Telling: Like it Is

Looks empty, doesn't it?  As a matter of fact, the southeast corner (upper left) was vacated and terraformed flat a few days before this photo was taken.  As far I know, it's still for sale... but as we all have come to know, things can, and often do, change overnight.

However, Taber -- nestled between Natoma and Welsh -- is brim-full of artifacts from the Elder Days, and most of them can be found at Park's Fireworks, right across the water from The Grand Arch.


Next to the fireworks store itself is a freebie barn containing some amazing old things, some not to be found elsewhere (that I know of, so far), and many of them Linden-made.


This one, the original Information notecard-giver, nearly made the cut as one of the Oldest Objects... as it is, it was beaten out by the Grand Arch itself by a mere two weeks, and is a strong contender for Ninth Oldest overall.  There are photos of other ancient curiosities (though none so old), including one of Juro Kathari's earliest builds, in the Taber section of"SL History, Part I: The First 20 Sims".

Directly behind the freebie barn is the Taber Windmill, built mostly by Pituca FairChang (windows by her husband Garth) during February 2004.


The story of Pituca Fairchild and Garth Chang -- when, how and where they met, became "roommates" in SL, then partners, then husband and wife in RL -- is much better told by Pituca herself in her occasional blog than I could ever manage. And be prepared for a sniffle or two, at the least; Garth died in September, 2009.

Tucked into the northwest corner of Taber is a parcel called "D'Ni Restoration Project", claimed by Piprrr Godel on October 4, 2003 when he was approximately a week 'old', and who built this semi-industrial home there immediately.


And we can't leave Taber without noting another of its long-time Residents, Khamon Fate (Nov. 21, 2003) of "Fate Gardens", whose parcel is in the northeast corner.  That's the lower left of the overview, but as of this writing, what you see there (and which he called "Fate Cove") has been taken down, and he's building something new and castle-like, so he says.

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Another "before and after" look:  above, March 29 2010 -- below, June 21 2010.


The differences between those are subtle (except for the megaprims in the southeast corner), consisting mostly of the relocation of two major builds from Zoe to become Hiro Pendragon's neighbors in Varney.  They were replaced by a large house, admirable not only for its architecture but its interior appointments -- not 'historical' in the context of this series, but well worth a look.

As I mentioned last time, both Zoe and its neighbor Ritch contain only one build remaining from the Elder Days, which they also share with Minna and Natoma:


It has the name "Sacred Space", and it was built by Simon Metalhead in October 2003.  (The above view looks southwest; Zoe's quarter is at lower left).


It is a circle of trilithons, a la Stonehenge, set in a copse of trees; the curved stone benches were added much more recently.  The corners of the four regions meet in the mathematical center of the build.

Nothing remains of either the Disco or the Superstore (items J and K on the map), and the SL Wikia is silent about them. In fact, Zoe's entire entry consists of:

One of the early sims

There is evidence, in the photo collections at Snapzilla, of a long-standing Tibetan Buddhist presence in Zoe, and a shrine remains atop the higher of the region's two surviving mountains. How far back that goes can't be determined; Snapzilla only saves the date of when a snap was uploaded, not when it was taken.

So, once again before we move on to the next region, let me repeat my appeal to Those Who Were There, Then: Please, fill in the blanks. Go to the Wikia and help edit it; leave comments in this blog if you like; post in your own blogs if you have them and send me a link.

Tell the stories before they're forever lost.

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We now resume our regularly scheduled program, already in progress...

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Short entry this time...

Even though, some time in January of 2003 -- when the next four sims were added to the Original Sixteen -- the Welcome Area was moved from Natoma to Ritch, no trace of anything that old remains in the region now. Almost 3/4 of it is owned by Dix Donovan, whose home can be discerned on top of that hill above and slightly to the left of the big swimming pool.  He also operates (if you can call it that), the Casa del Sol Flea Market, which has stood mostly empty since my entrance to SL (Dec. '07).  Its landmark photo, taken in the pre-Windlight days, shows most of those "Rent this space" boxes in the same location they occupy now.

