Gaming is Better Than Dating & Last Night in Cafe World

Gaming is Better Than Dating

Yes, I do play a lot of games in the middle of the night. I suppose it's about the time when other divorced or single people of a certain age start feeling lonely and cry into their pillows or something. I'm twice divorced, and I've been in and out of the dating pool for so many years. By the time you get to my age, you'll see. Dating-Burnout takes hold and you really do prefer playing games to well..... playing games.

Playing video games is so much easier, less drama, more peace; and if you get tired of playing, you just shut off your computer.... so unlike a bad date that won't go home when you get tired of him.
 

Last Night In Cafe World
Last night, I visited my Nice Eats Cafe in Cafe World and got a big surprise; I have a roof and an outside to my building, even bushes and shrubs to decorate the landscape. And neighbors... well buildings anyway. That's a big deal in my little virtual world. Up until last night, all I had was a roofless room.

When I play Cafe World, especially in the middle of the night, I feel like sort of a Cafe God, looking down on my chef avatar and my Facebook Friends customers and my burnt food from on high. That's not changed, but now I can actually go outside. Up until last night, I didn't have an outside to go to. 

Now when I visit my friends Cafe World Friends, I can earn coins and Cafe XP by helping them inside and out. I can do yardwork, sample their daily specials, even unspoil their spoiled food... see, like the great Cafe God in the sky.

Like Farmville, Cafe World can be a lot of work; but what else do I have to do in the middle of the night?

Nice Eats Cafe...Outside

Mafia Wars - Just Open the Door to Vegas and Let Me In!!

 
Jumping Through Mafia Wars Hoops
It's can be rough running a worldwide criminal empire. You try to spread your operations to key spots all over the world, and Mafia Wars gives you hoops to jump through. It's rough for a video game player of a certain age.

Getting into Cuba was a matter of levels, easy to understand. I really don't know how I got into Moscow. Bangkok was new when I started playing the game. I tried to get in; in return I got taunting messages and teasers that hinted at my criminal deficiencies. It was a challenge, and exciting...  not jump up and down exciting, but the kind of excitement tame enough for a video game player of a certain age.

Bangkok colors were mellow. The teasers were shades of purple with really cool graphics. Mafia Wars made you really want to go.... virtually and in real life. But they made it hard. Do this, and do that, so many hoops to jump through. Now there's Vegas...


Why Couldn't They Just Open the Door to Vegas and Let me in?!
The Mafia Wars destination tab, the little drop down menu that takes you to New York or Cuba, finally Bangkok and all those little temporary places like London, Paris and currently South Africa. (What would the Mafia Wars family be doing in South Africa, you ask... why fixing the "Global Cup." Zynga's non copyright infringement nod to the soccer championship games) ... anyway the tab has said "Vegas Coming in 2010 for a while now."

Just the other day (actually in the middle of the night. Criminals do things in the middle of the night.) that tab changed to "Las Vegas Get early VIP Access!

I remember thinking, Early VIP Access means Mafia Wars hoops to jump through. Why couldn't they just let me in?

Poker Chips Baby!
To gain Mafia Wars Vegas early VIP access, you need poker chips...  virtual poker chips of course, which you get from your family. They will send them if you ask, but you can only accept 10 racks of chips a day. The more chips you have, the better your odds of getting into Vegas Baby!, except you can only try getting in once every  21 hours. I've tried 3 times now and I got nothing.... Well actually I got this mean looking guy telling me I have "Bad Luck!!"

A Vegas Diversion
To keep you from thinking about how you can't get into Vegas, Zynga added a temporary "Whack The Rat - Jimmy Vegas" challenge. It's colorful. You collect slot items and earn rewards, but it's just another teaser, a diversion to remind me that I am not VIP enough to get into Vegas.

Last night one of my fellow players got in.....so I know it can be done. I guess I'll just keep pushing computer keys and jumping through hoops until I make it to Vegas Baby!

After all, it is a game.

Tips From a Level 500 Mafia Wars Boss Lady

Mafia Wars is Cool - No Flash and Fire

Mafia Wars on Facebook has neither dancing avatars nor fancy weapons bursting into smoke and flames, no watching your enemies wither and die in a purple cloud.... and no mind-numbing sound effects at all! Still I love the game enough to get to level 500! That's a big deal for me, especially since so many of my gaming contemporaries grow weary of the Mafia Wars challenge and move on to online games with a bit more flash and fire.

