Since Wednesday's update (2 January 2008) the Second Life grid has been plagued with repeated asset problems and server failures (there have been more problems today).
Linden Lab reports that the Second Life grid will be shut down entirely from 6AM to Noon (given the recent record on updates, you'd be wise to expect longer) on Wednesday, 9 January to update the asset cluster. Presumably the grid will continue to have ongoing asset problems until that time.