However, for the sake of oldbie/midbie nostalgia, if not history, there is this, tucked into a corner of the market:


HippiePay, one of the many "get free Lindens" scams set up in the so-called Hype years: part pyramid scheme, part Traffic-gaming, and part email spam source.  This little gem -- billed at the time as a preferable alternative to "camping" -- paid you some pittance for going to a Web link to answer surveys (hence, the spam, because you had to give it an email address).  It also encouraged setting up your own "affiliate" (that's the pyramid part), and to visit HippiePay Island to get another pittance (that's the Traffic gaming).  The scheme ceased to exist some time in 2008, the website is down, and the island is off the map.

Most of the remainder of Ritch is owned by "Sapphire Moon" -- that's the valley in the upper right, with all the glow.  And just in case you thought gambling was prohibited in SL... Besides being pretty, this location is the telehub to "Sapphire Moon Entertainment" (owned by Plexore Lumiere, class of '04).

Sapphire Moon brings you state-of-the-art Las Vegas style gaming where you can WIN BIG L$! All games utilize the reliable Sapphire Star (S*) credit system. First increase your balance of S*, then play the skill games to WIN L$!
[source]

Play to WIN Sapphire Stars (S*) on luxurious vegas-style games. Feel like winning L$? Play the SKILL games! For those with High Roller blood, the sky is NOT the limit. Roll with style IN ORBIT on the Sapphire Moon VIP Space Station!
[source]

To paraphrase P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker rezzed every minute."

There is one historic build in the northeast corner of Ritch -- in fact, it straddles the four corners of Ritch, Minna, Natoma and Zoe. But Zoe is another of the Original Sixteen without a single prim dating back to the Elder Days, except for that spot, so I'm saving it for that entry, which will be next.

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Coincidence, probably... Synchronicity? Maybe... though there are better-tutored Jungians among my readers who might be able to discern if I was tapped into the collective subconscious of SL Residents.

Anyway... Three weeks ago I was doing some infrastructure maintenance on this blog, creating pages for special topics and going through the tags on each post to try to make them more relevant. On the way, I ended up reading some of my older posts; one of those was "SS, DD", in which I stuck my neck out for the first time and predicted "Same shit, different decade" for Second Life in 2010:

Linden Lab will continue to stumble through yet another year of poorly conceived, haltingly communicated and inconsistently executed policies, procedures, public relations campaigns, and platform and GUI "improvements". Those efforts will have the apparent intent of drawing more new Users, encouraging them to pay for Premium memberships, and perhaps even retaining them -- and those efforts will, by their very nature, continue to dissatisfy, alienate, anger and (in the extreme case) drive off the core population of existing Residents.

For the first six months, it looked like I had nailed it. And before you take me wrong, let me assure that I wasn't happy to be correct.

And then, the June 9th Earthquake shook the Grid, taking with it Lindens both good and bad (and probably many whose absence will not be noticed).


I have no shame at all in admitting to schadenfreude in one particular case: Tom "T Linden" Hale, whose absurd denial of a Culture of SL raised quite a few hackles across the SLogosphere, least of all mine... and who, as "Chief Product Officer", was the ultimate mover behind the ludicrously misguided, frustratingly intrusive and ultimately failed project known (with no small amount of derision in some quarters) as Viewer 2.

The effects of the earthquake were immediate. Talk of Diaspora increased as more SL'ers -- of both high and low profile -- opened accounts in OpenSim worlds like OSGrid and InWorldz, while cutting back on their economic commitment to Second Life: "tiering down", selling off, and dropping Premium membership. The LindeX took a dive, too, prompting a transparently lame entry in the official Second Life blog to add to the list of redundant and painfully hollow missives issued under the name of Linden Lab's CEO, Mark "M Linden" Kingdon.