Mafia Wars is laid back gangsta' cool and mellow, not flashy. Mafia Wars is strategy; and some folks simply must have their flash. Some gamers of a certain age, just like their children.. and grandchildren, need the instant gratification of digital devastation and destruction; and they quit before they get this far.




New York is Rough
It's the tedium  that makes it hard for an aspiring Mafia Don to finish up the Mafia Wars Boss level and get the heck out of New York. You've come so far. It's almost over....it will take only a bit more effort, or so you think.... but then you realize you need loot, lots of it to finish up those final rounds of kidnapping, bribery and extortion. It gets rough at times.


To get through those last few New York jobs, you'll need to come up with endless untraceable cell phones, computer set ups, concealable cameras for photos... lots of stuff. Some players just don't have the patience. 

For those willing to go the distance, tedious or not, here are a few tips:

1-Know Where to Find the Loot you Need
You get random loot from doing all sorts of jobs; but when you see a little yellow bag next to a New York job, that means you get specific loot (cells, cameras..) as you do the job.  Hover your cursor over the bag and it will show what kind of loot you might get. Knowing where the loot is will help you later in the game when it's important to know where to find the things you need. 

2-Fight for Great Loot!
I was born with this inner niceness; so I didn't take to the Mafia Wars game right away. When I started playing, I ignored the Fight option. It sounded so rough.... so confrontational.

When I did try fighting, as a lowly Mafia Wars Street Thug, I wasn't strong enough to win. I stopped fighting altogether.... until I figured out the great random loot I could get from winning fights. Much of the loot is fancy or high tech weapons to help build your Mafia Wars Family strength, but often you get equipment you will need for jobs a few levels later.

I fight a lot now; but until I got strong enough to take on bigger Mafias, I fought families with fewer members than mine. Fighting Mafias too small to defend themselves seemed inherently wrong at first, not nice at all; but that's exactly what higher level Mafia Wars Dons do.

So when the big guys attack you for no apparent reason, don't whine and wonder why they are picking on you and taking your money. Strike back... not at the big guys, you'll never win. Pick on someone with a smaller Mafia Family than you and reap the rewards.

P.S. After each attack, scroll down to the bottom of the display for loot information, including a link to hidden loot fellow players can find.

3-Never ask your Mafia for help in the "Rob the Electronic Store" job in the Enforcer Level-
You earn Untraceable Cell Phones, Concealable Cameras and Computer Setups as loot in the "Rob The Electronics Store" job in the Enforcer Level. To get out of New York, you will need every phone, camera and computer you can get. Don't get help on this job when it's offered, getting help for this job becomes a disadvantage later on.

4-Grab The Stash Items - If someone posts a stash of weapons on your Facebook Wall, animals or other loot, grab an item before they're gone.You'll need the strength of every item you can get and there's usually only 5 items per stash, so move quickly.



5-Use Your Wish List
Your Mafia Wars family will give you weapons, phones, a lot of what you need if you let them know you need it. Do this by updating your Inventory Wish List.

When you're doing a job and run out of items you need, (cells, transaction records...) a little red box will appear beneath the necessary item. To quickly post that item to your Wish List, click on the red box and follow the instructions. You can post a request on your family member's pages and add it to your Wish List at the same time.


6-Remember Mafia Wars is a Social Game
Don't hesitate to ask for help along the way. You'll need hundreds of loot items along the way, and the friendships you develop with online friends will flourish when you share with them and they share with you. That's another reason to have a big family.

Have You Seen My Farmville Dog?

I know.... no one wants to hear the trials and tribulations of a middle aged virtual farm girl, but my doggie is gone again. Have you seen her?

Carol's Farm in Farmville

 This is my My farm in Farmville; and yes, I did spell my name with trees.

Farmville, a Worldwide Obsession
I heard a news item a while back, how a Bulgarian man was fired for tending his Farmville crops during a business meeting. Farmville can get to you that way, make you lose your job over virtual corn..... I get it though; in my online social gaming world, the only thing worse than coming back to your farm to find your crops all wilted and brown is finding out your doggie is missing..... again.

Of course, I don't like getting iced by criminals in Mafia Wars either...

