Astrologers are full of shit.

So much so, that I thought I would have a go. How hard can it be. I am starting this series with Aries. Because… my psychic powers tell me this is a good thing to do.

Aries – The Coming Week

This week is a bad week for building. The Lindens might do maintenance and then you’ll lose all your prims. I see LURVE in the colours pink and blue. No, hold on… that’s just your resolution set. Someone whose name ends in ‘Gossipgirl’ will piss you off. It’s a bad week for work because you are spending too much time in Second Life and your boss does not appreciate you knocking pixels with newbies on staff time. I see prims. Lots of prims. And umm… my non-existent crystal ball tells me that you’ll crash at least twice this week.

I’m good, aren’t I?

I’ve made no secret of my opinions on Second Life™ weddings.

I hate them. They make me want to stamp on my own eyes (I don’t even know how I would do that)!

But I won’t bitch about Second Life weddings… not today at least. Instead, I will take a positive spin on the whole topic (yay, can you feel the happy vibes? Roses, butterflies and good things in general?) and talk about how you can use the time at a random Second Life wedding productively.

Now, even those who might not admit to hating Second Life weddings, will probably admit to finding them a little bit dull when they are an hour and a half in and the bride is STILL typing all manner of mushball stuff about how their pixels met across a crowded room. But there are some people for whom you just have to be there, right? There are some weddings you can’t miss… however much you would rather be walking over burning hot coals with no shoes on. All is not lost. Your time can be used productively at a wedding.

PLEASE NOTE THAT BEFORE EMBARKING UPON PRODUCTIVE USE OF TIME AT SECOND LIFE WEDDINGS, YOU SHOULD ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE  A NUMBER OF GESTURES TO HAND. ONE SHOULD SAY, “OMG YOU GUYS, SO SWEET.” ANOTHER SHOULD SAY, “AWW… I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU GUYS.” YOU SHOULD HAVE ANOTHER THAT SAYS “YOU GUYS LOOK SO PERFECT TOGETHER,” AND A FINAL SIMPLE “CONGRATULATIONS!”

Once you have those to hand, you are ready to embark upon the productive use of your time at weddings, safe in the knowledge that you will be able to fake that you’re paying attention with the simple press of a gesture shortcut. Here are ten alternatives to actually paying attention to anything going on – and they are all a billion times more productive than doing so.

1. Sort through your inventory

Yes, we have to start with the obvious one. I do not advise that you sort through anything that requires you to rezz items. Apparently the bride does not appreciate having a plywood house called “Object,” rezzed on her head. Sheesh, some people.

2. Profile Whore

Being a profile whore at a wedding is a great way to pass the time and an amazing way to work out what drama is going on. With a group of 20 plus people who know each other in Second Life, you can guarantee someone has some bitchiness in their profile.

3. Guess who is sleeping with who

Ok, a group of twenty people in Second Life all in the same place tells me there are a lot of pixels rubbing behind closed doors. Perhaps use the information gathered from your profile whoring to work out who is sleeping with who.

4. Flirt with the bridesmaid

Now, I’m Mr. Monogamy these days and am partnered to the beautiful Skylar Smythe. So I no longer engage in this one. But… it is fun and it does pass the time. Set your sights on one of the bridesmaids prior to checking out their profiles. And then, regardless of partnered status or otherwise, your challenge for the rest of the wedding is to get her to agree to going dancing with you later on. A variation of this game is to see how many people in the wedding you can persuade to go out with you. This also works the other way for the ladies… the best man is prime meat!

5. Rate the avatars of random strangers (male and female and all at the wedding) and inform them.

Maybe there’s a guy there whose shirt is really ugly. He’s a 2 out of 10. The chick, however, with the great butt… she’s a 9. Tell everyone at the wedding how they rate.

6. Take snapshots and vandalise them in Photoshop

You can do this quickly enough that, by the end of the wedding, you can actually present your friends with a beautiful album of pictures…. on which each of their faces have been replaced by the buttocks of a gorilla.

7. Cross dress.

A magical gender change in the middle of the ceremony. Productive? Maybe not. Fun? Probably not, no. Better than the wedding? Absolutely.

8. Declare to everyone that you have changed species and are now a dog.

Respond to all weddingy things with an appropriate woof as everyone else applauds. Typing, “/me pisses against the pew,” is not advised. Well… maybe a little bit.

9. Harass everyone who shares your first name.

Once people at the wedding are sufficiently pissed off with you, you will want to leave them be for a while and be well behaved. So go through everyone who shares your first name and teleport them to the wedding. A reunion!! YAY!

10. Play inapproriate sound files.

“Do you Random Avie take Mr. Marriage to be your pixel husband??” That is your cue to play that sound file of Homer Simpson having an orgasm with Cartman from South Park.

Don’t say I never help you guys!

SLOcto Mom hit Pixel Headlines when she gave birth to Second Life’s first SLOctuplets back in January.

8 months on and Pixel Scoop sent Skylar Smythe along to see how SLOcto Mom is getting on.

Please note that no prim babies were harmed during the production of this report. Actually, that’s a lie. Let me rephrase, only 3 prim babies were harmed during the production of this report. But they’re copiable, so really it’s no big deal.

Who and what did we use for this Second Life spoof?

Pixel Scoop Reporter – Skylar Smythe
SLOcto Mom, Breda Lott – Lisa Launay
Pixel Do-Gooder, Sandra Beamont – Bubbles Komachi
Written and mediocrely machinima-ed by Josue Habana

Vampire, gangster, SLoctuplets and robot babies created by Beasil Roundfield and available by clicking here.

Filmed largely at the Missing Mile Trailer Park in Second Life, a very cool location owned by Loch Newchurch. Click here to visit in world.