I knew having no life would come in handy at one point!! And it did yesterday! Big time!

As some of you already know, I recently joined the Second Life community, after watching the CSI NY episode "Down The Rabbit Hole", in which Det. Mac Taylor chases a murderer all the way into the virtual world that is Second Life.

The viewers were invited to join in and help Mac catch the killer. The Electric Sheep Company (which CBS owns shares of) created the virtual CSI NY world, in which "no life" rookie detectives like myself can spend a lazy Sunday morning solving crimes.

And that's exactly what I was doing yesterday morning when IT happened! I had just solved the most recent case, Furry Love (don't ask!!) and I was having problems with my CSI NY toolbar, in which all our evidence is saved. I walked around virtual New York City, looking for an avatar with the title "CSI NY Greeter" above their head. They're the "go to" people for help in this virtual world. I found one, Misty was her name, and she started to help me with my problem when all of a sudden she said: "Oh My!! Anthony Zuiker is behind you!" I responded with my usual cynicism: "Yeah right...LOL" and then my screen showed the following message:

Anthony Zuiker says: Hi Misty, Hi Chanouel

I turned around and there he was! The creator of all three CSI franchises!!! Right in front of me, in person!!! Well, at least the virtual version of him was.

Of course, first thing I thought was: "Ok, here's a smarty pants who's passing himself off as AZ, just to see how people will react". But then I realized that the avatar I had in front of me is the actual avatar that is on all the posters in the virtual NYC. He's the avatar that I saw on the CBS website and the Second Life website. It would take a very very talented person to create another avatar that looks exactly like him and find the same clothes he's wearing on all the posters.
The other hint was that the name above his head said "Anthony Zuiker". When you create your avatar in Second Life, you can choose your first name, but you have to choose from the proposed list of last names that they give you, and "Zuiker" is not one of those names. Finally, what convinced me that this was indeed the real AZ was when he started talking with Misty, the staff member who was helping me. They started discussing the cases and she was reporting some of the problems that the users have been experiencing and some of the questions and complaints that she got from the users. I was standing there....just listening, or rather reading their conversation with my mouth hanging wide open. I could not believe that I was actually witnessing this. That's when AZ turned to me and said: "What about you Chanouel? What do you think about this game? Do you have the same complaints that Misty just mentioned?"

After I regained consciousness, I answered him. He asked me how I was doing so far, what cases I had solved. Did I find the game too hard? Did I like the virtual NYC they had created? Had I found the secret clues? (which I did, and he told me I was a top notch CSI for finding some of those!). The conversation went on for 30 minutes. At first, it was only the three of us, but more and more avatars were recognizing him and gathering around us. He answered everyone's questions, joked around, gave us some hints and mentioned that he himself did not know where Venus (the killer we're looking for) was hiding. He asked the Electric Sheep Company not to tell him where she was hidden because he wants to play the game too.
The whole experience was a pure delight. I was ecstatic. I mean, how often do you get to casually chat with the creator of your favorite TV show??? I wish I could have discussed the show with him and not just the game. I wanted to ask him about the writer's strike, I had a million questions I wanted to ask, I was thinking about all of you guys and all the things we discuss in the forums here and all the questions we have. I wanted to ask him for a job on his staff!!!!

Just when I thought how sad it was that I couldn't discuss all these things with him, a message popped up on my screen. It said:

Anthony Zuiker is offering his friendship. Do you accept?

When I regained consciousness, I accepted! Offering friendship in Second Life means that the person is now in your personal contact list. You get to know exactly when they log on and when they log off, but most importantly, you now have the ability to send them messages even if they are not online. You can ALWAYS reach them! Do you realize what this means??? I can send him all the messages I want and I can chat again with him if we happen to be online at the same time!!! I have absolutely no idea what possessed him to offer me his friendship (my avatar was wearing a low cut shirt, I will admit) but I don't care, AZ is now my friend!!!!

Being the shutterbug that I am, I couldn't help but to take a few pictures of my encounter with Mr. Zuiker (oh, by the way, he told me to please call him Anthony!!! ) . My avatar is the one with the long hair, dressed in black. The avatar wearing the blue shirt is Misty, and Mr. Zu...errr..I mean Anthony is, well, the one in the middle.

So if you don't see me too much around here in the next few weeks, it's probably because I'm on Second Life 24/7 just waiting for that little pop up message saying:

Anthony Zuiker is online.