So What do Farmville Farmers do?
Every day millions of Farmville farmers worldwide grow and harvest virtual crops, raise virtual animals and tend to virtual farming chores. Recently they even added a Farmer's market so you can sell your veggies, fruits and flowers... to virtual neighbors and virtual customers of course.

And you can raise a puppy....that is if the game doesn't malfunction and you lose your little puppy somehow!

I had that whole Farmville doggie rant a few posts back: "Farmville Won't Let Me Farm and My Puppy is Going to Run Away."  so I won't go over the details.  But it's happened again. I can load the game, but one day I came back to my farm and little Nice-Nice... that's my doggie... was just gone.

I Paid the Ransom Last Time
The last time I paid the Farmville Doggie ransom, but there's no ransom for getting back a dog that shouldn't have run away in the first place. So now my doggie is gone.... hmmmm I wonder if that's where they got the expression.... you know.  "Doggone this and doggone that... and doggonit!"

If you're surfing the Net and  see little Nice-Nice out there prancing around out in cyberspace, please send her back to Carol's Farm..

Happy Anniversary Mafia Wars!

Celebrating Two Years of Social Online Crime

Mafia Wars is Turning 2; and if you're like the Video Game Grandma, you probably celebrate your Mafia Wars crime connection by playing the game. There's no better way!

If you've logged in during the past few days, you certainly noticed the celebratory gold Mafia Wars enhancements: gold gift packages, gold page trim, gold announcements. The folks at Mafia Wars are doing more than simply gilding the game; they're celebrating with limited time events.

The Mafia Wars Global Cup 

Just like the Mafia Wars Saint Patrick's Day and Easter Crtime Basket special events, in the Global Cup you earn loot from a series of special jobs. You choose which job you want to do depending on how much Energy you have to spend.

Use 30 energy and collect a reward in 5 minutes, 60 Energy gets a reward in 8 hours. Use 100 Energy and collect a reward in 24 hours. The greater the time and energy risk, the greater are the chances you will receive a rare item.

Collect Global Cup Soccer Balls-
If you're sensing a trend..... you are absolutely correct. The Mafia Wars Global Cup is a tribute.... more or less... to that other big Cup series that has the world going wild. And just like that well known event, the Mafia Wars game has assembled the nations of the world to participate... well sorta'.

Do special World Cup jobs, fights and regular Mafia Wars jobs and you may earn colorful, specially themed Soccer  balls, one each from England, Brazil, Italy, Spain, France Germany, and Argentina.Collect all 7 balls and vault your collection for "Injury Time," a pistol that carries a big 38 Attack and 52 Defense.

Earn The Global Cup Trophy

 Meet all your Global Cup criminal challenges. Do all the jobs successfully, and you may earn the "Grinners are Winners" achievement and the awesome Global Cup Trophy.  

 Double Fight Loot- Fun While it Lasted

If you love staring at your loot page and marveling at all the guns, knives, phones, cars, animals and other deadly objects you've accumulated, the past few days in Mafia Wars were probably particularly exciting for you. For 3 days, Mafia Wars offered Double Fight Loot. More loot.... so exciting!

Of course you know it. To make it in the world of crime, your Mafia Wars family needs all the loot you can get.....and to help you along, Mafia Wars dropped 2 loot items instead of 1..... 2 cars, 2 guns, 2 knives..etc. on random winning fights. It's part of their 2 year Celebration.

I got mine, hopefully you played Maria Wars and got yours too. If you didn't, too bad; Double Fight Loot Days are over and gone.

But it's not too late for you to get in on the Mafia Wars Global Cup. Click here to play the game. Play Mafia Wars

I Finished my Last New York Job - I'm a Skilled Mafia Wars Boss!

Moving Through The Criminal Ranks
After months of thugging  my way through New York City, and slipping in and out of criminal enterprises from Bangkok to Moscow, I finally finished off the New York Jobs. That makes me a Skilled Mafia Wars Boss!.... or in my case, a Senior Skilled Mafia Wars Boss!


For those of you who never played Mafia Wars, being a Skilled Boss means I worked hard at the game. I maintained due diligence enough to move my Mafia family through the criminal ranks from Street Thug, to Associate to Soldier and upward. I mastered jobs like Enforcer (you know like Jason, Sonny's mob Enforcer on General Hospital)

I pushed my way through to the Capo level (Capo, that's like Sonny.... a different Sonny... in Godfather, the movie) Level after level I collected the guns, the vehicles the help I needed to finish each job. It was tedious to say the least.

