Another Virtual Day, Another Virtual Dollar
I stopped by Karuna Plaza for some reason, and saw people up on the stage -- a rare enough thing so that I wanted to check it out. I saw about ten people involved in a game of Truth or Dare. I stopped to watch, but I was offended at the way it seemed to be going so I teleported to the nearest place on my favorites (my map wasn't working). I'd just arrived when a member of my dueling club IMd and asked for help, then wanted to duel. I helped him, said "yes" to the duel, then immediately a noob started asking me something. I got rather engrossed, so I feel guilty about not responding to the IM boy. I went driving with the noob, and then back to the lounge to talk. He's a 33 year-old Italian journalist who lives in Milan and would like to become a teacher. We talked about opera -- he has "been to the theatre of la Scala to see Carmen of Bizet." I asked him if he'd just been at the Truth or Dare game, which he had ( I remembered seeing him there). That's a newbie spawn zone. I wondered about the strange coincidence of teleporting and having someone show up immediately from the place I teleported from. It happened before. A girl teleported about 5 seconds after me, and I said, "Are you following me?" She blushed and disappeared. I suppose it could either be coincidence or something to do with being a beta tester. 'hmm At one point a man came over and stood on top of Lu, my Italian friend, and he said, "Who is this person who is standing on my legs?" I IMd Toxic but he moved spontaneously so I just said "thanks for moving." Lu is an anime nut and sleeps with a noisy pc downloading all night for him. I told him about wanting to be Max Headroom and that I was getting close. He talked about wanting to look less like Ken and that he was wearing the plain, white "T shirt of the poor demo people." I told him about the Uru refugees. He told me about an article he'd written making up a story for Barbie and Ken's divorce. All I remember is Barbie had a "story" with "Jim," and Ken didn't mind as he became a pacifist. W/e. I suggested Barbie might like G.I. Joe, but he said G.I. Joe is much younger than Barbie. I'll bet Barbie's had plastic surgery.

It would be nice if there were a "notes" section to "My Buddies" so one could be reminded of who the heck these people are, since about a quarter of the people I don't remember offhand, and another group are gone. Like "blackstorm," a kid in Atlanta I talked to on several occasions. I remember he said his mother didn't like him skateboarding, but because he'd broken his leg (he told me) grinding or something, I said, "No wonder." A nice kid. I miss my friend Relic, who is a member but just disappeared around the time I disappeared for a couple of weeks as my wrist went wonky. I met a girl a few weeks ago, then last week I was climbing around on something and she came over especially to talk, which was nice. I think it's the oddest thing to've been in There long enough that I recognise people, or at least know them from their designs or so on.

I did a quest, and afterwards went back to the start with the intention of IMing Psi -- got to talking with a "man" who was a male avatar being borrowed by the owner's wife. She lives in Ontario, so I asked her about the younger Canadian knowledge of Avro -- her husband immediately started talking about it. Meanwhile Psi logged out -- too bad.