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I was bobbing around in world today as usual when I came across Kai in a gigantic spinning building. Yeah, a bit odd, I’d never seen it before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. I asked Kai, and she told me it was a Mobile Party House and lots of people could ride in at the same time. It was detached from the mall where we have the motorbike racing, and it’s also the section that belongs to the men’s hair salon. Given that, wherever we went today, the party house followed.

We hung out with Yoobin, Virgo, MegSRP and a bunch of others all around the island and at the Auld Land Syne Pool. The spinning building was cool because it would land and spin all around the same area, making everyone stick inside it. It’s a bit hard to describe—my only advice is for you to see it in person to believe it.

You guys have to come and check it out! Have the Mobile Party House spin for you!

 

So while I was in world this past weekend, I received a telegram from Kai telling me that she and RandyLH had an idea for an island get together—but with a twist! It's to host our very own Stagecoach Island Talent Show!

Anyone can participate, and you can rap, dance, make up a song, write a poem, or do anything that would rock our world, and we'll think of a prize to reward the winner!

I want to know if there are people interested in this. If you are, comment with your name and let me get a feel for how many people are interested. If there's a lot of feedback, then hey—let's get the party started!

Have you ever wondered why we send Valentine  cards and buy those silly conversation hearts that don’t really taste good but they have cute messages on them? Yeah, me too. I used to make my Valentines, and I would place a single candy heart in there. So if I had a crush on the guy it would have some goofy message like “cutie,” “be mine” or something like that, and I would peak over as he opened my card to see his reaction. Usually there isn’t any, and he just eats the conversation heart like regular candy. It’s so embarrassing to think about it now, but back then it was just for giggles and fun!

Here’s food for thought. You know all those conversation hearts you buy? The company NECCO  makes about 100,000 pounds of them every day because the demand is so high. They sell about—no joke—8 BILLION hearts in six weeks. Wow! Can you imagine how many of those 8 billion hearts are eaten? Gross. Before these hearts came to be, they were just hearts that carried a printed note inside with sayings like "Please send a lock of your hair by return mail ." Forget the hair; I think I’ll stick to the good old candy part of it.

So my whole dilemma with Valentine’s is this: I always wondered why there was always some big hype about this ONE day that you had to treat your significant other well. I mean, you only have 365 days a year to be nice to that person. Right? Nevertheless, Valentine’s Day still gives me the warm sensation. Everywhere you go there are couples, affection and love. As for singles—well, it becomes a “singles awareness day.”

So it’s that special time of year again—my birthday! I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to do and at the same time debating what kind of cake to get. Personally I really love ice cream and chocolate cakes … but I want to try something different this year. I’ve always wondered why it’s traditional to celebrate with a round birthday cake lit with candles for birthdays. Isn’t it strange that the birthday cake is such a BIG part of our birthday culture?

So I read up on some pretty interesting factoids of the infamous birthday cake  and was blown away with its history. Can you believe it? There’s a history behind this whole birthday cake and how it originated back to the ancient Greeks. Looking back, they baked round honey cakes or bread to worship with in the temple of Artemis , the Goddess of the Moon. Other legend says that the birthday cake came from Germany  in the Middle Ages. Young children celebrated their Kinderfest , otherwise known as birthday, with a special cake the shape of baby Jesus. Eventually, cake layers were created, and the base became sweeter than the usual coarse bread.

The shape—why round? The Greeks  used the cakes to worship the Goddess of the Moon, so scholars believe the cake was a representation of the moon and the candles were placed there to make it glow like the moon. Others thought that the candle was a symbol of life—thus the phrase "light of life." Another popular belief is that people believed the smoke from the candle helped carry their dreams, wishes and prayers to the Gods.

Overall, I never knew that the cake itself had such a vast origin. Did you?

Yesterday I went in world, and there was loads happening. There were a group of people including Virgo and RandyLH chatting about forming a band and how cool it would be to start their version of American Idol, which I think is awesome. It could be “Island Idol” or something cool, right? Everyone hung out around the game park and just chit-chat.

I got to watch a checkers match between cellogirl525 and jdp9693. I’m not sure who won, but it was really fun to watch them struggle to make some good moves.

So here's the big event on hand: It’s going to be my birthday this Sat and I was thinking, while brainstorming with Kai, that we should host a combined birthday fiesta! Let me know what you guys think!

 

Bring on the night! We have received lots of responses and it sounds like most of you favor a day/night cycle. Some preferred a 12 hour rotation and others a 24. In attempts to make Stagecoach Island more realistic, we decided to launch it on a 24 hour cycle starting Thursday, February 1st. Let’s see how it goes and, as always, please continue to provide feedback and let us know what you think of the new day/night!

