Stall The Ball

While reading a post by about “Second Life Hype vs. Reality” it struck me that any day now Hollywood will release a film about the second lifers. Calling it something like “Life^2” it’ll feature the goings and comings of people’s second lives as they foil dastardly deeds by media moguls and government PR machines.

Of course all the male actors will be square jawed tanned Adonis’s who manage to look as though they work out 20 hours a day despite spending most of their time in front of a keyboard. 3 days of stubble will serve to make them look even handsomer. The females will all be Amazonian goddesses; you know the ones that wake up in the morning with their makeup and hair perfect, and wearing PVC for 48 hours straight doesn’t involve dried on stale sweat, talc and 3 hours in a shower afterwards just to remove the outfit.

Follow up:

As our heroes and heroines enter second life cue them moving to some inner sanctum in their house with strangely dim lighting that makes them look good, you can read a book by, see your keyboard but yet is dark enough that all the flashing lights on their computers and monitors look good. The monitors will be those special ones we all use that project the text you are reading onto your face so that viewers can read it. In monochrome green natch. And one monitor won’t be enough, cue at least 6 ultra thin flat screens 36 to 42 inch in size suspended as if by magic and not a cable to be seen. Lots of floating symbols and geometrical shapes whizzing around on their screens, with a weird OS that never crashes.

As our heroes enter second life cue lots of special effects similar to Star gate wormhole as they zoom into their online persona. As they arrive in their second life the characters look the same as the real life characters but even more beautiful or handsome sporting the latest sun glasses and lots of flowing or tight leather depending on the characters sex.

At this point the story will develop some sort of mystery on a par with “The Famous Five” and about as deep. Much online meetings, assaulting impenetrable firewalls, bypassing all types of security “bots” all the while spouting some beavis and buthead type one-liners like “Can I open your port” spoken in a Rodger Moore voice while waggling an eyebrow or "I’m about to penetrate!"

As the story reaches its climatic finale expect the good guy to drop his gun/antivirus software/all destroying home-grown intrusion script. Meanwhile the heroine will have to be kidnapped by Doctor Evil (why does Tom Raftery come to mind?) who threatens her with all sorts and promptly proceeds to explain his master plan in great detail and expose various flaws and imperfections in his defences.

Cue the good guy, suitably battered and bleeding (the fact this is all online needn’t spoil this) who at the last minute rescues the girl, stops the countdown timer, kills Dr Evil (sorry Tom) and saves the day.

Roll credits.

As you leave the cinema you can console yourself that you too can be a hero in second life. After you buy the obligatory monitors, hardware, leather, sunglasses find some online “friends” and write your own “all purpose defeats all known firewalls” script.

Why does the expression “Get a life” keep nagging me?

ALTERNATE ENDING at request of Tom

Cue the good guy, suitably battered and bleeding (the fact this is all online needn’t spoil this) who at the last minute rescues the girl, stops the countdown timer, tries to kill Dr Evil save the day. But DR Evil has being using his Googling skills to great effect and has found the “Rules for being an evil Overlord” site and has taken the advice to heart. The beautifully orated description of his evil plan and it’s flaws, was a ruse. A dastardly scheme complete with Dr Evil tweaking his moustache while telling this fabulous fantasy of fiction. Instead as per rule 5

The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

Instead Dr Evil quickly moves to rule 6.

6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.

Good guy dead, evil plan happily afoot and untold wealth and riches on its way to him the heroine suddenly starts to notice some good qualities in Dr Evil. Like the size of his swag bag for a start. Succumbing to DR Evils devastating repartee of one liners such as “Yer man was a bit of a ghowl” and such like, the heroine and Dr Evil ride off into the sunset.