Second Life Noob

Zankisha

2007-08-25T15:49:00.000-05:00

The other day I got an e-mail from a SL resident inviting me to take a survey. So I finally had a chance today to log on and check it out. I had a notecard with a teleport address, so I went there. I clicked on the survey board, but it didn't work. Maybe you had to take the survey right away. Too bad, since I could have earned L$400 for doing it.

But I was on the site, so I figured I would poke around some more. I did a search for places with the word "church." There was a church of Satan and some of the fundamentalist churches I'd seen before. But this time I also saw the Koinonia United Church of Christ, so I decided to pay them a visit.

They had a great looking place and I was just about to go in and look around (I don't even know where they're located in real life) when another avatar named Zankisha appeared. She had some very familiar looking hair and clothes--obviously she had started with the same City Chic prototype that I had--but she had also added large, black wings.

I opened the chat window and told her I recognized the hair. She laughed and we began a conversation. She's a Canadian from British Columbia and headed to college for the first time in a few weeks. Since she was going off to college her dad got her a new computer so now she had the graphics card to do Second Life. She was, as I guessed, new to SL. She turned 18 in June.

Since we were the only two people at the Koinonia UCC, I asked her what brought her to the church. She said she thought it was a restaurant from the look of the building. I told her she would only get bread and grape juice here, and she laughed. She had wandered over from another island that adjoined the one the church was on.

I asked why she joined Second Life. She said she was a lesbian and was looking for a safe community. I told her she had come to a GLBT friendly church. She said the island that adjoined the one the church was on was not friendly. She thought it was odd that opposite attitudes were right next to each other. I said that maybe the UCC had set up there on purpose to provide a safe haven where there wasn't one. We chatted for quite awhile just about things in general and ended up marking each other as friends.

My encounter with this young woman made me all the more determined that the Massachusetts Bible Society should add yet one more friendly place for Zankisha on SL. And it made me sad that we live in a world, even in Canada, where some people only feel safe in a virtual world.

As my colleagues debate whether virtual worlds are helpful, it seems to me that the most helpful thing is for more kind people to inhabit them and provide safety in the same way that we try to be there for folks in the real world. At the same time that I'm exploring Second Life, I'm a Night Elf Druid in World of Warcraft. (WoW players, look for Anfyral in Zangarmarsh--level 20 and counting!) There's a young teen from the Bronx who looks for me whenever he is online to group with him and to go on quests together. He sent me mail on WoW saying that I was his best friend. I help him level up, wait through the computer trials as he tries to play a game like that on a dial-up computer, and make him good armor with my leatherworking skills. He has no idea he's playing with a 48-year-old woman who heads up a Bible Society, but probably his parents would be relieved to know the true identity of the Druid guarding their son.

Call me crazy, but I think it's possible to have the virtual Body of Christ.

Politics

2007-08-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

Things have been pretty quiet on the Second Life front. I logged in one earlier time to do a search on "Boston" and see if Emerson College had anything live that I could visit. They didn't, at least not that I could find. I wandered around a bit more and found a nice place to buy birdhouses, but no people to talk to. I logged in another time to accept a friend request.

When I logged back in today I decided to see if Hillary Clinton had a Second Life presence. Of course she does--a very nice place and it even has a podium where you can give a speech. I'm not sure how that works and didn't try it out. There were copies of recent speeches and several boards that told about various phases of her life. There was a dance floor and a baby grand piano and a great water area.

Vita Demina was sitting on the couch. She turned out to be a teacher in Pennsylvania and we had a great conversation about our political climate and the mystery of why there is such venom against Hillary Clinton in so many quarters. You can like her or not like her but I don't see any grounds for people hating her. Sounds like a personal problem to me.

We agreed that we liked her and hoped she wins. I told her about the video I just uploaded on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP3R65vG0eg. It's titled The Grim Reaper Political Action Committee (and if you like Dick Cheney, you probably don't want to view it). She said she'd check it out and we officially became friends. I'll go back and check out Hillary's place at a time when people aren't at work and check out the other candidate sites as well. Good place to meet people.

Land Possibility

2007-07-25T13:53:00.000-05:00

I'll be back to Second Life as soon as I finish reading Harry Potter, but in the meantime, I saw this article in the Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/07/21/hub_of_the_online_universe_city_plans_a_virtual_boston/. It looks like the City of Boston is being given a virtual life, so I'm trying to make connection with the head of that project to see if we could have space for MBS right in its current Boston location! That would be very cool. We're on Beacon Hill and my office overlooks the old Granary Burying Ground, which is part of the Freedom Trail. So I suspect this part of the city will be high on the list of early areas to create.

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

2007-07-09T08:14:00.000-05:00

So real life has kept me out of Second Life for a bit and when I finally went back I appeared right where I had last exited...in the pews of the ALM Cyberchurch.

Since it was Saturday night, the sanctuary was empty and I took advantage of the solitude to try to organize my inventory and to edit my appearance a bit more. I had never done the editing of my avatar while viewing side angles and when I figured out how to rotate the camera, I found that Voces' face was way too flat for her other features when viewed from the side and her City Chic torso was a bit too well-endowed.

