Here’s something that seems like it escaped from Second Life: Personal Blimp.
Happy 2007!
As twenty aught six draws to a close, we can look back upon the year and truly comprehend how much it was a time in which things undeniably happened. From the very first happenings to the very last happenings, which as I write these words are still in the process of becoming things that have happened, and therefore are yet things that will have happened, each happening enters our group conciousness for an ever-fleeting moment of awareness before rattling around and falling out the hole in the side that we forgot to patch up last year.
Time and time again this year, we looked at our watches, at our calendars, at our organizers, and at the microwave clock that we forgot to reset after the last power-outage, and we knew with a certainty derived from having done it only a minute earlier that now — which is to say it was then, but at the moment in which we thought about it, it was still “now” — now is the time in which we are living, and the last minute earlier is no longer “now” at at all.
With these weighty thoughts pressing on the year’s final moments, 2006 edges towards the precipice of history, below which lies a cascade of tumultuous years that gather dust and become homes for small rodents who use the digits to build nests for their young. I would like to pause for a moment, at the very brink of the dark abyss of 2007 and raise high a beacon to light the way forward: To all who have travelled with me, near me, and occasionally in the opposite direction to me for as many days as there are in the year, of which each is numbered consecutively and unrelentingly from 1 to 365, I wish you a very happy and enjoyable new year! May your days be lively and prosperous, may your refrigerators be always full of your favourite beverages and snacks, and may each of your minutes arrive consecutively and in the order in which they were expected.
Happy 2007, everyone!
Ah! For the carefree winters of childhood!
The arrival of winter in Vancouver is signalled by our first snowfall. The city is transformed by a layer of greyish, slushy snow that threatens to turn into rain without warning.
As I trudged home today, I passed the neighbour’s kid playing in the front yard. He heaved a beachball-sized snowball onto his shoulders, and I heard him chortle quietly, “Hehehe. Dynamite.”
Ah, for the carefree winters of childhood, when playtime meant plotting to use explosives on friends, family, neighbours.
Fame at last!
For as long as I can remember, since I was a small child, I have wanted to be mentioned on ABC News. And now, it’s almost happened. They mentioned the name of my avatar!
SL saturates the news media
The week’s big news is that Reuters spilled the beans. Thanks to their new Second Life News Center the entire world knows about Second Life. Orientation Islands are neck-deep in new arrivals, the peak daily usage has jumped to over 12,000, and Infohubs are overrun with newbie avatars.
The other day, I heard a CBC radio interview with Adam Pasick — the new Reuters bureau chief for Second Life. He’s quite articulate, and seems to have a strong understanding of what Second Life is all about — that it is not a game. The CBC interviewer, sadly, completely failed to grasp the concept of a shared virtual online environment, and repeatedly referred to it as “fictional”, and suggested that any news about the Second Life world would be like writing a movie script.
Here’s a tip to anyone in the news media: Second Life lets real people interact as real people in a virtual environment. Events in Second Life are as real as anything on the Web, for example. You might as well claim that Amazon.com isn’t real.
I suppose that, like any new technology, it may take several years for it to gain general acceptance. Until then, it will be a curiosity on the news websites. (But then, maybe news websites aren’t even real either?)
Second Life also hit the Yahoo.com home page with a Yahoo Tech article, which sent another surge of sign-ups our way. Other mentions of SL in the media include Wired.com, as well a host of regional and local newspapers. Sadly, most of the comments on the Yahoo page are things to the effect of “get a real life, you fat losers”. However, most who make those comments don’t know anything about SL beyond the one Yahoo article, and even then they failed to comprehend what they were reading.
Be sure to visit an Infohub to say hello to our new residents. If they want go skydiving, send them to Abbotts. Fat losers are welcome.