All My Avatars (or: As the Grid Lags)

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

White Rabbits

Rhonda Resident was still having trouble moving smoothly. Willing her legs to propel her forward, she felt at first as if she were swimming through treacle, then suddenly, she shot forward at great speed, leaving Newton behind on the walkway as she sped into the streets of Move City and smashed right into a concrete and glass high rise.

"Ouch!"

Rhonda staggered back away from the building, rubbing her temples and turned to look for Newton -- just in time to see Foxy Lady's car slam into the young avatar and send him sprawling.

"Newton!"

Rhonda ran to her fallen friend, overshooting his position twice before finally landing by his side.

"Oh dear! Oh my! Are you alright? Foxy Lady is so terribly sorry! Foxy did not see you!" exclaimed the distraught mentor as she ejected from her automobile and floated over to Rhonda and Newton.

"Now you've done it Foxy," said Mentor. "We're supposed to be helping the Newbs. Not mowing them down."

"I didn't see him Mentor! Foxy didn't see him! Stepped right out of the mist and into my path he did. You saw it yourself."

"Relax Foxy. He'll be okay."

Indeed, Mentor was correct. Newton groaned and shook his head, attempting to clear his vision but, unlike the Roadkill Rat whom Mentor had accidentally run over in his distraction over Foxy's collision, which now lay flattened on the road, a steaming sheet of purple pixels, Newton appeared to be unharmed.

"What happened?" he asked.

"You were hit by a car Newton!" exclaimed Rhonda.

"Huh?"

"Hush now, dear," said Foxy. "Just a minor bump. You'll be okay." Turning to Rhonda she repeated, "He'll be okay," and then back to Mentor, searching for confirmation, "He'll be okay."

"Yes, yes. Of course he will," soothed Mentor Mentor. "We're all in a safe zone here."

Newton's vision was still foggy, but he struggled to his feet.

"I'm okay Rhonda. I'm fine."

"Oh! I'm so glad!" Rhonda threw herself at Newton in a giant embrace, but, being a good twelve inches taller than her friend, her arms vaguely encircled his head, which was thrust into the centre of her chest.

"Yep," said Mentor, with a knowing grin. "He'll be just fine indeed."

"You're sure you're okay?" asked Rhonda as she released him.

"Yes. Perfectly. I think perhaps the bumper car circuit is not for me tonight, however. Is there someplace a little calmer we could go?"

Rhonda looked around unsure, still not too familiar with the neighbourhood herself, but Foxy beamed.

"Beautiful Help Island is just a short hop from here," she said. "You can learn all about life there -- but nice and quiet like, at your own pace. Mentor and Foxy will take your there, won't we Mentor?"

Mentor opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again as he spotted the gaggle of fresh faces hurrying across the walkway to Move City, all sporting CSI:NY baseball caps. Foxy turned to follow his gaze. "Here they come," the mentors said in unison.

"Here who comes?" asked Newton and Rhonda.

"Excuse me," called one of the baseball-capped crowd. "Can you tell us where we might find the white rabbit?"

Mentor turned to Foxy, "Winner TPs to Help Island. Loser stays and explains the differences between Second Life and Snow Crash."

Foxy agreed and held out her right hand. The two mentors shook their fists up and down three times, Foxy pulling out her "scissors" animation at the last moment and Mentor landing his hand in "paper".

"Have fun my dear," Foxy said, patting Mentor on the shoulder. Then she turned to Newton and Rhonda. "Come along my sweets. Foxy will rescue you from this mad house."

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Meanwhile in Move City...

"Ha ha ha! Catch me if you can!" squealed Foxy Lady as she spun her car around a tight corner.

"Oh, I will! I will!" called Mentor Mentor after her, hot in pursuit on his scooter.

It had been a slow night on OI87 and Mentor & Foxy, both members of Second Life's elite official volunteer corps, had taken to whiling away the hours of their duty shift with a friendly game of bumper cars in the deserted streets of Move City.

Foxy careened onto the main drag, narrowly missing the road construction which seemed to perpetually plague Second Life streets.

"I'm gonna catch myself a nice piece of Foxy Lady!" declared Mentor as he wheeled after her.

Foxy escaped out of mouselook and glanced back over her shoulder to check how much of a lead she had on her friend.

"Look out!" cried Mentor. "Newbs!"

Foxy snapped her head back around to face the direction in which Mentor was pointing, but it was too late.