Make that "former CEO". As of this writing, the virtual ink is barely dry on the PR Newswire web page announcing Kingdon's "stepping down", and the SL blog's announcement that Linden Lab founder and erstwhile "chief visionary officer" Philip Rosedale has become Interim CEO.

In retrospect, the events of June 9 were a foreshock of magnitude 6.5 or so. Today, a magnitude 8 rocked the Grid, and its effects cannot be predicted. Many of us, myself included, find reason for optimism in the first of two speeches Philip gave at SL7B, in which he spoke metaphorically of castle walls, moats, and rickety structures cobbled together to get over them, contrasted with a concerted effort to remove the walls.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, my prediction for SL in 2010 fell down in today's earthquake, and I'm glad.

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Note: The quotes above are from "Crown of Creation" by Jefferson Airplane, and are paraphrases from John Wyndham's classic SF novel The Chrysalids.

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The Ten Oldest Objects in Second Life


circa 1999: Philip (Rosedale) Linden starts Linden Lab.

February 11, 2002: James Linden applies a photographic texture of a US 5-cent piece ("nickel") to a circular primitive (actual size unknown, but closer to that of a quarter) as a proof-of-concept; hence, creating The Oldest Object to still be found in Second Life. An instance of it is now displayed in a museum setting in the region called I-World Island.



March 13, 2002: Steller Sunshine becomes the first person not an employee of Linden Lab -- i.e., The First Resident -- to enter "Linden World", a 9-region grid which is the alpha phase of what will become Second Life. Legend has it that she stayed logged in overnight, and created a small cabin (which did not survive), and The Beanstalk (now located in Welsh); hence, the Oldest Resident-created Object to survive to the present, and the Second Oldest overall.

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[Update, June 29, 2010] -  Found online: a screenshot Steller took in Linden World of her cabin at the base of the original Beanstalk.

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April 29, 2002: Philip Linden creates a Beachball, scripted to behave like one; i.e., it bounces lightly when pushed. This "object" -- in actuality, an object file -- is the Third Oldest, but the Most Ubiquitous. It becomes an entry in the Library of the default Inventory, and survives all subsequent revisions. Every avatar in SL has a copy of that file.



July 10, 2002: Steller Sunshine makes a "dinning" [sic] chair, copies of which end up in Dawson Murphy's Hideaway in Welsh. Fourth Oldest -- Surprise!



July 11, 2002: Steller Sunshine builds a villa as residence for herself, which eventually is donated (for purposes of preservation?) to Linden Lab as the Mansion of the otherwise-fictitious "Governor Linden". It eventually is sited in Clementina when that region comes online in the first expansion of Second Life beta, and becomes the Fifth Oldest, by a day.



July 19, 2002: oldjohn Linden creates "The Man", an abstract anthropomorphic statue for the town square of an un-named urban area of Linden World. It is later placed in Natoma (October, 2002), and is the Sixth Oldest.



August 7, 2002: Paul Zeeman builds a TV.  It is now located in a group-owned house in Shipley, and supplants Philip's Piano (next item) as Seventh Oldest.
[Update, July 3, 2010]



September 19, 2002: Philip Linden creates "Piano", an octave's worth of piano keys, each scripted to play a note when right-clicked. An instance of this object was placed in a piano-themed build in Minna in 2008; by dint of creation date (and with reference to the Beachball as precedent), it is the Seventh Eighth Oldest.



October 9, 2002: Alberto Linden makes what he calls a "Corbusier" couch.  Two copies of this Ninth Oldest Object are known to persist in SL: this one, in Sturm Valen's unfinished March 2003 build in Federal; the other, in Mystic Sunshine's house in Da Boom.  [updated July 9, 2010]


circa mid-October 2002: Linden World is taken down, after certain object files are copied from the servers (including The Man and the Mansion), or saved by their creators into their own inventories. 16 new empty regions are created, given names of streets and alleys near Linden Lab's headquarters of the time, the entire project is re-branded Second Life, and it begins its closed beta phase.



