Finding men's clothing, hair and accessories can be tough. Really tough. Finding things of good quality, even tougher, and then sifting through those offerings to find something you genuinely like, that appeals to your particular sense of style and taste - well, that really rates right up there in the toughness stakes.

Thus the need for a crack team of one to search high and low for the highest quality manly items, and allow you, the reader, to select the things that tantalise you most. Hopefully the crack team isn't actually on crack, or you'll just have to take your chances with the picks. Either way, here are some of their results.

Welcome to On the Inside, SLI's official podcast! This episode features Haver Cole and Saeya Nyanda, interviewed by me and moo Money, with Adri Saarinen as our silent partner. This episode also introduces the new OTI theme song, which I created myself, so be gentle with your criticism; it's my first time. Hey, I'm a singer, not a songwriter.

Please feel free to drop your comments and questions. Enjoy!

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to On the Inside directly in iTunes (MP3)
[RSS] Add the SLI Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly

As brilliant plans don't always have a way of working out, I left for Austin quite late on the 9th. Not much was happening yet in the world of SXSW. Check-in took place from Noon to 8pm, but I was on a mission that could not be stopped. I was after the Nokia N800 tablet.

I arrived at 8:30pm after a two hour drive into Austin. I met up with BuhBuhCuh Fairchild and we immediately headed over to CompUSA to get the glorious device, which would later turn out to be downright awful. When we returned, it was time to party.

Word on the street was that the place to go was The Blind Pig...

In other mixed reality news, San Antonio based content company, Metaversality, is throwing a bash in Austin at Mozarts Cafe. Popular Second Life musicians Frogg Marlowe and Melvin Took will be performing before a live audience of residents. The party begins at 2PM CST and ends around 7PM CST, at which point we'll be going bar hopping!

The confirmed attendees so far are Adri Saarinen, Peter Newell, Haver Cole, Zabitan Assia, Dragontat Zagato, moo Money, Troy Vogel, Moira Stern, Ute Hicks, Memory Harker, Euterpe Roo, Katt Kongo, and many, many more!

• Who: Metaversality
• What: SLTX Meetup
• Where: Mozarts Cafe, 3826 Lake Austin Blvd, Austin, TX 78703
• When: Saturday, February 17th at 2PM CST
• Why: Do you really need a reason to meet your fellow Second Lifers?

The Foundation for Rich Content (FFRC) has announced the availability for 3 new grants, to be awarded to proposals that celebrate diversity and richness of content and events in SL.

There is one grant for 50,000L and two for 10,000L, with the proposal submission dates running between February 15 and March 25, Noon. Persephone Phoenix will be the submission contact. You may find specific submission guidelines at the FFRC Grant Announcement page. If you've had an idea in mind that's just crazy enough that it might work, now's the time to get it down in writing, and send it in on the 15th!

(Thanks, Adri and Peter!)

There's a new player in town, brushing up against Metaverse Development Companies like Electric Sheep Company and Rivers Run Red: Metaversatility! I'll let the press release speak for itself:

San Antonio, Texas, December 11, 2006 – As virtual worlds receive more and more serious media attention, it has become apparent that development and service companies are needed to build virtual spaces and brands. Metaversatility, Inc. was formed to meet this need. With five founding shareholders, Metaversatility brings a unique blend of skills and experience to the virtual world development sphere.

Metaversatility founders Adrienne Haik (known as Adri Saarinen in Second Life), Dr. Aaron Delwiche, Peter Haik (known as Peter Newell in Second Life), Dr. John Plevyak, and Matt Daly represent a combination of creativity, experience, and academic credentials. Other team members include Rebecca Small (known in Second Life as Haver Cole) as client liaison, Brian Hayes as sales and business development, and Inga Munsinger Cotton as general counsel. They are well prepared to serve the needs of both traditional and exclusively-virtual clients.

Metaversatility offers a full range of metaverse services that spans multiple virtual worlds. Equipped to work in Second Life, There.com, Multiverse, and Open Croquet, Metaversatility also keeps a close watch on developments in other virtual worlds as they emerge. Metaversatility specializes in promotions, branding, and application development as well as metaverse orientation and business strategy consulting. Recent clients include Creative Commons, PopSci.com, the Metaverse Messenger, ICANN, SL Bank, and Dublin in SL.

While excited about the possibilities of the broadening metaverse, the Metaversatility team is also concerned with the social and cultural implications of this expansion. As long-time metaverse residents, they feel it is vitally important to maintain the freedom of imagination and intellectual development virtual spaces often represent.

Metaversatility Inc. is incorporated and headquartered in the state of Texas. For more information about Metaversatility, the team, services offered, and a portfolio of work, visit http://www.metaversatility.com.

Congratulations, Adri and Peter! This couldn't have happened to nicer folks, and I look forward to seeing what you bring to SL!

