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

Location: Virtual Desk, Givenchi Skyloft
by Guest Writer Tenchi Morigi

Iggy’s Note: Tenchi wrote a long entry for my class Wiki on this topic.  If you want to find her full photo-essay of exploring virtual New England, point your Web browsers here.

A good friend of mine sent me a landmark earlier last week. It was directed to the New England Sim Cluster which consists of 29 Sims which recreate the typical New England flair and are a great area for all enthusiasts of watersports.

Since she bought a nice motorboat, client 19.4 (Iggy’s note—Linden Lab’s ® latest release, with much greater graphics resolution for sky and water) was released and Siana, Give and I haven´t spend a lot time together we decided to go on a virtual boat trip.

This is only a very small part of what we have seen during those 3 Hours which we cruised around on those 29 Sims. To show you everything would have by far been too much. Unfortunately the pictures of the Nantucket habour and the adjoining village were somewhat messed up and so I left them out.

So if you are interested in sailing or boating, scuba diving or whatever or if you are just looking for a nice place to hang around and chill with your friends ... this is it.

Iggy’s Note: Aviation and car cultures are also large sub-communities in-world, so I thought it fitting to include Tenchi’s snap of her ride home, at dusk in a helicopter.  As Linden Lab plans to improve the performance of vehicles so they can cross regions more easily (or at all) air-travel and road-trips, not to mention regattas, may become fun pastimes in this virtual world.

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