Living in Second Life

So I've recently discovered and become mildly obsessed with Second Life, a virtual environment accessible via the web. Like an online game environment, but without yahoos blasting away at you..., mostly.

It's free and rather fascinating. Warren Ellis has suggested that it may be the kernel of what will replace the internet and I can see how that could be possible - the great science fiction novel Donnerjack by Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold predicted something similar.

You can spend hours just creating the avatar that represents you, I went for something that more or less looks like me:

Really. It's a spitting image.

Second Life already has politics, economics, crime and punishment. And apparently a lot of sex. Very, very strange sex. Your Avatar doesn't have to look human, so it's a haven for, ick, furries. To each his own, consenting adults and all that, but I stand by my Ick.

It's an interesting place nonetheless and worth exploring as a glimpse of what may be to come in surfing.