‘My Avatar Hell’ pt.3

After what can only be described as an uber-productive few days, last night I decided to sort this avatar issue out once and for all…

Went ‘in world’, teleported my Zebra-self off to somewhere quiet and removed the offending avatar. Well, I say offending, but if you read the previous posts you’ll realise that what was under the Zebra was far, far worse. Nightmarish, I’d say.

But then I realised that I still had a few emails to fire off before bed, so I moved over to Outlook and after about 15 minutes a familiar clickety-click typing sound came through the speakers. Please no, don’t let them be talking to me…

And she was. A very nice lady who said, ‘hello, can I help you?’ – I WAS IN HER HOUSE:

Lady: this is my house
PZ: oh no i'm so embarrassed!
Lady: no thats ok
PZ: i'm sorry i didn't realise...
Lady: where did you think you were?
PZ: i didn't have a clue. Basically, i messed up my avatar so wanted to go somewhere quiet to sort myself out!
Lady: I understand

Anyway, we had a great chat- in fact probably one of my favourite SL interactions yet because it was so utterly NORMAL. We chatted for an hour about our RL work, SL property, taxation and inflation in SL (she has made money), SL coverage in the media, she showed me around her place, complained about the neighbours (in SL... really!), we had a few drinks from her impressively stocked virtual bar…

... and then got back on to the topic of avatars:

PZ: did you not think 'who the hell is this freak' when i appeared?
Lady: it did take me back a little
PZ: yeah, really need to sort it out... i was trying on a triceratops avatar, but it was HUGE
PZ: so i became a zebra
PZ: also HUGE
Lady: heehee
PZ: but when i tried to detach the avatars - some sections remained...
Lady: I know that feeling

Lady: you do have a wierd body on
PZ: i know... i'm going to change back to normal now... can i do it here?
Lady: go right ahead
PZ: ok...
PZ: oh shit how the hell do i do this?
Lady: heehee
PZ: don't laugh! ;-)
Lady: do you have another shape in your inventory?

(PZ - i.e. me - tries new shape)

PZ: holy moly - that's not me
Lady: Ok thats scarey
PZ: right, ill try something else
Lady: I used to have that body when I first started
PZ: this is getting more humiliating by the minute...
Lady: thats ok I kind of enjoying this
PZ: hehehe
Lady: Yes, I would like to figure out how to take some of this make up off, but can't
Lady: I will some day
PZ: can't you do it from face properties?
PZ: you mean you don't take it off before SL bed?!!!
Lady: no my skin that I bought won't let me
PZ: typical.
PZ: being an avatar is not easy, is it?
Lady: No just as hard as RL

At this point I teleported my RL friend in and they chatted away while I tried to sort out my avatar. Gave up in the end, but have made a new SL friend who I like very much, and we’re all going to go for a ride in her friend’s spaceship in a few days and I’m going to take her to the fox club.

Or at least I will when I’ve had the chance to sort this bleeding avatar out…

‘My Avatar Hell’ pt.2

After Monday’s debacle (see My Avatar Hell pt.1) I hadn’t had the chance to modify my avatar due to RL workload. Frankly it was embarrassing looking so freakish, so when I went ‘in world’ the following night I became a Zebra again, which was preferable to the unidentifiable hybrid avatar resulting from my dalliance with the ‘furries’. I didn’t stick around long, teleported around a few places, nothing much happening – although it was interesting to land beside an amorous couple (in a romantic sense, as opposed to seedy) who were obviously oblivious to the fact that a big-bummed zebra had accidentally gate-crashed their private party. Either they didn’t care, chose to ignore me, or didn’t realise there was a human behind the avatar… who knows? It seemed inappropriate to ask, so I logged out and went to bed.

‘My Avatar Hell’ pt.1

It’s been a strange week for Second Self. After taking the advice of a colleague and uninstalling SL for the weekend (having spent the w/e prior living virtually) in order to tackle RL, I re-entered on Monday evening and was overcome by the urge to try living my SL as a triceratops..

(I’d picked up some free furry avatars a month ago, and hadn’t tried them out yet for fear of becoming the virtual equivalent of the stereotypical festival-goer donning ‘wacky’ headwear…)

The problem was that the triceratops avatar was HUGE and unwieldy, so I tried to take it off. The resulting avatar can only be described as…

Ok, will stop there. But SEE???

So I hurriedly tried to amend the monstrosity by becoming a white wolf… Nah; too similar to my fox friend… So in one last attempt to ditch my freaky avatar I decided to become a Zebra. Now the Zebra was kind of ok – I liked the way it flew (although couldn’t get my roller boots to work) so I teleported off to the Haunted House ride.

Oh dear. Unfortunately my Zebra behind was rather… erm, large. The ride seemed different. And then I realised.

MY BUM WAS STUCK!

Oh the shame… I quickly exited the ride and detached the Zebra avatar, which unfortunately led me back to freaky avatar part 1. At this point I decided to call it a night...

O.D.Catastrophe

I had a work meeting yesterday where the subject of Second Life came up (not my fault, honest) and once again faced the accusation that if someone spends a lot of time in Second Life it is at the detriment of their regular life which they will be unable to maintain to a satisfactory standard. Bearing in mind that this invariably comes from people who have never tried Second Life, I wonder where it comes from.

Media scaremongering and a surfeit of half-remembered science fiction plots are what spring to mind. Sure there have been times when I have accidentally stayed up till sunrise exploring SL, but personally I have been a lot more concerned about my Flickr addiction. It has proved much more time-consuming, yet you never read articles warning of the dangers of hanging about with virtual friends on a photo-sharing network - probably because it sounds utterly ridiculous and wouldn't sell many papers.

