Down and Out in Second Life

Since I've been sleeping lately, I got to stay up tonight an literally bum around Second Life some more. Visited Popular Science, WIRED, and CNet. And then I got depressed again. I'm looking at my pretty sad attempts to texture my avatar... each texture costs $10 (Linden bucks, sorta like Mickey Mouse rainbow money) just to upload. So I started with $250, and I'm down to $105, and here's how:
- uploaded several textures, only a couple I can actually use
- donated money to something
- tried to pay some for a "gift" but got nothing in return

The really sad part is, despite being aware of SL many moons ago, I never invested the time in getting my feet wet. Oh, I think I had a daliance ages ago, but with an avatar I can't even remember... At any rate, I have totally missed out on the free money.

You see, as long as you're under 90 days "old" you can get money from these so-called money trees that dispense the magic Lindens. Since I signed up, tinkered, but left, only to come back well after 90 days, I'm screwed. Oh, and I missed (by another magic 3 months) the program where you got a monthly stipend, just for participating in the world.

My last remaining resource would have been to teach, but first I'd have to learn the system (building with prims and the UI reminds me of the days I struggled with Ray Dream Studio, and after years of being spoiled in 3ds max, I'm just so tired of prim-management). Then Linden decided, very recently, to quit paying schools or teachers a stipend.

So what now? Well SL doesn't take kindly to beggars, and I'm under strict orders not to spend money to buy money. So I'll see where this terrible poverty takes me! More to come...