And my inventory was quite cluttered. When you pick up boxes of free things, there's a lot of stuff that won't appeal to you, so you can ditch it. For me that meant the male avatars and clothes, things like Vampire skin and, ironically, the pile of Jesus-related T-shirts I got at the Dokimos Cafe. Not that I have anything against Jesus, mind you, but the messages just weren't my style. There wasn't one that asked "Who would Jesus bomb?" (which is one of my favorite bumper stickers), so out they went.

As I was purging my inventory of purple hair and spiked collars, someone walked into the sanctuary. The group name above his head was SL Body of Christ and the name was Pastor Reifsnider. Not the guy who preached a couple of weeks ago. He came up and said hello and gave me a teleport to a prayer and praise service that was about to start in another location. It seems that the 7-7-07 date was not just appealing to those getting married but also to the numerological branch of Christianity. Seven is, of course, the number of perfection in the Bible, so I guess it seemed like a "perfect" time for such a service. Not wanting to seem rude, I teleported there to the area called "Bodhisena."

I ended up in an outdoor amphitheater (okay, it's virtual outdoors, but you get the drift) with some others standing around. They had names like "JH Senior Pastor Rick Liveoak" "Apostle to the Goths Ulfilas Graves" "EC Owner Sonic Rang" and the group-less "Faith Enoch." Just like in church, no one spoke to me. That has been an interesting phenomenon. In non-religious areas, when I walk in people say hello and we often start a conversation. Not in these Christian groups. Maybe because I ditched my T-shirts. Perhaps I should change my group name from "Friend of Tolkien" to "Sinner in Need of Saving" to get some attention. Or re-endow my torso.

Anyway, the guy at the front several times said things would be getting underway shortly and invited people to take a seat on one of the benches. I did, and Faith looked like she might, but others disregarded the injunction. After a bit, so did I. And, heathen that I am, I wandered off to a series of Native American posters I saw in the adjoining lot.

I clicked on one of the posters. They were for sale and one gave me a notecard. The card encouraged purchase of the posters so that the Native American group could pay someone to create the animated gestures that would let an avatar do the Ghost Dance. I read with a touch of sadness as it said, "So that we can pray, too, and not just the Christians." Other cards told of White Buffalo Calf Woman, a legend I have a sort of odd connection to, and which tipped me off that those who owned the area were connected at least loosely to the Lakota Sioux.

Thinking maybe I had stumbled on an area with other religions I wandered further and did find a little Christian chapel. But there was no information inside, no praying poses or anything. But mostly it was shops and I noticed I had left Bodhisena and was now in Batchelor. Just beyond that there was some land for sale near some water, so I made a note of that.

I flew around some more and saw another church--more a New England style--white with traditional steeple. I went in. It was a country store. I found a dance hall in Asanga. Nobody was there, but if I clicked on a particular dance style, my avatar would get her groove on and do whatever it was. After a bit of Salsa I noticed a couple of swords on the floor and, being a Robertson, I clicked and Voces leapt into an award-winning sword dance. It was a bit less satisfying since there was rock music playing and not bagpipes, but still--she was good and not the slightest bit winded at the end!

I flew down to some homes and looked around. One was empty and for sale. Not on that land, but you could buy a copy of the house and its contents to put on your own land. It was a possible beginning dwelling for the MBS and cheap, so I got a copy. I saw another home in a different style and opened the door. There was a man inside, lying down on some pillows, and an animation ball above the pillows said "lie with him." Ummm...I don't think so. I closed the door and flew away.

Then I remembered that a place called Svarga was supposed to be very cool, so I searched for it and teleported there. The reports were correct. I found myself initially next to a single-person transportation pod that offered a guided tour of Svarga. I got on and it took over, flying me over the area and describing the places of interest.

Unfortunately I missed part of the tour because my real life dog, who was outside ostensibly to do his business, began to chase after someone on the street. "Ruckus!" I shouted, "I'm on a guided tour of Svarga and can't pause it!" But Ruckus was unimpressed with my plight and continued his wayward behavior. So I had to go tend to my neighborly duties and corral the dog. I got back in for the very end of the tour and shortly thereafter ended my session.

It wasn't me!

2007-07-04T13:19:00.000-05:00

I picked up the following information from a great e-newsletter I get called TechCrunch:

"A case of alleged copyright infringement in Second Life is heading to court.
According to Reuters, Second Life entrepreneur Kevin Alderman, the owner of Eros LLC, a company that makes virtual sex beds, filed the “Eros LLC vs John Doe” lawsuit on Tuesday.
Second Life user Volkov Catteneo is alleged to have copied and distributed the “SexGen Bed”, an item that sells for L$12,000 ($45.11). The lawsuit seeks to force Linden Lab to disclose Catteneo’s real-world identity, as well as asking Catteneo for damages.
The case, the first of its kind for Second Life, will be interesting from a legal perspective. There is no legal precedent for the case, and as Stanford University’s Lauren Gelman said in a Four Corners report earlier this year, the concept of virtual property ownership is vexed:
“All of this is virtual bits and bytes, ones and zeros that are sitting on the servers at Second Life’s headquarters and the server farms they have around the world…how much can you own something that’s really under the control and domain of another party, this is really where the law is being tested to see how they’re going to figure that out.”
On the surface it also seems a little strange that Linden Lab has not already dealt with it; Second Life has strict rules in relation to copyright infringement and has previously acted in favor of in-world copyright owners. "

But...just for the record...it is not the Mass. Bible Society stealing the SexGen Bed!

