Joe Essid directs the Writing Center at the University of Richmond, where he teaches courses in writing and literature. He is a Richmond native who attended the University of Virginia and earned a Master's and PhD at Indiana University. His research interests include technology in the classroom and Southern literary humor. His academic writing has appeared in Computers and Humanities, The Writing Lab Newsletter, and anthologies about technology and writing. He is a contributor to Style Weekly and has appeared in Eighty One and RVA. Ignatius Onomatopoeia is the "avatar" who represents Joe in the game-world Second Life. Ignatius will be wandering the virtual terrain of Second Life while his creator writes here about what may be either "the next big thing" for the Internet or the latest darling of the cyber-hip... the reader can decide.
E-mail contact: jessid@mac.com | Web address: writing2.richmond.edu/jessid

by Cecil Hirvi, Guest Writer

Location: Virtual Park Bench (Cecil Claims to Live on One)

Note from Iggy: Cecil’s comments on my entry about Time’s ham-handed “review” of SL were so good they appear here as an edited post.  Cecil and I may disagree on the future of the book, but we agree 100% on the need to master visual literacy.

I understand Iggy’s point about the old media of print-based mags and newspapers feeling threatened by new interactive medias.  It is funny, though; I have done more “reading” and “typing” in the past five years than I have in my entire life. This is due to the constant, modern activity of typing and reading emails, blogs and websites (most are still text heavy).

But I don’t read many books anymore because they make me sleepy!  I don’t blame ‘text’ for that problem it’s just that I am conditioned to receive information via images and sound now. And a lot of info can be expressed in a few seconds of good image/sound media pieces. Text is a technology just like today’s medias. It was invented to provide information (creative or otherwise). The place of ‘text’ in society may be losing its importance as the main source of receiving information…but I do know the ‘personalizing’ of certain ideas and concepts can only be expressed in text format. What excites me is understanding the true power of text and utilizing that power even if it becomes marginalized in the future where learning through “interactive media” may become the norm.

I am now using voice chat in SL…cause I’m flat out tired of typing! My fingers hurt and I hate correcting my own spelling! But I will type something in chat if I think it will do the most amount of damage!

So I read that Time thing.  It “read” like the reporter had 3 months to do the article on SL and waited until 2 weeks before deadline to actually try SL….The comment about “finding a nut around every corner…go live your Real Life.”, just says to me that this person doesn’t realize that in RL there IS a nut around every corner.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Kula 1 Sim

Somewhere around here is/was supposed to be Brian Eno’s multimedia exhibit, 77 Million Paintings. I’m a huge fan of Eno’s music, and leave it up to him to come up with a perfect “mixed reality” event.  During his opening show, a parallel show opened in Second Life, and Eno himself briefly logged on with an avatar.

Armed with a recently designed Eno T-shirt from his album (remember those?)  Before and After Science (but with the shirt’s back reads “Where is Brian Eno?“ ) plus a steaming cup of coffee, I set out to find new work by one of the most prolific and enigmatic musicians of recent decades.

Dianna Defiant logged on briefly, but first-life allergies quickly drove her into bed for some needed sleep. I interrupted my Eno-search for a few minutes to chat with Di about Cary Grant’s suit in North By Northwest, one of my top 20 films. It’s a film that stays with you, like Eno’s music. Four or five of Eno’s recordings are in my top 20. If I had only one recording on a desert island (or in Second Life, were I stuck forever, like Pappy Enoch) it would be Another Green World, one of Eno’s finest efforts that creates a virtual world of its own in sound.  It’s hard to explain but Eno figured something out long before computers enabled us to build virtual worlds; his ambient recordings in particular create believable yet fantastic worlds aurally.

Then it was back to Eno. I’m on a grail-quest, readers…I’ll keep you in the loop.  I’ve already tried a driving tour, wrecking both black motorcycle and space-buggy in the process (I drove both into deep pits and became stuck).  SL is not made for vehicles, but it is made for Eno.  We’ll see…even if I don’t find Eno’s artwork, the Kula region is full of creative sorts invested in the “Creative Commons,“ the idea of sharing rather than restrictive copyrights.  And I hate copyright and the fat companies invested in locking down ideas.  So something cool will turn up as I ponder and wander.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Ross Infohub, Memory Bazaar

In part because of a force-feeding of canned old-media experiences, we are forgetting how to play (consider Olmsted’s urban parks of 1900 vs. today’s theme-park). Demographic studies of “Millennials” show that younger people these days (cut to old geezer voice) don’t understand unstructured imaginative play. My recent students’ unease with SL stemmed from this; they just did not know how to handle the open-ended nature of the metaverse.

Such un-programmed fun is at the center of Second Life, and Lady Di is the perfect companion for these adventures.  Dianna Defiant’s and my latest fun-filled hour in Second Life began with a plea for some shopping help. When Di said that she knew a shop with nice suits for 45 Lindens, I had to bite.