When Kissy and Channie Rose decided to name the community pool “Auld Lang Syne,” I started thinking: What does this really mean, and how in the world do I pronounce it? If I don’t look at the words, I know it’s pronounced as “old ang zing (rhymes with sign),” but when I stare at the words, I get all confused and the syllables all look mixed up. What does this tune represent all around the world, and why is it so significant to everyone? Let’s find out.

Auld Lang Syne  takes on a different meaning to cultures all around the world, and it is sung at all sorts of occasions. In Scotland it is often sung at the end of a céilidh , a traditional dance. In Taiwan, the song is used for graduations and funerals. It’s the same in Japan, but the theme is also used there to signify a store’s closing to help usher out straying customers. For all you Italian sports fans out there, the melody is sung during soccer matches, especially after the kick-off in the stadium. In the Philippines , the song plays a huge part at celebrations like graduations, New Year’s and Christmas Day.

Overall, though, the song’s meaning signifies a farewell in Spain, France, Greece and Portugal. Us U.S. folk use the song at midnight on New Year’s Eve to say goodbye to the old year and welcome the opening minutes of a brand new one.

The words “auld lang syne” literally mean “old long since.” Others have translated them as “long ago,” “in olden day,” and my favorite classic, “once upon a time.” So, it may seem a bit odd that our community pool is named after a song that means goodbye and farewell, but in Kissy and Channie Rose’s defense, I came up with something like this: Come to our community pool to swim away all your worries and stress of the day. The Auld Lang Syne Pool—a fun new place, every day.

So many people came through for my snowboarding party—the mountain was packed! Darthvader and Shawna had their personal space bubble invaded. Everyone teleported by, even if they stayed for just a little bit! Let's go down a quick list: There was Kai, RandyLH, Maki, Sooze, Gmoney, KC, numba1stunna, MegSRP, Darthvader, and so many more.

I'm terrible at snowboarding, and it took me forever to get off my Board—the same happened to KC. We all boarded down the mountain, and you could see all of us falling off the path and not following the snow trail like tiny black dots everywhere.

According to RandyLH, we're getting more and more newbies in world and it's awesome! Today I saw so many people, and if they didn't stay for the party, they came by to say hi. There's lots of fun and exciting new things happening here in Stagecoach Island, so watch out and don't blink—more new things will be here faster than you know it!

 

Come join Sooze, KC, Gmoney and Cassie on Thursday, January 18, at 6 p.m. Pacific Time for a fun night riding the mountains! See you there ... and don’t forget to pick up a board!

I had the privilege of visiting Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster—thanks to RandyLH for teleporting the whole gang over there. She’s so cute; I can barely consider her a monster!

Today we ventured out on what we now call “Island Quests” in order to find new and exciting things all around the island that are hidden or just to show people who haven’t been. Currently we are searching for the hidden caverns—somewhere there’s a bunch of odd numbers scribbled onto the inside of the cave.

Have you ever been there? If so, share with us and join our Island Quests!

 

Today I had an awesome time in world catching up with RandyLH, Darthvader, Kai, Restless Mind, BMTeam12, Cam and so many others. We all talked about our worst injuries – Kai tore her ACL and lost her toenail, Darthvader had a “horrendous” paper cut, and I dislocated my hip surfing! RandyLH also shared jokes and we gathered for a “town meeting” to chat about new and upcoming features in Stagecoach Island. We also talked about the new season of American Idol  and the long anticipated return of Heroes .


Hopefully I’ll see more of everyone soon and don’t forget to come to my snowboarding party on Thursday!

 

We are going to turn on the night feature in S.I. and wanted to get your feedback about the day/night cycle. We can keep it on the traditional 24-hour schedule or put it on a 12-hour schedule (which means there will be two nights every day). What do you think? Do you have a preference?

All the millionaires in world—listen up! We would like to interview and write a feature about you on this site. So if you are a millionaire or know somebody who is, please send us an email—we will set up a date and time to formally speak with you!

Extreme games have become a HUGE trend all over the world. Snowboarding  among them has taken off the quickest, becoming one of the most thrilling and challenging sports ever to hit the arena.

So the origin of our cool snowboards began with Sherman Poppen  in 1965. He wanted to make a toy for his daughter, so he decided to use his creative stroke to put together two skis, bound tightly together and with a rope at the nose. This became known as the Snurfer , a cute name that Poppen's wife came up with. Since many of his daughter's friends wanted to be equally as cool and own a Snurfer, Poppen decided to license his rad idea to a manufacturer. Who would've thought that this was the beginning of an incredible sports invention that would take the world by storm?

