Attitudes & Adjustments

"You can be cautious but you have to let people in."
-Joan Plowright
as heard in the 2003 film,
"I Am David"

Have you begun your "Second Life"? Your current job does NOT have to be your worst job. Create your own new, exciting virtual world and see how it goes.

There was an article published in New Scientist Magazine on November 13, 2009 by Nic Fleming that spoke of one's ability to create a new, virtual world. You can do so now by going to "Second Life":
http://secondlife.com/?v=1.1

Sometimes I wonder who has time to deal with creating a new life; however, residents of "Second Life" have spent one billion hours in this digital world. Now the founder, Philip Rosedale, has plans to push the concept much further in a new virtual venture.

The populations and economies of virtual worlds are growing rapidly. How much bigger will they get? They are still in their infancy. The expectation is that we will see a web-scale usage fairly soon, meaning 1 billion people. Currently some 250,000 people use "Second Life" every day. It is expected to grow by three orders of magnitude. The total GDP of virtual worlds will catch up with real-world GDP over the next 20 to 30 years.

Yet many people are hostile to the notion of virtual worlds. A lot of human interest, activity, creativity, and ultimately money and commerce, are moving into virtual worlds. Some people find that virtual level of disruption to the way things work frightening and upsetting. So denial or being dismissive is natural.

How does spending a lot of time in virtual worlds affect people psychologically?
As an avatar it is more likely that you will do something unusual that you might have thought about but not wanted to try in the real world. So you're more likely to change your real-world life in a positive or aspirational way.

Twenty-five years ago today:

February 21, 1985
Thursday

I met Seth (the guy from "The Connector") this morning at the Metro Cafe. He works for some Personnel Agency, finding people jobs. I think he 'approves' of me but the question is whether or not I approve of him. And if Seth calls me again...then what? His hair is black and it recedes a bit. He seems nice enough. He happens to know my high-school pal, Mary Halvorsen, who works at a Personnel Agency in his office building. He drives a motorcycle. While sipping our morning coffee we joked around about the 'good time' we had last night. We parted ways at precisely 8:15AM to our respective offices.

I overheard Marty at around 4:10AM this morning, taking a shower. It was kind of neat because when I heard him I knew that I had two hours of sleep left. Marty left me another note on the dining room table:
'Mike, I may go out dancing to the Oasis tonight.'

Karyn Kossoff's sister is six weeks pregnant. It looks like Karyn will be 'Auntie Karyn' in eight months or so.

Sue Fischer, the gal in Data Marketing, who wanted me around during Happy Hour last Friday while her boyfriend, Hank, was around happened to be flirting with me today. Dale always jokes around about how her panties are so 'wet and hot' for me. Dale knows how to get on my nerves, too. He likes to call me "Hal" after "Hal Gill", the guy in my section who has an attitude problem. So, when I seem to be giving Dale attitude he will say, "Okay, Hal."

I tend to tease Dale right back by stabbing him with a teaser fact that he really likes Guy Grivet (another guy in the office who has a type of superior attitude).

Sue Fischer cannot go out until after March 1st. I found out that is the date her boyfriend, Hank, goes to jail for some sort of traffic problem!

I went to Berkeley and met Chris Cordellos there for dinner. We walked and talked all around Telegraph Avenue.
"Would you believe my mom is supporting Paula and my brother, Nick?"
"Yeah, I believe it," I replied. He neglected to mention that she is supporting him, too. Haha. Hello?

We ate Chinese Food and decided to see the movie "The Falcon and The Snowman".

I arrived home at 12:15AM. I was beat tired. I am glad tomorrow is Friday. Yawn.

"How fond women are of doing dangerous things!" laughed Lord Henry.
"It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most.
A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on."
-Oscar Wilde
"The Picture of Dorian Gray"