We met and in a twinkling I had two black suits; one an old-school gangster style rig with a black shirt and lavender tie.  Then it struck Dianna how much we could look like the Men in Black—well, in our case, the Babe and the Bald Guy in Black.  So she put on a man’s suit identical to mine, donned some black sunglasses (mine never leave my nose), said “I’m feeling butch,” pulled out a gun that looked like Han Solo’s blaster, gave me one, and told me to follow her.

Those who have never been in Second Life cannot fully comprehend how vapid much of the content can be at a typical mall in-world. In one open-air booth there will be tasteful jewelry, in the next twinkling “bling” angel-halos, and in the third one sleazy underwear. It’s like the tawdry part of the Bellwood Flea Market but with people flying around, nearly naked.  Some of them with wings, horns, or cat-tails.  Avatars strut about in this stuff, but too few of them know what to DO with their personae, except shop, have sex, or just chat.

Di began by asking people if they’d seen any unauthorized aliens in the sector.  I followed up—I’m a gamer, after all—with lines like “Agent D and I have been authorized by Governor Linden to apprehend any tentacle-waving horrors.”  Soon Di and I were screaming with laughter.  We tried the same routine at the Infohub, a popular place for newcomers fresh from Orientation Island. Some people played along to Di’s “We are searching for hydrocephalopods.  Seen any here?”  Others teleported away.  One tough-looking “drug dealer” looked like he was ready to pound me and did not respond to my “Greetings, citizen.”

So I walked away. What’s more fun, anyway—pretending to be alien-hunting US agents or a drug-dealer selling fake drugs in a fake world?

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Time Magazine’s Web Site
It would be laughable were it not so sad, that Time declared Second Life one of the five worst Web sites out there.

I smell a scared and uniformed reaction to something the major media outlets do not get at all, and never will: virtual worlds. 

I will thank, and not just out of self-interest, Media General and the Richmond Times Dispatch for letting me run this blog without interference.  In that gesture I see them hedging their own bets and re-inventing themselves, while Time opts out and hobbles into the 21st Century with creaking joints.

Time‘s cheap shot at SL does have one canny point: the navigation in-world is clumsy.  Every other critique, however, completely misses the mark and shows how little time Time was willing to invest in seeing SL’s vast world. 

One point really does show the gray in the hair of Time’s writers: the learning curve for SL is “too steep.“  Frankly, my students got used to SL’s interface rapidly, where most non-gamers I know over 40 are flummoxed by even learning how to walk properly in SL.  Another ridiculous gripe is that creating one’s avatar is “tedious.“  For the dull-witted or passive consumer of images, I suppose making avatars is a pain.

Cecil Hirvi and I have been communicating by e-mail a bit about the future of text.  I disagree that it’s dying, but the old ways of getting it are in trouble. Thus it’s easy to take cheap shots when you don’t understand a few basic points taken for granted by anyone under 40 and even by this bald-headed, middle-aged geek:

—SL might fail, but other virtual worlds exist.  No one yet offers SL’s best feature: resident-created content without too many restrictions.  That will come to other worlds, I’m betting
—People are turning, by the millions, from passive media such as TV and movies to interactive media such as virtual worlds and games
—Reading is declining (this does not make me happy, either).

A student once told me, “we don’t want just to study film.  We want to make films.“  Today’s big boys of old media cannot figure out—perhaps even want—consumers to become what Mia Wombat, a member of the Creative Commons Community in SL, calls “Conducers.“  Conducers make and enjoy each others’ media.  Just ask a blogger.

Next, I’m going to focus my Eno-Quest dispatches on how powerful Creative-Commons content can be.

My cheap and parting shot: the Time article is awful to navigate—and impossible for placing a link from this site.  Talk about bad sites!

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Still looking for Eno

Making friends has been a key to keeping the virtual doldrums away.  Social networking sites just for avatars exist to make this easier. In-world groups offer an array of options for avatars. These communities of affinity—from real-life interests to, say, landscaping virtual terrain, offer endless amusements.  My favorite is Pappy Enoch’s “Enoch Holler Hellbillies,” where I get notices about drinking, visiting Tombstone, and lately, a mysterious swamp-monster sited on UR Island.  Of course not all groups are so wild; Ida Keen’s knitting group offers the sort of fellowship that can be hard to find for many of us in real life who live far from others who share our interests.

These in-world interests often lead to worthwhile projects.  In a symposium in May, I was asked “what is the educational value of Second Life?“ I had to answer, “I don’t know yet. But what is wrong with play?  If we relax and let the purpose emerge, it will.“  I didn’t want to force SL into a pedagogical box too soon.

Beeble Baxter and I continue our explorations of what we might do with students in-world.  Sure enough, ideas are blossoming. We are plotting a photo exhibition by students on UR island for the spring of 2008.  Students will focus on how people use technology in real life, and we’ll have student posters in-world with hot-links to Web pages for each writer.

