Jumping into Second Life is like jumping into a void, albeit one populated with the remnants of a half million flea markets. Moving around is awkward, and not just because your avatar inevitably looks like its been nailed to a set of wooden planks. The world's interface makes it difficult to figure out how to get from Point A to Point B, and once you've stumbled upon how to make the jump, more often than not Point B wasn't worth the effort in the first place.

And then you dig a little deeper and start finding more interesting things. Like a hidden Stargate network joining dozens of regions together. Or a community of Firefly afficidoes who's raised their own town. Or people attending virtual church services. Or biker bars with live rock music.

There are tantalizing potentials lurking to Second Life, but finding them, and exploiting them, well, that's the challenge.