look at some of the cool stuff going on this week in case you missed it the first time around. (And no, there’s no logical connection there.)

JellyBean highlights what I think is some of the best kind of mixed reality, how you can plant a tree in SL and help save the rainforest. We’re all about urban renewal in Topgol, and I’m going to plant a few of these near Clockwork. Maybe I can attract more fauna. I’ll have to ask Wrath and Timothy their secrets.

Linden Lab announced the opening of the 2007 Innovation Awards. This is for developers (including open source people). Sorry bloggers, y’all can’t qualify for this unless you’re a hotshit coder to boot. That would exclude me. I vote for Katharine Berry, who developed an Ajax based SL viewer so you can use your web browser to access SL (thanks Vint and NWN for the tip).

Performance art SL style: Aenea clues the rest of us (or is it just me?) in on some real-time artistic performance in SL that uses the platform to create in ways that are specific to virtual reality. Without the particular virtues of SL, there are no ZeroG Skydancers. In this case, no virtue, no art.

Metaversed notes the opening of the Eolus Project, which

incorporates many things. Not least of which are real examples of how Second Life can integrate with real life, such as a fully working house in the virtual world, whose controls, doors and light switches all corrsespond with a real life house. Also, working demonstrations of virtual world ecommerce integrated with real world supply chain and CRM solutions. But it’s more than just tech guys messing around with neat toys, it’s a think tank with the purpose of discovering ways that Second Life can help us to define, and make, a better planet for everyone.

Onder Skall did a very nice in-depth comparison of the two most-used combat systems in SL, DCS and CCS. I’m still undecided as to which I think will work best for Topgol and/or the Met a Stranger metaverse, but this breakdown does a thorough job of evaluating the different options.

Stay tuned for news about the season premiere of Met a Stranger and the opening DJ schedule for Clockwork.

That’s Lillie Yifu–whose blog, 2nd Sex, I discovered earlier this week boldly piloting my browser into the badlands of the blogosphere. Lillie writes intelligently and thoughtfully about issues intersecting her life as a highly paid, highly visible escort (I’m sure I’ve seen her name attached to comments at various other blogs). What drew me in this week was her post on the obnoxious practice of teleport spam. You’ve all been reading her, I know. How come you didn’t tell yr pal, Alex? And for those of you interested in more titillating tales of her business, she also posts at The Red Lantern.

Other sites of recent note:

• I’ve taken to reading Metaversed, which strikes me as a more business-minded 3pointD, getting down into the dirt and discussing the intersection of meatspace politics with virtuality, as well as all manner of metaspherical business–think of an expanded version of Tateru Nino’s Monday Reality Mix at New World Notes or Second Life Insider‘s Mixed Reality category. (Hey NWN: How about some categories–preferably linked to yr Technorati account and some pingbacks.)
• A Virtual Village Voice is Laetizia Coronet’s personal blog that offers brief, thoughtful posts on things we’re all talking about.
• And last, A Better World in Second Life, not a blog at all, but a page dedicated to promoting a machinima film of the same title about the intersection of Real World activism with Second Life. And since we dig machinima and activism, we’ll dig you if you check it out. Dig?