Thus Beeble and I continue to explore that most powerful aspect of SL: player-created content.  Once I mentioned “sweating out” a pair of sunglasses in fifteen minutes.  I’m not a master builder now, but I can make simple objects in seconds, and change their appearance quickly. Making complex objects and even simple scripts are now tasks I can contemplate, while modifying purchased objects provides endless fun for the clever resident.

Making films is another pastime that I highly recommend. Before getting bored in SL, I’d advise residents to make a movie and put it on YouTube.  Cecil Hirvi points the way for those of us who want to make our own media: I’ve not watched TV since 1979 and haven’t missed it for a second.  Now, we are the producers!

Just don’t get bored, readers: there’s a whole world out there waiting for us to create. Creation is key: consumption is a dead-end, as in real life.

Learn the tools and create, and share what you learn. Go find an interesting region (start fishing for ideas with Ida’s blog), grab a friend, and walk or fly around.  Just don’t propose to every person you meet (though Pappy’s courting adventures bring a tear to my cynical eye).

You might even find time to start a blog about your second life…nah.  That would get tedious, quickly.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts

Location: Lost, in one of the Kula sims, looking for Brian Eno’s art exhibit

I’ve heard “I’m burning out on SL” a bit lately from my SL friends.  There seems to come a point for many SLers at which they’ve explored the world, shopped till they dropped, had adventures and perhaps even a virtual romance, and then, sadly, they become disenchanted.  Not Iggy!

My solution to creeping avatarian ennui has taken a few forms. I won’t, like the legendary Taras Balderdash, start a religion in-world.  But there are endless diversions available.

I might hop on the black motorcycle and go to a test track where I can wreck it safely.  Or perhaps I’ll see what “my SL girlfriends,” as my wife teasingly calls them, are doing.  It’s safe fun for them to go on a photo-shoot or visit an interesting part of the Linden metaverse with me.  After all, Iggy isn’t going to make a pass at them.  I find most female residents more interesting than the guys, and not just because the ladies’ avatars are invariably hot eye-candy. Women know how to make conversation and, for the most part, are very good listeners.  Meanwhile, so many guys’ “sense of play” involves shooting things or looking for sex.

I’ll continue my pondering as I stumble about the metaverse, looking for Eno’s artwork; he’s truly one of the greats in music from the 20th century; will he re-invent digital art, as he did for proto-punk and ambient music?

Next time I’ll consider how creating things keeps me from ever getting bored.  By the way, I’m rarely bored in my first life!

Location: At my real-life desk

All of the above. I’ve asked the editors to put up a new photo of yours truly. I’ll get some ribbing that I have altered my appearance to fit my avatar; barring a few more trips to the weight-room and some dye for my beard, I don’t think I’ll ever look exactly like Iggy.

But it’s close, and that was my purpose in creating him.  The old B&W photo of me at this site looked nothing like me now…neither did Iggy’s first look. 

SL residents choose several paths in the metaverse to represent who and what they are (or are not).  Like a few other in-world journalists, however, I choose to look as much like me as I could.  Beeble chose animals and now plants to reflect his “earthiness” in real life.  That’s who he is, too.  Pappy…well, he’s just Pappy or a “grissly bar.“ Good fit, either way.  And the women?  They are all pretty to me, in either life: that is the Mediterranean answer, for those of you who need lessons.

So, am I cutting my real-life hair a bit shorter now?  You bet.  When you are this bald, every day is a good-hair day because it’s a no-hair day. 

See you in-world or out in the sun. I’ll be the one wearing a hat.

Lokashun: Whar they makes virtuul grissly-bars

Tree am the wurd fer it, in mo’ than wun sense, beecuz I done turned myself intu a grissly bar.  A rite big ol’ brown wun hoo are rite cornfertable in a tree.

I figgered—wrongly, durn it—that bein’ a bar wood bring in the wimmin in wagun-loads, becuz I axes yu: what purty gal ain’t got herself a stuffed bar in her bedroom?  So I knowed I wood git lucky, erspechully wif the fuzzy sort of gal like Miz Tenchi.

Beesides, by bein’ a bar, I cood handul enny sort of lovin’ (o’ pouncing’) shee mite throw my way. Miz Di, who am always symperthetical to my situashun, dun sent me a pounce animashun so I cood git evun with Miz T. Now am that nice, o’ whut?

Sad tu say, wunce I dun put my fotos as a bar up on my pro-file, the ladies did ree-spond, but it won’t in the mannur I wuz egg-spectin’ at awl.  In fack, all they sed wuz, n’ I kwotes it dee-reckly, “Awww…yu am so durned cute! I loves fuzzy bars n’ I wants tu give yu a bar-hug!”  Well, that am close enuf tu dee-reck tu be in the same corn-feeld, if not the same row, if’n yu knows what I meens.

In publick I gots hit upon rite cornstuntly.  Awl these-hear purty wimmin—an’ wun o’ tu fellers—kum up to Pappy an wanted a hug: but nuffin’ else. I had to git up a tree tu git away frum ‘em.  It were like a bar-baitin’ pit in the days o’ Billy Shake-a-spear.