Being Head of a Mafia Family Isn't Easy
Once I got to the last few New York jobs, I thought it would be easy going....downhill all the way.... but no! 

Zynga created the Mafia Wars game with multiple criminal tasks: blackmail, kidnapping, bribery, in multiple skill levels. It's just like the real criminal world you see on television, complicated and detail heavy.... but with no visible blood and guts.

Which is why I can play the game....  Mafia Wars is all about strategy, no psychotic avatars running around, no dead bodies to step over.... except theoretical corpses of course..... you rack up a ton of those...... It gets easy to 'ice' a fellow criminal after a while, even for a timid, soft spoken lady like me.

Beg Borrow and Steal
Capo, Underboss and Boss, the last few New York levels, require a convoluted effort, running back and forth to levels you thought you'd never have to see again to accumulate loot you must have to finish the final tasks.

You need hundreds of bank records to do things like "Shake down a city councilman," bunches of photos  for tasks like " Blackmail the District Attorney" and "Buy off a Federal Agent." I used a ton of untraceable cell phones to do things like "Flip a Snitch." ...... Whew. it was frustrating!!

Capitalizing on Your Frustration
That point of frustration at needing things to finish the job is where Zynga steps in, offering phones, transaction records, photos.....for a price of course. You can always buy what you need with Marketplace points... virtual money you purchase with cold, hard, genuine cash.

True, you will need a ton of phones..... etc... You will get frustrated thinking you may never get through those final levels, but try not to spend your hard earned money. Beg, borrow or........well steal, like a true criminal (loot from Robbing and Fighting) to get what you need and one day you will be a Skilled Boss too.


My Reward for Being a Skilled Boss
So why did I put a picture of a toilet at the beginning this blog post? That's my reward. For completing all the New York jobs and becoming a Skilled Boss, I got a Golden Throne... yes a toilet, complete with a little roll of toilet tissue.

I don't get the symbolism exactly, but it means I get energy twice as fast now.... which is a big thing in Mafia Wars. You need energy to do all the jobs, so getting it 2X as fast is a great reward; and it helps you level up even faster....

Pac Man Nights

Pac Man is 30!! Can you believe that?

Being a gamer of a certain age, you might imagine I was probably around when that new game, Pac Man, started showing up in dark corners of public places. I won't say how old... or how young I was, but it was a few years post disco and I was in my prime.

Upscale bars with plants, shiny brass rails, big dance floors and fancy drinks were trying to hold onto the disco feel. They had cover charges and membership cards and called themselves night clubs.... and they had Pac Man machines, which didn't fit the decor or the dance party atmosphere at all, so they usually stuck them way in the back near the restrooms.

Pac Man What More Could a Girl Want?
In retrospect, I was never really a bar person.  Like lots of folks in those clubs, I wasn't on the prowl for a mate; I had one of those at home. I danced sometimes, but not much. From what I can recall, those night clubs were a great place to escape family responsibilities for a few hours... and of course there was Pac Man.... What more could a girl want?

Pac Man was, indeed, the main attraction for me...hours of sipping Chablis and maneuvering that Pac Man joystick. I can remember the panic of giving up my machine when I ran out of quarters. I can see the neon colors on the screen. I can hear the sound effects.... the ghosts and that little yellow disc, Pac Man, with the big mouth, gobbling up everything in his path. 


When my job transferred me to another city, I gave up my night club jaunts and forgot all about those Pac Man nights.... until today when I heard Pac Man was turning 30... Wow!

Happy Birthday Pac Man!

Facebook, Zynga, Why Can't we all Just Get Along?

Will Zynga and Facebook be Divorcing Soon?
Yes, I am a video game player of a certain age, but today, I feel like a child stuck in the middle of warring parents. Zynga and Facebook have been at odds. I understand one of the reasons is that Zynga's social games are way too social... too many people... too many messages, and Facebook doesn't like it.

Something's going on for sure. For whatever the reason, I can't get my Mafia Wars messages through Facebook and haven't been able to since yesterday. I can't send greetings to my fellow Dons, ask for illegal transaction documents or untraceable cells, or keep in touch with my Top Mafia.

