I'm sure that most of us have heard about other grids coming into existence, ones that are outside of the ubiquitous, omnipotent LL, and have been looking forward to the day when we can do things like copy and paste without fear, or orbit some crybaby attention seeker without getting the annoying, "you've been logged out by an administrator, bitch" message. I have had a few people ask me when I plan on getting my ass in gear and building some crap for outside of LL servers, so I though I'd better see what all the hullaballoo is about.



One alternative is called OpenSim. I had actually googled "open source"--it seems that nobody can remember the exact names of the alternative grids or viewers--and OpenSim was the only thing that came up in search that had the word "download" in the description. I read some of the information that stated what the main differences were between this and a SecondLife viewer, and just the greater build flexibility was enough to tantalize me into trying it out.

There are instructions on the website, stuff about downloading, and then copying and pasting your SecondLife icon, and then adding some stuff to the log in address thingamajig. It was pretty simple, as it only took an airhead like me about 23 minutes to get it all figured out.



Finally, I was able to log in with the OpenSim viewer. I wondered why it said "SecondLife" in the top left corner. These two log-in screen shots are actually before I had it right, thus they actually say "Hippo Viewer" in the top left corner. Once I got it all figured out, it did say "SecondLife" in that corner.



Woo hoo! Just like SecondLife! An error message as soon as I was almost kinda sorta but not really logged in. Closing the window then trying to relog immediately just got me the "you can't friggin log in because your ass is already logged in, bitch" message, so I had to wait an eternal 30 or so seconds.



Finally, I was able to log in, and so far, everything seemed normal. I had relogged at my last location, which was my workshop. Slow-loading textures are normal for SL these days, so I wasn't really alarmed.



Unfortunately, upon being totally logged in for reals I became Ruth. This Ruth is a bit different from the regular SecondLife Ruth, but she's still Queen Of Nastehville.



Once I was sure I was totally logged in for good, and my junk wasn't still downloading, uploading, whateverloading, I moved. It's really nice of these OpenSim people to make their "Orientation Island" equivalent landing spot in the middle of water. I love being under water when I discover I'm an ugly little bitch with bad hair, cheap clothes, ugly toes, no inventory, and GASP!! I'M HAVING HEART PALPITATIONS (psyche, I don't have a heart, they cause too much lag) only $1000. Of course, I don't know where this money came from, and it couldn't be L$, so maybe it's real $ from the USA. There wasn't anything to buy here, so I don't know why anyone needs money, unless maybe you design clothes, then you can upload something to wear that doesn't suck.



As if all this traumadrama wasn't bad enough, I was no mod. I kept hearing the black cheerleaders from "Wildcats" in the back of my head shouting, "U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi! You ugly! Yeah yeah you ugly! Yo mama says you ugly!"



I was able to use my same name--thankfully, we can select our own last names on this one--but I wondered if I was really me. According to my profile, I didn't know. Another big turn-off to this grid is the fact that everyone is born on January 1, 1970. When shopping for a virtual existence, I tend to avoid ones where I am going to be older, uglier, and less pimped out than I am in my RL. I mean pimped out as in hooked up with stuff like cars and the house with the pool and shit, not pimped out as in turning tricks on the corner so my pimp can drive around in a gold trimmed Cadillac with a Gucci rag top.



Since my profile either wasn't loading, or was blank, I thought I'd google myself.



I did come up in search, although why it said "SecondLife search" remains a mystery to me, and was glad that I was still me. At this point I decided to say goodbye to "daymare SL", and relogged into the real deal.