Anysohow, I dun got so manny hugs n’ cuddles now that I are sore an plumb tuckered out. But I gots tu admit it rite now: sex in Secund Life am way tu much work!  I’m a-goin’ back tu bein’ a Moonshiner and practickle jokur, leastways until I stops hurtin’ so dang much.

Okay, Wiggly, whar am my 100 Lindens?  I needs to git to horsespittul becuz I are hurtin’ so much frum that huggin’ and cuddlin’ an so on.  Bein’ a cute cuddly bar am tuff work.

Post-Publurfickashun Addishun: STOP THEM-THAR PRESSES!!

Well, I reckon I were cornpleeterly PLUMB RONG. Why?  Tu-day, while I was patrollin’ UR Island becuz o’ a Swampy-Munster what have been sited thar (but that am an udder story) Miz Cynthia wuz a -wanderin’ round lookin’ tarribull blue n’ lonesum like.  Guess what!  She pounced on mee!  N’ I dun pounced on her.  We kept on a-pouncin’ till wee wuz laffin’ n’ coodn’t pounce no more.

Hoo-dawgie!  I reckon her frend Miz Techni dun told her how much fun it were.

This-hear bar-soot sure do bring in the wimmin!  An’ then me n’ Miz C had a hot date an went to several places n’ got drunk n’ got in trubbil wen Pappy got kiddy-napped by a Japanese feller drivin’ a ricky-shaw n’ got stranded in an underpants store n’.....oh, what the heck. I’ll tell y’all next time.

Second Life just celebrated its fourth anniversary, and from the look of the early days of 2003, the metaverse and we avatars have come a looong way.

Though I’m still a newcomer, I have learned many things from avatars with more experience in SL.  In fact, one trend disturbs me; I know that it will enrage the anti-corporate streak in my friend Beeble Baxter. It’s not the mere presence of content and sims created by major companies, such as American Apparel stores, Scion and Pontiac cars, or a virtual NBA site.

Lore in-world and on discussion forums is that Linden Lab is gradually taking away the benefits of SL for “ordinary residents.“ This means paying and non-paying residents who individually constitute a small part individually of the metaverse’s virtual economy but, like real life, a huge part overall.

I’m too new to SL to speculate what “premium customer service” or “concierge membership” could mean, but they smack—to this resident with payment info on-file—of social stratification. So if I were in business in SL and shelled out hundreds of real dollars monthly to Linden Lab, would I get better service?  This seems at odds with Phil Rosedale’s original utopian vision for SL.  What will it mean for the EDU crowd, as colleges and universities increasingly come in-world?  Will only schools with Tech’s or Richmond’s deep pockets have a presence in the metaverse?  While Linden Lab generously grants semester-long plots to educational visitors, that may not be enough for sustained work in-world, as we are finding on UR Island.

Lore also has it that LL wants to tame the SL world even more to serve better the interests of those who spend or invest lots of real money in-world. To me that would be as depressing as seeing a gallery district in a funky part of town run out by yuppie condos, upscale restaurants, and high-end chain merchants.  Such a place remains beautiful, but its creative soul withers.

At some point I’ll try to contact the well known SL activist Prokofy Neva, who has been warning about LL’s policies for a while.  I bumped (almost literally) into Neva near Memory Bazaar one day, and I plan to ask for an interview.  He’s a gadfly, but maybe SL needs more of them. . .

Readers, has LL changed your SL experience in the time you have been around?  Let’s hear from you.

As I dun sed, Pappy won’t havin’ wun bit o’ luck findin’ hisself a wummun at the hillbilly dance corntest. I was cornsiderin’ joinin’ a germnasium tu see if’n I cood git rid o’ my prosperus belly n’ bee-kum fit as, say, Jethro Bodine.  But then my gud frend (n’ she am a purty wun!) Miz Tenchi instant-massaged mee.  I figgered I mite hit mee a lovin’ jackypot.

She tellyported tu UR I-land faster n’ I cood say “hoo’s yer Pappy?” an’ wee talked all coy-like. Now I are tu blame, I tell yu—I bin sparkin’ her fer a wile now wif sweet nuffins’ like “yu am hotter’n the big skillit at a Lumberjack convenshun’s pancakes brekfust” n’ so on. She was a-wearin’ her Tombstone outfit, becuz me n’ her an’ me an’ Miz Di an’ me an’ Miz Cynthia an me am a-gonna go back thar n’ raze us the dickens wif them-thar cow-pokes (evun if’n I duz git shot n’ hung n’ throwed in jail agin).

Then Miz Tenchi axed if’n Pappy turns intu an ani-mule sumtimes.

Well reeders, I didn’t know that she were bein’ literul n’ not meterfuricul wen she axed so I tole her “yep” n’ got reddy fer sum lovin’, but she dun transmogrified intu wun (purty, tho skairy) cat-wummun wearin’ nuffin’ but boots n’ a smile.  So I sed “okey-doke, puss-in-boots, if’n yu wants tu play ruff, I kin du that tu. I’ll bee yer scratchin’ post.”