Church

2007-06-24T20:05:00.000-05:00

I've spent most of the weekend getting a new laptop set up ("downloading update 1 of 57...") so it wasn't until today that I had a chance to visit SL again. Since I was home, I decided I would visit someplace peculiar to my interests and did a search on groups related to J.R.R. Tolkien. There were several, and I joined the one with the most members...the Tolkien Education Center and Museum in Eldamar.

Group names appear above the head of your Avatar, so Voces now has "Friend of Tolkien" above her name. Once the Bible Society has its own group, that name can go up there. I'm assuming that if you belong to more than one group, you can pick which one defines you. If not, the Massachusetts Bible Society will simply have to live with being a friend of Tolkien. Could be worse, but I won't go into that...

I had a good time at the Tolkien Center and dropped some Linden dollars on an Arwen gown, a celtic cross, and some furniture that may come in handy later on. There were some elaborate residences for sale that I took cards about--styles out of Rivendell and Lorien, and a castle or two. There were some caves also, presumably for the dwarven types.

I picked up some free Tolkien stuff, most notably a bracelet that triggers Tolkien trivia questions when near a treasure chest. I needed Gwyneth by my side who has a much better memory than I do for Middle Earth history (outside of the events in the books and movies). I did not do very well.

After wandering around the lovely land of Eldamar and then some of Eragon and wondering if the Bible Society wouldn't like to have a castle near an elven tree house, I decided that I would pop over to the dokimos cafe and pick up the Second Life Bible. As you will recall, I got e-mail right after joining from California Condor inviting me there. It's basically a Christian hangout, although no Christians were there hanging out except me. Of course it's Sunday and good Christians are in church and not home on their computers.

Except for the Christians who attend the ALM Cyber Church. I saw it on a list of churches in a search. I teleported to the church and looked around. The outside was contemporary and very colorful. I walked in and saw a notice that a worship service was to begin in 28 minutes! Obviously God wanted to be sure that I did not burn in hell for missing a Sunday at church and provided an opportunity where one would least expect it. SL runs on Pacific time, so it was a normal 11 am service, 2 pm in my time zone. I had company arriving at 3 pm and realized the clothes I was planning to wear were still in the washer, so I logged off, dashed down to the dryer, did a few other things to get ready in case the service took a full hour, and then logged back in for church.

The doors to the sanctuary were open and a few people had begun to gather. I went forward to one of the pews toward the front, right clicked on the seat and chose "sit down" from the menu. it told me there was no room. Well, there were only two other people in a pew that could have sat 15. But there was no room. I tried a pew with only one other person. No room. "Hey," I thought, "This is truly like a real church. I must be trying to sit in someone else's pew!" After several more pitiful attempts to find a seat, I caught on that you left-click instead and the avatar just sits down. A number of people were coming in now. No one spoke to me. A true church visitor experience--don't know where to sit, unfriendly people, etc.

Soon some folks began to walk up to the chancel in the front. Of course I took some pictures.

The screens ran announcements before the service and there was praise music playing as we gathered. The avatar on the piano was a furry--the name for those who choose animal avatars. The guy who came up to play the guitar was named Blundergroin Snoats. The pastor's name was Benjamin Psaltery. I'm absolutely sure there was no option of Psaltery for a last name when I signed up. Hmmm.

As the service was about to begin the pastor invited us to touch the pulpit and get a card. Right-clicking on an object and selecting the "touch" option is how you get things or operate things and none of us had to leave our pews to do it. The card had the order of service, which consisted of words to the praise songs, several scripture readings, and a place to take notes on the sermon. The songs were "There Is A River," "Humble Yourself" and "Hallelujah." The Scripture passages were Daniel 10:1-12, Jeremiah 29:13, and Daniel 10:20-21.

After inviting us to get the card, the pastor announced some prayer requests which sounded like real ones, so I'm guessing there's someplace there where you can put prayer requests. As he named those folks and then prayed, the furry avatar played at the piano. Also on the announcement screen was a notice that you could stay in the foyer afterwards for prayer and counseling. I noticed that California Condor was present. The screens advertised the dokimos cafe.

As you can see in the picture, there were several microphones across the front, but someone only came up to one of them and the praise songs began. Unlike the music playing as we came in, which was a professional recording by a contemporary Christian artist, the praise songs seemed to actually be the voices of the pastor and the one woman at the microphone in back. They weren't quite singing in different keys, but it was off enough to know that this was either performed live or recorded in someone's garage. We had the words to the songs, but if there was a way to actually sing along, I never discovered it.

Of course like in many evangelical churches, most of the worshippers were slipping off into their own little praise worlds--an interesting concept when you're already an avatar in a virtual world, but so it goes. As the singing went on, we were invited to stand--gotta stretch those legs, you know--and I took another picture of the congregation.

That is Voces in the foreground. I don't remember if I took a picture of myself with my new clothes on. As you can see, it was quite an eclectic mix. I don't know that I've ever seen a techno-warrior in church before, let alone a techno-warrior praising the Lord--check out the front pew across the aisle from me.

