I’m after a new look for my Second Life avatar. She’s going to be showing a few folks around, so I want her to look good. In Second Life, I can buy an entire new face, body shape, skin and hair. It means I’ve given the Linden Labs my credit card number, so I’m cashed up with Linden dollars for the first time. As Mr9 would say, “the money’s burning a hole in my head”.

My first purchase was a too-dark skin, with a face that reminds me of a vapid cow. Seemed OK when I tried it on in the shop.

With a location search on “skin”, I can get to the Centrefold shop and the Hot ‘n’ Sexy shop. I asked someone where I’d find the “attractive and intelligent and interesting shop”…but strangely, he didn’t know. I bet that if I opened a branch of that near Info Island, I’d do a roaring trade to librarians.

In Second Life, most people are young, attractive and can fly. I thought I’d never see that in Real Life. But, today I took the kids to see “Aureo”, a very stylish and sophisticatedly lit performance by aerealists from Western Australia’s electronic circus company Skadada. They were breathtaking and reminded me that with determination and practice, people can do wonders.

To a kid with a hammer everything looks like a nail, but today wasn’t the only time Second Life has spilled into Real Life. Thursdays are Laughter Yoga days. We spend an hour trying to laugh as much as possible to coax our bodies to release endorphins. Last week we did an exercise where you pretend your boss has just given you an impossible job, due in half an hour. We look up from our typing and laugh uproariously and say “you want it when??”.

So, there I was, in a circle of people walking around with all of us typing on our imaginary keyboards in front of us. This is the exact position your Second Life avatar takes when you are typing in the chat window, so the yoga exercise wasn’t the only reason I was staring at the others and LMAO.