I am hopelessly lost in Farmville and then guess what happened?

So, as you all know, I am a Farmville addict. So, today, there I was winging my way between my US farm where I make wine in my winery, and have no less than 5 dairy barns, and my UK farm, where I am growing blue belles and breeding sheep in their own BOOM CHICKA WAH WAH love nest, when what do I get? I get a message from Facebook that says, "Rich invites you to be his neighbor in CityVille!"

WHATTTT????? CityVille?? Hold the phone, hold your horses!!!

So, after I "fertilize all" my crops in the US and check to see if my duckies have matured into bigger duckies, I click "Yes" to respond. And what do my eyes behold? CityVille...all the wonders of Farmville without the manure pile. Yes, I spent hours building little bungalows to increase my city's population. I built businesses and added roads and collected rents and sent the train out to other city's to bring back goods for all my little peeps. Then I clicked on some of the "neighbors" and visited their cities and helped their businesses and even opened up some franchises of my newly formed French Pastry empire.

Yes, I was hooked. It's just as much mindless fun as Farmville. So, now what am I to do!? Oh, I know what I'll do. I'll be checking all three of these games tomorrow. Hopefully, getting there before my crops wither or my city becomes a crime scene. (Okay, I made that last part up. I have no idea what happens to my city if I don't attend to it on a daily basis.)

See? Here's my prob. I start to feel personally responsible for these little animated people that live on these farms and in this city. It goes back to some trauma I experienced when I got The Sims game for Christmas one year. I was mindlessly playing along The Sim, making houses, taking on new jobs, trying to keep my Sim happy only to lose control of it all. One time, I had so overworked my Sim, without a moment's rest, that he finally just past out in the middle of the street and slept for the next 12 hours. I also started my Sim house on fire and burned it to the ground when I tried to have my Sim cook a meal without realizing I was supposed to actually learn how to cook. The stove caught fire, the curtains, the walls, and, unfortunately, my Sim who ran screaming into the street in flames and died. He freakin' died! What kind of a game was this? If that wasn't bad enough, the next Sim character I created was doing pretty well. Even got married. Had a baby too! But here's where it all went to hell in a hand basket. My Sim was working a lot to keep up with the bills and when she wasn't working she had to play and rest so she was "well rounded". No, seriously, if you've ever played The Sims, you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, this left blessed little time for her to attend to that baby! And you know what happened? Social Services came and took my Sim baby and put it in Foster Care! I kid you not!

So, you see? I am not good at these games. I tend to let things slide after a while. I'm sure all Sim people everywhere are glad I haven't played that game in years. But I also know that my farms will suffer eventually. Crops will wither. Animals will suffer. I've already had a couple of pet dogs run away because I forgot to feed them. It's only a matter of time before my City goes up in flames too! Just a matter of time...

Interesting Ways Farmville has affected my life, Part 2...

Great. Farmville now has given me the option of having two...yes, count 'em, TWO farms. One in Farmville, USA and the other in Farmville, UK. So, you know what that means? I can obsess about getting home in time to harvest my crops before they wither in two countries! I can worry that my fruit trees will ripen while I'm away in two countries! I can wax lyrically about all the great sheep I've bred and cows I have in my dairy farms in TWO FREAKIN' COUNTRIES!!


Seriously, I am a woman possessed. As on line games go, Farmville US and UK are seemingly harmless, time wasters but once they hook you, YOU ARE IN! You will not be the same person anymore. You will make up other Facebook pages with aliases just so you can "friend" yourself to get more stuff for your farms. It's like internet heroin, I swear! Mindless, numbing and addictive. It's better than heroin. There aren't those nasty needles to contend with!

I wonder if there is a 12 step program for this....

Interesting ways Farmville has taken over my life, Part 1

I was walking into the ladies room at work the other day. You know, to do the kind of stuff ladies do in the ladies room. Coming out of one of the stalls was a co-worker. We said, "Hello." And I entered one of the stalls as she went to the sink to wash her hands.

Now, let me explain, I have what is commonly known as a "shy bladder". This means that I find it very difficult to do "the kind of stuff ladies do in the ladies room" if there is someone else in the ladies room with me. And, I find it virtually impossible to do those things if that person, god forbid, engages me in conversation while I'm on the throne!! Which, much to my chagrin, is exactly what my co-worker did. As I was hopelessly trapped "mid-stream", she made small talk about work whilst washing her hands. Being polite, I answered her questions in a light hearted manner, all the time wishing she would hurry the hell up and get out of there.

Soon, she was finished and I heard the familiar "thwap" of the paper towel machine and her foot steps leading to the door. Then, there was an awkward silence. One in which I wasn't really sure if she had left or was creepily remaining silent so that I would THINK she had left. Either way, my bladder was in "idle" mode and it wasn't going to do anything until it was sure. Then I heard her voice say, "................well, good bye." And the door closed behind her.

For a moment, I thought, "Wow, that was strange." Well, actually I thought, "Well, that was...." and the door reopened again. That same co-worker stuck her head in the doorway and said, "One of these days you have to show me how to do that Farming stuff on Facebook so I can help you out." (A non-sequitor if ever I heard one!)

"Okay", I said.

And with that, she was FINALLY gone.

And THAT is one interesting way Farmville has taken over my life.