ARTICLE: "My So-Called Second Life: I stepped into this virtual world and found a lot of sex--and a guide named Cristal," by Joel Stein, Time, 25 December 2006-1 January 2007, p. 76.

Funny bit by Stein, who's almost always great, about some time he spent cruising--in that Al Pacino way--in SL (he got a gift penis, which was cool). The upshot? Despite all the visual weirdness, he pretty much behaved like he always did, and found that the people he interacted with did so as well. Sure, lotsa flavor surrounding the dating scene, but people are people in the end. When I gave the interview to NPR on the subject (the story's surely run by now, and if anyone can find it...), I was surprised to find myself saying that the experience wasn't that different from any other speaking gig: being rushed in by handlers, with a certain amount of fumbling (mostly mine, in terms of movement), that awkward moment on stage when you're setting up under the gaze of an assembling audience, the slow start by me, getting into the groove while trying not to get distratcted by people in the crowd, and then a Q&A that was surprisingly above par (perhaps having to type a question makes it come off better, because I'm sure the same was true with my answers). On the far side, there was the sudden pull of my schedule: in the real world it's always about running out to catch a plane (I'm surprised I don't have nightmares on the subject, since I engage in that tense chase every week in some strange city--thus my great love of GPS), but here in SL it was my kids getting home from school and suddenly jumping all over me (my "office" at that point was about 10 square feet just inside the apartment door, so I took "meetings" with my kids frequently and resorted to doing radio interviews in the bathroom). What appearances by people like Arianna Huffington and Joel Stein tell me is that SL is now pretty much established, which made being talked into appearing in it way back when ('05? or early this year? [Editor's note: October 2005]) kinda cool in retrospect.