MERLIN & More

This is the second part of Week 4. I have subscribed to Merlin, looked at Social Networking, Avatars etc. I have looked at Feedster and some other Feed searchers & repositories. I found some weird stuff on Technorati that didn't seem relevant to my searches. While looking for Foodie blogs or gourmet eating, it came up with a lot of blogs on eating disorders - not really what I was looking for. I did not add more Feeds to my list in Bloglines, although I could have. I think it is possible to have too many, and I prefer to keep a select few, rather than overload on a lot of junk I will never look at. I would rather add sites as I find them and use them, so that I know they are what I want and what I will look at and use.
The actual process of adding feeds does not seem to be difficult. After all these people want your business. It's more the profusion or confusion of availability of stuff that can get overwhelming.
I get the point of using Second Life to create virtual libraries to meet other librarians etc, and of using it as an adjunct to work, but if I had a second life to invent would I really want to be a librarian? Why not an astronaut, a race car driver, a billionaire Hollywood star, a pulitzer prize winner, discoverer of the cure for cancer? Not that there's anything wrong with being a librarian of course, but that is the life I already have, wouldn't I want something different?
Some social networking sites have already suffered from their openness. My Space has sexual predators, and many parents are worried. Sometimes kids aren't any more wise to the virtual world than they are to the real world.
I like the idea of Avatars, they are fun, but you can really use up a lot of time playing with them.