Thursday | 8 January, 2009
Truly Madly Secondly
The land of second chance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
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I stopped looking at computers, since in Second Life they're about as interesting as in First Life, and went shopping. Shopping is also just as interesting, and I quickly decided I didn't need to buy myself sexy lingerie, a new hairstyle or - and this made me feel a little queasy - replacement skin. A motel offered rooms for half an hour so my animated character could bump pixels with another animated character, but I managed to resist.
After several hours of looking at the land vendors, businesses, shops and clubs all selling nothing, I felt like sending a broadcast message out to every avatar saying: "This world's just made up. Stop now, get outside and enjoy real life!" Then I realized that's what my wife has been telling me for years about my job. It was right at this moment, my (Second) Life crashed - another eerie parallel. I shut down and re-engaged with First Life by watching a DVD of Casino Royale, which brings me to the quiz answer. Truly Scrumptious was . . . (half marks for guessing a James Bond girl) . . . in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
You can't get much more real than that.
Bruce Kirkham is a veteran IT satirist and professional speaker specializing in leading edge technologies and scepticism, who views the IT industry not so much as "dot com" as "dot comedy"
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