Roadtrip Attempt: Two Wheels Better than Four

Location: Linden Roads

Okay, I got on my bike, bald and de-primmed, unscripted and ready to roll.

It actually went well. Too well. With draw-distance out far but with graphics tuned down, I would even get up to 100 kph on some straightaways.  I did "bounce" at some sim-borders but never wrecked the bike. I even saw one avatar, in the middle of the road, and I dodged her while she changed her appearance. Now why DO folks go to the middle of a road to do that?

Fool that I am, I decided to return in The Machine That Must Be Worshipped, my '67 Black GTO.

Oh, what a mistake. Every baddy-bad from my last attempt returned to haunt me. Fail #2 for Mr. Billy Badass.

But first, while on the motorcycle, what DID I find along those Linden Roads: Crap. Crap. Same old crap as in 2007 or 8.  I've concluded that the Mainland is a wasteland.

First, a billboard that supports the idea that SL is the ideal playground for bored housewives. Say, where is Betty Draper when you need her?

This is not Betty. She's a Betty-bot at a rather squalid place to get money by entering raffles and contests.

Here's another shot from a den full of ugly avatars and "games of chance" that Linden Lab permits under their TOS. To my untrained eye, these scenes possess the wilted sadness of a senior-citizen bingo parlor, without the good cheer or aged avarice (those geezers can get testy...trust me).

Down the road a bit, a pole-dancing club full of blingy girls, ready to go "topless for 150L, nude for 300L." No, thanks.

Funny thing, that. When my campus built a parcel on the Sansara mainland continent in 2006, it was next to a casino with pole dancing. Same old, same old.

The trip home was a mess after I found a rezz-zone and switched rides. At any velocity over 40 kph, I crashed repeatedly into gullies and houses, until I got flung to the corner of one region.  I logged out.

Then today, a message in my inbox:

"Your object 'GB7 67 PMD Goat (Black)' has been returned to your inventory lost and found folder from parcel 'Deadly Sin' at Mitta 96, -1 because it went off-world."

Deadly Sin, indeed. I didn't even tip those dancers!

From a Tripod (remember that?) website, a definition of "Sansara": The rounds of birth and death and rebirth, reincarnation. Cyclic existence, the beginningless and endless wheel of rebirth. The world, the realm of desire.

Yes, and the wheel has turned and turned, but it is still 2007 in this part of Second Life.