SLWTF - A Second Life travelogue by Garth Goode

I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a Second Life purist when it comes talking about Real Life. People want to know how old you are, where you’re from, what the weather is like. When people ask I”ll usually fall into the conversation, but it’s kind of like breaking the fourth wall. Second Life has an immersive quality that I enjoy. You are there, and when someone asks you what you do for a living, it tends to jerk you back to reality, turning Second Life into a glorified 3D chat.

So when I landed on Starfruit island (shaped like a starfish, or a cut of starfruit) it surprised me to find a serious attempt to connect Second Life and Real Life. I’m not sure if I get it, but it is interesting to see.  It’s a Swisscom telecommunications company effort, but it’s built to accommodate several languages, and a Babbler-enabled staff member is often on hand to help you.

The first thing you notice when you land in the central tower is a set of kiosks where you can buy gifts for people in Real Life. For example, you can buy a bottle of wine for a virtual friend and it also sends them a bottle in the real world (shipped to many international destinations).  Their web site explains the process. Note the focus on romance, which is probably why most of the available gifts are flowers, candy, wine, and jewelry. Starfruit claims to be able to ship to 94% of the people in Second Life. There are a few freebies available, including a Starfruit shoulder buddy that will poof images on command. Just what I needed.

From a marketing perspective I think it would make more sense to brand this aspect as an FTD gift shop, but that may not have much play in Europe. And like it or not, this is a European-focused effort. I doubt I would have found the island if it hadn’t looked interesting from the map.

The second aspect of Starfruit is a free SMS service. You can send a message from a phone booth to any Real Life mobile phone with GSM service (which in the US means T-Mobile and Cingular).  You can also take a phone booth and place it on your land. Starfruit is running a photo contest showing the booth in different Second Life locations, which is their way of encouraging people to install them. 

Finally, you can send a message from your GSM phone and it will be displayed on the tower. There are also Tower Talk stations that allow you to send messages to the tower without a phone.  I can’t say this feature is widely used. A day after my test messages were sent they were still the latest ones in the list of recent messages. I can see why. Hey, honey, could you stand near this big jumbotron? I want you to see something…

Outside of the gift-giving I’m not sure what the point here is. The Starfruit messaging features amusing but rather pointless, which seems odd coming from a telecom company. It assumes, perhaps, that either you know the phone numbers of your Second Life friends (very unlikely) or that your Real Life friends are in Second Life (pretty unlikely). On the other hand, the gift-giving is probably where they make their money. Maybe the messaging is bait?

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Starfruit/123/121/24/

He dances. He speaks to me. He tells me to do things. “Write a blog post about me,” he says. “But, you’re lame!” I retort. “WRITE,” he says… and I start typing.

I picked up the little guy (Mr. Huzimoto) for L$15 at a store named Red Cats. Their tagline is “instruments gallery & everything with your heart” which I guess covers selling pretty much anything — like a little blue guy who dances on your shoulder. Their true claim to fame seems to be selling a 185-prim saxophone. Dude, my sax is way more prims than your sax. Can you feel the lag? The Red Cats building is notable in that it is one of those odd Japanese builds that gets your attention by looking sort of like a house that has been blown over by the wind… I think. Except there’s a rug where the door would have been. And the roof is mostly open. And… oh, never mind.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/KanazawaSLing/140/240/22/

When you’re looking at the map and you see something like this, you just have to TP in and see what it is. Well, may you don’t, but I do. So what is it?

It’s a cartoony world! At first it felt like I was a visitor to some alternate Hello Kitty universe. There’s a little hut with some cartoony freebies for your cartoony home. Then I noticed the giant cage. It’s a challenging cartoony obstacle course, made all the more challenging because the instructions are in Japanese.

I at least puzzled out how to get inside. At the entrance there is a red arrow. Sit on the arrow to get the Hud. Attach the Hud and sit on the arrow again, and it will let you inside the maze. A timer will count down your remaining time. If you fall down there are red arrows that teleport you back you your last waypoint, or blue arrows that send you back to the beginning.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/TEMPSTAFF/167/145/26/

One of the great things people often don’t notice in Second Life is it’s international nature. You show up in an unfamiliar area, the people don’t speak your language, and you move on. But if you stop for a moment you’ll realize that it’s a bit like traveling, and if you let yourself you’ll get a flavor of the culture. Unless a region is set up by the Bureau of Tourism, people are going to build something that is pretty authentically them.  People can’t help but be themselves, right? I notice this most in the Japanese sims, because the sensibilities are so very non-Western that it whacks you over the head. But I found regions dedicated to Paris and Czechoslovakia worth a visit as well.

Paris is set up as (surprise) mainly a shopping area, but there are also cute cafes, a partially build Eiffel Tower, and a fun replica of the Moulin Rouge (complete with Giant Elephant). Czechoslovakia looks like it was set up by the Bureau of Tourism and is supposed to represent a typical city square. Nonetheless it is very pretty and there are plentty of Czech people hanging around who speak pretty good English.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Paris%201900/101/149/24/

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Czechoslovakia/187/135/23/

Back in the Japanese regions, there’s a giant red thing floating in the air. I approach… It’s a snowboarder… with a white beard. Yes, it’s Santa Claus, pimping himself out for the Oshman’s chain of sporting goods stores (Sports Authority in the US).  Down below, Mrs. Claus is waiting patiently with a heating pad and his Celebrex. Okay, I made that part up.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ikebukuro/129/123/64/

Sensual Stoneworks sells very creative statues of Unicorns and other mythical creatures that will… well, take advantage of you. Because everyone needs a statue to take advantage of you on a lonely Solstice when Cthulhu has stood you up yet again. Trust me, when a statue says, “Don’t sit here,” don’t sit here.

In truth, the animations on these statues are wildly entertaining and (I think) intentionally funny. The facial expressions are spot on, and the statues have surprising moves of their own. Be sure to check out the tentacle rape cage. Now, how often do you hear people say that in real life?

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sensual%20Stoneworks/72/73/26/

A trip to a Japanese region of Second Life guarantees that I will find something unusual. The sims are almost always orderly, but the builds range from exuberant to corporate to surreal. We will build a grid, and what you build within your square must be… ah, hell. Do what you want.

My latest wanderings brought me to Saliva Skin. At first I thought that maybe a Saliva Skin represented a some new fetish. Lick my pixels, worm! But no, the skins are nothing special, nor particularly… ah, sticky looking. My guess is that owners were trying to say that their skins will make people drool with desire, but something was lost in translation.

The copy below the logo is a bit hard to read in-world, so here it is:

Saliva comes to want it by going out
There is a skin of the enchantment that
stimulates your desire. Please note it.

Oh, I’ve noted it alright.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/SLingHokuriku/164/81/27/