So wif sich knotty thoughts in my head, I dun transmogrified mysef intu a jargantick raccoon, jist like that varmint Beeble Baxter.  Eggcept Miz Tenchi wuz so anxshush that wen she jumped me, she knocked me cleen out!  Yu kin see the rear-sults abuv n’ whar I hung sum mo’ fotos on the line.

Wen I woke up—oh, boo, hoo hoo—Miz T wuz gone, proberly in a huff cuz o’ my lack o viralertee, an’ thar I wuz: a crittur still.  N’ one mo’ proberlum:

I CAIN’T CHANGE BACK INTU A HUMMUN NOW!

I hates Secund Life!  Well. . .if’n Wiggly kin bring in the gals wif a go-rilla soot, perhaps it cood work fer mee, tu. Whut if I kin change mysef kinda slantways, intu an ani-mule avamater closer tu my parsunul style o’ livin’ a fake life (n’ a-keepin’ pace wif loverly kitty-cats hoo likes tu pounce)?

Say, Wiggly, wen yu pays Pappy fer this-hear tu-part blob, kin yu throw in sum cat-nip?

Well, frends, I reckon I kin share wif yu (‘specshully since Wiggly dun pade me fer it) the story o’ how I cain’t find myself a wummun.

Now I know that sum o’ ya’ll think Secund Life ain’t ‘bout nuffin’ BUT sex.  If’n that am true, I ain’t seen it yet, but it don’t hurt nun to find out.

Miz HoJo has been tu bizzy wif her new klub tu egg-splain the virtul birds n’ bees tu me, so I figgered that sum o’ my lady frends mite be willin’ tu du so n’ in the process I mite find a wife o’ at pre-haps a steddy gal-frend.

Now I had alreddy axed Miz Dianna Defiant tu marry me a long time back, n’ troo tu her name she sed no, but in sich a perlite way that I reckoned we cood still bee frends.  She proberly has a dozin rich fellers a-courtin’ her, ennyhow. But Miz Di did invite me not only fer a fishin’ trip but tu a hillbilly dance par-tee at a place name a’ Club Eros.  Well that-thar name sorgested nekkid foolin’ round, so I sed “yep” n’ wint.

No nekkid folks, but we did have us a reel good time as y’all kin see from my fotos. The place wuz fixed up wif pitchers o’ them-thar Duke boys, a reel workin’ outhouse, a still, an’ all kinds o’ hillbilly life-styles excessuries. Miz Di n’ Pappy stepped out rite nice (n’ I taught the hole groop how tu clog).  We wun ourselves 250 Lindens each, kin yu berleeve it?

Still, Pappy didn’t meet no wimmin of the marryin’ (or evun kissin’ bee-hind the smokehouse) kind.  But I had me a nuther idear. . . that ended in a furst-rate dee-sastur (tu bee corntinued)

Location: Burning Semi-Truck at the Site of SL’s 4th Birthday Party

The lawyers have discovered Second Life.  After the World’s-Fair-like Birthday party, I’m back to troubles in Lindenland’s magic kingdom.

In the past week, I have read of two court cases:

As reported in the Linden Lab blog, a French court ruled in favor of the company:

Today the Paris court (Tribunal de Grande Instance) dismissed the complaint filed by the French association Familles de France against Linden Lab, holding that the evidence brought by the association was unduly biased and should be thrown out.

Linden Lab is pleased with the result, which confirms that evidence in Internet cases must be gathered in an objective fashion. The case also confirms that French law, and in particular the law of Confidence in the Digital Economy, should be applied to Second Life.

This is heartening to me. Not that I want to be confronted by sex every time I log on, but because Second Life must retain its creative freedom.  Age verification and other measures the Lindens put into their virtual world should address these issues partly. In the end, however, I remain a “cyberlibertarian”: it’s up to parents to know what their children do online.  We cannot legislate morality online or in real life.

While I disagree with the French association that filed this case, I can at least respect its misguided intentions.  Of a much less savory nature is the case filed against Linden Labs by Marc Bragg, an attorney who claims that Linden Lab has withheld money that legally belongs to him.  Here I also tend to side with the Lindens, if they are correct that:

“Bragg – who is a licensed attorney – and his confederates, knowingly and with intent to defraud, without Linden’s permission, obtained, used and altered data and computer software in a deliberate exploit to gain unauthorized access to Linden’s server software in order to manipulate and subvert Linden’s standard system for making so-called “virtual land” available to its users through its land auction system.”

I have complaints with Second Life and how Linden Lab appears to be catering to high-end customers (I mean residents).  That said, my own investement (about $25 annually plus about $20 I have purchased in Liden Dollars this year) is a small stake. If it vanishes tomorrow, I’ll consider the movie over and will have had a good time.

