I believe I have involved myself in the mother of all time wasters. I got myself a Second Life account.
Last night we saw a guest lecture (via webcam and fancy projection equipment) with Bruce Damer on the subject of Virtual Worlds. Among other things, there was a live projected demo of Second Life, which I'd heard about quite some time ago, and in fact had heard a whole NPR interview with the creator. However, I'd assumed that it was a typical "game" in that you'd have a starting cost and some kind of maintenance subscription cost.
Not so. You can get a basic account for free. You only have to pay if you want a premium account, which allows you to own "land" and build on it. Since I agreed to part with some personal info, I got $250 free "Linden dollars" (the currency of Second Life), and now I'm wondering if that's enough to buy, say, a sign board, for the purposes of shameless self-promotion. Even if not, I'm sure I'll have fun making an avatar. Currently, my avatar looks almost, but not quite entirely unlike me, sort of like the tea that came out of the dispenser in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Anyway, if any of you have a Second Life account already and want to try to find me, my avatar is named Aquafortis Swot. (I had a limited selection of last names. This was the most palatable, though I almost chose "Triskaidekaphobia.") However, I will probably not be in Second Life all that often. I need to keep my priorities straight...and I have a lot of work I'm behind on. (Too much going out of the house this weekend, though we did go see Pan's Labyrinth, which was excellent.) I'm guessing that once a week is probably the MOST frequently I'll be in there, if that.
So, yeah. I had a little wine. Now I have to finish attaching a sponsor's logo to the poster I designed for the latest Prospect Theater Project play. (You can see a tiny snippet of the poster design at the preceding link. I'll try to post a version here later, too, since I'm inordinately proud of my first efforts with my new Adobe software.)
3 comments:
No! Has the world lost you to Second Life, then? The twisted wonderland of giant dancing phalluses?
You MUST put your poster on your deckled blog. Nice picture -- and you did it on the new Adobe!? You're getting gooder!
So -- the Pan movie was good, eh? Is it based on a familiar storyline? I shall make plans to see it... eventually. I don't know what I've been doing on the weekends lately, but they just get eaten whole, and then 'Pop!' it's Monday again. Dunno...
Not to worry Neil, I won't lose myself to Second Life. It's too high-commitment. (Something seems ironic about that statement...)
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