Is when I SL overdose (SL-OD?!) really so different to when I get my hands on a new Michael Connelly novel and spend all day at work thinking about it, and racing home to get back to it, staying up too late devouring it before lying in bed, eyes closed, mind racing and with minor heart palpitations knowing I should be asleep? It doesn't feel so different to me, but reading this post back I'm staring to wonder whether I just have a problem in general...

How to be polite in SL (and typically British)

Sample from conversation after I had mistakenly skated into a fox in a tuxedo:

[17:03] Fox: Whoops

[17:03] PZ: sorry!

[17:03] Fox: No im sorry

[17:03] PZ: i'm more sorry

[17:03] Fox: Im the most sorry by far +1 (:

[17:03] PZ: i'm sorry x100

[17:04] Fox: Ok I so sorry that I would win the 'im sorry compition 5 years runntin' (:

[17:04] Fox: and the cand spell compitition

[17:04] PZ: for be, being sorry is a way of life

[17:05] PZ: cand spell = can't speel?

[17:05] Fox: Bless you, you must be English also

[17:05] PZ: heehee yes

... after which we had a lengthy discussion on the lack of chicken in SL.

Immersion

I set off walking to work today, and suddenly had a very weird sensation where I truly felt I should be gliding. It was pretty much akin to deja-vu, in that I came round quickly and realised that in this world I actually walk. But in the other world I glide around on rollerboots. Having spent pretty much the entire w/e existing in SL, my first self is experiencing momentary lapses into second self (as also evidenced by turning round to MT in RL and calling her by her avatar's name).
But i'm not overly worried. In seems like only yesterday that after a particularly heavy Quake session I would get into bed and close my eyes and wouldn't be able to sleep due to fighting my reflexive instincts, which were urging me to shoot-up a myriad of enemies. Obviously they weren't really there, but the after-effects of immersion can stay with us for days...
I haven't played Quake since 1997. Not only have I not played it, I haven't even thought about it. So I'm not overly concerned about SL/RL lapses - perhaps I'm secretly hoping that it's just a phase...

Mo Money Mo Problems

When I signed up for Second Life, I deliberately avoided the checkbox to give Linden Labs my bank account details. I wasn't interested in it as a consumer, for me it would be an investigation, about the experience rather than the goods I could purchase. I had read all about people making money from it, about the drive for big corporations to get involved and flog their crappy goods to us in yet another market place and was sure that I wouldn't fall into their trap.

Or so I thought. This weekend I couldn't register my paypal account fast enough. It had been brewing under for a while. I had grown tired of my pink fluffy bunny rabbit slippers and was having trouble finding anything to replace them. I didn't want to wear the same outfits all the time, and deep down I didn't want other people judging me for my lacklustre wardrobe. That's right, I didn't like the possiblility of total strangers making assumptions about me by my avatar. It had really come to this.

Second Life is a place where you can style yourself to be who you want to be, to look, to dress and to act however you desire. The reality of this seems to be that most women chose to dress themselves like cheap hookers trying to impress a Kwik-Save Hugh Heffner. Skimpy clothing, unfeasibly large breasts and blond hair like a nest of snakes are what passes for normal in there. I can understand that people feel driven to make themselves as attractive as possible, I guess it's just that I'm surprised at their perceptions of what is attractive, and believed that I wasn't really like that.

As soon as my Lindens register, I straight away purchase two pairs of shoes. One buckled pair of rocker boots and a pair of converse high-tops. I then raced to the wig shops and bought two sets of hair, one with a fringe, one without. Both brunette, and all items provided me with the consumery thrill that you get from RL shopping. Yup, it turns out virtual shopping is fun and addictive too. Admitedly I'm still wearing a victorian gown, rock boots and a yellow hard hat with my silky new flexible hair but I'm not as immune to the pressure of fitting in as I once thought I would be.

Clubbing on a Sunday morning

Sunday morning, 9am. Alarm BLARES out some (rather good) music beside my sore head, fresh coffee lures my weary self towards the kitchen and I check my emails. And then before I know it I’ve clicked on the ‘magic hand’ and – woops – off we go – back into SL. I really don’t know how it happened; it was like some invisible force pulling me in which I was powerless to resist!

The next minute I’m teleporting myself to the FOX club (it sounded good in the search listing), where I’m greeted by pretty much everybody, grab myself a few dance moves and OFF WE GO…

The music was brilliant, really friendly crowd, ace lights, atmosphere… everything! Before I know it I’ve been granted VIP membership, given a magic bubble stick and made 6 new French friends – not bad going seeing as it was now only 10am.

But I thought I really should do something productive in RL, so began sorting laundry, hanging things up, cleaning… but all the time streaming the tunes from the FOX club through my speakers (and what a playlist!!) while periodically looking over at the screen to see how Second Self was doing. She (I?) was having a fine old time, and so was I (in RL). Weirdly, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish between my RL and SL selves; after the time, emotions (and money – ha!) invested in my virtual self, and the experiences we/she/I have had together, her joy is my joy; her pain is my pain; her dance moves are… well actually perhaps I need to challenge her (me?) to a dance off. I’m still a nifty mover.

Mind you, she’s got 60 different sets of wings… and can rollerblade up the sides of high buildings. She scaled Sony BMG headquarters yesterday – that’s my girl!

But yeah, to feel ‘excitement by proxy’ through ones avatar dancing in a virtual club – could get into this. Being able to feel (genuinely) glamorous, highly sociable and ecstatically happy while wearing pyjamas and doing household chores… now that’s what I call multitasking! Being able to exist on a recreational level and a practical level at the same time, this is what I’ve always dreamed of!

This third space is fascinating. After an entire w/e spent in SL, with both virtual and RL friends, the boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred. I actually turned round to MT last night (in RL) and called her by her avatar’s name... oh dear.