Reporting from the Metaverse

There are certain things I want to do in real life that cannot be done. First on the long list of things is flying. It will never be possible for me to zip around the earth at speeds greater than a speeding bullet, but if there ever was a way to do such a thing, I would surely make every effort humanly possible to ensure that I could do so. And this sentiment is nothing new. Asking anyone in my family will yield an hour long conversation about how they repeatedly explained to me that I could never grow up to fly.

Then it happened.

Forty-five minutes ago, a newspaper broke the story that President of the MacArthur Foundation Jonathan Fanton actually took flight inside an arena filled with about 200 people after taking something called Carbon X-flight rod. It was also broadcast live via blogtv.com.

Scrolling down the article led me to believe this was not even the first time it occurred. "Jonathan Fanton takes Flight," seemed to be the lone article for this newspaper archive.

If your wondering who broke the story. It was the Second Life Herald, and you won't be finding copies of it anywhere but the Internet. After all it wouldn't make sense since their area of coverage is completely submerged in the digital.

The Herald is a newspaper that covers the virtual world Second Life -- a game that allows you to do everything you can in the real life but with no consequence.

To me this sounds absolutely boring as hell. Why would I want to surf a digital world and devote precious man hours to do stuff I can already do. Why the hell would anyone want to do this? But, alas, I was more than curious to find this web publication devoted to political happenings in a place that does not exist.

Breaking news in this publication consists of tyrants taking power of entire cities over night, casino slot machines that don't pay out, and the kidnapping of a virtual Where's Waldo (WaldOh).

I doubt anyone will be going back to that casino any time soon and will also be avoiding the area where Waldoh was abducted. It makes me wonder if the people of Second Life actually stay informed by reading the Herald. I mean, isn't this what newspapers do?

Even fake ones?