There's a lengthy interview/overview of Will Wright in the New Yorker called 'Game Master', which is a worthy read for any who are interested in the man, the myth, the legend. It's getting a mention here for Will's take on SL:

"I think what you're going to see now on Second Life is people who will start to develop games - someone will invite other people to kick a soccer ball around, and it will go from there."

This reminds me of the post I did on the abandoned soccer stadium Adri Saarinen led me to one day ... maybe it's already been tried and fell apart. I wonder what Will would say about that?

Another article on SL that has nothing to do with sex, hooray! The San Antonio Current has run a piece on the recent Jonathan Coulter concert. The focus is on the concert itself, but also features mention of an interview with Adri Saarinen, one of the chief architects of the event, though most of the interview is not transcribed.

An interesting aside at the end of the article mentions a relationship between SL's evolution into a viable tool for commerce, and the emergence of the Internet as the same in 1994. It's a short piece, but worth the time.

(Thanks, Adri!)

This has nothing to do with my earlier post, for those of you scratching your heads, or the head of a friend. Adri Saarinen pointed me toward this beautiful stadium in an Italian-themed sim called Parioli. As you'll see from this and the following photos, this place is just begging to be filled with cheering fans and world-class athletes. There are even sky-high seats for those who wish a bird's eye view of the action. However, there is no action.

The lingering scoreboards seem to suggest that there were once players, but they've since abandoned this gorgeous place; why? Adri maintains that there was once an attempt to construct a futbol league, but it scattered to the winds. Does anyone know anything about this? Adri and I played one-on-one futbol with a ball she'd rezzed for the occasion and it was a metric tonne of fun! Just imagine it with a whole team, and you've got the makings of hilarity. Let's bring it back, people!

More photos after the jump!

After managing to get back in-world, no sooner had I begun a pick-up game of one-on-one soccer (or Futbol) with Adri then I got the notice from Harmony Linden that the grid was experiencing some issues concerning a self-replicating object. She says the creator has been identified, and that LL was at work on the issue.

From the official Linden Blog: "This has caused problems wth rezzing items, teleporting and slow log-ins."

More and more lately these are beginning to feel like End Times to me, but then, I love Epic Drama. More on this story as it develops. As a related note, here's a bit of history for those of you who might have missed it the first time: this links to an issue of The Escapist, with an article about a similar attack.

[edit: 'Object' misspelled in title; blame my eagerness to get this story out! -- Akela]

Okay, this is getting a little too hilarious for me. While checking out what appeared to be a town meeting in Parioli concerning Italian architecture in SL, i was getting frustrated by the glacially-slow rezzing of objects, so I decided to log out and back in, a process which has worked for me in the past.

Trying to log back in, however, proved impossible. After a waiting period of about 1 minute, SL popped up with the above image. Now, Adri Saarinen, who I was watching this with at the time, can't get profiles or event listings to come up. She can't even teleport out of there. Whatever was going on over the weekend is still extant! Hold on to your prims, kids, we're not out of the woods just yet.

Hot on the heels of our previous post about the in-world Jonathan Coulter concert, I've got a treat: Adri Saarinen, PR manager for the event, has given us a wonderful interview about her work with PopSci and the Creative Commons group. Thanks, Adri!

SLI: How did you come to be involved in this project?

Adri: Well, I've done some PR for various SL organizations and events, so when Creative Commons contacted Zenigma Suntzu to produce a concert, he contacted me to handle the PR side of things. Zen was contacted because he produced the City Stages concert last winter.

SLI: So you're a team on this; who else is involved?

Adri: Zen as the producer, I'm working on the PR, and Slim Warrior is providing the venue and handling concert logistics. And, of course, the Creative Commons and PopSci.com teams working from their end.

SLI: How has it been working with CC and PopSci? How much collaboration do they give?

Adri: CC and PopSci.com have been very involved in the process, mostly consulting through email on things like logo placement. They also, of course, provided the concert budget!

More after the jump!

Great Galloping Grimjack! Popular Science and Creative Commons are co-sponsoring an in-world concert by none other than Jonathan Coulton next week Thursday!

Jonathan who? If you're not familiar with Mr. Coulton's particular brand of musical love, do yourself a treat and head over to his website and have a listen or twenty. You have to love songs with titles like 'The Town Crotch', 'Furry Old Lobster', and 'Beds Hurt My Booty'. You have to; you're required by law to love them.

Best of all, Mr. Coulton operates on the Creative Commons license tip, meaning that his songs are remixable, shareable, and downloadable for free -- but please support your Internet Bard by patronizing his tunes. Did I mention they're also DRM-free?

Adri Saarinen is working the PR for this concert, so if you have any questions/comment/love notes, you may contact her. Joining Jonathan will be SL musicians:

• Melvin Took website
• Kourosh Eusebio website
• Etherian Kamaboko website
• Slim Warrior website
• Jaycatt Nico website and Frogg Marlowe website
• Cylindrian Rutabaga website

Jonathan's concert will be held in Menorca, on Thursday, September the 14th, 2006. You can check out the original announcement here, and a more detailed announcement is here. Rock out with your blog out!