Scion (A very special corporate swag)

I got promoted and I promised myself and everyone around me that when I got my raise I would buy a new car. Mostly because my car is getting scarier everyday and I commute about 2.5 hours a day.
The kind of car I want is a Scion xD[see my SL one above]. I am a total sucker for advertising that is directed to my age group . I see Scion commercials and groan "Ooooooo!!!" Everyone in my apartment building who has a scion loves it(there is an xA, tc and a xB). So I want.
Today made my first attempt at contacting Scion dealers. Two of which talked to me for like 40 minutes before finally saying they don't have an xD on the lot and then tried to sell me a Matrix. What. The. Duck. Third time is a a charm, next door to my office they have a black xD on the lot and the saleman is not a total nob. His name is Mike. :)

So far let me explain my Scion experience. Scions are all about customizing. You pick a base vehicle to start with and then you add more and more stuff to it to make it awesome. So on Wednesday I will go see my xD to see if I like how it drives and it's big enough for me, and then I say "Mike I want all this stuff on it," Mike orders the parts, they install the stuff, and about a day or two later my car is all fancy like and I rejoice.

Scion in Second Life also tries to capture this customization experience. You can go over to Scion City, maintained by Millions of Us, and buy a car. Yes I bought the car, it was $L300 and I wanted it. With the car is a notecard that has the URL to download all the PSDs for it. Now I can draw all over my Scion in SL!! Weeeee! Love it. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Scion%20City/60/79/23

The only way this could be better is if the car was free and mod, but I guess Toyota(*cough* Millions of Us) needs my linden , whereas Nissan(Electric Sheep) is one of those open source free love hippi folks. As much as I love Scion because I'm going to own one, Nissan still wins the car brand in SL award.


Scion City
I have been to Scion City a couple times over the last year or so. It used to be one sim made by Neil Protagonist and back in the day it was a really nice urban environment. [See picture to the left of someone's bot spying on me August 2007]





It's 3 sims now, Scion city, Scion city West and Scion City South. To be honest, the new builds are fugly. They use the same TRU textures everyone else uses and don't have any of the finesse that Neil put into his original Scion City build. As I get older in Second Life and more into 3D design, I realize how easy it is to create your own seamless textures for builds. Not only easy, but there are hundreds of high res texture sites out there that have FREE content on them for 3D game developers. FREEEEEEEEE.
Here is a professional development company in SL using store bought textures and freebie textures (I saw a Weezer fence ramp there today)! That's not only sad, but shows a lack of innovation or pride in the design. [ Update: Just heard that Millions of Us is not a SL user company, it's a "I don't actually play, but I'd like to make money off of SL" company. ] Neil's stuff was lovely though. He's an artist. :)


Anyway. Scions are neat. I hope to own one by the end of the week. I'll update this if when I see my car in person it turns out to be crummy.