Moving Friends

Newton's newly-adjusted view of the grey world was partially masked by a blue flag which dropped down into the top right corner of his field of view, informing him that he had just been bumped into by Rhonda Resident and that he could file an abuse report against her for the affront if he so chose.

"Oops! I'm sorry!" exclaimed Rhonda. "Guess I haven't quite got the hang of how to move around in here yet."

Newton batted away the blue flag and struggled to regain his former position on the crossroads. "I guess I haven't either," he smiled.

A second blue flag scrolled into Newton's view, informing him that Rhonda Resident was offering him friendship. He accepted and thanked her as the blue flag once again disappeared from a view which was finally starting to resolve into a colourful landscape.

"I was just on my way to Move City," said Rhonda. "I heard that Avatars can learn how to fly there! Want to come along?"

Newton could see nothing in the direction to which Rhonda was pointing, save for the sidewalk disappearing into a haze of grey. "Sure," he said, and the two new friends were off.

Meanwhile, in Move City...

Friday, October 19, 2007

Newton's First Day

Newton Newbie was born into a grey haze on a sunny Saturday afternoon on Orientation Island 87. No more the tiny isolated hunk of rock populated with palm fronds and presided over by a talking parrot, which served as birthplace for Newton's forebears. Newton's crèche is a giant sprawling land mass, fanning out in four directions from its central hub.

There is much for Newton to explore here: A mediaeval castle, a fashion show, a land prospectors' dome, parkland with outdoor stages and movie screens (with several movies to choose from, 24-7), a lava-spewing volcano, and a city complete with tall sky-scrapers, automobiles, road construction and rodents begging to become road kill.

Of course, Newton cannot see any of this. His freshly rezzed avatar eyes have not yet adjusted to the bright lights of the metaverse and Newton is aware only of a vague sea of grey primitives surrounding him on all sides, the solid objects not yet differentiated from phantoms.

Newton stands at a crossroads, uncertain what to do next when suddenly a dark-haired beauty dressed in jeans, flip-flops and a lilac crew-neck smashes into him at high speed and sends our young hero sprawling.

Mentor Mentor

Mentor Mentor (formerly known as John Smith) is a Second Life Mentor.

John Smith was a Mentor too, back in the days when the Mentors' group title was simply "Mentor".

When the Mentor surname was released, John thought it would be way cool to be a Mentor named Mentor Mentor, so he abandoned his original account, setup Mentor Mentor, and patiently waited his two months before his new alt was eligible to apply to the official Second Life volunteer program.

Poor Johnny/Mentor. He could not have anticipated that during his waiting period Linden Lab would all but dismantle the old volunteer program and close off acceptance of new volunteers for upwards of six months while they re-organized everything.

When Mentor was finally accepted into the new and improved Second Life Volunteer corps, he was dismayed to find that all of his old friends had left the service, and LL had changed the group's title to "Second Life Mentor".

Now, finally, "Mentor John Smith" is "Second Life Mentor Mentor Mentor" -- which is pretty cool, but not as cool as plain old "Mentor Mentor Mentor" would have been.

Q1SxYZ Capital

Q1SxYZ Capital had great plans to be a financial tour de force within Second Life. As a Linden Dollar banker and investment broker, Q1SxYZ had worked out a complicated investment scheme by which residents could reap the greatest return on their investments by saving (and investing in Q1SxYZ's bank) all of their first quarter earnings, then topping up these savings to a super high "yearly zenith" by the end of the summer when $L were known to be in high demand.

Q1SxYZ was convinced he would make a lot of money for a lot of people -- and himself richer than Anshe in the process -- but he lost heart in the project when Linden Lab introduced integrated voice chat to the Second Life client and he learned that other residents were pronouncing his unpronounceable first name (meant to be a clever acronym for his investment scheme) as "KissKiss".

Thursday, October 18, 2007

FetedInner Core

FetedInner Core is anything but.

In fact, FIC isn't even "in" enough to be accepted into the Feted Outer Crust!

It is well known that FIC is a "secret" alt of Trinity Troll.

Trinity Troll

Trinity wants to work for Linden Lab REALLY BADLY -- so she chews up a dozen or more resident feedback spots on every LL blog post open for comments with vicious flames. (Trinity's depth of experience with the flame is so great, there are many within Second Life who believe she is secretly the engine behind Ordinal Malaprop's Random Linden Lab Flame Generator.)