Could this be the reason I couldn't access my farm on Farmville and had to pay a ransom to get my little doggie back?

There's a lot of speculation about what's going on; and just like a pair of soon-to-be-divorced parents, both Zynga and Facebook are "lawyering up," according to Michael Arrington at Tech Crunch.

Social Gaming?
In case you don't know what a social game is, it's one where you play with other people online, many of whom you might never have met had it not been for the need to have people on your team. My favorite Social game is Mafia Wars, a mostly slow-paced, but sometimes fast-paced strategy game where the more people you have on your side, the more likely you are to win wars and grow into a powerful Don... or Donna.

To do these things you communicate. Facebook players communicate via Facebook. My Space players communicate via My Space. To put it briefly, there's a lot of communication going on. The more people you have on your team, the more you communicate.

I understand that's one of the big issues, too much communication; but like the child in the middle of those angry parents, you just know there's more to it.  Of course when there's a battle this big brewing, reason tells you there's cash involved as well.


Will Zynga Leave Facebook?
These past few days, whether by accident or intentional FB sabotage, Mafia Wars Dons and Donnas have had a hard time staying in touch with their Mafia Families. They can still communicate on Facebook, but since game requests have not been posted, they are mostly trading messages about the relationship between Little Mamma Zynga and Big Daddy Facebook.

Zynga sent out a code to it's players the other day which turned out to be not just a code but the access code to the new Zynga only mainframe, the only thing tying players to Zynga if Facebook suddenly pulls the plug. There are messages being posted about litigation, the pending break up and users leaving Facebook if they can't access Mafia Wars.

And Mafia Wars is not the only Zynga game inivolved. There's Farmville, Cafe World and Treasure Island to name a few. It's a sad time for the Mafia Wars family. I say Facebook... Zynga.... Why can't we all just get along.

Clearing Away the Dead Pumpkins & Paying The Puppy Ransom

My Farm is Back!
I've been farm-less since Saturday evening, but my farm is up and running this morning. I would like to think it had something to due with all the sage Farmville Support wisdom I received; but the fact is, I did everything Farmville Support said I should do to make my farm work again......and nothing happened.

I tried to load my farm, many times in fact.
I refreshed the page.. time after time after time..
I cleared the cache.
I redid my Flash program..twice
I updated my Direct X
I waited

I was prepared to do it all again during this morning's first cup of coffee and game-time, my daily computer play date before I get to work on what I really should be doing. I clicked on my Farmvile game link, and while I waited to see what was happening down on the farm, I opened another window and moved on to Mafia Wars. I'm working the Paris Mission, trying to steal the Mona Lisa, you know.

Just as I was retaliating against HolyFlip, who'd robbed my Mafia Wars Bangkok Drug Operation, I heard the cows mooing, the chickens clucking, the sheep baaing and that country music twang in the background.

Farmville Was Back - But My Puppy Was Gone!!
My farm was loaded up and ..... well...a bit withered.... dead pumpkins all over the place. And of course my puppy, little Nice-Nice, had run away. Puppies are pretty new in Farmville; but I understood if I didn't feed her on time, she would run away indeed.

But for a Farmville glitch, I fed her every day. Like a good little farm girl I did my part; so I was certain since it was a Farmville glitch they might send my little puppy home for free.

Nope!!

After a half hour of wandering through fallow forum pages and wading through a field of Farmville support links, I found out they would restore little Nice-Nice only if I'd paid for her with Farm Cash... that's pretend money paid for with real dollars. I'd bought little Nice-Nice with Farmville coins, virtual money earned from bringing in virtual crops.

My little puppy had been taken; and if I wanted her back, I had to pay a ransom to buy her freedom. I wanted to break out in a sad protest song.. you know, "We shall overcome" but I decided my energy was best spent in getting my farm together.

Dead Pumpkins & Mocking Signs
As I began clearing away all those dead and dried out pumpkins and vines, a sign kept popping up..."Nice-Nice has run away. Click here to rescue Nice-Nice." Of course I wanted my doggie back; but every time I clicked on that little pop-up sign, it slid back down into the farm innards from whence it came.

