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So, on Saturday here I conducted readers on a photo tour of this magazine's new headquarters in the grid, showing what exactly went into building it and why I made the decisions I did. Here then is the promised part 2 of that report, showing all the fun things you can do both on and below the water around my place, which of course is a big reason I purchased the particular parcel of land that I did. Now, to warn you, this is again a larger entry -- 24 photos total -- which is why most of the report can be found after the jump and not on the front page. If you have the chance, though, feel free to click through and view the entire thing, and especially all of you who are interested in what leisure activities there are to be had on the water there in the grid.

Ah, but first, some changes to the complex to report as well! Like mentioned last time, the entire concept of "final" becomes a much different one while in the grid, what with it being so easy to tweak and perfect various projects there, even to raze a parcel of land to the ground and start over; and this is no different with me, and even I find myself going through some pretty major design changes on a daily basis right now. Anyway, you can see here the biggest changes since the last report; a wider and darker staircase to the ballroom, a new staircase to the top of the glass cube, new railings as well, and the removal of the entire sky garden and elevator set-up.

So why get rid of the sky garden? Well, to free up prim space, frankly; that's the biggest problem with minimal 512-square-meter parcels like mine, after all, is that one is only allowed to erect a total of 117 prims on it, a number I have nearly maxxed out at any given moment. And why did I need the extra prims all of a sudden? Well, here's why -- welcome to the ITG seafloor lounge! This has been a big priority of mine since buying this land, was the construction of this underwater lounge; what's the point of even owning underwater land, I figure, if not to show off its underwater environment? Ah, but you can see here what that means; that to have a view worthy of being gawked at, you need to do a certain amount of landscaping, which involves an extra prim every time you plunk down another piece of seaweed or school of fish. It's a trade-off for me, since I'm already near the limit of prims I'm allowed to have on my land; but the underwater view is the more important one for me, plus as you saw before, I can always make a sky terrace out of the roof of the existing ballroom. It's not as high a view of "Cape Linden" where I live, but it's still just as expansive a one.

For those who are curious, by the way, landscaping while underwater is the same as doing so above sea level; it's simply a matter of pulling plants, trees and other objects out of your inventory, plunking them down, then twisting the prims into whatever shapes and angles you want. And this is of course one of those strange physics-defying facts about the grid that sometimes makes for such surreal experiences there; that despite the immersive, highly realistic quality of the environment, you never get wet when you're underwater and you can hold your breath indefinitely, which makes for very easy "farming" while under the sea.

As regular readers remember, though, it wasn't just for the landscaping opportunities that I wanted this land; as you can see while looking out the other side of the lounge, my parcel butts up against a huge private neighbor, who turns out to be constructing an entire complex underwater build with their land, including a sudden dropoff in depth right at the transition between their land and mine. It's a stunning view, I think, something that struck me even when I first visited as a shopper, and one of the many reasons I ended up choosing this particular parcel.

And in true minimalist fashion, I find that the underwater landscaping helps out in two other practical ways too; that the tallest of the plants add to the above-water decorative landscaping as well, plus helps new visitors realize that there's stuff under the water to go check out in the first place. It's my hope to add this as a regular part of ITG's activities while in the grid, frankly; regular snorkeling and other underwater events, maybe even a sponsored boat race out on the open sea next to headquarters. How fun would that be?

So speaking of which, are you ready to do a little diving? I know I am! I even went out and got some scripted scuba gear, courtesy of Jump's Dive Shack, which works pretty great; when wearing it and flying underwater, it animates your av to look like it's swimming, and even adds animated bubbles and sound effects. And even more amazing, Jump's hands the kit out for free just as a promotion, which means I can make copies for visitors whenever they want to go diving themselves. Thanks, Jump's!

And then here we are over at my northern next-door-neighbor's, the person I told you about who has set the depth of their land as low as it can go in the grid, so as to start building these really amazingly detailed underwater scenes that one can swim through. What a lucky coincidence to have this person as a neighbor, I'm telling you! Now, granted, this could change at any time; all landowners have this right to simply flip a toggle switch in their controls, and instantly ban all strangers from visiting. As long as it's open to visitors right now, though, I'm definitely taking advantage of it as much as I can.

And then here's a shot of another neighbor to my north, the one with all the stilt shacks you've seen in previous photos; but I haven't looked it up yet to see if it's the same person who owns the underwater builds as well.

And then here we are back at my land, checking out what the seafloor lounge looks like from the outside. This is one of the things I'm really looking forward to checking out this Friday, in fact, which is the first time I'll have had multiple people at the complex at once; of what the real-time view of the lounge looks like from the outside, as people are mingling within it, and what divers are going to look like in real time as you're inside watching them. I have a feeling it's going to look pretty cool indeed; or at least let's hope so, or this has been a lot of building hours gone to waste.

