the-hills.org

OK, I'm a fan of The Office. In a recent episode, I enjoyed Jim and Pam making fun of Dwight for playing Second Life. I thought, "I can do this!", and because I could, I thought that meant that I should.

I made it through registering, downloading the client, going through the orientation, in which you learn how to fly, change your appearance, etc., and decided I was ready to begin the game. Keep in mind that, at this point, I still know nothing about the game, other than you can fly, and you can have your character in the game do essentially whatever they want. I figured I'd go in, figure out some way to make the play money that's used as currency in the game, and have a good time.

When I got to the welcome center, I spent a couple of minutes walking around, milling through the strange group of people who were also probably trying to figure out what to do, when someone comes up and...well, let's say, is a little forward. It was enough for me to decide I needed to go somewhere else.

So that's exactly what I did. I decided that I needed a job, so I popped up the in-game search engine and typed in "job." There were many results, but none were really distinguishable from any of the others. I teleported to the first result that appeared, and was suddenly in an office, and inside the office was a black sports car, and the following signs were on the wall:

• a sign telling me how to "join" this job agency
• a sign telling me that I can earn L$1 for every 15 minutes I sit on their couch, up to a maximum of L$25 per day
• some example job advertisements, which I can apply for if I pay to join the agency

I sit down on the couch for my personal patience limit, which is about 90 seconds, before I give up on trying to earn money the slow, easy way. Then, I decided to explore around the agency. I was trying to find an exit (and there wasn't a door in the building), and I went upstairs to what was some kind of lounge, which had exactly 0 people in it. When I walked back downstairs, I found two people with suits and guns, asking me what I was doing there. I started chatting with them, trying to make sure my second life didn't end before my first one does, and eventually found out the following things:

• the two guys were in the second life mafia
• one of them owned the nice black car in the agency office
• the job agency was some sort of mafia front
• in order to join the second life mafia, i needed to get a gun and a nice suit

I quickly decided this game was not for me.