Looking at this strip reminds me of a simliar offering. Oh believe me, this strip wasn't trippin'. There is an actual virtual club that exists, but i'm reffering to something that i've been hearing about a bit lately. It's called Second Life (SL) and it has been around for a few years (2003) now. It's a virtual world instead of just a nightclub. The way I hear it, you can do virtually (pun intended) anything you can do in real life (yes, even that, you freak). You can run around, dance, interact with other avatars (virtual character) who have actual people controlling them, "own" land, make stuff, buy and sell made stuff for real money, etc. More on that in a second.

So here is he rundown as I caught it. You go the the site, sign up (for free, but it's only for trial), download the program, make your avatar(in your own likeness or someone else if you're one of those types), go in and be your or them or someone completely different. Now remember that I said that you can buy and sell stuff for real money, well that is true to a point. You may sign up for free, but if you want to do anything worthwhile, you have to come up off of some actual dough. You see, the world has it's own curency called Linden that can be exchanged for real scratch. Don't worry, I hear a Dollar goes longer than it does in real life(RL, as they say). So when you go in, you plunk down some dollars (you need a credit card, I hear), it gets exchanged for Linden, and you can buy land and a house to park on it. Houses need furniture and I know you would want to stay freshly dipped, so you go to the mall and shop for vitual clothes and stuff for the house. I believe you can even buy transportation to get around. I heard something of a transporter like Star Trek can be used. And when I say make stuff, that's what's up. You can make stuff to sell in the world. From jewelry to clothes to cars and houses and so on and so on. I hear the scripting language used in world is relatively simple.

Now when I said you can interact with other inhabitants, that is suppposedly what it means. You can walk up to someone and chat them up. I think it uses some kind of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), but I'm not sure. You can invite someone (or more people) to your virtual crib,sit down and watch a movie, or even have a house party. Hell, the BBC is even having a music festival, so that should tell you how big it was gotten. I hear people have even started businesses in SL. And making real money, no less. Virtual hoes got eat, too. It's really funny, but interesting at the same time.

I can actually see some use out of this little setup. I have people sprinkled around the country and one or two across the rest of the map. You could meet up with your people here and hang out when you know you can't catch them face to face in real life. What I can't yet see is paying a minimum of $10 a month for the priviledge. That's not including what you pay for in world. Now, I hear you saying, "Why not pick up the phone, write them a letter, get see them, or what not."? True, but this sounds more fun, plus not everyone is that close to see each other. And those of saying, "This is stupid. Why would you put yourself out there for some game?" Well, stop checking your Myspace account and think about it, first. Yea, that's what I thought. I'm not saying this is for everybody, but someone could find this interesting. I do, but like I said, I'm not ready to come out of my wallet yet. I don't play online games like World of Warcraft, either so this isn't saying anything. I may actually try it one day. If anyone has, holla at me and let me know what's up.

The reason I find this interesting is because I came through the ways of alternate communication. Those like me that use Skype, blogging, and such started out through the gates of email and ISCA BBS's (you know who you are), etc. It's just a wolf to the 25th power, in a sense, and not much different except in presentation. So anyway, go discuss, try it. I'm out. And if it wasn't already obvious, I will say it again that I haven't tried it, so let the warning stand here.

And you will need a respectable computer, it seems.

Link: Second Life

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