Sundance hosts "virtual screening" tonite

As if watching TV weren't geeky enough, Sundance Channel's Web site is letting you do it as an avatar. It's created teamed with a role-playing community called Second Life, which allows users to create computer models who live out a Sims-like existence online. And tonight, at various 3-D-imaged movieplexes around Second Life's virtual "town," the avatars will be watching the premiere of the Sundance Channel-acquired film Four Eyed Monsters. (That's the film's two producers, or rather their CGI stand-ins, doing a video to promote the screening.)

I must admit I never was into D&D, video games or any of the efforts, which go back to the very beginnings of the World Wide Web, to create semi-fictional communities online. But I registered for an avatar anyway (if you're looking for me tonight, the computer gave me the East Euro-sounding name of Androgy Balhaus). I'm interested to see what it's like to watch a representation of myself watching a representation of a movie. Hopefully it won't be the beginning of my own "Scanner Darkly" experience.

And speaking of Rick Linklater films, I've been in Pasadena 12 hours and still no trip to the nearby In N Out Burger.  My self-restraint is, if I may say so, admirable.