I’ll admit it, for grins and giggles, several times I’ve camped out.  Why?  I’m not sure, perhaps the thought of getting something for nothing.  Which really is not true since I am sure I consumed more in electricity than I gained in Linden dollars.  A few times it was almost a social event.  Sitting in a silly chair with some other strangers making odd conversation.

One thing that does annoy me is the whine from various n00bs and even some veteran Second Lifer’s that they have no money to buy Linden dollars to get things.  Somehow this stretches the believable.  The fact you could get online with a computer makes me think you’re exaggerating.

You know and I know that a few dollars in Second Life, if spent wisely, will go a long long way.  The price of a Starbuck’s latte and scone will do you well.  I think these cheapies probably fall into a few groups:

1. The underaged.  Sneaking into the main grid.  They don’t have PayPal or a Credit Card.
2. The lazy.  This goes without explanation - because that would take a lot of work to explain.
3. The sneakers.  Afraid of producing a money trail to their Second Life account.  Get over it, we know where you live, it’s just we don’t really care about your little life (although it makes you feel better that we might)….
4. The true idiots.  See the Second Life Fashion Police for the evidence file on this one. 

But I do offer a small solution for the rest of you lindenless who don’t fall into the above, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.  You can be paid slightly more than camping for using the grey matter between your ears that computers don’t have.  As part of this, you can play around with a new service called TagCow.  For a bit less than a penny you can tag a picture with who and what it is.  Arrington thinks that you could make a $1.20 US an hour at this….  Which is around L$350 - better than camping - except you’ll have to work at it.

Moo!

-Veyron

Evian is actually offering something nice that everyone needs - a skin.  Not just any skin a really good skin.  You can get 6 skins, 3 male and 3 female of differing shades - oh and a free bottle of Evian water for L$0.  They are high quality skins from RealSKIN.  They’ve done a good corporate deed, but it’s not so easy to find.  You can find this gem in the Romatica sim.  Just go up to the vendor and give it a push.  Grab yourself a copy, you can never have enough skins, before this cool freebie disappears.

-Veyron

I spoke about Second Life friend who ended his account yesterday. As Vint said commented about a similar experience, I believe he did come back on a day or so later. I received an IM from another woman relaying some message about his “cousin or such” is online in Second Life. I was reasonably sure it was him back online.

I think that IM disturbed me even more. I felt like I had been unceremoniously and brutally rejected. Then a weak attempt to pretend as if nothing happened. I did not respond to the IM and never spoke with him again (if it was him). It was too much to deal with again - drama like this I do not need.

It is probably better that the old Avatar is simply laid to rest rather then resurrected in some poor replica.

My next item on my list in my de-n00bification process was replacement of my current plastic skin that comes as the default from Linden Labs. This skin looks like it came right out of the injection mold machine. Nice, smooth, and completely lifeless. It has to go.

I teleport to a place called X2:Exotica. An interesting looking place, I go inside.

Once inside this looks like a familiar theme. And I also see naked people, as before on the walls. This time, instead of the skeleton, it’s the skin for sale. I wander over to the female skin section… okay I’ll admit to peeking a look over on the guy’s side. Then I wander up to the walls and begin shopping for skins… Hmmm…. look at those skins, they look much better, oh you can buy a demo. I buy a demo skin for L$1 and try it out.

I’m amazed, so much better. I’m like a new me. I’m in love. Queue narcissistic idolization. Now to buy the real skin I want without this demo tattooed all over it.

*GASP*

This skin is kind of expensive. This seems to be beyond what I was planning on spending on Second Life, but it is very nice I start to rationalize. And I spent what seemed like a lot on that last shape and I got a high quality item. My hand hovers over the buy button, and with a mystical motion, I hit buy. The first of many mystical motions to be sure….

Ahh, immediate gratification. I put the new skin on and complete the enrapture with myself. I start to hear melodious music in the background….

Then like a record screeching, I realize my skin is too light. How can I go out like this? I look way too pasty. I look like a geek stuck inside all of the time. I’m going to need a darker shade. Now this skin is really nice, but I should get a darker skin to go with it. I start internally justifying that I should get another shade of skin to have more fashion flexibility. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll buy another shade. I quickly slide over to another shade of skin and hit buy.

*BING* - what? Not enough cash? How could that be? The Visa card starts to tremble again. I smile at it. It will be okay, just a few more dollars will do….

Ahhh, once again, immediate gratification. The music starts up again….

Then that screech hits again…. I look at my head and I notice I have hair that looks like a wet sheep dog. Gotta fix that now. Nearly perfect now. I am close to having all that I need.

I go back to the list and start going over hair places. Next up, hair therapy….

-Veyron

Having a list to work with for de-n00bification was going to give me a big head start. I really could not go around for a long time with this paper bag over my head. Already it was becoming too much looking like the rest of the clones, and an ugly clone to boot. The list from my friend looked pretty complete, and there were some odd things listed in there that I didn’t really understand what he was talking about. Anyway, I had worked up a mental list of things I needed to fix. It went something like this:

• Shape - I felt I was not an expert at working how I should look, and I was in a hurry to get a better shape.
• Skin - something that didn’t look like I came right out an injection mold machine.
• Hair - the wet sheep dog look went out style some time ago (was it ever in style?).
• Clothes - ummm, maybe something not off the rack from skid row.
• Accessories - of course.
• New Walk - only a male programmer could come up with a default female walk like this.
• Window shop for other things - you know - get into trouble…..

