I’m not sure if I blogged about my 13-hour drive to Boston when I attended Podcamp back in September. Well, if I didn’t, just a quick narrative that the drive from Toronto to Boston should’ve taken 9-hours through 1 province (Ontario) and 2 states (New York & Mass).
So why did I see New York state, Pennsylvania, Conneticut and Mass in a span of 13-hours? Don’t ask…
Well, that’s how I felt trying to navigate through Second Life where Toronto’s CaseCamp was held last night. Here’s my story.
First, don’t use anything but Windoze XP to login to Second Life. My workhorse computer in my office is on Windoze 2000. Everytime I logged into Second Life using Windoze 2000, Second Life crashed. Everytime. And yes, Second Life is supposed to be supported on Windoze 2000.
At one point, I left my avatar fully naked because Second Life closed before my clothes could be downloaded. Poor Caprica Spark (that’s my avatar’s name).
I finally had to bribe my sister to let me use her laptop and told her that studying for her final exams is a waste of time since you never use what you learn. She was more than happy take a break, $10 richer.
So, on Windoze XP, I finally got in. I was in a cafe and could hear the voice of the presenter, but when I went into the room, no one was there. Figuring I was in the wrong place, I double clicked on the map and got a bird’s eye view of the local area.
At this point, I still wasn’t sure where to go, so I just started clicking on buildings and being teleported there. I arrived at one place where hallelujah music was playing. No, I don’t think C.C. Chapman and crew wanted us to get a holy ghost conversion.
I zoomed out, clicked on another building and was now standing on a street corner. I looked around and saw no one. Then out of nowhere, this chap walks towards me. I’m all nervous because I don’t where he came from. But, he just passes me by.
As I stood there, 2 other avatars materialized out of nowhere. One was a woman, the other was a catwoman. Now I’m scared because it looked like a bumrush. So, I quickly logged out for fear it was going to be a beat down.
I checked my email and saw that Bryan sent us a direct link to the U-Turn cafe. So I clicked on that and was finally in the right room.
I walked in and again, I could hear the voice of the presenter. There were about 10 people in the room, with one person floating in the air. Purposely. I grabbed a hot apple cider, then sat down.
The wrong way. Instead of having my back towards the bar so I could face the middle of the room, my face was towards the bar. It took me about 3-minutes to figure out how to turn my avatar around the right way.
Once I got it, one of the avatars called Azriel Nakamura was staring at me the whole time. She was standing up and was about 6-feet away, yet the whole time, her eyes were on me.
It felt creepy, so I started to play around with the gestures and accidentally blew Azriel a kiss. It must have been the kiss of death because just after doing that, Azriel hung her head as if she died on her feet.
As the presentations wore on and the presenters kept referring to slides I couldn’t see, my attention turned to a newly arrived avatar named Darth Emperors Hand. He looked like a ninja with his long red sword. And flip flops. And a skirt. Only strong, confident men can wear flip flops.
I asked him about his sword, wondering how many he slayed with said instrument. To which he replied:
“It’s purely decorative.”
If I were a guy and a pretty gal asked me that question, I would’ve lied and said:
“Too many hearts to count, my fair lady.”
Even chivalry is lost in Second Life.
Darth clearly showed that he was the star of the show. He started to do something with his head, like a festival of lights coming from his scalp. The whole place virtually lit up as he emitted a shower of dandruff from his head. It was quite spectacular.
After 45-minutes, I asked one of the avatars, a woman named Badass why we couldn’t see the slides. She said something along the lines of:
“Because everyone’s in the Amphitheater. I’m surprised you’re not there because you have the pass to get in.”
She was right. Above my head was my name and another line that said Casecamp SL. That meant there was a seat reserved for me in the Amphitheater. Bummer.
So after all that, I was sitting in the wrong place. Well, at least that’s the one thing different from my Boston trip. At least I ended up in the right city when I was on my way to Podcamp.
At the end of the day, while I liked Second Life, it can’t beat the face-to-face interaction. The Crayonville Amphitheater was limited to 40 seats and at the CaseCamp I spoke at back in the summer at a place near the ROM, there was just over 100 people.
While using Second Life was a nice experiment, I trust that CaseCamp will return to a physical room in the New Year.
