Google’s advert during the Superbowl was about someone falling in love with a Parisien, and using the Search Engine to find the answers as predicaments arose. Which, of course, is what the many residents of Second Life often do too, as is observed:

Yeah, I know there’s a couple of minutes of black space. I put it down to me not being able to edit a video properly.. let me be, it’s been a while.

On the Twelfth day of Christmas, M Linden gave to me,

Merry Christmas!

So I present to you the Periodic Table of SL Abbreviations and Emoticons to remind you on the true meaning, so we can hold our language close and dear to us.

If you’re anything like me, your Friend’s List is completely out of control. You have trouble finding the actual contacts you need, and you have absolutely no idea how half the list even got on there in the first place!

Using innovative technology which reads the nerve signals in your palm whilst it rests on the mouse, PradLife Viewer will read your subconscious and scan your long term memory for records of these people (or it’ll just hijack your chat logs.. whatever). Using this data, it will then simply replace the names on your Friend’s List with an easy to understand short description. You can see a beta version of this in the following image:

Stay tuned for further developments of this exciting new viewer! Public Beta will begin soon, so be sure to leave your name here for an exclusive try of what will be a revolution in how we use Second Life!

1. The Good Morning/Good Night Plurker.

If the only times of day that you have time to plurk are first thing in the morning, and last thing at night, then perhaps Plurk isn’t for you. Because there’s only so many times you can keep saying “Good Morning!” and “Night night!” before we start wondering if you’re a career narcoleptic.

2. The Friender.

The person who just can’t say no. They’re start off friending a few people who are actually their friends, but then one day, you get a friend request from someone you don’t know. And then there’s another request.. and another.. and before you know it, you’ve got more friends on your Plurk than you’ve ever had hot dinners. Then you wonder how they can possibly follow all those people, and realise that actually, even though they’re your friend, they defollowed you a long time ago.

3. The Link Mogul.

The Plurker who seems to link to something in pretty much all their plurks. Okay – so a little self promotion is okay, but I’m not friends with the guy in my email trying to flog me penis enlargements and cheap viagra (interesting combination) so I’ve got no intention of friending a spammer like you.

4. The First-Life East-Asian Fan.

You’re creeping me out. Go away. Please.

5. The Mass Private Plurker.

Either you don’t know that we get private plurk notifications delivered to our emails, or you just don’t care. Either way, if you’re going to private plurk EVERYONE on your friends list, then you damn well better have something that EVERYONE is going to want to know about. Or else we’re going to call you mean things behind your back.

6. The Drama Llama.

How anyone can kick off a drama in under 140 characters or less, I’ll never know. And yet, it seems the same faces who have been associated with drama and gossip since the dawn of the virtual sun, have managed it. That, my friends, is microsizing your drama dose.

7. The Whiner.

It’d seem for some plurkers, that life never seems to go well. Every plurk seems to be complaining about work, home, family, SL, people, inanimate objects, the weather, the sound of a yo-yo, a slightly undercooked steak, a money-spider, a killer penguin, and oh of course – other people who have the nerve to complain.

8. The Novelist.

If it’s under 140 characters, then Plurk it. If you need to, then you’re allowed to run over into a second Plurk, but only for an extra line. If you’re using 6-7 replies to make your point, then get a blog.

9. The Critic.

The “holier than thou” people who only ever pop up to try and sound intelligent whilst belittling you – they’re usually closely linked in to the Novelist as they love to write out mini-essays to make their point, and have an overwhelming presence on your Plurk thread. Apparently, size does matter after all.

10. The Lovebird.

It’s sweet that you have someone you love. Really -it is. But my God – we don’t need to keep hearing about it.. especially not any intimate details. PDAs (Plurk Displays of Affection) are bucket hurling worthy, and we honestly don’t care.

Disclaimer: This is a satirical article, and you probably shouldn’t take it too seriously.. if you can’t laugh about Internet culture, then you definitely shouldn’t be reading this blog. Additionally, all of the above aren’t aimed at any single person, but if you’re wondering if I singled you out on any of them, then that alone will speak for itself.

http://isslgroupchatstillbroken.com/

Hat-tip: Ordinal Malaprop

Dear <Enter Blogger’s Name>,

Ok so after our recent conversation/a conversation which I had with somebody else who I didn’t realise had a blogger friend, it has recently come to my attention that you have posted the chatlog of said conversation on your blog.

