Today I Bought My First Piece of Land, and I WON'T BE ABLE TO SLEEP!

....okay, it was only land made of pixels. At least the way it looked to me. To a more knowledgeable person, it would be land made of...code, I guess.

But to me, it's a thing of beauty. And it's real in a way that surprises me.

Like many people, I'd heard of Second Life some months before going to the website and making the decision to load the software. People were making REAL MONEY in this virtual environment! And I'm not saying that's not an interesting concept (most of us could always use a little more cash).

But what actually got me to sign on was a machinima clip on The Daily Show, showing avatars congregating for a debate on the Democratic Presidential candidates. Since I'd been spending a lot of my free time following the campaign, the weird amalgam of politics and imaginative creation simply--got to me.

So---many adventures later---here I am, A Land Owner.

Will I run afoul of the person with the Ban Lines to the west, or to the person with the Instant Eject (though the info card that pops up says "15 seconds"....HAH!!) to the east?

Will the speculator who bought the land I'd wanted (but couldn't buy for a full day after becoming a Premium Member because Linden Labs doesn't allow you to buy ANY Lindens the same day you buy an Annual Membership), and raised the price substantially because I was foolish enough to land on that parcel too many times, and who left a LAND MINE (?!???!?!?) on the property, return to.....do something that will bug me?

Will I be able to sleep tonight, considering the level of excitement I feel about this whole thing (I GET TO LANDSCAPE MY LAND AND PUT UP MY DREAM HOUSE AND PUT SOME OF MY INVENTORY STUFF IN STORAGE AND SO, THEN, GO GATHER MORE FREE STUFF yippee yippee yippee...)???

No. I can almost promise you that I will not.