I have good news. My Mom now believes Second Life is real. She did before, in a way, but it really struck her when she looked at the local newspaper to find this, which my Bro scanned and promptly emailed to me:

So that's what it takes, huh? I'll keep smiling.

I'm thankful I recently emailed Adam and suggested putting a SLurl on Reuters' Second Life web presence so the curious could come in and check out their inworld bureau, the Reuters Atrium. It's a terrific build, made by nice people @ The Electric Sheep Company. (When are they going to merchandise with mascot nightlights?) It got done, thanx to some timely talents, and we all know what happened today — 1 million registrations! YAYZERAMA!

That number isn't without its critical scrutiny nor analytical eyes, and rightly so.

I'll write about some of the sideroads, however (as I characteristically do):

• Second Life mentioned as a "game" again. Aha! I have a new analogy: that's like calling a synthesizer a piano.
• "Virtual world" or "online world"? I use both but prefer the latter more; in part because some equate "virtual" with meaning "almost, but not real". Then it leads to sloppy semantic — er, I'll leave the adult words out. But online is a scientific fact. You can't be on the Internet and not be online. And Second Life exists on the Internet, and yes, it, in both a sane and insane person's mind, is a world. So keep it simple, smarty.
• I'm still waiting for some of my fave brands to make it inworld: I notice MacAddict (trivia: I composed music for their CD-ROMs in my teens) has published a couple of sentences pointing at SL, so I've asked if they're coming. I'll know we've hit it big when Wu-Tang Clan brings the ruckus.

(I keep losing and finding this picture. I finally uploaded it to Flickr, so this time, it will not get lost!)