Newsflash: vMTV is freaking U-G-L-Y

Okay, not exactly a newsflash.

My bf is out of town so maybe that is why I spent some time today visiting both There and Virtual MTV (Laguna Beach? I don't know what it's called any more) today.

I started in There, where I thought I might check out the non-cement water (yes, that's how behind the times I am, I've never seen the "water" in There). I ended up checking out my clubhouse, which I'm sort of surprised I even still own, and noticing how I have NO furnishings for it any more. I think I sold them all. I have this vague memory of maybe selling everything off thinking it would force me to make something new.

Not a bad idea, but I have to get my other computer working properly with the drawing tablet and all first. At least I found the driver cd for my wireless Internet card. I ordered a computer with no wireless network card thinking I'd save like, ten bucks or something and cannibalize my old computer that was having problems. That hasn't worked out so well. I tried getting this USB wireless network dongle thingy, thinking again that I was soooo clever...and when that arrived it didn't come with a driver cd...it just said to download the drivers from the Internet. Ah...AHEM...who's brilliant idea was it to have people download drivers from the Internet that are supposed to be used to connect you to the Internet? It's like when you call Comcast because your Internet connection isn't working and you get that recording that says "did you know you can get help right away by going online?" Um, screw you Comcast hold voice lady...if I could go online I wouldn't be calling you this time or any of the other times, either!!!

Yeah so...what was I saying? Ah yes, so I went in There to see the water and I ended up checking out the amusement park instead. That was very cool. Last time I saw that ferris wheel, it wasn't even animated! It was kind of spooky because the area was totally deserted...I decided that wasn't too surprising after a while because really, once you've tried each ride and then maybe tried each ride with a friend or five, why would you go back again? It's like Great America, you're not going to go there every day all summer long. Well...actually that sounds kind of fun.

After the amusement park ghost town, I decided to check out vMTV, where I hadn't been since I signed up for it over a year ago. First I had to FIND it again. In fact, that was sort of the theme of my entire time with vMTV today (well, that and "welcome to uglytown".) I had to find the site, then find the download, then find the Galleria, find the developer site, find the developer downloads, find some documentation for the developer downloads, find a decent hair color. Erm, well, I never found a decent hair color.

My god that place is a mess. First of all, it looks like someone took There and hit it with the SecondLife ugly stick, including the UGLIEST BOUQUET OF FLOWERS EVAR, which apparently is actually a beverage and you can drink it. Uh-huh. I heard there is a really ugly teddy bear, too, but I don't know how you find that. I assume it is also a 250 sip beverage. Also note in the pics that my face color doesn't match my skin color.

The website is a total mess, with a lot of links that don't work and missing navigation elements (like, good luck getting back from the forums) and I found it was really hard to do anything in vMTV. And of course, I have never seen Laguna Beach or The Hills so I totally don't get any of the references to anything. In fact, MTV isn't even one of the cable channels I get. I did see Pimp My Ride once, and I must say the pimped out cars in vMTV look pretty cool. I bought myself a black cadillac, but maybe later I'll get one of those pimped cars. I have to go back now, because I submitted a few things once I finally figured out how.

Oh, besides Pimp My Ride, I also liked the streaming music feature. I just wish I could have figured out how to change it or skip songs or whatever and it seems like if I find a song I like I should be able to...I dunno...bookmark it or buy it or something? vMTV is such a weird place. They totally don't seem to want to follow the There way of letting member developers create most of the cool content, so they end up with mostly a bunch of REALLY LAME content. Someone should give each MTV person who works on Virtual Laguna Beach a copy of "The Long Tail". In fact, it's available as an audio book, so they could listen to it on their commute to work or while working out or...whenever...they should just listen to it. Maybe they're afraid that if they encourage members to make new content, they will make stuff that is just sooo much better than what their advertisers have that the advertisers will be upset?????