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So, okay, technically the photos in this week's round-up were taken slowly over the course of the last month or so; but you see what I'm getting at. On with the randomness!

Okay, I admit it, that I'm a fan of late-night 'gridhopping,' which is what inspired the name of this publication; of putting aside a couple of hours in the late evening to simply hop from one random event to the next, sometimes checking in with the events calendar and sometimes relying on friends. And I also admit, that sometimes I don't keep the best journalistic track of what random places I end up visiting during these late-night gridhopping sessions, because of many times imbibing of a certain substance here in RL at the same time. Here above, is one good example of a place I wish now I had written down; it was an impromptu drum circle in the middle of the night, being held by a bunch of hippie elves and dragons and half-naked fauns and whatnot. Man, check out that landscaping! It was a great build, and a group of really fun residents to hang out with on a random night; I wish now that I could thank them properly by name, and point you to this beautiful virtual garden for your own visit.

Make it so! My friend Samantha Poindexter (disclosure: also one of ITG's advertisers) gave me a little tour the other week of the private skybox management apartments, over at the headquarters of xXx Fantasy Escorts (XFE); it's a perk for all the managers there at their space, is a free spacious apartment on a private level high above the main venue. I guess, though, since one of the managers already had her own space, she turned her apartment into a replication of Star Trek's holodeck; a cube loaded with RL panoramic images, that you can click on to go from one vista to the next. It's admittedly quite freaky when you're actually in the room and trying it out; I could see all kinds of interesting applications coming from this, once you can figure out how to make a single image stretch larger than 100 square meters (the current maximum size for a single prim within SL).

So, last month I reported on PR specialist Kami Huyse's new monthly roundtable and networking series for those in the marketing profession; with last month's talk being mostly an introduction for those new to SL, more sophisticated talks promised to come. This month's meeting was held just a few days ago, in fact, and Kami didn't disappoint; it was held at the impressive Text 100 conference center, and featured that company's Williem Proust and The Electric Sheep Company's Giff Constable, indeed talking in much more detail about in-grid marketing than last month's "Why Am I Naked And Have No Genitals" and "How Do I Stop Myself From Forever Taking Drinks From This Enormous Mug In My Hand?"

Now, I guess it's important from a conflict-of-interest point for readers to understand, that in RL I do a fair amount of freelance marketing work for corporate and non-profit clients; so at events like Kami's monthly roundtables, I am not only a journalist reporting on it but a marketer participating in it too. In that regard, it was quite a lively talk, with subjects that stretched from the 'immersionalist/augmentalist' debate to the positives and negatives of in-store events, whether SL experiments with RL companies are doomed to be mostly helpful as publicity stunts, and all kinds of other issues. You can stop by Kami's blog to learn more; next month's meeting will be held at Eric Rice's Hipcast Expo Center, and promises to be even more thought-provoking than this last one.

Okay, so after hearing from multiple sources about this groovy prefab housing company called ModLife, I finally had a chance last week to check out their main retail campus. Wow, and what a build it is! Now, I admit, I'm biased -- that one of my favorite architectural styles is the cool space-age style of the early Modernists -- but as far as that stuff goes, ModLife has everyone else I've ever seen in the grid beat. And they've got this great way to show off their structures within the store, too; basically, they've taken the time to make replicas of each, the prims scaled down to a tabletop size for easy display, but still with the same 3D immersive qualities of the full build (as long as you zoom in with your camera, that is). In effect it lets you conduct "virtual virtual walkthroughs" of their virtual houses (and how meta meta is that that?), and I am of course all for any experience in the grid that leads to semantically difficult statements. Add that to the entire full-sized estate they actually have there, the buildings perfectly aligned as to give these amazing Empire-Strikes-Back-Cloud-City views from each window, and you got yourself one really cool prefab housing complex. Go check it out if you have a chance.

Oh, now here's something cool I participated in this weekend, which I wanted to at least mention if not do a full entry about; I was invited to participate in a panel discussion about the SL journalism industry/community, whatever you want to call it. It was hosted by a curious coalition of small groups, and I hope I get this right: that the people involved included Indiana University's Kuurian Expeditions, Architectural Digest's Mario Gerosa, the Parioli island for Italian design, and probably more, and that the publications represented included not only myself but SL Insider, SL Business Magazine, SecondStyle, VooDoo Extreme and more.

It was a bit chaotic because of the natural limitations -- how half the people were native English speakers, the others not, how it was morning for half the participants and late evening for the other half. That said, it was certainly a lot of fun, and definitely led to some very intriguing discussions concerning the issues involved for in-grid journalism right now. I got a chance to meet some fans of ITG, and some other writers out there of whom I myself am a fan, and in general was a very enjoyable event altogether. Thanks again, Bruno and Frank!

So speaking of Samantha Poindexter, another thing I do is compete in her weekly trivia contest, Sunday nights at 4pm SLT at the XFE main space. And why, just look at what I won as a bonus prize there a couple of weeks ago; an entire pink tigerprint 1950s nightmare of a living-room set, which I admit I really dig in this horrific way, but that there's no chance in hell that this could fit in stylistically at the current ITG headquarters. Still, though, a great example of what can be built here as a matched themed set, when one has the energy and forethought. I wouldn't mind hanging out at a bar, for example, that decorated like this.

And finally, in part 357 of my never-ending report about shopping in the grid, I thought I'd show off some new sassy poses I recently picked up over at Reel Movement (RM), a store dedicated exclusively to offbeat yet useful slacker animations. Now admittedly, this is probably the least-traded aspect of all user content created in SL; and that's because it's subtle, adding a customized animation or pose to the way your avatar stands, sits or walks, something that only veteran players remember to do regularly, something only fellow veteran players tend to notice. That said, there's a lot of really cool poses out there; not only ones to use within social settings, like fun ways to lean against bars and the like, but also entire packs designed for posing in front of a camera, and especially in the way that supermodels do it in all those glossy magazines. It's easy and fast to put together a small ever-looping pose in SL, once you're proficient on something like Poser; you can produce them quickly, sell them cheaply, use them without too much technical knowledge. Granted, most I've come across are too girly or just plain strange to be of much use to me; that's why I'm glad I randomly stumbled across RM, who seems to understand just what kinds of poses we shoe-gazing indie-rockers would most like to own. "I'm bored! When does Mudhoney take the stage?"