Landing in Second Life for the first time, I make my trembling way to Orientation island, I transport in and land with an audible thud.As you do when you’re out and about; I immediately walk into a strange looking bloke in a green lizard outfit, who promptly tells me to ‘watch it dewd!’ ‘Fine’, I think, which lizard charm school did you go to?
I make my way passed him and follow a path that leads me to signs that teach me various things about changing my appearance, which I am grateful for, as my checking in avatar female looks like a cross between Cherie Blair and a very disappointed baboon!
Next I learn how to walk and move in SL. I seriously wish I’d spent more time at the ‘moving about’ tutorial thingy. I have been playing for a week now and I’m still staggering into things like a inebriated elephant!
I also go into fly mode only to collide unexpectedly with the underside of inconveniently situated bridges and other buildings!
I recently met a woman at a pub who took pity on my ‘Margaret Thatcher’ hair style and gave me a calling card for the hair dressers, bless her.
When I finish my tutorials; I make my way to a dome like building with ‘freebies’ flashing over the top of it in neon pink letters. ‘Great’, I think and make my way down there imagining that a host of virtual riches are about to come my way. The first thing I click on is a free villa, only to realize later that I’ve no land to build it on, and since I’m a non paying member for now, no Linden dollars to buy it with, great!
After collecting some more useless things, I make my way to the mainland. Once I get there I suddenly realize with something bordering on fear and trepidation that I am on my own. Well, I can tell you that I go through a pretty steep learning curve from here on in!
I click on the ‘search’ button and hit ‘popular places’.
Freebie island flashes up and being materialistic at heart; I immediately make my way there. My landing is not pleasant, I somehow teleport in right on top of a guy’s head who turns around and looks at me with a stunned expression on his handsome avatar’s face. ‘Sorry’ I say sheepishly and move on.
I pick up as many feminine freebies as I can and hide behind a bill board whilst I open the boxes in my inventory and try some things on. I finish altering my appearance only to find that some bloke is propositioning me and asking me if I will let him put his head on my heavenly pillows! I reply. ‘What, in real life or here?’ That scares him off, and with a wardrobe that would put Posh and Becks in the shade, I teleport myself to a jazz club.
I make my first friend there, who turns out to be a nice helpful Australian guy, he shows me how to add people, specifically him in this case to my inventory, and sigh of relief; he doesn’t even mention my heavenly pillows! We’ve been chatting on and off ever since and he’s given me a fair amount of help getting around, and for that I thank him.
Two nights ago, I discovered the Three Lion’s Pub and I promptly teleported myself there to be greeted my Marissa and Phil who run it. I have to say they were very friendly and I enjoyed picking a song or two. I sat down wearing a classy evening number only to be chatted up by several guys, I’m not complaining, but, I mean, can’t a girl have a quiet drink?
When I went to dance, one strange, and I mean strange looking guy with Medusa hair, kept trying to kick everyone up the backside, fortunately, he wasn’t a very good aim, when he came near me I decided that attack was the better form of defence and promptly told him to ‘bugger off’. I decided to leave after that.
Today I tried unsuccessfully to mount a dragon in some ‘magic’ land that I teleported to. Once I got on, I thought, ‘great’ now I’m going to fly you, I think it read my mind, or that it must have been in some sort of dragon rebel movement, because it promptly threw me off its back. I stood there dumbfounded for a moment and then bumped into a rather suspect looking mushroom! I decided to teleport to safer territory after that, so I clicked on the ‘search’ menu and managed to get myself to a rather classy looking beach plaza.
I tried unsuccessfully to get in a boat, but for some reason known only to geeks and people who are obviously a lot cleverer than me at this IT business, I just couldn’t sit down in it or drive it. Are there any considerate geeks out there willing to show me how? (Answers on an IM please.)
Tonight I visited the Three Lions again, and spent half an hour dancing and talking to myself, as everyone seemed to be deep in conversation with their friends and lovers. I thought, ‘oh bugger, I’m a virtual wall flower!’ I made a few facetious comments and left. I hope I didn’t offend anyone, I’m just joking everyone if you’re reading this, honestly.
I did find a ‘Frog Jump’ chair in Reggae Romance club that I think you ought not to warn your friends about. Just tell them to click on it and laugh when they jump up and down like an out of control yo yo.
On the plus side, I’ve made a friend in publishing and some friends on the art side. In real life I’m an artist and a writer. I think that SL is a great place for networking and finding people who share your passion for something, lots of things actually, writing, art, religion, shopping, sex and lots of it, oom we won’t go there!
I’m still finding my virtual feet here. I’d like to say a thank you to Dana Vanmoer and all the others from publishing land that have helped me out so far, even though I’ve got stuck in lifts, collided with stands, and walked into more walls and doors than the average drunk on a pub crawl!
If anybody sees a puzzled dragon wandering around, please feel free to try to ride him, but be warned, be afraid, be very afraid! I think on reflection I’m going to stick to my bike in future.
Contributed by Amelia Lutrova Freelancer
