There's two things you need to know about me for this story to make sense.

Firstly, I love cars. I obsess about them. There's this route between San Francisco and Tahoe that takes you on some nice windy asphalt through the mountains - just a really great drive. I made that trip a few times in my Accord EX-R, back in 2000, during my little stint in the bay during the whole .com era. I have this recurring dream of taking that drive again in something with rear-wheel drive.

The second thing you need to know about me is that I'm a grad student, and the truth is, this isn't the glamorous and lucrative profession that they portray in movies and television. It's vaguely like taking a vow of poverty in the name of science. This means that, tragically, my means of getting around town consists of a pair of New Balance sneakers and public transit.

So this is where Second Life comes in - despite all its flaws and limitations, it does this one thing that you can't get anywhere else - it gives you this tool that lets you *make stuff* - a way to realize your dreams, albeit in a virtual space. One day I just decided, if I can't have a car in my first life, I'm going to have one in my second life. I'd live vicariously through SL until the day I can have a set of real wheels to call my own.

And if I'm going to have a car in my second life, I'll be damned if I can't have the coolest ride around. To me, there's absolutely nothing cooler than a 60's muscle car: V8 in the front, drive at the back, dodgy handling and way too much power. Guts and glory. That's what I was thinking when I started out on what eventually became the Dominus Shadow.

This being Second Life, it would just be inappropriate to just build a car, and call it done. That would clearly be too mundane. Forgive the pun, but this pony's one trick would be to do *everything*. It had to do all the tricks that you might want, and then some. Suicide doors, a gargantuan supercharger, hovercar mode, the list goes on.

I think I have this personality type that's not really complete unless I'm obsessing about something. For now, though, I'm stuck on cars, and I guess that shows through just a little.