October 18, 2002:  Alberto Linden erects The Grand Arch, overlooking Second Life's original Welcome Area in Natoma.  It is, by this humble investigator's judgement, the Eighth Ninth Tenth Oldest.
June 23, 2003: Second Life officially comes out of beta -- at which time it is more than 15 months old.
June 23, 2010: Second Life officially celebrates it's 7th Birthday -- at which time it is 8-1/4 years old.


just sayin'...
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Most of Minna belongs to "Divivity", a landscape and home furnishing business owned by Div Epoch and Vivianne OFlynn (who was "Vivianne Fairlight" in beta).  They've been in Minna since the spring of 2004, but their first greenhouse, originally built to sell flowers for Christmas 2003, was moved there.  In the above photo, it's the small blue roof at right center.  Its oldest parts are dated November 16, 2003.

Next, a surprise -- see the building with piano keys for a roof, left of center?  It contains what I now believe is the sixth of the Seven Oldest Creations in Second Life:


An octave's worth of piano keys, built by none other than Philip Linden, with each key scripted to play a note when right-clicked.  Was this once a Library object, as Philip's famous Beachball still is?  All I know is, it isn't one now, and I haven't yet found another like it rezzed in-world.  The rest of the building, by the way, dates from 2008.


One more, for nostalgics of a different sort: "Second Life Fever", by Phil Cassidy (July 2004), tucked into the western edge of Minna (that's Da Boom in the background).

There's more in the Minna section of "SL History, Part I: The First 20 Sims", including a rezzed instance of the Beachball and some furniture from 2003.

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Note: Thanks to Vivianne for devoting the Picks in her Profile to historical notes (in verse, no less), from which I constructed most of the first paragraph.

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I have intended to post this series in the same order as the sims are displayed in my online album... but developments beyond anyone's control, in the last few days, have caused me to change that for Clyde.


As reported on June 10 by Jezebel Bailey in Your2ndPlace: The Lily Pad Lounge, a live-music venue which has existed since 2003, closed and the land was put up for sale.  It was located beneath Textures Unlimited, the greenhouse structure in the upper left of the first overview (by Gene Replacement).  The land was co-owned by Drift Monde, who ran the club, and cua Curie, whose textures were "unlimited".

I first visited Clyde in March and photographed the "TU" building, among others, but did not learn of the existence of the Lounge until late May, when a friend and I went texture shopping and stumbled across the stairs down to it.  I wasn't in "photographer mode" at the time, mistakenly thinking I could always come  back.  When I did, it was too late.

But, luck would have it that cua was there, hoping for a buyer.

cua Curie: it was bound to happen someday
I had been trying to find a buyer for a couple months
and I warned people that it was a no go about a month ago
but drift's account was put on hold and it forced our hand

hundreds of thousands of people have been to this place lol
our counter of people who just walked in through the texture shop door was at 250,000 when i cleared it

Even though I was not able (curse my procrastination!) to personally record The Lily Pad Lounge, many others have, and you can find a good collection at Snapzilla.

Clyde's other major significance from the Elder Days of Beta was as the border of The Outlands, 4-1/2 damage-enabled "combat" regions.  On the map above, Attraction "G" marks the Outlands Wall, which once cut Clyde in half, north to south (its former location can be guessed from the topography in the newer overview).  The remnant you see in the lower left (southwest) corner of both overviews is located in Jessie... and will be discussed when we get to that region. However, one other "monument" to the Outlands still stands in Clyde, on Linden land near the border with Hawthorne:


The pointy sculpture with the rock texture is called "Cage", and was built by Eric Linden (April 20, 2003). The danger sign -- facing the wrong way -- is by Catapult Grimm (April 26, 2003).

