Did Imelda Marcos surf?

By Socks Clawtooth, Senior Furry Correspondent.

I was over at Hedonism, just to get away from the crowds more than anything else. They have a bunch of custom boards for sale there, and some nice designs. I like to try to support surf sims by buying stuff at the vendors. It's weird logic, but it works for me. If I can't find a donation box, I donate indirectly. It works.

And as I was debating between two styles, it suddenly hit me. How many surfboards do I really need? I know, it's Second Life. Part of the fun here is buying stuff. I'm partially convinced a lot of people are here to play a high-tech version of 'dress up dolls' and wear clothing they either could never afford or never would dare to wear in real life. But that brings me back to the surfboards. How many does one
really, honestly, need?

The most correct answer is none, as most surf beaches have loaners there. But, that's no fun. If you ride SLSA, you only really need two. A long board, a short board, you're set for all seasons. But, ya know... It's never that simple. Never.

First night in Second Life, I was surfing on a loaner from The Weather Channel. It took a few weeks to find my next surf beach, which I think was Chi. And much to my horror, my The Weather Channel surfboard destructed at Chi. But they had loaners, but I wanted my own. It took a few weeks of searching, camping, begging and pleading, but I scraped up enough to by my first board. Now the question was 'what to get?' I rode loaners after loaners, then spent three days tracking down a place tom buy the exact board I wanted: a Reaction 'Paint Spill'. And believe me, it was not easy at the time.

Then slowly, surely, I bought more boards. A Namiko, a Surfline longboard, an Analog. A few others that I regret now, but hey I thought they were bargains! Then around the time Havok-4 came about I was more involved in the competition side of things. Thanks to the SLSA I got my first shortboard, which was Havok4 friendly. And like anything else, you just pick up boards from here and there. You get some cash, you buy a cool new board. Placed high in a competition, get a board. I'm bored, get a board.

So now I've got boards that are graphics retro, have flames, have cool graphics and plain graphics, some that are just cool by their base look, woodies, foamies, fishes and guns, longboards, shortboards, really long boards... At my count I have about 24 now. And that's not counting unusable boards or copy boards that I rez to the water and not really out of my inventory. I save those for privateer rides, but that's another story. Not to mention the fun accessories, like the 'surfboard wax'.


But really, how many do I need? I mean easily 15 of those boards are dusty now, a few I never updated to Havok4, a few I just don't use because I like the newer shapes more. I'm not quite at the 'Imelda Marcos stage' (Google it, I dare ya!) but it's getting there. Do I need 24 surfboards? Well, yeah! It's kind of nice to invite a friend to try surfing anywhere on the grid, and be able to toss down a nice board for them to use. It's even handier to be able to convert it to 'beginner' mode for people who can't walk and chew gun at the same time. And even more importantly, it's nice to be able to paddle in to the beach and pull out a different board if your current one doesn't feel right while your riding.

But choices make for problems sometimes. In real life, I only own one snowboard for this reason. I grab it and go riding. If I had three, I'd spend way too long figuring out which one to take to the hill. Thankfully, in Second Life, I can take all by boards with me everywhere so there's no transport problem. But sometimes, I look at my inventory and try to figure out what I want to use, and I end up using one of a few I always love to.

That being said, I bought a new board at Hedonism. A woodie, I like a good woodie. Very retro and I'm into that. It was a toss up between the turtle and the shark. After finding out that Kamohoali'i taught man how to surf, I figured that was good enough reason to get the shark style! Hey, gotta give thanks in whatever way I can, ya know?

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