Hey, sorry you haven't heard from me in so long here! The pathetic truth is that I've really just had nothing fun to write about here lately, because my life is really boring; sorry, but I guess that's just how it is sometimes. Anyway, thought I'd string together some recent random thoughts I've been having while away, and get them up here, because I'm sure some of you are sick by now of staring at that last entry about Tatum Reed and MC Router. Some funny stuff, some serious stuff, and of course lots and lots of angry, self-righteous stuff; enjoy.

So, I've seen the Screech sex tape now. And you know what? It's exactly as pathetic, immature, embarrassing and unerotic as you would expect a sex tape by Dustin Diamond to be. And I mean, seriously, there are so many sad things associated with the making of this video, I can't even determine which is the saddest:

--That the women are not in fact hookers like I had thought, but rather platonic friends, a bride-to-be and her maid of honor, staying in the same hotel as Diamond that weekend because of a bachelorette party?

--That these two platonic friends would so effortlessly throw themselves into a lesbian porn scene, for no other reason than that they're drunk and in a hotel suite in Wisconsin with a C-list celebrity?

--That the bride would have sex with Diamond a week before her wedding, for the same reason?

--That Diamond refers to his sad little dick as "The Monster," without a trace of self-consciousness or irony?

--That Diamond approaches the seduction of these women in the same cloying, desperate way as a teenage boy trying to get his girlfriend's bra off in the back of his car?

--That it works?

--That even with all of this, the sex itself is still awkward and uninspiring, with the three so self-conscious of their roles in this midwestern chain-motel menage-a-trios that they might as well not even have had sex?

--Or that even with all of that, all three of them still ended up signing release forms for the video, doubtless in exchange for a few thousand dollars?

Videos like this make the whole recent debacle with Michael Richards make a lot more sense; that when has-been stars find themselves in suburban Ohio on a random August night, being exploited by all the dumpy NASCAR fans around them in both good and bad ways, simply to provide whatever small thrill they can to their passionless lives, it becomes easy for those has-beens to slip into just the absolutely worst stereotypical star behavior possible. Watching poor little Screech go through his sad little motions of having this supposed ultimate male fantasy, watching the sad little authority that he can only command anymore while in a hotel suite in Wisconsin with two drunk housewives, makes me understand a lot more how someone like Richards can just blow his top at a random comedy club one night in such an insane way; because it's all part of an elaborate game all of them are playing, where the audience is paying money to gawk at the weirdo who used to be famous, and the has-been puts up with it in order to collect the money, and to hold on to whatever last shred of "stardom" they have.

Er, okay, I'm feeling better now. Can you tell I've been in a weird mood the last several weeks?

Things continue to go well with In The Grid, the standalone culture blog about Second Life that I've been doing for about three months now; in fact, I'm getting new content posted there nearly every day, for those who miss the regular updates here, although I realize that it's not quite the same thing. For those who are curious, by the way, I don't write for any one particular audience in mind there; half of my thoughts are for those who are regular residents, the other half for those who have never played Second Life at all but are curious about virtual realities. Plus I've been scoring some pretty good coups there lately too -- I snagged an interview, for example, with the company's CEO, Philip Rosedale, where we specifically talked about the high-school and undergraduate dreams he used to have that led to the grid being formed in the first place. I also now finally have a second staff member; it's Steven Cann from Melbourne, Australia, who's now designing ITG's monthly PDF magazine, a veteran paper-based graphic designer whose day job is at the slackerrific Lonely Planet. Hi, by the way, to all you Australians and Kiwis! That section of the world in fact accounts for my fourth largest group of readers; my fans down under have been inviting me to visit for years (to spend two weeks, in one person's words, "getting drunk on the beach each day, and getting laid each night"); but alas, I still have not been able to afford the plane ticket. One day soon, my friends -- one day soon!