So, the shape is first up on the list. The SLURL location is to a place called Flesh Inc. Sounds interesting. So, I teleport over to Flesh. As the location starts to rez in I see the path into the store. Walking up the path I start to see what I would consider my first shock to the system in Second Life. As Cole from The Sixth Sense might say, “I see naked people”. Now, I’ve seen my share of naked people, but the way they are being presented was rather surprising, a modern day meat market.

Maybe it was more like a market for flesh. But, what would you expect from a place called Flesh, Inc. Then I spotted the “model”. He was big, strong, cute, and naked with a rather nice tush on a rotating dais. As he orbited around, I noticed he was missing some rather key male components. I found this to be rather disturbing, in an odd sort of way. Well, I thought to myself, maybe he’s like a store mannequin. They lack those sorts of features, so that must be it.

Internally I started to have my doubts about this place as I was entering a modern Sodom and Gomorrah called Second Life. But then as I rationalized it, well, this all makes sense, you have to see what you are buying, and you’re buying a shape. It’s like the vendor being honest. That made me felt much better. This was not pornographic or anything naughty here. The vendor was just being honest and fully displaying what was being sold. That must be it….

Now I started gawking around at the female shapes and reading the notecards on their “specifications”. Wow, this is amazing, I can decide what to look like at the near push of a button. I am now in a near state of buying paralysis over what to look like. Decisions, decisions….

After about 30 minutes of evaluation, I settle on buying two shapes. One shape is not too expensive and another is twice that. Then I have a quandary, where to change and look and my shape? I can’t do that here, and in public. I am not that kind of girl, and I have modesty…. What to do…. Then I have an idea, I’ll go hide underwater where no one can see me….

I put on the first, less expensive shape. Well, it looks nice. Much better than Miss Clone. But I look like a bit too much like some teenage boy’s wet dream. Boobs are too much, hips are too wide and I also detest bootilicious. No, this will not do. Because I’m not that kind of girl. I know that for sure. Time to try the next one.

Mmmm, this one is different. Much more elegant and refined. Less exaggerated body features, but still quite “inspiring”. This shape is much more appropriate for a good, wholesome girl like me. True, I now look like Helen and I could start the Trojan War all over again, but I’m not that kind of girl, at least that’s what I told myself.

Now I have what I need as far as a shape goes. But I still have this injected molded skin, but I can almost take off the paper bag. So I look on my list and see my next stop. A place called X2? Hmm…. Strange name, but, time to move on.

Next stop on the list…. Flesh on the bones.

-Veyron

Oh my God.  Or as most Second Life residents would say, OMG.  I look like a freak or a something that dropped out of some bad hippie movie from the seventies.  I’ve just been rezzed and popped into what could only be described as n00b island.  This will not do.  There is no way I’m going to go around looking like this, and worse there are at least a dozen more clones just like me.  This will not do.

The Narrator has wisely sent off an email to an acquaintance she knows who is in Second Life for tips.  Cleverly disguising the fact that she is already in Second Life, realizing that maybe being anonymous might be a good idea here….

After a while of working on the mechanics of how the client works and how to get around, I’m getting the hang of this.  This is a lot like Doom or Quake.  Except there’s no BFG and no monsters to kill.  Hmmm, at least none that I’ve seen, and I look ugly.  Well, this is getting boring on n00b island, I might as well leave this paradise of n00bness and join what everyone is calling “the grid”.

It sounds scary out there, away from this safe island of n00bness.  Us clones might not be safe there.  Then their are these ominous warnings of never being able to return here.  It could be dangerous out there.  What if I get attacked? Hmmm. Well, I might as well bite the bullet and go into the real world, err, second world.

Bravely I hit the kiosk to teleport into the main grid.  It was the Bear sim.  It was night.  And the teleport sound the client made sounded very similar to Quake or Doom or something like that in my past and for a moment I thought….

Shit, I’m not armed!  Where’s my gun?!?  I’m gonna get killed here.  I forgot to practice with weapons.

Then I relaxed for a moment. Suddenly I saw someone walking nearby. She was beautiful, she had what appeared to be real hair, skin that did not look like it was made of plastic, clothes that did not come from Goodwill’s reject bin, and she even walked like a woman should walk.

Then panic really set in. OMG, I need a paper bag for my head.  I look like a total dork. Save me from myself. Kill me now. Strip me naked.  Oh no, she is coming near me, she’s going to talk to me. Oh my God, I can’t believe I look like this. This is so embarrassing.  Run away!  Hide! Find a paper bag!

Suddenly there was that sound of an incoming webmail….  Oh, it was my friend.  An email some odd locations of places to get things, these SURLs, in a nice list of things to get…  Hmmm, shopping?  Oh, I get it.  I can buy my way to beauty.  I notice that up on top of the client there is clever little $ spot up in the corner of to put more quarters into the machine.  How convenient.  They make this so easy.  I whip out my Visa card, and it is already its shaking with anxiety.  I say to it, don’t worry, it looks like most everything here is inexpensive.  This won’t be that bad.  Twenty five dollars should be plenty to get all I need here.  

I can see this is important to get fixed up right now.  After all, this is not very expensive, a few cups of coffee or maybe a movie.  Besides, this is fun, and it’s nothing like that Worlds of Warcraft those nerds in the office spend all of their free time playing.

I start working on the list….  First off, a shape.  Mmmmm, a shape, I might like this Second Life.

Next up, gawking in the meat market.

-Veyron