I discovered that one of the things I had been given in the box of freebies at the dokimos cafe was a folder of animations. Animations are things that your avatar can do in motion. These were specifically worship animations, which is what those avatars with their hands up in the air were doing. I turned on the "worship the Lord" animation and instantly Voces was in the praise groove, hands in the air and swaying side to side. I added the "receive" animation, which moved her arms from straight up to out in front of her, elbows bent and resting at the waist, hands upturned to receive. With the first animation still going, she held the new pose and swayed. When I turned off the first animation, she stopped swaying but left her hands in the receive pose. There was a praying pose also, which is the more traditional hands folded and head bowed.

I suspect there's a sermon there in the ability to turn worship animations on and off like that.

The music went on for quite some time and wasn't all that good. It was then I realized how handy it is to be able to have your avatar sit dutifully in church while you are in the next room folding laundry. When I came back, Voces was kind of slumped over, which is what happens to your avatar when you have been idle for a bit--or what happens to you in real life if you fall asleep in church! If I had stayed that way for 30 minutes, Second Life would have logged me off. But, one bump of the mouse, and Voces was back in the final strains of "Hallelujah."

The pastor read the first Daniel passage as the piano played and then began what seemed a rather shallow but not offensive sermon. He talked about how we rush about our business and don't wait for God to speak. Time and time again he said "God hears you from the very first day you seek him." "You have God's attention. Give it your all." He talked about Daniel humbling himself and seeking after God.

And then, like I would have expected from the Romans Road stuff on the walls of the dokimos cafe, it took a turn. "God is not a nice teddy bear who will embrace everyone like some churches think," Pastor Psaltery warned. "God does not turn a blind eye to sin. If you reject the sacrifice of the cross, judgment is coming. An hour from now you could be out of your body waiting for the gavel to fall with your judgment." And so it went from God longing for you and waiting for you and hearing you from the very first day to God salivating for that moment when the gavel comes down and the trap door to hell opens beneath your feet.

Thrown in was an occasional mocking of traditional spiritual disciplines ("Daniel didn't skip his favorite TV show and eat fish instead of steak for three weeks..."), which was an interesting choice of things to attack when preaching from Daniel since it is Daniel and his friends who gain favor with the King by sticking to their religious discipline of not eating the meat in the royal household. But I digress.

I had to log off before the end of the sermon, since my company was arriving, but I'm not sure I could have stomached the rest of it anyway. I'm virtually (no pun intended) sure that it all ended with the typical "now with every head bowed and every eye closed" type of altar call, but I couldn't stay.

Another religious voice is clearly needed in Second Life. Now I need to scope out some land with the "Where would Jesus live?" question informing my search. Probably not in the castle in Eldamar, which is a pity.

unknown friends

2007-06-18T12:48:00.000-05:00

My next stop on info island told me about an upcoming Second Life scavenger hunt. Sounded interesting, but what caught my eye was an area advertising Techsoup.org: The technology place for nonprofits. That would be me.

So, I teleported to the Nonprofit Commons. It was basically a city, and I presume the buildings are for rent to non-profits. It's easy to wander out into for-profit areas, but I wandered about and found organizations like Preferred Family Healthcare, the Transgendered Resource Center, Refugees United, and Cystic Fibrosis Support. I also found a place called Good Samaritan, thinking it was related to the counseling center hosted by many churches. It wasn't. Apparently they help people on SL. Nobody was there, but there were free things--free textures and an age identifyer (for all those people lying about being 39?).

With nobody around (remind me not to rent in the non-profit sector!) and things for free, I was reminded that the SL guide I bought told me about a place called the Freebie Warehouse. Sounded like my kind of place, so I did a search and teleported there.

The Warehouse is set up like, well, a warehouse with lots of big boxes and not much else. When you right-click on each box, it reveals the contents and gives you the option to buy. They are all zero dollars, but you "buy" them anyway. There are vehicles and gadgets, furniture and buildings, clothing, and weapons. I haven't picked up any weapons, but I took everything else and will now have to sort through over a thousand items in my inventory and delete what I don't want.

I can't figure out how to look at clothes without actually wearing them. After having a couple of people run into me because I was just standing there trying on clothes, I moved in between a couple of the boxes. I just had ended up with different hair again when a woman in a white jumpsuit came by. She saw me, stopped, and said hello. "R u nu?" she asked in her best text-speak. I alluded that I was. She said this was her first day which already made her more adept than I was since she was off of Help Island, was wearing non-noob clothes, and had been places.

She told me she had already been to a monastery, the beach, and a church. It was an interesting set of locations, so I asked her about her choices and if she were religious. "I'm a Christian," she said. Obviously this was not a coincidence--hiding amongst the boxes as I was. I told her that I was head of the Massachusetts Bible Society and that I was clergy. Her SL name is Rilis and in real life she is an executive with a large computer company. I felt better about my inferior abilities. She was there for the same reason I was--to scope out SL so that her company can have a presence there.

We had a great conversation and became official Second Life friends, which makes her the first friend that I don't know, which is a decidedly odd thing to say. Her family came home and she had to go, but first she gave me the landmark for the monastery she visited. I teleported there and she left.