That little sign kept mocking me... popping up, then sliding back down, popping up, then sliding back down. Each time I clicked, nothing happened. So I decided to check out the Market. You can get anything at the Farmville Market, you know. And there it was "Rescue Dog" FV2 (Farmville Cash), that's not too bad for a puppy ransom. I also could have paid 30 Farm Cash for a bottle of "Unwither," a virtual spray that would have restored my crops to fresh and green and  harvest ready without my lifting a finger.

Buying My Puppy out of Bondage
Even if I do spend a lot of time in the virtual world of Social Games, I refuse to pay for virtual money to operate a virtual farm. I made up my mind about that. Fortunately I had earned a few Farm Cash, how I don't know; but it only cost 2 Farm Cash to buy little Nice-Nice out of Farmville Bondage, so I clicked the Rescue Dog link and little Nice-Nice came running across the field. Home again!

Don't you like a story with a happy ending

Stealing The Mona Lisa - The Mafia Wars Paris Challenge

Paris is Open!
If you were diligent enough to wait out a week of Mafia Wars quirks, glitches and disabled feeds, late last Friday night you received a pop-up message: "Challenge: Mission Paris, Up for the challenge?"

Mafia Wars families have been offered the Mission Paris challenge. A wealthy art collector wants to acquire the Mona Lisa; but he needs a Mafia family with world class influence and enough manpower to do the job right. Mafia Wars Paris has opened up. It's a “limited time only” opportunity available to those who have what it takes to step up to the challenge.

When you sign on, you never know what new element to the game might have opened up. With Mafia Wars virtual criminal empires in New York, Cuba, Moscow and recently, Bangkok, the next stop was supposed to be Las Vegas... but they did a little flip-flop and that has diligent players traveling to the other side of the Atlantic... at least for a while.

Mafia Manpower
“The Feds are watching..,” so your Paris mission may require a few “fresh faces” to avoid “the heat.” That was one of the messages you got right after accepting the Paris Challenge. It mean they wanted you to go out and find more people for your Mafia.

Mafia Wars recommends the foot soldiers you need to get the job done; but don't worry, if your Mafia doesn't meet this first crucial manpower test, you have a few days to recruit new members into your family. The clock is ticking, so to help in your quest, the Mafia Wars team has provided a special recruiting invitation that reads “You Have a Steal The Mona Lisa Request.” (They make it all seem so real.)

Mission Paris
The countdown begins the moment you accept the Paris Mission. As with previous Challenge Missions, you work a tight schedule with a digital timer ticking away the minutes.

Your mission begins before you travel to the City of Lights. First you must collect a series of Paris Maps to do job. To accomplish this, you can return to the Challenge Mission: Paris page for a daily Map allotment. You will also be able to collect Paris Maps as loot drops when you fight, rob and do Mafia jobs in New York, Cuba, Moscow and Bangkok.  Collect all the necessary maps on schedule and you may begin Chapter 1 of your Paris Challenge.




The Heat is On!
There's a bit of an unusual twist to the challenge. When they say "The heat is on," they're talking about a heat meter that begins to rise once you start working the jobs. As you get closer to finishing each job, a  pop up message will warn that the authorities are getting closer. They suggest you lay low for a bit. If you choose to continue, the meter glows from green to yellow to red; and the energy cost and number of maps needed to do the job rises.  

The Rewards
The Paris Challenge has 3 chapters, each with 3 tasks to accomplish. For each completed chapter, you will receive a unique, limited edition item as a reward. The bonus for Chapter 1 is 'The Paris Fixer' to help you with future jobs. For completing Chapter 2 you will receive the “French Kiss,” a shiny, new weapon. Complete chapter 3 and you will add the “DaVinciQ415” to your car collection.




I've already completed chapter 1 and I'm pleased with my "Paris Fixer." He came with a 61Defense rating and is now my most powerful defense weapon.... Cool!

Now It's your turn. Can you handle the Paris Challenge? The clock is ticking.

Farmville Won't Let Me Farm, And My Puppy is Going To Run Away!!

I Can't Get to My Farm
I've read the messages over and over,  "Farmville is experiencing page loading issues....blah, blah, blah." I didn't pay much attention until last night when Farmville wouldn't let me farm.

It's my sister's fault. She's another one of us video game players of a certain age; and she's the one who got me started playing the role of an online farmer. I wasn't really into it at first. I found it annoying: planting carrots or beans or tulips even, then remembering to go back in time to harvest my crops before they withered away.... milking cows, gathering eggs....

