Greenies, but not for long

For a long time I had considered blogging about Greenies Home Rezzable, but then I'd think, "That's just so obvious. Surely everyone has seen Greenies already." Then came this past week, with the horrible and staggering layoffs at Linden Lab (see here, an article by Tateru Nino at Massively for the best take on that I've seen), and on top of that came the chilling news that Greenies was going to close. As Rezzable, the creators of Greenies, had already closed all their other SL sims, this wasn't entirely a surprise, but it's terribly disappointing—Greenies is a crown jewel of virtual worlds, and has been such a fixture in Second Life it seems a shame to see it go—it's really very upsetting. June 23rd looks like the death knell for Greenies in SL. But today, at least, people were still celebrating ... above I'm next to my pal Naxos Loon, dancing the time away with a prim on his simian head.

What, you may ask, is so cool about Greenies? You'll soon discover when you arrive, at first in a tunnel (above)—where are you?—that the Greenies are tiny little creatures that have been spacewrecked, but fortunately all survived and have ended up ... here. Turn your draw distance way up (at least 300 meters) and head down the tunnel, but even here begin clicking on things ... you might well discover some surprises! As you exit the tunnel, and find yourself in a small house ... well, hmmm, I shouldn't divulge too much, because as you exit the house you're likely to experience quite a shock.

But read on if you must. The shock is, as you'll discover, that you're in a house that's the size of a sim ... it is a sim actually! ... and that you're now about the size of a mouse—perhaps a bit larger than the Greenies, who seem alternately curious (releasing the bird from her cage or plucking the guitar string), mischievous (look under the sink (photo below) and in the drawers around the room) or unfortunate (ummm, the bottom of the iron, anyone?). The whole place can't help but bring a glowing smile to your face, and it's conceptually brilliant, just amazing. Down on the floor you will find what is surely the iconic symbol of this sim: the black cat suspiciously eyeing a Greenie.

Find the bottle rocket? The safe? Keep looking. There are often car races around the floor (watch out!) and some general craziness going on. (If there were a good candidate for the Linden Endowment for the Arts this would be it, but I'm not sure Rezzable, which has built its own virtual world, Heritage Key, would be too keen on the idea.)

Greenies is the kind of place where you can spend tons of time, and it includes many hidden away spots such as the one below ... can you find that one? If you head into the store, you'll find a ton of Greenies items for sale—mostly small things like little avatars and such, but also bigger works like the entire cat sculpture and the dollhouse, both of which have a proud place in my inventory. (It's important to patronize the arts, you know!) My outfit in these photos is a complete avatar from alpha.tribe called Monsieur Rousseau's Panther, with added hair from Helena Stringer's The Stringer Mausoleum (Thunderdome).