Tsunami R.

Last Friday (31st Oct 2008) saw the final day of the grid wide Ghost Busters hunt organised by Vain, Inc. in Second Life. The hunt (I think it should have been called a haunt, being as it was Halloween), which had started on the 24th, involved over a hundred stores with the majority on completely different sims.

Starting at Vain, we (Jojo and I) picked up our first ghost. The first prize was 8 poses and a couple of landmarks (LM), which caused confusion for many as one was marked; ‘TP to Ghost 108 (can’t find 107)’ and the other LM was what appeared to be a sponsored landmark. So, we like others took the obvious choice and teleported to find Ghost 107, after all no one specifically said the ghosts were to be found in a numerically ascending order. However, ghost 108 lead to 109, which then lead to 110 until we hit ghost 114 and number 114 had a notecard with it saying “This is the End of your Ghost Busting you got all 111[sic]!!!! Woot!!!”. What do you mean “Woot!!!” WOOT? more like WHAT? What the fu…dge happened to the rest?!?

After a few moments double checking that there wasn’t some kind of answer, perhaps another message, a hint as to why we had ended up at the end already, we decided to give it a rest and left the store leaving behind the other slightly bemused hunters. We hadn’t totally lost interest, we had an idea the other LM must be the way to go and an IM from someone we spoke to at the last ghost confirmed it. However, we had seen some excellent sculptie pumpkins en route and wanted to check out the creator’s (vitrail Illios) store, New TRAILS at ZweiteWelt New. Definately most pleased with the purchase.

Anyhoo, I digress. On Saturday, I had some free time and decided to take a TP using the other LM from the first ghost and lo and behold I find ghost number 2. YAY! From there it was fairly plain sailing. There were some that were easy to find (i.e. right where you land) to some that were a bit trickier (i.e. blended against a similar colour background) but overall not too bad.

Finally. after about 6 hrs (switching my time between SL and RL), I had got myself back around to ghost 108, loop was complete and my Inventory had grown by a fair chunk. Just in time too, as I had a final practice / dress rehearsal for the Urbanista Show I was modeling in later that day.

Now, the reason for this article isn’t to give you a lame list, a blow by blow account of each and every ghost I picked up. That would be plain ‘bawwwwing’. No, what sparked this particular blog post is because of a comment I heard whilst on the hunt. I don’t remember exactly which location I was at but where ever it was I heard some male avatar whining that there wasn’t much stuff for guys. At the time I thought to myself “well duh, if you are older than 2 weeks old in SL, you should have realised that things for females outweighs things for guys”. For me that expectation was already set and I would just get everything and filter out what I didn’t want later. After all, the fun was supposed to be in the hunt, right? And, anyway, sometimes you get something for males and females, or it’s totally non female specific, for example, furniture or art.

So, over the last weekend I dug through the 113 folders and sorted out what I consider to be suitable for males, be it clothing or any other item that could be construed as ‘non-female’ and compiled a list for your delectation. Have a read through, especially those that had completed the hunt, and you tell me if ‘Mr. Moany’ was right to think he was being hard done by.

 

• Ghost 2 - [ba] barnesworth anubis
  [ba] thai sea gazebo

 

• Ghost 3 - Schadenfreude
  Schadenfreude Wood Fortune Telling Table

 

• Ghost 5 - Halloween By PondLife
  Black Widow Spider - Great For Halloween.

 

• Ghost 9 - Spell Caster
  *BF* Bare Bones Neck

*BF* Bare Bones Skull 

 

• Ghost 10 - caLLie cLine
  COLORABLE - BooBean Chair black m1

 

• Ghost 13 - Vette’s Boutique
  Scary monster (orange) (t-shirt)

 

• Ghost 14 - Instinct
  Instinct - Intimate Bed No.05 - XPOSE (version 3.6 ul)

 

• Ghost 17 - Colorskins
  M Halloween 08 (skin)

M Silver Halloween 08 (skin)

 

• Ghost 20 - Tableau Shopping Village
  Bumper Boat Blast

 

• Ghost 26 - Sentou Yousei
  Morte Necklace (Men)

 

• Ghost 28 - Amberdragon Designs
  Sculpted White Crystal with base and sound.