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Note: The first overview photo was taken March 15, 2010; the second, June 19, 2010. As always, more images can be found at SL History, Part I: The First 20 Sims

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You may have noticed, if you've been looking in on this series, the highlighted Attractions on the map: A through M, 13 in total.  After 7-1/2 years, two of them are still there:  "The Man" in Natoma, and the Free Bazaar in Stillman.


The build itself is not the original (it dates from 2006), but the location remains, and so does some of the original content.  There are some special curiosities, though.


Telehubs!  Anyone newer than 2005 may have never seen these before -- I certainly hadn't -- unless they'd caught a glimpse in an image at Snapzilla.  We're so used to the way things are, some of the Way Things Were are just plain puzzling.  Charging for prim creation was one (see the entry on Freelon); charging for point-to-point teleports based on "distance" traveled was another*.  These telehubs were then rolled out (October 2003) as a free alternative -- think of them as a set Landing Point for an entire region, not just a parcel, but also as a set "take-off point" (there's an excellent entry in the Second Life Wikia about them, with a lot of images). You, too, can own all three varieties merely by clicking the sign in that photo above. (It's on the first level, in the corner under the Confederate flags)

Possibly of interest to "midbies", a.k.a. the Classes of '06 and '07: see that yellow-brown box near the stair in the back, in the photo of the Bazaar? It contains, thanks to Torley Linden, the content of the Library from those years that didn't survive beyond 1.19 -- including the discontinued Luskwood ringtail avatar, already a couple of years old, which was the last (and only?) time noobs were offered the chance to be furry from Day One.

Grace McDunnough asked the other day if architects ought to be included as artists. I certainly think so, and here's a prime example: the majority of Stillman serves as an outdoor showroom for the work of Juro Kothari.


You can buy a copy of any one of those, except the one in the upper right, which Juro built for his partner, Cyrus Apollo, beginning in October 2003.  Standing behind that, on what remains of Stillman Mountain, are a giant pair of teddy bears made by Cyrus in the weeks around New Year, 2004.  Before, that spot was occupied by the Sun Tower.

Leaving the most imposing landmark for last -- Castle Blackmoor:


Also by Juro Kothari, begun in September 2004 as his residence (though there's no evidence that he uses it).

Stillman is one of the better-documented regions in the SL Wikia, and there are more photos in the Stillman section of "SL History, Part I : The First 20 Sims"

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[Update, Sept 6, 2010]  Before there was Castle Blackmoor, there was a scaled-down reproduction of Chicago's Sears Tower on the same ground. These two photos were uploaded to "2nd Look Image Gallery" on March 17, 2004. Unfortunately, there's no information saying who did so, and it can only be assumed (pending verification) that Juro Kothari built the tower.

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* - Think about that for a minute... distance? The whole world consisted of 16 regions, and we're talking about handing off data from one server to another in the same rack! Probably one reason why the idea didn't stick... but then, when has the Lab ever had a coherent grasp on "monetizing"?

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Final topic:

If this is your first BBBC... What did you get out of your experience? Do you think it will change the way you blog in the future?

If you're a veteran.... Did you find this year to be harder or easier than previous years? Did you have fun? What did you get out of it this time around? Do you think you'd do it again?

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It was my first BBBC, but now I'm a veteran, so....

I got two posts I'm proud of out of 6 (including this toward the total): #4 and #5. The latter, I would have written anyway -- in truth, it wrote itself. The former, I might have decided (rightfully?), "Nobody cares," but at least I was able to make a point with it.

The other three... meh. Definitely in the "Nobody cares" category. I usually Tweet new posts right after they've been put up; I didn't, with those three (and I won't with this one, either). Can't blame the topics, though, much as I'm tempted to. The fault lies in my attitude toward personalization: this blog is about Virtuality, not about me.

Timing was bad, too -- again, not the fault of the contest, just that it came in the middle of getting the "Seconderth" series out. But, it was mine to accept the challenge or pass, and once committed...

