My Life Is Over... On to My Second Life

A few months ago, a guy at work mentions this "game" called Second Life. It's a virtual Sims-like place where you can wander around aimlessly for hours interacting with other Sims. If you want to own land in the game, you can do that, and you can make money in the game that can be exchanged for real honest-to-god hard cash, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. I thought I'd probably never really check it out.

I had a few projects going on at the time, including a virtual D&D-style game called Eternal Lands. It was fun. It was free. And it was occasionally a long arduous task to increase my character's harvesting or manufacturing skill that I'd get tired and turn it off from time-to-time and work on my other projects. Then I began listening to a podcast by a guy named Mark Forman: Mark Forman's Getting a Leg Up Podcast. It was enjoyable music, with a definitely intercontinental feel to it, and sometimes Mark would throw in little stories to throw in a little twist. Mark Forman also happened to be an avid Second Life (SL for us addicts) participant, going so far as to post "pictures" of his adventures in SL. Every-so-often there would be a picture of a bunch of avatars dancing at a club or hanging out. I became even more intrigued and decided to go see what all the hullabaloo was about.

The first time I logged on to SL, I thought, "this is kinda cool, but a little boring." The first time logging in you're supposed to develop your avatar's look and clothes, etc. I couldn't even see my avatar. It was some glitch in the system, but all I could see was a disembodied name floating around this bizarre new CGI world. So I logged off and went back to my First Life.

Sometime later, I decided to give it another try. It was better. At least I could see myself this time. But I was stuck on some Help/Tutorial Island with all these newbies (as I was, myself). It was dull. So I logged off and went back to my First Life... again.

After hearing Mr. Forman mention SL several more times, I decided to go back in and give it one last chance. This time I found that I could teleport to other areas. I finally found the Muse Isle that Mark Forman had mentioned a couple of times, and I experienced my first live concert event. I could feel the hook. For someone who loves music, a lot of music in a plethora of styles, especially live music, this was like my first free dose of pure cocain. Gimme more!

Since that time, like a dutiful addict/pusher, I've been telling my friends about SL. Little by little, they are logging on and losing their First Lives, just like I've lost mine. All hail Cyberpunk!

My wife seems to have taken exception to my spending so much time in my new life.
At least, the way her mouth moves looks like she's yelling at me. I'm not sure what she's saying since I'm wearing headphones and listening to the likes of Mel Cheeky, her accoustic guitar and her Welsh accent, or the electric blues of JimmyT46 Duker. Sometimes I'll spend an hour or so at Phreak Isle playing a little SL streaming trivia, or even make a few Linden dollars (L$ for us addicts) dancing at a club.

So, if my posts to this blog slow down even more than before, sorry. I gotta have my fix.

Episode IV: A New Probe

It's been a while since I last posted. All of my fans have, undoubtedly, been worried about me. I'm sure you will understand, however, when I explain that I was abducted by aliens and subjected to several weeks of probes and tests.

The most interesting and telling of these tests I was given was perhaps the Star Wars twin test.
Click to see my Star Wars Twins!!

Enjoy perusing the pop culture manifestation of my psyche and, in case you're interested, you can also check out So Soo Me's Star Wars Twins, as well as Beav's Twins.

They'll be back,
ECD