Wired reports on Second Life's must-have stuff. Hah! Sorry I am going to insist you go read it and then point and laugh like a schoolyard bully at the attempt. Obviously the drawing up of a top ten may lead to a few fist fights between bloggers, but I would say there are some significant omissions from the list -- which cheats anyway by trying to encompass "freebies" as one all-encompassing category. Freebies are a must-have? Hmmmm.

The fact is, no must-have list is complete without Starax's wand, which is no longer available since his precipitous exit from Second Life after the changes to temp on rez affected his product so badly. No one can pretend to know why he left in the way he did, but I think that had he left feeling good about the world, he'd have left his things on sale in SL. As it is, there is a flourishing second hand market in Starax statues and transferable stuff. They are the new antiques of the virtual world, with art galleries offering to buy them up from the lucky owners. The most coveted item is the wand, which is not available to anyone who doesn't have one already, as it is not transferable. Anyone who wants to see it is welcome to contact me, and we'll have a wand party, as I was fortunate enough to find one in my Christmas stocking last year.

I agree with a couple of the items in the list; Siggy's swimmer being one, but where are the Skoopf skates, which must be one of the best selling items in SL? They allow me to be a champion skater, on wheels or on ice, and I have had *so* much fun with them.

It looks like the journalist came across Outy Banjo in world and was nobbled by him, or stumbled into his shop and was so impressed with what he/she saw that they considered he deserved two items in the top ten list. Really? I have nothing against Mr Banjo, but I can think of so many creators and creations which deserve to go onto a top ten list, that insisting on one item per creator would be essential.

What about Relic furniture? Bits and Bobs animations? Xcite attachments? Jillian Callahan's aircraft? Fairchang boats? SF designs shoes? Pixeldolls, Simone, Launa Fauna, Naughty clothes? Ordinal Malaprop's amazing Steampunk gadgetry? There's lots of stuff I would put way up above the miscellaneous collection in the list. And I would say Timeless Prototype's Multi-gadget tool, which also allows translation, is far more must-have than any other.

Maybe we shouldn't point and laugh, it isn't very welcoming. But to be honest, if journalists from first life want to be taken seriously in second life, they need to maintain higher standards of journalism. This just looks sloppy, as though they think we'll buy anything they feed to us because they are the professionals.