Meanwhile, the parents fret and the sharpers rub their hands together, seeing if they can either protect us from ourselves or, worse still, make a fast buck.

Location: Second Life SL4B Sim—Home of the Birthday Party!

Second Life’s fourth birthday celebration ends today.  A few days back, Dianna Defiant and I toured the “fairgrounds”  that show the history of SL from 2003, artwork, photography, and many other things we didn’t even have time to see.

As usual, we goofed off and took many photos. I’ve put a few online for readers to give a sense of exhibits and our tomfoolery. Di was a great, and patient, model!

What will virtual worlds be like in 2011?  Your guesses are as good as mine, readers.

“Tales from Second Life,“ Cecil Hirvi’s latest YouTube series, takes a dark look at SL in the year 2079.  You will want to follow this as Cecil adds more episodes. It’s fine work and more than a bit scary. . .

Location: ICT Library, Info Island

I met Milosun during his fund-raising efforts on Information Island right after the Virginia Tech tragedy.

He is an educator at Tech who has been experimenting with SL for some time, and he’s worked with designers to build the amazing ICT Library.

Like me, Milosun is not bashful about his RL identity; he’s Ross Perkins, PhD - Office of Educational Research & Outreach, School of Education, Virginia Tech.

Beeble Baxter and I went in-world for multiple chats with Ross/Milosun about education with SL (and without it).  I’m stunned by the potential for educators in SL, but perhaps too stunned. 

As Milosun puts it, teachers can be so dazzled by a virtual world that they make no coherent plans and do not consider strongly enough the why behind sending students in-world.

Milosun has done really good work in-world, aside from his educational mission. Not long before our interview, Ross had given Tech a check for $1200, all collected as SLers donated money in-world from their Linden-dollar balances.

I get a good feeling every time I think about that.

You may read the entire interview with Milosun at my Web site.

by Dianna Defiant, Guest Writer

From Iggy: Di’s advice on making money rocked my (virtual) world, though I’m a lazy-bones and laid down an annual fee to the Lindens (well, I do have to pay Pappy Enoch something, or he’d shoot up UR Island).  Expect to hear more from Di soon!

#3 – The Kindness of Strangers & Friends: Dianna has a free apartment courtesy of a very nice man from Denmark whom I met in my 1st week of SL. He owned “land” and had a house, and he started experimenting with building and created an apartment in the sky. He gave it to me because he had no one else to use it. I am still friends with him today, and Dianna still “lives” in the apt. Most apartments in SL run about $350L a week. I have other friends who bought me things when I was starting out, as they were more established financially in SL than I was. I have returned the favor to others as I go along.

#4 – SL Jobs (ugh) – Yes Dianna has had a couple of SL jobs, but she just can’t stand them for long. It’s hard to be anything other than a dancer/stripper or escort. Even though it’s not real I don’t do the escort thing, but have fallen back on the dancer job. There are so many clubs in SL it is hard to get customers in any of them, so the money isn’t always reliable, but if you can find a good club it will work, if you can stand it.

#5 – Contests (my favorite) – Most clubs in SL runs contest. You can find them going on 24/7. They offer up to $1000 prize money. If you dress really well for the theme (best in black, 50’s night, etc..) chat/flirt it up in the club, and get all your friends that happen to be online at the time to come vote for you, you can win anywhere from $250L - $1000L in 2 hours or so. For example – I won $1000 with Iggy’s famous Gorilla outfit at a contest. Easiest money ever….how often do you see a gorilla in a mini-skirt?

So now that Dianna has most everything she needs in SL, there are not a lot of lindens flowing out of the bank account. With a positive cash flow and no real bills (rent, etc.), I keep a good balance, buy anything I want, and even treat my friends (and sometimes strangers) to gifts whenever I feel like it. Were I so lucky in RL…. So – am I contributing to the SL economy? Like I said – it’s a GAME people.

This is monopoly $ to me, and earning it and spending it is all part of the game itself. I choose to play by finding creative ways to earn my in-world $ instead of slapping down my VISA to buy that monopoly money. The day they ban me from playing because I don’t pay real $ is the day I quit SL.

by Dianna Defiant, Guest Writer

From Iggy: Di’s advice is so good that I will parse it out in several columns, and I’ll invite her to make this a regular feature of “In a Strange Land” if readers want more great tips!

There seems to be a debate in SL between (I will call them) the “haves” and the “have nots.” The “have nots” are those people who do not use RL USD$ to participate in SL, and therefore have the words “No payment Info on file” in their profile – branding them for all who choose to see as a freeloader. I am one such freeloader. There are those who argue players like me make no contribution whatsoever to the SL economy, and that we even should be restricted in our usage of SL partly or even totally. To that I say, “‘people – it’s a GAME!!”

When I first started SL in Oct 06 I vowed never to spend any real $ on it. 7 months later, I am still happily playing SL without lightening my RL wallet. Dianna Defiant looks good, has great clothes, an apartment, money “in the bank” and buys most anything she ever wants with totally free Lindens. This is how I did it…you can too!

