Technobabble

This fortnight, it’s all about the Internet, because, well, what else is there really? An acquaintance surprised me one day when he said, “If I get more fulfillment and fun out of playing World of Warcraft online with my virtual friends, who is to say this is less of a ‘life’ than going to bars and dinner parties with real people?” He had me there. So sign up, log in and tune out.

My fake new Girlfriend is a real Model No matter how much I try to avoid MySpace, I keep getting sucked back in, like the TV cop on his last day on the beat before retirement. MySpace is slow and full of ads, but it helps me keep in touch with friends across the globe. And your humble tech journalist has just become pimpmyspace.org was not enough. I needed friends, maybe even girlfriends, on the Jennifer Lopez or Jessica Biel level. Enter www.fakeyourspace.com. For just 99 cents a month, you can buy two “hotties,” either male or female, or one of each if you swing that way (samples pictured), whose two comments per week are sure to impress your friends—both actual and prospective—because you write them. You know your ex, the last person you met on MySpace, will yank their mouse out of their USB port when they see your “model-for-a-new-mate” e-talking dirty to you.

Put some genital into it! My friend Brigitte e-mailed last week to say, “Have you heard of Second Life? My university is thinking of setting up a campus there.” She needs to catch up on her Technobabble. Second Life is a popular Internet-based 3-D virtual world—but I stumbled across something that, though fairly experimental, sounds like it could be more fun. First Life (www.getafirstlife.com) claims you can “fornicate using your actual genitals,” “access your closet to build your First Life look” and says it is “a 3-D analog world where server lag does not exist.” Linden Labs, creators of the popular Second Life, sent Darren Barefoot, the creator of the two-page parody site a proceed-and-permit letter (opposite of a cease-and-desist letter). As Barefoot said himself, “very classy.”

Weapons of mass creation I know Dick Cheney and friends were thinking the 40-or-so mini-nukes strategically placed around Boston and its ’burbs two weeks ago were the administration’s ticket to invade Iran. But a controlled explosion on one of the mini-nukes, disguised as a Lite Brite-like kid’s toy, revealed that it was a … well, Lite Brite-like kid’s toy. Think Hasbro, circa 1970. Nine other cities were attacked by what turned out to be an ad campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters , though none of the others called in the bomb squad to contain these glowing boards depicting a cartoon character holding up its middle finger. But we have YouTube to thank for the real explosion that followed: Someone posted the press conference with the would-be terrorists, two 20-somethings who, instructed by their lawyer not to speak about the incident, decided the press might like a conversation about ’70s hair styles. The reaction of the extremely angry press corps can be seen via a “news” clip from the “fair and balanced” Fox News. When the conversation strayed from issues regarding hair, the two calmly reminded the rabid press, “That’s not a hair question!” Wonder how the Guantanamo population will treat the Lite Brite Terrorists ? Check out the video on YouTube—search for “Aqua Teen news conference.”