Four years after Poppen's innovation, Dimitrije Milovich  started making what we now know as "snowboards." He did this by experimenting with a couple of cafeteria plates in college—then, the idea hit him. His boards were based on surfboards combined with the way skis work. The thought lit a bulb in his head, and his idea went on to become a reality.

In 1994 snowboarding was declared an Olympic sport .

Check out our extreme games and see if you can follow the snowboarding tracks in Stagecoach Island! Come carve our mountains with me this week and grab some air, let's see what you got!

For all of you who missed it, Kissy and Channie Rose held an awesome pool party at our new Auld Lang Syne Pool on Saturday. Check out the sign the S.I. team created so that everyone can find this new hot spot on Stagecoach Island!

There were a lot of people who showed up, and I was very happy to see everyone! Most of the girls sported a cute swimsuit look by choosing a small top with shorts or a skirt. After we chit-chatted for a bit, Kissy began the contests that she and Channie Rose had planned for the event. Kissy was the judge for all of them. They included a clothes-changing race, the best designed swimsuit outfit, swimming races, coolest diving skills, and so much more. After each contest, we each voted by whispering or sending a telegram to Kissy, and she tallied up the results.

I joined the swimming race following the route from the rock to the sign, and I lost! I thought for sure I was doing so well, and then Channie Rose beat all of us! This was not a surprise; she was definitely the most enthusiastic one there, so I figured either she or Kai would win the swim race. I also saw Shawna again at the party. I hadn't seen her for such a long time.

I had so much fun just watching and cheering everyone on! We all participated and had a goofy time together for hours! I think the contests added more of a game-show flavor to the party and hyped all of us to participate. After the competitions were over, we all met in the lounge by the game park to announce the winners, including who would take home the new King and Queen titles. Check here for the final results once I get the full report from Kissy. It was just so much fun to catch up and hang out with everyone.

You too can host a party here in Stagecoach Island. Just email us on the Events page, and we'll help set something up for you!

 

There’s a new and exciting place to hang, created by your friends Kissy and Channie Rose.

Presenting the new “Auld Lang Syne Pool”—a community pool where everyone hangs out and dips into a hidden pond behind the volcano. The special coordinates are 16S 114E and the pool is nestled in a cozy bunch of palm trees. Their grand opening party is at 6 p.m. PT on Saturday, January 6th.

Sooze and I have scoped out the location, and we think it’s a great place. If you can't be there on Saturday, Kissy and Channie Rose invite everyone to come by and swim anytime!

Ever wonder where fireworks came from? In a nutshell, it began some 2,000 years ago in a kitchen in China  where a cook accidentally mixed potassium nitrate (or saltpeter), sulfur and charcoal and lit it. Instead of yummy food seasoning or whatever he may have been cooking at the time, the mixture burst into colorful flames! The cook, now fascinated by the eruption, also noticed that if the mixture were placed inside the hollow of a bamboo shoot, the pressure would cause a gigantic explosion.

Back then there were no fancy plastics or paper tubes to stick the mixtures in—they literally went into their back yard or a garden, chopped down some bamboo  and, while draining the juices to drink, they would hollow out the tube and use it to stuff the mixture in. These small inventions would later be the most celebrated instrument for New Year’s, Fourth of July, sports, and almost all huge holiday events across the world.

To make them even cooler, pyrotechnicians —people who handle fireworks and other special items for the military—began using metallic salts to make the fireworks colorful. This was the beginning of all the pretty designs, colors, and sparkly details you see when the sky lights up with fireworks. You too can see our version of these fireworks in Stagecoach Island. We showcase them every night starting at 8 Pacific Time. Come by and check out these amazing shows as they spark up the island.

As soon as the clock strikes midnight and a new year begins, I always think about my New Year’s resolutions. I can’t help it. It’s like a silent commitment we have to ourselves, but we rarely mention what they really are. I make them every year, but let’s be honest, how many of us actually go through with them? Well heck, at least we try!

So this year I’m making an attempt to do so again. I have the regular basic stuff that I tell myself annually–you know, the good grades, gym commitments, focus in school, spend more time with family, etc. But my one ultimate goal this year is to find the pot of gold that’s hidden at the end of the rainbow. No, not really–but seriously, in the end I just want to be happy. That’s my ultimate goal this year and in life.

Sometimes I get so caught up in work, books, school and life in general that I forget to sit down and look back on the all the great things around me. This year is a good year, I can feel it! Let’s stick together and make this year Fan-ta-bu-lous!