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Balancing Act . . .
Aug. 7th, 2007 08:59 amSo I slipped my female body back on. I haven't given up on the boyshape, I just feel like letting my feminine side come out to play again.
Between one thing and another, my Linden dollar balance was standing at L$4,999. Not a bad place to be, but the number itched at me. I seem to have certain obsessive-compulsive tendencies that derive satisfaction from round numbers that end in zero (the more zeros, the better.) One more Linden would bring the balance to a nice, tidy $5,000. But how to get it? The only income I have is my stipend, and that obviously wouldn't help.
I think it says something about my Second Life experience that it actually took me a while to think of a solution.
I went camping.
The whole concept of camping chairs completely baffled me when I first heard about it. Dance pads made a certain amount of sense--paying someone to dance and add to the atmosphere. But what did someone gain by paying someone to sit in a chair? The answer, as it turns out, is traffic--a bunch of green dots that make a place look interesting to someone who is looking for something to do.
Earning money by sitting in one place never really appealed to me, though. Especially such a profound pittance. But, since the only thing I needed was one Linden and that would only take about ten minutes of ass-parking, I decided to go ahead and give it a try.
The Search function led me to a number of places that sum up the worst parts of Second Life--ugly, laggy, noisy places that are all about Ways To Make Money. Many of them were of the consumer survey variety and one was a former casino that was now spookily empty since they had to get rid of the slot machines.
I finally found a relatively pleasant mall-type place that had camping. It was even a rather nice bit of 'set decoration'--the camping spots were blankets on a beach and sitting on one placed your avatar in a sunbathing position. (At least if you did it right--my first attempt had me sitting on the blanket proper instead of the poseball and left me sitting upright, buried up to my chest.) I talked to a passing newbie and explained to him what I was doing and ended up crashing somewhere in the middle of our conversation. Dang.
I logged back in and got things ready for my Group meeting and tried again when it was over. This time, I was able to lie down for ten minutes, do a little inventory sorting and then when the little indicator said I'd earned one Linden, I stood up and collected.
My Linden balance became an even L$5,000. My inner bean counter was happy and I was free to explore the world again.
So I guess even camping has its uses for people like me. I maintain that camping is the SL equivalent of a burger-flipping job--unskilled labor that doesn't earn you enough to live on, but might be just fine if all you need a little bit of spending money.
Between one thing and another, my Linden dollar balance was standing at L$4,999. Not a bad place to be, but the number itched at me. I seem to have certain obsessive-compulsive tendencies that derive satisfaction from round numbers that end in zero (the more zeros, the better.) One more Linden would bring the balance to a nice, tidy $5,000. But how to get it? The only income I have is my stipend, and that obviously wouldn't help.
I think it says something about my Second Life experience that it actually took me a while to think of a solution.
I went camping.
The whole concept of camping chairs completely baffled me when I first heard about it. Dance pads made a certain amount of sense--paying someone to dance and add to the atmosphere. But what did someone gain by paying someone to sit in a chair? The answer, as it turns out, is traffic--a bunch of green dots that make a place look interesting to someone who is looking for something to do.
Earning money by sitting in one place never really appealed to me, though. Especially such a profound pittance. But, since the only thing I needed was one Linden and that would only take about ten minutes of ass-parking, I decided to go ahead and give it a try.
The Search function led me to a number of places that sum up the worst parts of Second Life--ugly, laggy, noisy places that are all about Ways To Make Money. Many of them were of the consumer survey variety and one was a former casino that was now spookily empty since they had to get rid of the slot machines.
I finally found a relatively pleasant mall-type place that had camping. It was even a rather nice bit of 'set decoration'--the camping spots were blankets on a beach and sitting on one placed your avatar in a sunbathing position. (At least if you did it right--my first attempt had me sitting on the blanket proper instead of the poseball and left me sitting upright, buried up to my chest.) I talked to a passing newbie and explained to him what I was doing and ended up crashing somewhere in the middle of our conversation. Dang.
I logged back in and got things ready for my Group meeting and tried again when it was over. This time, I was able to lie down for ten minutes, do a little inventory sorting and then when the little indicator said I'd earned one Linden, I stood up and collected.
My Linden balance became an even L$5,000. My inner bean counter was happy and I was free to explore the world again.
So I guess even camping has its uses for people like me. I maintain that camping is the SL equivalent of a burger-flipping job--unskilled labor that doesn't earn you enough to live on, but might be just fine if all you need a little bit of spending money.