Will it change the way I blog in the future? Probably not. Average hits/day did improve over the previous couple of weeks (probably due to the curiosity of other participants), but that's not what I'm in this for. Quality of content is what matters, not frequency of posting.

Did I have fun? 1/3 of the time (see above).

Will I do it again? Ask me next June.

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[BBBC 5: "Blogger's choice! Write about anything that's on your mind!"]

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'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them-- particularly verbs, they're the proudest--adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs--however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

'Would you tell me, please,' said Alice 'what that means?'

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Though the company remains in a solid financial position, it has become clear that we need to make some hard decisions in order to bring current and future Residents the kind of product and experience we feel they deserve. After three years of intensive hiring, we've come to a place where it's important that we reorganize our teams and find a renewed level of discipline...
[...]
Linden Lab remains a great business. We have a strong balance sheet, and our revenue will reach record levels this year. The inworld economy continues its solid growth...

[A Restructuring For Linden Lab, posted by M Linden, 9 June 2010 in the Second Life Blog]

"We've emerged from a two-year investment period during which, among other things, we've spent a considerable amount of time improving reliability and the overall user experience. Today's announcement about our reorganization will help us make Second Life® even simpler, more enjoyable, relevant and engaging for consumers starting with their first experience."

[Linden Lab press release, 9 June 2010, published at PR Newswire]

Second Life – and Linden Lab itself – is in very good shape. As a company, Linden Lab remains financially very stable. Our balance sheet is strong and we are well-capitalized. We will close this year with record revenue and hopefully record users, and – with your help – record user-to-user transactions and record landmass. In May, we recorded more than 1 million logged-in Residents, 37 million user hours, US$52.8 million in user-to-user transactions and 31,800 enabled regions. Second Life is sound.

[A Message from M Linden, emailed 10 June 2010 to an unknown fraction of Residents, but not all of them, and masterfully parsed by Tateru Nino on 13 June]

"One of the things I want to underscore: Second Life will end the year with record revenue, I'm pretty sure record users, and records in terms of user-to-user transactions," Kingdon said. "The business is healthy, we have [a] strong balance sheet, and we're well-capitalized."

But is Linden Lab profitable, [Mitch Wagner, a.k.a. "the Copper Robot"] asked? Kingdon responded, "As a private company, we don't release financials."

[Second Life CEO looks to the future, after massive layoffs, by Mitch Wagner in Computerworld, 11 June 2010]

"The fact is our underlying financial health is very strong. We’re on pace this year for record revenue, record user numbers and record user-to-user transactions – among other positive indicators."

[Mark Kingdon's response to Wagner James "Hamlet" Au in "Analysis: What Went Wrong With Linden Lab?" in New World Notes, 16 June 2010

This morning saw a decrease in the exchange rate of the Linden dollar versus the US dollar. However, Second Life's key economic indicators remain stronger than the levels we saw in late 2009, though recent weeks have seen some reduction in economic activity compared to the record activity of the first quarter, as well as some uncertainty in the wake of recent corporate anouncements. [sic]
[...]
That change, combined with uncertainty related to the corporate restructuring announced last week by Linden Lab, contributed to an imbalance between supply and demand on the LindeX today. Linden Lab remains committed to the Linden dollar as a virtual currency, and to the Second Life economy as one that continues to provide value for Residents, merchants, and landholders large and small.

[An Update on the Linden Dollar, posted by M Linden, 16 June 2010 in the Second Life Blog]

Corporate obfuscation

Doublespeak

Weasel-words

Stonewalling

Bullshit

Impenetrability

'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'

[Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass]

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The first of the overviews was taken in March of this year; the second, two months later.  I was out showing a new friend some of the 'ancient' builds nearby, and did a double-take, "Wait a minute... Varney's not empty anymore!"  And so it goes, in Second Life -- the single adjective that comes most often to my mind is ephemeral.