And finally, what's a day in Cape Linden without a little sailing on top of everything else? Oh, that's right, I own a sailboat now, did I not mention that? It's the coolest! For those who don't know, see, Linden Lab (the terraforming puppetmasters behind Second Life) have in recent months started creating more and more coastline in the grid, and more and more 'sims' (dedicated servers) devoted completely to water; and this water is 'smart' as well, just like the land is there, which means for example that you can add scripted objects to the water there, like how in the above photo my neighbor has added an artificial tide to their beachfront (which yes, like all other sophisticated objects there, is animated and contains sound effects of the surf). Now, add to this that there is actually an "intelligent wind" in Second Life on top of everything else, something that actually changes and follows set "current patterns;" and this then makes for what's perhaps the perfect environment for doing freakily complex and realistic "sailing" within this virtual world.

It's a strange anomaly about Second Life, the particular way their environment technically works, which as many point out leads to both a lot of potential and a lot of frustrations; that ultimately it has the same "first-person point of view" engine behind the most popular console games as well, but renders the environment in a way so that sudden moves are nearly impossible. It's perhaps this reason, then, that immersive virtual sailing is such a natural thing for the grid, and why it's the industry where currently a lot of the most cutting-edge scripting work in SL is being done; because if you do it right, such a thing contains all the complex reality of driving a car in "Grand Theft Auto," but of course only needs to move at a tenth of the speed. I have one of the cheapest sailboats available, for example (50 American cents!), and just look at all the things I can do with it; I can say "raise" to raise the sails and start moving, "moor" to anchor the boat to a spot, "sheet XX" and "sail XX" to manually adjust the two power sources for my vehicle (anywhere from -90 to +90 for both), even get a real-time onscreen display of wind conditions and my travel speed while boating.

Here's where I got my sailboat, by the way; from one of my neighbors, believe it or not, who has an entire guest docking pier that doubles as a showlot for all the boats they have for sale. And considering that I'm the tiny ship right in the middle of your screen there, you can see what I'm talking about when it comes to sailing being taken very seriously here; that many, many of the most popular sailboats out there are the behemoth ones like you see on the left, where an entire crew of avatars can occupy it at the same time and all be in charge of one specific duty. In fact, I don't know the details of this, but I'm told that virtual crew sailing here has become a big obsession among real-life sailors who are also residents; and that it's this quest for more and more realistic experiences that is driving all the innovation these days behind sailboat-construction technology. I know for a fact, for example, that there are regattas and boat races all the time in the grid; it's something I'd love to cover in more detail for this blog, frankly, if any of you out there might have some good tips on where I should start.

Here, by the way, is what it actually looks like as you're doing the actual sailing; very first-person-shooter-esque, like I said, and of course now with your keyboard controlling the ship itself, not your avatar's movements. This is all accomplished by giving an object a special designation in the grid, known as a "vehicle" no matter what mode of transportation; such objects can consist of no more than 31 prims, are allowed to be "driven" from parcel to parcel with little to no repercussions, and can be "ridden" in by a variety of other avatars as well. My little sailboat, for example, can hold up to three other people, done by those players clicking with their mouse on those gray balls you see; those three people, then, don't have to do anything extra at all, but rather have the view on their own computer change based on where I'm driving the boat. I admit, I think it to be one of the freakiest and coolest things about the grid I've come across yet.

Okay, so ready for a little excursion? Here we are heading out to the mouth of Cape Linden, passing once again by my neighbor/s with the underwater builds and the stilt shacks; then making our way out to open water, where we crank up the mast to full sail for about ten minutes; and then finally arriving at our destination, the other end of Cape Linden's mouth, a lovely and huge parcel owned by a private individual. Now, I confess, if I actually worked at Linden Lab, I'd probably be one of the people arguing against dedicating entire servers to hosting nothing but open water; that's an additional US$3,000 a year in maintenance and energy costs for each one, after all, without even the slightest chance for further construction or additional monetization. Oh, but as a sailing-obsessed player, how much do I love the open-sea sims here, which I guess is a way of circling it all around and making me realize why Linden does find such a thing important to provide. As odd as this might sound to non-players, there's something undeniably cathartic about being in the virtual open water with your cartoon sailboat, lazily drifting along in your bobbing craft, watching your surroundings gently change in real time, getting real-tme sound effects that enhance the situation even more. It is again part of the mythos of Second Life, which I've mentioned here before -- those certain things about the grid that are simply impossible to describe in words alone to the non-player, but must simply be experienced to fully understand.

Okay, so that's the latest from ITG world headquarters, and I thank you for sticking in there with these very, very long photo reports I've been posting recently. Don't forget, we're having our first event this Friday, 12 noon SLT for Europeans and again at 7pm for Americans; a release party for the first issue of our monthly magazine, in fact, where you too will have a chance to go diving and sailing if you want, or do a little dancing in the ballroom, or a little flirting/networking in the seafloor lounge, or to check out the ladies of xXx Fantasy Escorts (one of ITG's advertisers) as they stage a mini fashion show at the end of the party. I hope you all will have a chance to come by!