There is some lovely artwork in the monastery, all of it that I saw by German artists. When I clicked on each piece, I got a notecard about the art in German. Click again and you get it in English. There were a couple of people in monk's robes around, but I needed to wander to an unoccupied room to get my hair back. Another odd thing to be saying.

I found a nice room with some benches, sat Voces down, and set to work on the hair.

I got that basically figured out and saw a Bible on a stand that you could click on. As I was trying to make it open or something, a man in a green suit with wings and a cigar flew in a window. Just another day in my life...

Anyway, his SL name was Philosopher Iohan Beck. I don't know if he used "Philosopher" as part of his name or if that's a category you can adopt. The Iohan Beck part coupled with the German cards made me think I was in a German monastery, but as Iohan and I got talking, I discovered he was from Mexico. We found that we had a love of Kierkegaard in common, an interest he had not yet found in another SL person. So we became friends--the second friend I don't know.

Iohan invited me to come and meet the Cardinal and I followed him about the monastery grounds until we found him talking with another monk. All in Spanish. I really do need to learn Spanish. I could make out some of what they were saying just from common usage and a few things taught to me young by my Aunt Judy, who teaches Spanish. Iohan volunteered to translate for me.

I greeted the Cardinal. He speaks three languages, and I said that's how he got to be Cardinal. He said he was lobbying for pope, and we all agreed he would need at least nine languages for that.

It was getting late and I had an early morning coming, so I took my leave and logged out. Apparently there's a visitor's center for the monastery, which I missed somehow, so when I log back in (you go back to the place you left), I'll check that out. I'll also check out the surrounding area in case it might be suitable for MBS land.

Interfaith Relations

2007-06-16T11:25:00.000-05:00

So I entered the Peace Park. I went first to my left to visit the mosque. A board on the outside gave me some links to information about Islam and asked me to remove my shoes before entering. A challenge for a noob, but I went into my inventory, found my shoes, right-clicked and selected "remove." Voila. No shoes. Nobody was around to see if I kept them on, but I like to respect the various customs.

It was a small little chapel with an information board inside about various customs and tenets of Islam. When you click on those things you get a notecard with a copy of the information that you can either delete or keep. I got the notecard. Then I noticed a green ball floating in mid-air that said "pray." I clicked on it, but nothing happened. I went back out, put on my shoes and walked over to the Christian chapel.

The sign didn't ask me to remove my shoes, but it gave me lots and lots of links to various Christian sites on the web. I went in. More green balls that said "praying." I remembered something from Help Island that talked about posing balls and figured that's what these were. I right-clicked this time and selected the option to sit down. Here's what Voces did.

That's a King James Bible you see on the lectern. Click on it and you get links to sites where you can read the KJV. The little white floating cross is what you click on to get specific information about Christianity. There were definitions for terms from Adam and Eve to Jesus, but didn't go further down the alphabet. The note said that the card was incomplete. I couldn't quite tell if Voces was kneeling down since I couldn't back up in my view any further without going through the back wall. When an avatar is using a posing ball, you can move around without the avatar moving.

I stood her up and we went back out into the Peace Park. A board advertised "The Essential Dalai Lama." It was a slide show. The first slide said "The most rapid and direct means to eternal bliss." Ironically it took some time to load!

Next to that was an open-air altar for Hinduism. Here it is:

When you right click on the fruit basket you can get a peeled banana which you then "wear" to have it show on your avatar. I wore a banana once in real life when I forgot it was in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing tied around my waist on a hike. It was an unpleasant experience. From the appearance of the altar, it seems that some left their gift bananas behind. Mine is back in my inventory.

Beside that was an apple tree. Fortunately it did not allow you to eat the apples or perhaps I would have found myself booted out of the garden! I did sit under the tree, however.

Yes, the hair is different from the photos from the Big Hair posts. As I noted back there, I forgot to save the new hair, so this is other hair that I edited. I liked the other better and will get back to it if I can. Behind Voces is a Buddhist shrine, and I went there next. There were the usual cards with links and information, and more posing balls. These said "meditation" and it struck me that I might get a different pose. Sure enough:
It was nice that I could just click "stand up" and up she came. If I assumed that pose for any length of time in real life, I would need to call 911.

I was quite struck with the artwork in this shrine. Here's a picture of the wall opposite the one you can see above.

There was also a Jewish synagogue with a Torah Scroll and then a garden in the center with a card for everything else from Atheism to Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism. The latter was set up as a link and the Druid in me needed to click on it. I got a message saying that I wasn't allowed to see that information. So much for interfaith relations!

As a side note, I got that blue streak on the back of my arm when I told the "editing appearance" guide to give me longer sleeves. I got the same short sleeves with blue marks on my arm. Clearly I have more to learn about fashion.

Info Island

2007-06-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure who The Pathfinder is, but when I logged in, I was in his office. The different regions of SL are called "Sims" and I was in the Ambleside one, in Linden Village, in the Pathfinder's office. A bar across the top gives you both the name of the location and its coordinates on the map.

