I have discovered the ultimate in escapism. Truth be told, it wasn't a recent discovery. I heard about it on CSI: NY one of the few series that I avidly follow. What is this new form of escapism you ask? Well it's called Second Life. It's a virtual world within the world wide web and it's absolutely free to become a member of. From the moment you sign up, it draws you in and before you know it, you're addicted and spending all your waking moments at your computer 'inworld'.
The moment you join Second Life, you get to choose an Avatar...or a template of one. Once you go 'inworld' your first stop is Help Island where you are shown how to work the controls on your avatar. Once you've mastered this, then the world is your oyster. There is nothing that is beyond the limits of your avatar. You are limited only by time, money and imagination. I've been a member now for a couple of weeks and my time has been taken up in altering the shape of the avatar template so that it now looks exactly like I want it to look.
Of course, this being me, the experience wouldn't be complete without some weird complication. It came in the form of my disappearing clothes. Oddly enough, this is a complication rarely faced by anyone in SecondLife and one the Support Techs were baffled by. I had gotten the avatar to look the way I wanted it to and my friend had guided me to a couple of places that were giving away free clothes (which is a common occurrence). I was all dressed to the nines and about to go exploring inworld when suddenly, I realised that the top of my dress had disappeared! Thankfully, I was alone when this happened. When you move your avatar, the view angle is from the back of the avatar and so all I saw was the back of my avatar and as she was wearing a backless dress I was nary the wiser until I accidentally used the camera controls and rotated the view! Imagine my shock when there I was topless with my intimate bits hanging out. It's rather an embarassing circumstance I can tell you. I mean having spent so much time and effort into getting my avatar to look exactly right, it was almost like it was happening to me.
I turned to my friend for help and she in turn, asked her friends for assistance. You know that scene from 'Friends'? The one where Ross has a growth of some kind on his butt and he goes to the doctor and the doctor holds a convention over Ross' ass? I have now experienced it in virtual reality. Ross, my man...I feel for you dude!
Anyway, after a lot of trial and error, it turns out that my laptop was the culprit of the whole fiasco and we've got it fixed to some extent...but I'm now insanely phobic about going out in public! I've been sorting out my inventory for the past week and that has been my excuse...but soon that chore will be done and I will have to venture out into virtual world. I mean it would be a crime if I kept this beauty from 'inworld'.
Funny how now I need to escape from my escapism. Ah life....
Just me.
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