Will Ross here, welcome to The Traveling Avatar’s Quick and Dirty Tips for a Better Second Life. On this show we discuss tips and tricks for the game Second Life: created by Linden Labs. Today’s episode: Getting Lucky, Free Stuff Just for Sitting on your Butt.

One of the many ways you can go real-life broke in Second Life is from buying clothes.  It’s true; you can grab freebies per our absolutely no-award-winning episode “Denoobing on a Budget,” but it’s time consuming to sort through all of those items in order to get to the good stuff, and even the good stuff tends to be older items. If only there was a way to get nicer outfits for free. 

Lucky for you, there are “lucky chairs.”  Lucky chairs are special chairs that shop owners place in their shops to increase traffic and encourage repeat browsing.  Sizes and shapes vary, but most of the ones I’ve seen typically look like big arm chairs or thrones with a letter above them. If the letter above the chair is the first letter of your name, and you sit in the chair, you have just won yourself some “phat lewtz” in the form of a free item. Now, note that these are different from “camping chairs”--those are chairs that pay lindens for sitting in them, and that’s for another episode entirely.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: first you have to find a chair, and even then you only have a one in twenty six chance to get a free outfit. What are you supposed to do, create twenty-five alternate accounts for each letter of the alphabet?  Well, I suspect the Lindens would frown on that, but that would be one way to do it.  However, a better way (and with less passwords to remember) would be to join one of the many “lucky chair hopper” groups.  These groups are filled with like-minded free-loot-loving individuals dedicated to finding and announcing the letters on the lucky chairs scattered throughout Second Life.  Join just one, or join a dozen if you’re planning on going on a free shopping spree.

While they all operate slightly differently, these groups basically exist to inform members of the location and letter of a lucky chair. Some will IM you personally, while others will announce it in the group chat. From there you can request a teleport, grab your loot, and inform the group of the new letter.  The groups work on the principle that the more people there are in the group, the faster they can change the letters and the faster they can all get something from the chair.  The stores benefit by increased traffic at the cost of a few free items.

To find a lucky chair group to join, go to your search menu and put in the search term “lucky chair.”

Term To Know

Today’s term to know is “furry.”

Furries are people who play characters who, at least on the outside, look like different types of animals.  Now, there are subspecies: Nekos, which we've talked about before, the cat people; Kitsune, the foxes; and others. Furries don’t necessarily act like animals, often it’s just a fashion statement. I’d consider judging, but since I don’t actually wear glasses or have bright red hair in real life, well as they say, people in glass houses shouldn’t take showers.  (I know, I know, it’s throw stones, but really you shouldn’t throw stones in a regular house either.)

Listener Tip

Today’s tip from listeners was e-mailed to me by Lewis Moten the Third about our flight show “Skating and Face Planting.”  Lewis writes:

“Hey. Don't know if you know about this, but when falling down, press the space bar. You get to fall slower and it makes for a great way to land with pinpoint accuracy.”

Now, I tested this out and found out that in addition to this, you can hold the spacebar down to hover in mid air without hitting the fly button.  Not a bad trick to know when you find yourself plummeting to certain embarrassment after falling through the floor at a sim change!

Administrative and Contact Information

That’s it for this episode! In website news, we have a survey up that’s going to help us decide what new quick and dirty shows we’re going to release, so go ahead and check out the website and make your opinions heard, especially if you want more online-game-oriented podcasts. 

Send your feedback or question to secondlife@quickanddirtytips.com, and our comment line is 206-888-6975, that’s 206-888-mysl.  The Traveling Avatar’s Quick and Dirty Tips for a Better Second Life is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips network, so be sure to check out other great shows like Money Girl, The Mighty Mommy, and Grammar Girl, at QuickAndDirtyTips.com. 

So until next time, remember, in this uncertain world economy, only the linden can be used to buy you a flying carpet.