Friday, December 22, 2006

2nd life

how funny that i should love a game called second life. i'll write more about my SL lust, and my computer's impotance, since i really need a new computer to actually get into the thing. someone wrote something about how it is a self-imposed "matrix" refering to the movie. i can see their point. its a very complex virtual world. and if you are creative there is the allure of creating not just a 3-d avitar of your own making, but a virtual home, art, landscape, hell your own virtual asthetic. imagine if a other worldly artist like geiger (the guy who designed the creature from alien), or someone more fuzzy like maurice sendak or dr. seuss could construct his own virtual island and inhabitants? that is second life. complete freedom to create in a virtual world. now cross that with just a touch of the social elements of myspace and you get the idea. you can create a basic avitar, tweak it and just socialize and talk to people, got to virtual concerts, other people's islands, or whatever you like. you can sell your creations-- clothes, furnature, objects, body shapes sizes, tattoos for your avitar, cars, houses-- with a SL based currency. it really is impressive.

although somethings are to be expected. fantasy geeks and nerds have a head start. i was on the other day and happened to start up a conversation with a woman from "frisco" she had been in SL for about a year, and finally upgraded her computer specifically for SL. she took me on a tour to a couple of fantastically detailed islands, first an elf island complete with 'shrooms that make you (virtually) trip. and little dragon-flies that look more like little dragons. sadly all the elves were absent. i suppose whatever hour we were there all the elves were hard at work in their real life workshops. next stop was a place where they were preparing for a dragon auction. it was a very detailed place with stone walls and dragons of all shapes and sizes, some of them 4 times my avitar's height breathing fire. i was astounded. the cities that you always teleport into when you first start looked simple in comparison.

as usual i long for a world unimagined in places like this. with things i love, like street art, scifi with a mix of hip hop soul and asia-- just something less-- for lack of a better way of putting it, stock. the castle with dragons as i said was amazing, but i wanted something i hadn't seen before.

i overheard that there were sex clubs, in SL, but really you needed to be a little more used to how things worked in SL before you enjoyed those. for everything you want to do visually say, have your avatar breakdance, you can get or write a script. and this is where the geeks inherit the earth. you can do pretty much anything in SL but for complex things you need to either have linden $$$$ or learn to program. and well, the geeks have a huge head start.

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