I'm a Real Live Virtual Farmer
I started feeling.... just like a real farmer, actually... too much work and no profit!!  I kept at it, even though I had only four neighbors back then. Then I started playing Mafia Wars a few months ago. And who would have thought it, a lot of those online Mafia Dons and Donnas who trade guns, start wars with one another and "ice" an adversary at the drop of a hat... a lot of them have a little bit of the farmer in them.They invited me to be their Farmville neighbors and I invited them to be mine.

I have about 30 farm neighbors; and now that it's truly a "Social Gaming" experience for me, Farmville farming makes me want to say Yee-haw!! I have neighbors sending me virtual cows and trees, and all kinds farm gifts. I'm a regular virtual farm girl these days... that is when I'm not a Mafia gangster on Mafia Wars, or slinging hash at Cafe World or digging for buried artifacts on Treasure Island... I play Bejeweled Blitz and Family Feud sometimes as well. Like I said before, I love online video games.

So when co-op farming started, where you join with your neighbors to help bring in crops for town projects... I told you I was into it... I expanded my farm, twice even to accommodate more farm plots. I bought a virtual plow and seeder and harvester so I could do the job faster.... In short... I'm a virtual farmer.

My Pet Puppy 
Last week I bought a puppy, a virtual puppy you absolutely must  feed once every 24 hours for at least 14 days when it will transform magically into a grown dog. If you miss a feeding, it will run away.

Now I bought that little puppy with farm coins... pretend money you get from bringing in pretend crops.... but if that little puppy runs away, I will have to pay Farm Cash... (virtual money you pay real cash for) to get my puppy back.

So here I am back where I started. Farmville won't let me farm.. After all of these months of reading about page loading issues, my farm has finally decided to join in on that malfunction.

I just planted pumpkins for the co-op last night. They've withered away by now; and I'll get over that. But I've been feeding my little puppy for 11 days...and If I don't feed him this evening, he will run away. And if my little doggie runs away because he was hungry and I wouldn't feed him, it will be Farmville's fault.

Well, Farmville and my sister... She's the one who got me started with this online farming thing in the first place.

A Seasoned Video Game Player

My Worldwide Online Gaming Crew
I play online video games: Mafia Wars mostly, but also Cafe World... and I love playing the farmer on FARMVILLE. For those of you of my generation who know only video solitaire or other computer based games you play by yourself, the games I play are called "Social Games." You work them with teams, people of all ages from all over the world.

Instant messaging is an integral part of online Social gaming game, mostly with Mafia Wars when someone needs your help to take out a rival family; but sometimes people just want to say hi. I get of IMs from young people who assume I'm young too, perhaps because no older women in their family plays games like I do. Or perhaps because young people are just self-centered that way. The conversations start out simply enough, "Hello:" "Will you send me an AK-47?" "Can you help me with my war?" But it almost always winds down when they ask, "How old are you?"

A Gamer of a Certain Age
I once told a young man in some Middle Eastern country that women in America don't discuss age. I think he believed he'd insulted me after that. He apologized, made a little sad face ... you know a colon and a bracket, and signed off. A young man in Croatia wanted to know my age; so I told him I was old-er. He let it go only because he had to go to bed to get up for school the next day. All he had to do was check my profile page on Facebook to see my kids and grandson; but I can see how easy it is for some old pervert to get away with pretending to be a teenager when they start asking questions.


I have no problem with my age, it's other people who judge a woman based on her number of years on the earth. Deep inside I am a little child. I suppose that's why I play online games. I am .... we'll say, a woman of a certain age... Isn't that the catch phrase these days?  I have grown, married children and a two year old grandson... thus the name, Video Game Grandma.

I have a passion for video games neither of my husbands (my ex-husbands) could have ever understood; and I love the new Social element of sharing the play with a worldwide crew. It's better than going out on Saturday night.

PONG
My video game love is nothing new. It started with PONG  in the 70s and 80s, then Breakout, Zelda and Galaga. I remember playing ZELDA until my fingers hurt because I had to solve it. Yes, I played PONG in the 70s, but don't start counting backwards trying to figure out my age. I am a seasoned video game player. Let's just keep it at that.

My point is, the video game craze started with women like me who bought those new-fangled games for our kids a few decades ago, played them ourselves and maintained the habit until this very day. I love my online games and I will not hide my habit!