#1 – Camping: I know it’s distasteful to most, but when I was a newbie and my bank balance in the corner said $0, I knew I had to do something. There are places all over SL where you “camp” for xL$ per hour by sitting in or on a certain spot. Some of the camping spots are animated to look as if you are sweeping, working at a desk, etc…some are just sitting. Boring yes, but if you find the right attachments for your avatar, you can stay on all night and not get logged off, earning your free $ while you sleep, which is what I did. I made my 1st $10K just by camping.

#2 – Free Stuff: There are tons of places around SL to find great free stuff. Lucky chairs are a great way to get store quality merchandise for free – merchants use them to generate traffic and to get people wearing their designs. Many stores put out free items on certain days of the week, and there are even stores where EVERYTHING is totally free, or $1, or very cheap. Most of these stores are geared towards newbies, but you can find some great stuff in them. Dianna has over 12 pairs of boots that cost $500L each – all from lucky chairs at the vendor’s store. One of my favorite SL pastimes is finding good stuff for cheap or free – ask Iggy!

To be continued. . .

Location: Just back from ICT Library, Info Island

I’m learning to make clothing in Second Life.  The process, explained to me by a lady-friend of Pappy Enoch’s, has been straightforward: you only need Adobe Photoshop, a digital camera, and a cavalier attitude toward copyright law.

Linden Lab gives away a set of templates for making clothing, and the really skilled can even make custom avatar “skins” like the one I bought from Lila’s store.  I’ll probably never, ever have that level of skill.  Any skin I made would look to be straight from Victor Frankenstein’s lab.

So I began with a plain black Devo T-shirt and the Linden templates; they look like the dressmakers’ patterns to which one pins real-life fabric.  With lots of judicious cutting, pasting, re-sizing, and a little cursing, I uploaded my custom T-Shirt at a cost of 10 Lindens, and now Ignatius is stylin’ in a big, geeky way.

Since I first encountered Devo during their Saturday Night Live debut in 1978 (those nightmare-dark days of Disco) I have continued to regard their songs and philosophy as prescient. The band’s take on American popular culture is that we are a bunch of submorons besotted by violence, sexual repression, fast food, and a dumb popular culture.  We are, thus, sliding into devolution.

Need I say that I’ve always agreed?  My proof in two words: Paris Hilton. Anyway, I could go on and on about one of my favorite bands while I was in college, but the Devo philosophy—that beautiful mutants must rule and normal people be unmasked for the suit-and-tie clowns that they really are—is alive and well in Second Life.

You can be a “beautiful person” in SL, and can either embrace that or have fun mocking our real-life cult of beauty and celebrity.  Or you can be a morbidly obese Moonshiner, a bipedal raccoon, an ape, a tiny kitten, or even a walking ham-hock (I saw one). 

Who owns this particular tomorrow? Not the Paris Hiltons of SL. I’m betting on the ham-hocks.

And I have at long last, a duty, now, for the future. See you in-world, beautiful mutants.

By [name classified], guest writer
Location: Classified FOB in Indonesia

My codename is Midnight Angel.

I am an avatar (the electronic form of a player in a computer game) of a night operations Delta Force commando involved in UN Joint Operations intervention of the insurgency of Indonesia.

Each day players log on to Joint Operations computer servers

and fight in an Indonesian rebellion via a first person shooter (FPS).

We carry out rescue operations of captured civilians, downed pilots and kidnapped diplomats. Strike missions where we take out or capture installations. We also do straight-out assasinations of BGs (Bad Guys) such as rebel leaders or disloyal Indonesian military officers.

Equipped with the latest technology in warfare, our operations are often complex and difficult with careful thinking and tactical teams in realtime voice communication make or break the mission.

We in the FPS world have begun to hear of Second Life.

And to think, as a military, this is what we fight for. :(

The right for academics to wear a gorilla suit and boogie. A place where people fly, create flattering images of themselves and kinda just go here and there. Oh, and talk.

Sure we joke and talk all the time, but it’s down to business and things get very exciting.

Second Life? The pulse-pounding, vein-exploding excitement of talking to perfect strangers as things you are not, while floating around like a hummingbird, dabbing hither and thither with other lost souls.

Be still my beating heart.

In my next entry, I will compare the two with specifics. . . (to be continued)

by Amy Mueller, Guest Writer
Location: Apollo Garden

From Ignatius: Amy is one of my students who completed a project to explore educational and social spaces in Second Life.  Part two of her two-part series follows.

Elfheart said that during her time in SL she has seen real changes in people.  However, these changes cannot be real when they are happening to a pixilated figure in a virtual world.  As I analyze the Second Life experiences I have had I must say that I am just not buying it.  I can understand using SL occasionally if one is bored, but I think is it important that people remember that it is a game.  I will never think it is healthy for a real human person to live through a computer screen when the real thing, although sometimes with more challenges, is outside.