I looked around at some of the displays and found a board that said "Real Life Education Places in Second Life." There is real research going on here by established universities and agencies. NOAA had both weather and ecosystem simulations, there was the International Spaceflight Museum, and some social experiments. I opted to go to Info Island, which seemed like a wise next step after Help Island. I hit the teleport button and found myself in the SL Library on Info Island. The area was coded "mature," but everyone seemed to be dressed.

There was a lovely librarian who engaged me in chat and gave me a card that would supposedly take me back to Help Island, since I left involuntarily. I have yet to try it out. There was a woman nearby named Jaclyn Sparrow, which sounded enough like Jack Sparrow that I asked if she were a Pirates fan. No response. The librarian typed in "Jaclyn is a bit laggy today." I indicated that I knew the feeling.

When people chat, their avatars assume a typing pose, standing up, but typing on a keyboard, as you hear the click of the keys. It's a helpful indicator that someone is trying to say something. I decided that this was a safe enough place to explore--no guns anywhere to be seen--so I didn't try to return to Help Island. Instead I looked at what the Island has to offer which is, surprisingly enough, information.

I found a board labeled "Religious Resources" and teleported there. At first it didn't seem terribly religious. I landed facing Mystery Manor, which claimed to be under construction and invited me to come back. I traveled down the walkway and saw the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Portal Library. I read in an SL guidebook that I bought that there is a group for Tolkien fans. I made a mental note to revisit that board, but I was still on a religious quest. This is my job, after all!

I thought I must be headed in the wrong direction, so I turned around and went the other way. Soon a building labeled the Genealogy Research Center was looming in front of me. A sign on the side said "Beginning Jewish Genealogy" so I thought I was getting warmer. I didn't go in that building, but I can't imagine the Mormons aren't around there somewhere. I'd be lost (as would most of my ancestors) without their familysearch website.

I turned the corner from the genealogy building and saw an iron gate (well, virtual iron). Above the gate was a sign "Religious Resources." Another sign labeled it the Peace Park. Here's the entrance.

no more help

2007-06-14T15:27:00.000-05:00

So my techie friend (Gwyneth from SL) is here and I figured I would have her help me figure out how to get my laptop graphics to do Second Life. We hunted for an update to my driver, found one, downloaded it, and my laptop said it would not install. How rude.

So I logged on to SL. While I could see a bit more than my last attempt at the office, much of the scenery was still just a gray mass. As I wandered around I saw a sign for a guide book. I touched it and it promised the book would be delivered to my inventory. I wandered into a new house on Help Island where you can practice sitting on furniture, opening and closing the blinds, etc.

There was a kiosk for a newspaper and I clicked on it. It told me that a copy of the paper would be delivered to my inventory. Another avatar came into the house. The head was a "he" with a little goatee beard. The body was a "she" and wearing a dress. And s/he was carrying the torch from orientation island.

Remembering my own torch struggles, I smiled, betting that s/he couldn't put it down. Sure enough, as soon as s/he got into chatting range the words came across my screen, "How the hell do I drop this thing?!" Unfortunately, I couldn't quite remember what I had done to get rid of it. I made a few suggestions. I looked again and s/he was carrying a sword instead of the torch. In another second the sword was replaced with a car, stuck to the side of the avatar. He went off muttering.

Then an avatar named Kung Fu came into the house. He had a large oval can in place of a head. Because of the can I'm just guessing at the sex, but I know very few women who would walk around the world...even a virtual one...with a can for a head. Must be a guy.

He called to me through the chat system and as I tried to respond, that's when I got stuck again. I couldn't move, couldn't chat. It crashed and I had to exit.

In the meantime, Gwyneth was on my desktop and discovered why I was having problems. The graphics card in my laptop wasn't one that was supported by SL. It predicted I would have exactly the problems I was having. But the problem is bigger than that. The card in my laptop can't be upgraded. Well, I figured, it's a few years old. Maybe it's time for a new laptop. But new laptops come with Windows Vista. SL won't work on Vista (quite a bit doesn't work on Vista apparently). So that's not good.

I checked my e-mail. I had two notes from SL, each one telling me that to receive the item I had clicked on earlier in my inventory I had to log in. It gave me a link--different e-mail for each item. Even though I figured it would probably freeze up, I thought I would at least log in and get the items.

I clicked on the link. A large map spread before me. I was in-world. This was not help island any more. And once you leave help island you can't go back. So I'm guessing that I'm done with trying to sit on furniture and will have to roam about on my own in the...ummm...real world. But I will do so next on my desktop.

Other info

2007-06-10T06:51:00.000-05:00

For those of you who think I'm crazy (for doing Second Life, not for other reasons!) here's an article from the Religion News Service about religion in Second Life:

http://www.religionnews.com/ArticleofWeek060707.html

Friends

2007-06-09T10:15:00.000-05:00

I'm off at a conference and finally had a chance to check my e-mail. There was a Second Life e-mail from an avatar named Gwyneth who wanted to be my friend! I suspected that this was someone official from the site--or perhaps a new kind of spam, since the last name wasn't Linden. But lo and behold there was another e-mail from my real-life best friend saying that she had created an avatar named Gwyneth.

Gwyneth is obviously much smarter than I am, since I had no clue about the friends thing. And, not-so-bright person that I am, I went back quickly to the Second Life e-mail and clicked on the link. Unfortunately that was the link to click if I didn't want to receive any more e-mail IM messages! So I had to undo what I had just undone.

