I did expect an outpouring of concern from my many loyal readers after admitting that I'd dreamt about Second Life last month despite having never even used it, but boy was I surprised when the main source of worry was the tangentially related fact that I'd never seen The Matrix. Apparently this state of affairs was highly disturbing to my friends and colleagues and necessitated immediate remedy.
Well, I finally watched it a few weeks ago, courtesy of my recently renewed netflix membership. And it was pretty good, although I felt like I'd already seen it, thanks to the collective unconscious wikipedia.
But the plot line really reinforces the point I was making about the Second Life hype anyway: Irrational, experientially driven, life-loving humans will never abandon their physical bodies in favor of a virtual world willingly—we'd have to be forced to do so by the evil machines that want to use our bodies as batteries. Clearly!
As they say, "the imperfect is our paradise."
And, no, I don't plan to see the sequels.