gd031808

=03/18/2008= == http://slurl.com/secondlife/Capitol%20Hill%201/139/14/32

Howdy once again, y'all, this is your old friend the Garbage Dumpling back home and working hard after a nominally relaxing Spring Break (of course the truth is I never left, I just worked 12 hour shifts). Today's adventure took me to the US Capitol: Online Version in Second Life. I picked up the SLURL for this location from Hadley Kiergarten. Besides the poorly constructed electronic replicas of the US Capitol (above) and the Washington Monument (below in all its phallic glory) there wasn't much here - no people, no campers, no music.

However, behind the Capitol 'building' along the 'Mall' where, IRL, one would find the various Smithsonian institutions, there are instead a group of 6-8 kiosks, each one dedicated to a national legislative issue (such as National Security, Health Care, Stem Cell Research, etc). These kiosks provide educational material in a video which gives the issue context. Then you are directed to these signs:

This is pretty neat. You get links here to copies of current legislation and their status before the House/Senate. You also get to see the proposals of each party's caucus on every issue. If people actually came to this part of Second Life this might be a valuable tool not only for educating part of the American electorate, but also to reach an international audience and show them the debate which goes on within the US Congress.

People are so difficult to find within Second Life that I decided to click on the nearest 'island' with a bunch of people on it. Surprisingly, this time I did not end up at a sex shop:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/swatch/225/127/34

Swatch island was a market place of high-end Second Life toys, including the tennis court pictured above. Apparently a group of designers collaberates to make a lot of the textures for sale here. Formal clothing, landscaping objects, and architectural wonders can also be purchased from Swatch. It turns out that the avatars I found were campers. Alas. My next journey had similar results.



http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eros%20Cove/48/121/31

Eros Cove, despite its name and population of avatars, is not a sex-shop either. It is the home of Eros designs, another collaberative design group which specializes in high-end clothing and jewelery in Second Life - really posh stuff, actually. The girl in the snapshot above with the dust mop is actually a camper - Eros pays out a lot of money (relatively speaking) for people to 'clean' their shop while wearing their clothes. This girl had made over L$175 for camping. I did get more out of Eros than just visiting another SL commercial space, however:



The American Cancer Society logo in the above snapshot may not be visible, but it turns out that Eros is collecting donations for the Relay For Life. It turns out that there is a Second Life Relay With Life with avatar participants who accept sponsor donations just like the relay IRL. You can read more about this innovative new fundraising initiative here. Apparently the ACS raised L$27,000,000 in 2007, or about $100,000.



Eros also had an adjoining blues club complete with a Second Life iPOD where you could download and play your choice of songs. The downside, of course, is the price. Whereas virtual clothes in SL can be as cheap as L$1 per item or outfit and land is less than L$100 per acre, a single song on this iPOD costs L$300. That is almost certainly the RIAA at work.



http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kowari/65/140/99

A quick search for 'elections' took me to an area called Kowari. The owner of this plot is almost certainly a Hillary Clinton supporter (with video and quotes in support of the former First Lady abounding) and a member of NOW. The use of streaming video as an educational tool in SL is a lot more effective than the use of 3D design and still imagery in places like the virtual Darfur, at least in my opinion. The videos are more engaging and make you (and your avatar) more likely to stay and watch, rather than walk through to the next panel without reading everything.



The internet is never without irony. After watching the videos and hearing Hillary's spiel, I went 'clicking' again looking for a gathering of people and ended up at a sex-shop. For some reason the pro-Hillary areas of SL are never far from one - then again, most areas of SL aren't far from one anyway.



http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cuscus/152/29/78 For those who are interested. I wasn't, and I moved on to bigger (but not necessarily better) things.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sorens/219/168/77 On to the place that bills itself as the Ron Paul 2008 Headquarters - which was absolutely empty and devoid of any intelligent content whatsoever. However, I would gladly take the sign's advice and have a drink right now. It is almost time for my 2L adventures today to come to a close. Ron Paul's headquarters, like his campaign, were full of useless fluff and largely ridiculous.



The Ron Paul headquarters did, of course, include a lot of guns, the omnipresent dance floor, and a shooting range as seen below - it turns out Garbage Dumpling is a terrible shot. He'd rather shoot whiskey than guns.

My last stop on today's journey was the Cafe Wellstone Club, where an eerie image of the late Paul Wellstone can watch you dance on top of the cover to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

Garbage Out.