Then I logged into the world and found the friend request was still there, much to my relief. So Gwyneth and I are now buddies in both our real and virtual lives.

I also had e-mail from California Condor, offering me a script. Scripts are bits of computer code that represent dynamic content for Second Life. Apparently California Condor has created a Second Life Bible. If I go to the Dokimos Cafe in Second Life, I can get the script for free. With it, a Bible will be invisibly attached to my avatar (don't know what version). Once it is attached, if I want to quote Scripture, I can just type in chapter and verse and it will come up. I'm not sure if it will also work as a concordance and finish a phrase I begin or not. But the next time I get a chance, I will head into the fuller virtual world and look for the Dokimos Cafe.

Probably that will not be for a few days, however. As I mentioned, I'm at a Conference, which isn't over until tomorrow night. Plus, when I went online here through my laptop, I was having the same display issues I had back at the office. So I have to figure out if I can update my display drivers somehow or if my Second Life will be limited to my desktop.

My first life is calling...

Hair Success

2007-06-01T16:52:00.000-05:00

This was the problem with Voces' hair. Not that it is un-cute the way it is, but it wasn't what I wanted for the Bible Society. I played with editing appearance some more and got nowhere. So then I gave up for a bit and went to a different part of Help Island--the free store. I think that may well be an oxymoron, but there it was--a place to purchase things for 0 Linden dollars.

So I got some different clothes, some furniture for an eventual house...even a couple of pre-fab houses! And a couple of boxes with names like "Green stuff" and "Yellow stuff." You could also pick up new avatars. I left the green dragon but took the white wolf and the...ummm...banana. As I was opening those things up in my inventory, I looked in the inventory folder I had called "clothes." In it was not only clothing but hair--including City Chic hair. I removed it from the folder of things I was wearing and was left with the hair I had designed underneath all that. Here it is:

Obviously there is a picture-taking feature in Second Life.

Unfortunately, I neglected to save my new hair as an object. So, when I tried on the chartreuse hair that I got at the free store and wanted to change back...well, I had the option of the City Chic Hair again or another longer and more normal style from the free store. That new hair I could edit and I came up with something similar, but not exact.

Then I went on about the island. I went past the sign that said "No weapons" and another that reminded me this was a PG zone and I should keep my clothes on. Apparently there is a "mature" section, and (one would guess from the first sign) a section where one might get shot. Even a virtual second life isn't free from guns apparently.

I went to a line of music stands with barbershop parts, picked the alto, and Voces sang. I saw the instructions on how to move a beach ball, but someone seems to have taken the ball, as I couldn't find it. I got some free dance moves at the store, which may be why I couldn't dance before. I looked for the dance floor, but didn't find it again.

As I roamed to different areas, suddenly Voces began to run. She ran through a wall and got stuck in a sand dune. I couldn't move her at all. After a minute or so I heard a little ping and a message told me that the simulator I was on was going down. It gave me the option to quit, so I did. I have no idea whether I will come back with the same hair!

Help Island

2007-05-31T11:17:00.001-05:00

So, I get to Help Island. I got to decide whether I wanted to be able to hear music and watch videos. Little question marks rotate here and there and when you click on them it tells you how to do things. I learned how to sit down and why I should have a posing stand.

I learned about prims (relating to "primary") which are objects that you create in Second Life. Anything you can create in real life you can create in Second Life but, like in real life, you need talent to do so. I made a box.

They make a big deal out of prims because whatever you create you own...legally...for real. It is intellectual property. You can sell it for real money if you can find a buyer, which many folks can. Over a million real US dollars changes hands in Second Life each day. Not that my box is going to allow me to retire, but still, it is mine. I know it, and if I put it on the ground, anyone who clicks on it can see who made it and whether the creator allows others to copy it, alter it, take it, or whatever. I put it down on the ground.

Then I explored other places. There was a game area on Help Island where you could sit down and play chess, play hangman, Sudoku, pinball, and a variety of other games.

I learned to fly.

And then along came this short, fat woman who plowed right into me and pushed me around. I moved. She followed me. Wherever I went she followed, pushing me around and shouting "RARARAR." I was about to quit just to get away, but then I didn't see her any more. So perhaps the "help" removed her.

I found a dance floor. A floating question mark told me how to stop dancing. But I wasn't dancing yet and I didn't know how to start dancing. That remains to be discovered. There was a goth guy on the dance floor, too, but he wasn't dancing either.

I saw a couple other folks on Help Island, but no one named Linden was immediately apparent. Which was too bad. I had figured out how to put the torch away, but am still living with the big hair. Maybe it was the hair that set off the short, fat lady.

It was getting late, so I signed off. This morning I had e-mail from Second Life saying that they had found my box and put it in my lost and found folder!

Big hair

2007-05-31T11:05:00.000-05:00

One of the things I want to change about City Chic is the hairstyle. She begins with this big hair sticking out to both sides. Of course in good old "editing appearance" there are umpteen options for hair, including color, where you want the part, length, body, spikes, ponytails, etc. But as I tweaked those, it seemed to affect the hair closest to my head, but not the big poofs on either side. In the mini-pictures in the hair section it looked fine, but Voces still had the poofs. I haven't yet figured out how to change that.