Even so, two major builds -- in both size and historical significance -- remain from the days of beta.


The Vorago, a first-person shooter game space built by Tcoz Bach (whose work we've already seen in Natoma) during December 2003 through January 2004.  I haven't tried it, but it got a good review in 2005.


Hiro Pendragon's Dojo (which is hidden behind the mountain in those overview photos).  Hiro is also a long-time veteran of the SLogosphere; Second Tense has been going since May 2005. Older photos, such as this one (also from Shack Dougall's collection at Snapzilla) show another large building of the same style on the adjacent island to the west. I believe Hiro had a shop, and has consolidated his holdings since; that land is empty now.


One more thing about that "before and after" comparison at the top: the  mountain was resculptured during the intervening time.  That mountain has had its part in Varney's history, as well -- in yet another form, it was the hideout of the Storm Pirates.

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Day #4 of the BBBC:

SL Bloggers - Is your avatar more or less your current biological age? Do you portray a younger avatar, or older? Why is this?

RL Bloggers - Do you lie about your age? Do you think you act your age? Are you where you thought you'd be at your current age?

Funny you should ask...

Back around the first of the year, as I was contemplating expanding my virtual presence into OSGrid, I discovered that I had a "mental block" against appearing as a human.  I'd been a furry since my rezday, including choosing to wear that awful n00b furry avatar which was available at the time (an ancient Luskwood creation, I believe) before rezzing at Orientation Island.  But, there are no furry avatars in OSGrid. I decided the best way to get past the block was to break through it, and create a human avatar.

Serendipitously, at the same time someone posted a question in SLUniverse about "aged" skins, and was provided with some good answers.  I took that as further inspiration, and decided that the human avvie I'd make would resemble my organic self.

So I went shopping (details here if you're interested -- one of the hardest things to find was glasses that match my real ones), and modded a Library shape. Sculpting the head and face was a fun challenge, working from a photo of the real me. I'd never had to do that before; I'd been wearing someone else's work as an attachment on my nose. It's not a dead ringer, but it'll do.

~

Do I lie about my age? Obviously not now, though for a while at the beginning I would studiously omit mentioning it (and it's nigh on to impossible to assign an apparent age to a furry avatar just by looks). I'm not ashamed now to admit I did that then because I feared it might spoil my chances with females. But then I had some chances, with females of a much younger age...

Remember Steely Dan's song "Hey, 19"? If you do, 'nuff said. That was about the time I decided to mention my age in the "first life" tab of my profile, long before I devised this avatar.

In defense of all those other older SL'ers out there: We're not given a choice, when we sign up, except to look much younger than we are. The apparent age of every n00b avatar ever promulgated by the Lab and their commissioned in-world designers is somewhere in the indeterminate twenties. Unless, like me, you stumble across the fact that there are older-looking skins -- and then shell out substantial L$ to get one -- you won't be able to look your RL age even if you want to.

Do I act my age? I suppose that depends on what your preconceived notion is of how someone my age acts. I act like me, plain and simple. Example: Of the two clubs I go to most often, one plays various forms of trance (and just made me their staff photographer for special events), and the other plays EBM/industrial/noise. I might never have discovered those genres of music without SL, but I go to those places because I love the music, not because I think being there makes me look hip and cool.

I am hip and cool, so there. :P And you know what else? I'm not the only one older than 50 in those places.

Am I where I thought I'd be at my current age? Well, I surely didn't foresee being an avatar in a virtual world, let alone two of them... nor did I have any inkling that I'd wind up writing a blog, let alone that anyone would read it... or that I had an eye for framing screenshots that crop down into decent photos, or the patience to wait until my unwitting subject's dance animation put them in just the right pose (and to wait until it came around again, if I missed it the first time)...

Bottom line to all of this: I may not have become "what I wanted to be when I grew up", but I am a grownup, and I like being one.

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