Perhaps not as well known as my love of watermelons is my love of biomechanical hybridization, where you can't tell where the body ends and the machine begins. Or it may be startlingly obvious, but the longer you look at it, the more natural it appears. Perverse? I'd like to think so, in a way that's reactionary not so much as lame-duck "performance art", but constitutes a redefinition of, to use a meta-cliched sentence, "what it means to be an avatar".

It's fitting then, that meticulous maker Compulsion Overdrive has her own estate, Overdrive Island. Most striking to me? Her eye-catchin' amalgamation of synthetic advertisements, including a sheet-drone that puttles through the aerial highways, playing a QuickTime movie of a hypnotically computer-generated loop. On the walls, you'll see what makes so little sense that it lends itself to the same type of understanding reflexively generated when someone tosses a ball at you—you instinctively reach out to catch it (and block protect your face), and for me to get the most out of things, I Force Sun to Midnight.

I know there used to be cars here; there certainly are racing routes, with 90-degree angles, wikkid shadowing effects in the tunnels with orange lights not too far from an austere halogen, and a healthy dose of techno infection in CLUB VIRUS, whose logo isn't too far removed from one of my fave lines of synths. I was the only one in there when I came, and as I skittered past the deserted shoppes, the boxy house on the hill (complete with Dominus Shadow and Damani Roadster in tow—ah, livin' the SL dream!), and headed out to the dockside where I presume a great neo-Mafia shootout might occur a la Ritana. I felt this gnawing, depraved longing for company. (Figuratively.)

But maybe that's the point, because the future can be a lonely place if you're alone.

It wasn't long after that, that I hunted down a bed created a long time ago by the surly (in the best of ways) Spider Mandala. He, who also made by "Rockstar" shirt with the trademark Linden eye-in-hand, and as I picked up my bed, I found him in the sky with Kzzch Prefect and a new face to me, the cyber-zombie that is Ash Garden.

Rippleshock flowed through me as I looked at Ash's enticingly-creepy bitone eyes and lip-pierced smile, faint blush accentuating her pale, doll-like features as she proceeded to light the room on fire with her flamethrower, then rip guns out of her thighs—complete with particle blood effect—and shoot it up all purple. I was amazed at the custom particle work.

And to say the least, Ash crafted all her attachments. She doesn't have a store yet, but I'd imagine there's quite a burgeoning market for these cool devices. Entranced, I camscammed deep in, hammering the Ctrl-Alt-mouseclick chord I'm profoundly enamored with, and just stared at all of Ash's badass weaponry.

That, and we both like asylums and straitjackets. Maybe she'll make the best one Second Life has ever seen yet, complete with jangly frog-stalking pose, as we break free of our previous limits, knowing nothing but a television-toned sky of possibilities…