I have gotten totally sucked into Second Life this week. It’s all Adam Curry’s fault! I heard him talk about the online game on DSC, then Kevin Rose mentioned it on TWIT, and my curiosity was picqued. I honestly didn’t think it would run on my old iMac, but I seem to be able to get around just fine. Maybe things don’t rez as quickly as they should, but it seems to me that the game is mostly a fancy chat interface. I’ve been sharing a little bit of my experiences over at my Chillcast site, including a few jpgs of my avatar. Speaking of my avatar, apparently the work I’ve done on it isn’t up to snuff with the game’s old timers because 2 days in a row girls have urged me that I “need to work on it.” Sigh.

There honestly hasn’t been much time to learn how to create custom skins and all of that because I keep getting into conversations about how to perform live in-game, which is what I’m most intersted in. Several club owners have already offered to let me and/or Lovespirals play live, which is quite fascinating. One DJ suggested that I have a listening party first, where I could introduce tracks to the audience, which should be easier than full on performance. Now I need to start running some audio tests on my computer to see what all I can really do. Oh, the other interesting possibility is in-game podcasting. Prerecorded podcasts would, of course, be much simpler, providing I was working with someone who offers audio feed to the masses in-game. I don’t own any property at this point, so I don’t have an outlet of my own to do it.

Honestly, I am beginning to be afraid of how much time this game takes away from Real Life, or RL as they call it… I mean, my identity is a singer/songwriter, and that’s what makes me happiest to do. Podcasting is already taking a lot of that time away from me. Even playing live has taken time away from songwriting and recording, which I’m sure many fans wouldn’t understand, but it just isn’t the same to perform a song I wrote years ago as it is to create a brand new song for a new CD. I guess there are writers and there are performers, and I am the former. Anyway, SL has gotten me thinking a lot about myself, my goals, priorities, position and function in society, personal relationships — it really is just a microcosm of RL, and not just “a game.” Grand Theft Auto, which I adore, is just a game. The Sims, which I was obsessed with, is just a game. Second Life is just that, another way to live one’s life – without leaving the house, basically. In some ways, I am down with that concept, but in other ways, it is pretty frightening. I think for me, it is yet another great way to get my music – and my friend’s music – out to an open group of listeners. There’s just some learning curve that I’m trying to master before I’m ready to do somthing truly interesting for those who have been using SL for years.

Anyway, this ended up being much more personal than I had imagined. I guess that’s the effect of the game. Adam warned me that it “messes with your head.”