Who is Wally Sperber?

Who is Wally Sperber? Wally is my SL name, and it was one I chose in the beginning to be close to my RL counterpart.

I even modeled my avatar to look as close to my RL self as I could. But... as you can see from my SL pic back on the Blog title page, my look has drastically changed.

I started out exploring the SL environment in March of 2007 and within a week got my buddy Scott (my now SL brother - Goot Sperber) to check it out as well. Within a month or so we had our first residence - a really neat condo with an ocean front view.

We were getting ready to host our annual LAN party and thought it would be cool to do a scavenger hunt in SL to provide the party info. The scavenger hunt went well and we got a few folks interested in the SL world in the process. We even enlisted some SL hotties to make the scavenger hunt more interesting.

Then like most residents, it did not take long before we got the "Land Owner" bug and started searching for land. We almost picked up a small 512m (512 sq meters) plot, but lost out on it - which in hind site was a good thing. We then purchased our first piece of land in May - a very nice 4096m island lot with crashing waves (including sound) for $27,000L where we purchased and plopped down our first house ($5,5500L) and dubbed it "Sperber One".

About that same time, I decided I needed a way to make money - after all most cool things in SL costs money - just like in RL and we needed to furnish the new house. So I thought - why not be a male dancer? Well a friend (Pincess) who was working as a female dancer told me about a new club opening up that needed male dancers, so I went down to interview. They would be glad to interview me once I got a new "skin" - which is basically a complete avatar make-over that makes you more realistic looking. And I'll tell you what - you would be amazed at what some of these avatars look like! Anyway to make a long story short, I went shopping and got the new Wally new look and interviewed - was hired, and was dubbed "Red Hot Wally". I did well and was quite popular with the ladies. The club closed down after a while - a common occurance in SL, and since I was "seeing" someone exclusively at the time - (much to the disapointment of many female avies) - I decided to retire from the dancing business.

From there Goot and I started on our first built from scratch house - but that is another post entirely. I am now working on my next build project - not sure what it will be yet, but I will keep you updated.

Wally

What is Second Life - My Take

Wally's the name Second Life (SL) is the game! Well, it's not really a game - it's an online virtual world full of cool people, places and things. SL is a place where you can live out your Real Life (RL) fantasies or just kill some time. The problem is once your in, it will eat up way too much of your time if your not careful. Many people are so in to the SL experience that they are more likely to "login" to RL to take care of their mundane live tasks - then escape back to SL.

So what is it and what makes it so addictive? Like I said, it's a virtual world where you can be anyone you want, like maybe a superhero, a doctor, a pilot, an exotic dancer, etc.. or you can just live out your RL fantasies in a non-threatening, place for a lot less money. Of course it isn't real - it's just for entertainment, but as compared to many other "games" or online actvities go - it can be one heck of a lot of fun ond at times it can be very frustrating.

The people or "avatars" you are dealing with are all real and have real personalities and real feelings. These other 'avies' are from all over the world, so there is always someone on line and always something to do. It's like a huge chat room in a 3D rich graphical environment.

Popular things people do in SL:

• Hang out at Clubs and dance and listen to Music. These can be Jazz clubs, Bars, Night clubs or even Strip clubs.
• Build / create things - like clothing, jewelery, and houses, but there is no limit to what people can create. Keep in mind that everything you see in SL was created by a SL resident.
• Search out sex partners for rendevous - you got a fetish? - SL has your fix.

All though these are the more popular things that people do, they are by no means all there is. Here is another short list of things that I have done:

• Skydive
• Scubadive
• Snow ski
• Ice skate
• Fly a Helicopter
• Dance as a stripper
• Talk to dragons
• Build houses
• Make Jewlery

And it goes on and on. In some of my other posts, I will post photos of things I see and do, and you will see just how graphically rich the SL environment is.

Wally