I think you will find this violates Linden Lab’s Terms of Service, and I will be telling all my friends about you,  filing Abuse Reports, contacting Lindens directly, dropping in on Linden Lab HQ on my superstar jet and screaming until I’m blue in the face and you take the chatlog down.

I have no intention of my lack of ability to think before I type to be made public, and have no desire to admit that I ballsed up, so instead I’m going to take it out on you. Because you published the chat log, and therefore you are in the wrong.

I also lack the basic reading comprehension to understand that the SL ToS says that the posting of chatlogs is only forbidden on Linden Lab run sites. I’ll scream and kick and write lists of thousands of cryptically colour coded avatar names until you take the chat log down!!!!!!!!!!11ONE

If you refuse to comply within 24 hours, I will be contacting my legal representation (eLawyers’R'us) to have you sued for slander and other icky-sounding things.

Yours,

<Enter your name here.. assuming you can manage that>

In my ever continuing mission to provide an educational service to the residents of Second Life, I offer a guide on how to build a sim in Second Life!

Load up the Second Life website (10 seconds)

Find the webpage to purchase a sim (1 minute)

Realise how much a sim costs and swear (5 minutes)

Search the SL Forums for a second hand sim (30 minutes)

Contact the seller of a sim and wait for them to come online (2 hours)

Negotiate and agree deal with the sim seller (30 minutes)

File a ticket with Linden Lab arranging the sale of the sim (5 minutes)

Wait for Linden Lab to debit you for the $50 transfer fee (2.6 seconds)

Wait for Linden Lab to sort out the transfer of the sim to your ownership (2 months, 17 days, 18 hours, 53 minutes, 44 seconds)

Terraform the land on your new sim (7 hours)

Swear because the terraforming isn’t going the way you want it to (3 hours)

Look around for someone who can terraform the sim for you (2 hours)

Hire a terraformer and negotiate a price (25 minutes)

Explain to the terraformer what you want (2 hours)

Let the terraformer complete the job (20 minutes)

Think about what you want to build (5 weeks)

Start building your structure (2 weeks)

Decide you can’t build and start looking for builders (6 days)

Hire a builder and brief them on what you want (3 hours)

Let the builder create your dream build (3 weeks)

Wonder why you’ve not seen your builder in the past week, and IM them (15 minutes)

Wait for the builder to reply (2 weeks)

Get fed up and sack the builder for going AWOL, and find someone else to build your structure (4 days)

Sack the new builder for undoing all the terraforming work (2 minutes)

Decide to give up on builders and just do it yourself..again (3 minutes)

Try to line up two prims (6 hours)

Give up and look for prefabs (8 hours)

Purchase a prefab, and then set it up on your land (3 hours)

Finish setting up the sim (5 hours)

Open the sim to the public (15 seconds)

Watch as the sim crashes (30 seconds)

Log into the SL forums (2 minutes)

Place an advert to sell your sim (10 minutes)

Uninstall Second Life (3 minutes)

—–

2. Your priority is to pay the internet bill before all other bills.

3. When waking up at 3AM for a bathroom visit, you check your phone to see if you’ve had any offliners from SL.

4. You’re unsure whether your 3 best friends are male or female, because they’re in SL, have ambiguous names and you’ve never bothered to check.

5. You start using emoticons when you write letters/notes.

6. You start using your avatar’s name instead of your own name in real life situations.

7. The internet bill arrives in the post packed in a box.

8. When you forget one of your alt’s names.

9. If you think “safe sex” means a visit to Hard Alley.

10. If you have a business card/letterhead/business stationary with your avatar’s name on it.

11. If you sacrifice a holiday in favour of getting a new graphics card.

12. If you can name your favourite 10 sims without skipping a beat.

13. When you shift your sleeping pattern to match that of your SL friends.

14. When you have an account on Flickr, Plurk, Twitter and Facebook to keep in touch with your SL friends when you’re not in world.

15. When you change jobs to one which lets you access Second Life at work.

16. When you’ve created a roleplaying alt.

17. If you can relate to one of the above.

18. If you can relate to all of the above.

19. If you deny any of these relate to you.

20. If you can create a list like this.