I am finding more and more things in the RL that remind me of points in SL.  The other day I saw a flyer informing me that 48% of women would have plastic surgery or liposuction if they could.  This reminded me of what Elfheart said about not being controlled by one’s image in RL.  Maybe living vicariously through a beautiful avatar in SL is the alternative to plastic surgery in RL.  I will never believe that virtual happiness can substitute for real happiness.  Certainly creating a virtual being and living in another world is not going to make women more comfortable with their own bodies.

by Amy Mueller, Guest Writer
Location: Apollo Garden

From Ignatius: Amy is one of my students who completed a project to explore educational and social spaces in Second Life.  Part one of her two-part series follows.

It wasn’t until I began talking to people in the SL world that I started to understand why and how individuals could become so wrapped up in this virtual reality.  In my third visit in-world I was feeling adventurous and decided to land on a random island that looked interesting from above.  Here I talked to a woman named Elfheart.  I introduced myself and told her about my report on SL.

I asked her why she enjoys SL so much and she told me that she believed that SL is a place where individuals can creatively blossom.  She called SL a playground for adults. SL is an alternative to online war games and it attracts a different type of user, including people like Elfheart, who want a place where they can converse with others and express themselves.  Elfheart brought up the point that SL attracts more women than men.  I asked her why she believed this was true and she told me that in real life women are often judged based on their appearance and their age.  In SL women are able to control both what they look like and how old they appear.  This affects the respect they are given. 

I couldn’t help but think about the women that I saw in SL.  Elfheart was right, women in SL are able to control what they look like, and it seems to me that most of them chose to be very attractive, thin, scantily clad, young women. The “fairy-woman” meditating at the Apollo Garden in my snapshot is practically nude!

Although I can see the temptation to beautify oneself in SL, I realized and this assimilation only perpetuates real-life prejudices.  I found it to be contradictory that many women complain about the sexism that results in real like based on women’s appearance, but in SL they give in to this by making themselves more sexually appealing.  I think there’s something wrong with the fact that you can rate an avatar’s appearance.  Is this what SL is all about?  (to be continued. . .)

Location: Durn-Fool Town o’ Tombstone

Yu cain’t evun die rite in Secund Life. So, time tu cellybrate life!  C’mon hoss, shake that thang!

Here are whut happint: I were in Tombstone wif my cuzzin’ Miz Cynthia Barley (Corn Enoch), a respecktubull wummin an’ dressed up sooo purty—kinder like Dr. Quinn but nicer in a red velverteen dress n’ all—wen trubbil begun.

I had evun put on shoes fer that orcashun, it bein’ the furst time I met Miz C “in-wirld.”

Yu see, like Wiggly Ogodapeetatur dun eggplained tu yu in his ol’bitchery (prematchure) fer Pappy, Tombstone am a “rule-playin’ game” in Secund Life whar yu acts like it am the Wild West.

‘Cept far as I kin figger, they ain’t no rules. If’n the West had bin that dumb, it woodn’t have no peepul left in it now.

Furst thang we knew, Miz Cynthia an’ me wuz in the middul of a dawg-gone gun-fite.  It were awful to behold; cowpokes robbin’ the bank, the Marshull ridin’ up on his hoss, shootin’ em, n’ gittin’ shot. 

Po’Miz Cynthia wuz bein’ used fer cover by a rascal.  That-thar so-called “law man” dun kept a-sayin’ “take cover, citizens!” but the proberlum wuz, we WUZ the cover!

Let me tell yu: that Marshull won’t no Wide Earp, by a long-shot. Awl he cood du was to keep on hollerin’ fer us to take cover.  So I pulled out my Tombstone-bought scatturgun an’, by Jingo!, rite away I got shot.  So I put down my gun.

Then they killed the durn-fool Marshull, which at least give us releaf frum him a-tellin’ us tu take cover. 

By gawd abuv, he got rite up agin’ an started shootin’ sum mo’. 

I were tarribully cornfuzed, until, kum tu think on it, it didn’t hurt wun bit whar I wuz shot. Miz Cynthia sorgested that we telly-port tu a nicer place—still Ol’ West, but no gun-fites—an we seen us a jail, a bull tu ride, and a gallows-pole. I wuz a-lookin’ fer a saloon.

But a funny feelin’ kum ovur me, so I went an’ dun it.  I hanged mysef then n’ thar.  I figgered that if’n I died in the fake wirld, I mite just waken up in the reel wun agin’.

Guess whut: No sich luck. I are hear to stay.

PS: At least I gots me frends and rerlashuns to hep me along in this-hear fake veil o’ sorrow and useless, bad-shootin’ law-men. 

PPS: Kum tu think on it, Secund Life am like that-thar “Big Rock Candee Mountun”: I reckon all the bull-dawgs gots rubber teef, tu. I are still lookin’ fo’ the cigarette trees and lemonade springs. 

PPPS: Wun differunce: Secund Life cops ain’t got wooden legs, but Tombstone’s Marshull has got a wooden head.