DIY: easy winter trips to warmer places

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After the chilly, snowy surprises of this winter, a desire to be someplace warmer is understandable. You can go to sunny, calming places with a few clicks of your mouse and relax. No airport security, no sardines-in-a-tin-can plane seating, and no serious dents to your wallet.

To remind you what you may be slipping away from here's a video by the Weather Channel's Brainstorm Team about wind chill.

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Places I'm suggesting that you visit are in the metaverse, namely Second Life and Landmark (the game).

Second Life is virtual world like no other. There you can build, script (hopefully your build and not to grief other players), form social bonds, dance, outfit and shape your avatar--the list is virtually endless. There's an emphasis on creativity. You can play for free, but membership has its perks. Getting started can be a steep learning curve, but that's true of many MMORPGs as well. Sign up at the Second Life website.

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Landmark is currently in closed beta, so if you want to get in you'll have to acquire a beta key. Walmart and GameStop may still be offering them--I'm not sure. You can also gain access through Steam (a Settler pack is $19.99). If you belong to a guild, it may be offering give-away keys; a friend who plays may have extras. Landmark interests me in several ways, but mostly I continue to want to see how the voxel-based world develops and what the developers come up with next. BTW, the developers interact directly with the players, a refreshing difference from many MMORPGs I've seen. The blog Procedural World discusses voxel development in detail.

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You can also find these last two videos in my YouTube channel playlists under the title De-stressing in virtual worlds.

-- Marge