Have I told you the New Plan yet, by the way? Ah, the post-fucking-internet-startup-disaster New Plan! The new plan is this; to try to have enough money saved by next August to self-publish a new paperback book, again called "In The Grid" and basically a collection of the best 40 or so entries from the blog, and also afford a two-week Greyhound trip west from Chicago, to do a pretty busy book tour, ending in San Francisco for next year's annual Second Life Community Convention, basically a science-fiction convention but with sexier people and more drugs (or so I'm told; and I mean, come on, it's San Francisco). My goal for next year, in fact, is the same as I when I went to both science-fiction conventions and literary ones in my youth; to get fucked up, sell a lot of books, and perhaps get laid by the end of the weekend. If I can afford 10,000 copies, for example, at wholesale price, I only need to sell about 3,500 to break even; and with a well-planned tour, at a time when hardly any full-length books of MMO cultural essays exist, where I do a lot of online conversion of audiences along the way, leading to eventual steady Amazon sales, leading to a grand orgy of publicity at the SLCC for the book, I could sell 3,500 copies in two weeks. And with the interest in Second Life that there is these days, I'm pretty sure I could eventually sell all 10,000, too (or 9,500, that is -- 500 would go out to critics, litbloggers, etc).

Only problem; I need a lot of money upfront to do this. And I don't know if I'll have the money by then. Hmm, we'll see.

And speaking of my long-time personal interests suddenly meshing with Second Life -- guess who's finally executive-producing his first full-length alternative-reality game (or ARG)? That's right, yours truly, who had been holding out hope for years that he might get a recruitment letter from 42 Entertainment (makers of both the Evan Chan and 'ilikebees' ARGs), but is starting to realize that that's probably never gonna happen (sigh). So instead, I'm doing a limited-edition one, that everyone understands ahead of time is a game, run for a month only, where players are exclusively SL members, and 'winning' constitutes a combination of building skills, clothing skills, writing and design skills, and willingness to be an active part of the game.

I'm doing the entire thing as a blog fundraiser, in fact, to hopefully raise the US$1,500 I need to buy a minimalist but still scorching-fast Windows gaming system, so that I'll have more stories for the blog and higher-quality screenshots, a bigger depth of field, the ability to shoot Quicktime movies actually while in the grid and tooling around, all kinds of cool stuff. Instead of a PBS-style beg job this time, I thought, I'd actually run something that people will hopefully find worth paying, whatever, $5 or $10 to play; both as something fun, as money going to a good cause, and as a chance to win very real, very cool prizes. Details coming another time, but basically what I'm looking to do is to create a detailed science-fictiony/steampunky backstory, with all of the players becoming roleplaying 'characters' within that fictional set of rules and etiquette. Partly, then, it becomes like I said a building competition; part of your overall score is determined by what in-game clothes and dwellings you create to support the game. And partly it's a writing competition; you can score extra points by writing an original short story that takes place in-game, or are an active RP chatter at live game events, as voted on by your fellow players. Partly it's a gridwide scavenger hunt, held throughout the month of the game; partly it's a murder-mystery game, where you collect clues and solve puzzles. I'll act pretty much in the Sean Stewart role at 42; as the top-level puppetmaster of the entire thing, putting together all the behind-the-scenes details and recruiting all the secret moles.

I need a lot of help putting it together, which I'm thinking of starting in mid-January; interested? I need a couple of fellow smarties who would like to be grand puppetmasters, who can think both in the big view and in the small; builders and clothing designers, particularly store owners who would like to do a little work in exchange for corporate sponsorship of the ARG; stores and individuals who wouldn't mind hiding clues at their space that month, or sponsoring live events, again for a corporate sponsorship; and lots of donated gifts, things that people really would get excited about winning. I could use a visual artist too, frankly, as well as a marketing/sales person or two, although these aren't as necessary as the positions mentioned previous. If you'd like to be involved with something that will hopefully be pretty cool, and that might get you a job at a real agency that will actually pay you money, please let me know at ilikejason [at] gmail.com.

And now, ladies and gentlemen...

--Indie-rock musicians recording children's albums.

--Your new fucking cupcake business.

--People who parlay major publishing deals out of websites featuring photos of cute animals.

--The pissing contest between Jason Calacanis and Nick Denton.

--Zunes. And Wiis, for that matter.

--Your fucking MySpace page.

--How much I should be watching "Veronica Mars," and why it is that I'm not already watching "Veronica Mars."

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Okay, I think that'll be it for today, because I still need to get into the grid tonight and get a story written for the SL blog tomorrow; off to post this now. Sorry again I haven't updated this personal journal in so long; but unfortunately you can expect more of this same this winter, as my personal life continues to be not exciting enough to be worth writing about. Sorry! Invite me to something fun, and make it worth my while to update!