I changed a little bit with the clothes...went from a bright red to a royal blue, but more remains to be done there. And apparently you can buy clothes and such within SL.

When I started up again at home, I noticed that the place where I had first landed actually had tutorials. In each of four areas you were assigned a task--learning to move around, learning to communicate, learning how to interact with objects, etc. I successfully picked up a torch out of my inventory (which brought back fond memories of Zork and lessons in grue avoidance), but that little tutorial never told me how to get rid of the thing.

Once I had completed all four tasks, however, it told me that I could go to Help Island where I could find out more. The on-screen prompts assured me that lots of SL guides would be on Help Island to...ummm...help. I would know them it said because all of the official SL helpers have the last name of Linden...for Linden labs that invented Second Life.

So, torch in hand...trying to keep it from igniting my big hair...I clicked to go to Help Island.

Editing Appearance

2007-05-31T10:48:00.000-05:00

So, I end up in this area outside the gates of the SL world. There are some other folks around. I can see their SL names above the heads of their avatars, and most of them are posed with arms and legs outstretched...sort of like the Vitruvian Man...and under their names it says "editing appearance."

I had no idea how to do that. From the toolbar across the top I guessed (successfully) at the editing tab and soon I, too, was a Virtruvian woman editing my appearance. Up came a little box where I could determine the slope of my forehead (back a bit), the puffiness of my eyes (not puffy, thank you), the fullness of my lips (a little less sultry than the City Chic basic and a bit more fitting for a Bible Society, but not pursed either!), and all sorts of options for skin color (I went darker), hair and clothes.

My laptop was having display issues, and as I worked on facial features, I kept seeing a face that looked more like a paper mache head than the skin and features I was editing.

And then some other guy entered the area who was not editing his appearance. I had not moved Voces from the place where she initially landed, and apparently that's where everybody new lands. He landed in my space and as he moved forward, he pushed Voces all the way to the stone wall. "Hey!" I thought, "What are you doing? I'm editing my appearance!" With the strange posture, I thought that made me safe from being shoved around. NOT!

It also didn't keep others from coming over to chat--espeically guys who didn't know that Voces was on her way from City Chic to the Massachusetts Bible Society. They wanted to chat. "I'm from Brazil." "I'm from Italy." "Do you know how to get a job?"

"I'm editing my appearance!!" I did figure out the chat button. You can chat to those close by, shout and be heard by those further away, or IM just to one individual.

But then the display problems on my laptop combined with people pushing me around and not being able to figure out how to move back and the ticking of the clock which indicated the advent of my train home, I quit and decided to do more at home.

Birthday

2007-05-31T10:35:00.000-05:00

Voces Amat was born on May 30, 2007. I went to Second Life (www.secondlife.com), clicked on "join" and put in the information. I got a premium membership so that I can do anything, including purchase land, and have access to lots of help! If you don't want to own land, membership is free, so you can have a second life and come join the online Bible society for free if you want. And I hope you will.

But back to the birthday. When someone is born, the parents have to come up with a name, which is what we did in the office yesterday. The Massachusetts Bible Society slogan is "One book, many voices" so I wanted something that related to that. "Voces" is "voices" in Latin, which seemed both cool and appropriate, so we picked that for a first name. Kudos to Office Manager, Sandy, who knew the plural for vox without thinking twice!

We couldn't be quite as creative with the last name, since SL makes you pick from a list of last names. It is a long list, however, and since "Amat" is Latin for "he/she/it loves" the combination seemed the best. Voces Amat it was.

Gender? Are you kidding? I'm the first woman to head the Society in its 198-year history. Voces Amat is female.

Then it was time to pick what Voces would look like. Initially there are five or six basic templates for each gender to pick from, then you tweak those later. The first one is sort of a plain-Jane sort. I think they call it "The Girl Next Door." Seemed a little boring. There was a goth option that seemed a little beyond what I was looking for, and I finally settled on "City chic" seeing as how we're in downtown Boston and all.

Then Voces Amat entered the world.

Say What?

2007-05-31T09:52:00.000-05:00

For those of you who haven't yet read about SL, it is a virtual world. It's not a game--there is no objective or goal, although there are certainly games you can play in Second Life. It's an online world where you create a persona, or avatar, and go about doing what you might do in your regular life, except in cooler clothes and with a bunch of other people who are as strange as you are to be doing such a thing.

Anyway, in my new job as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Bible Society, I'm supposed to help raise awareness about us and also to further the goal of biblical literacy for more folks in a way that doesn't insist on a literalist and fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. So, I thought it would be cool for MBS to have a virtual presence in Second Life as well as our physical presence in the very obvious first life.

But, I had never even visited Second Life before and had no clue how to proceed. Even though I'm a gamer, I have never even been part of an MMORPG for fear that I would become addicted, the dog would hate me, and I would lose even my first life! They don't call it EverCrack for nothing.

Second Life, however, counts as work (I have the coolest job in the world), and I thought it would be fun to blog about how someone new to the whole thing (a newbie or noob) fares as I try to not only get a character up and running but buy property and accomplish the MBS goals.

Which brings me to yesterday, when the adventure began.