Holiday Madness and Second Life fun

So sorry that I haven't updated lately - the holiday season this year has been madness.

I was given notice from my day job that I was to be laid off right after Christmas, so I scrambled for a few weeks trying to find a new job, cut back on spending, all that good stuff you do when you are faced with impending poverty.

Just the other day the boss decided that he wanted to keep me on, and find other ways to save money, instead of just taking me off payroll. So I'm employed until at least June of 2005. So cool, I can stop stressing and get back to blogging, right?

Good. For those of you keeping up with my Second Life exploits, I've gotten myself an apartment on Java. Unobstructed water views, nice high ceilings and wood floors. The landowners are very nice, and they have a sandbox for builders. I'm on the cheap SL plan, so I go around scrounging for free clothes, furniture and stuff. Well, I outfitted my apartment with a bunch of the free stuff I've collected, and even made a pile of free presents around the Christmas tree.

Well, the Java owners saw all this and asked if I would do a free store over in the French Quarter. Oh, I should mention that Java is modeled after New Orleans, so the apartments look like plantations and theres loads of flowers and trees. Very cool. Having only seen pictures of New Orleans, I can't say if it's realistic, but it suits me fine.

Anyway, so I set up a free store, and there are already lots of people coming over to get free stuff. I figure I need to give something back to the new Second Lifers, because someone else did it for me. It's kind of like volunteering. Very cool that SL is teaching me how to be altruistic. I got to teach a new person how to copy items into their inventory yesterday, and it gave me quite the sense of satisfaction, that I was able to teach this simple thing to someone that they can now use for their benefit.

Now if only real life were this easy...