 

• Ghost 29 - LuNi Designs
  [LD] Dead Romeo skin

[LD] Romeo + Juliet Crypt

 

• Ghost 30 - Prim & Pixel Pardise
  Ghost Busters Web Pocketed Black Jeans

 

• Ghost 32 - ..:: Genesis ::.
  .:: Genesis :: Octobre Tambien Chair Uno, Dos & Tres. (Different poses in each)

 

• Ghost 35 - ::Meh::
  ::Meh:: Tree Tee-Olive (t-shirt)

 

• Ghost 37 - Blood Royal
  Cyber Light Necklace (wear) :: blood royal

 

• Ghost 40 - Rugs and Art
  Closing Bookcase, Red Patio Settee - Legs Up & Red Portico Rug

 

• Ghost 47 - trix’ or treats
  [TT] Vain Halloween Shirt

T&T Insane Bear with animation bloody!

 

• Ghost 54 - Sn@tch
  Animated Fluffy Kitteh Tail & Earz (Orange Tabby)

 

• Ghost 58 - Muism
  *Muism* Halloween Pumpkin

 

• Ghost 59 - Rustica
  Rustica - FloorLamp, Shades of Black Collection

 

• Ghost 60 - [LAP]
  [LAP] - Leedle Big Punkin

 

• Ghost 62 -!ReTox!!
  Retox!  Go Flash Go! UnTucked Shirt

!Retox! Resident Evil UnTucked shirt

 

• Ghost 67 - Lookr
  LOOKR ~ Beanie (Black)

 

• Ghost 69 - Dahaus
  Dahaus-UFO chair-brown and blue stripe

 

• Ghost 71 - CnS PosesCnS Friends! <3!

CnS Furry Cup

CnS Hug him from behind

 

• Ghost 72 - junkDrawer
  Nevermore - Sit on me! single tombstone

 

• Ghost 77 - The Crystal Queendom
  For Males: {Crystal~Kingdom}–=The.Duke=–

 

• Ghost 78 - Designs of Darkness
  .D.o.D. Camo Olive T-Shirt (untucked) Mens

.D.o.D. Cyber Boots

 

• Ghost 79 - DB Designs
  100L$ gift card (for outdoor furniture)[no image]

 

• Ghost 88 - [...lessthan3...]<3
  untitled male light [Disturbia]

dead eyes

 

• Ghost 91 - Spork
  IntensityII - Fire (eyes)

 

• Ghost 92 - Quentin Calvert Designs
  13 Coloured lanterns

 

• Ghost 97 - :: 2Xtreme ::
  :: 2Xtreme :: Japanese Wishstone

 

• Ghost 99 - PrimCision
  PrimCision Freebie: Haunted Hat

PrimCision Freebie: Voodoo Top Hat

PrimCision Freebie: Teslatennae

 

• Ghost 102 - Freda’s Fine Fashion & Freda’s For Men
  Mens tweed sweater in red & mod.m026 corduroy pants in grey

 

• Ghost 105 - Starving Artist Designs
  Starving Artist Designs - Pumpkin t-shirt

Mini Cyborgato shoulder buddy

 

• Ghost 106 - TRUTH
  >TRUTH< Spencer hair - halloween

 

• Ghost 108 - Kunstkammer
  Kunstkammer Wearable Toxic Mist

Kunstkammer Bast Eyes II Preview - Fluorite

Kunstkammer Halloween 08 - Firebrand

Kunstkammer Halloween 08 - Hypnoeyes

 

• Ghost 110 - A touch of Surreal Designs
  A Touch of Surreal - Male Skull Green

Surreals Bean Bag and pose

 

• Ghost 111 - Vain Inc- by Kimberly Mirabeau
  Spider Web Lower Back (tattoo)

Vine Tattoo - Back

 

• Ghost 112 - Alphamale & BlackLace
  Alphamale - Silk shirt - Black

 

• Ghost 114 - KO Designs
  R2 Avatar - Blue [BOXED]

In my opinion, it’s not a bad haul. A lot of the pieces naturally have a leaning toward Halloween in the style / colouration but that’s not to say even those items can’t be used year round (it is SL after all) and some items will be put in a folder ready for next year.
I am personally grateful to those that put the time and effort in to organising the hunt and to those stores / creators who gave away product as prizes. If I found only one thing that I liked, that I can make use of AND it was free, then it’s all good in my book.

Oh, and to the guy who was complaining. Next time, you might be a little more grateful when other people go out of their way to give you some entertainment and products that don’t cost you a single Linden Dollar.