ma's games

Bye to Eco CIty

2012-02-19T20:36:00.000-08:00

With only two neighbors who quit the game at Level 1, it is surprising I stayed with Eco City for so long. My reason for trying new Facebook games ~ to write review articles for the former Associated Content ~ is gone ~ that is, since the new Yahoo Voices requires submitting everything for review, and I fear they will reject everything I write, my incentive or motivation became: why bother.

Thus there was no reason for me to be playing Eco City ~ especially since I do not know Portuguese. The reason I am saying bye to Eco City is because there is nothing more I can do there. I am on the 4th expansion, have the money, increased population, as required, to 4000 and game will not let me expand. it seems my boa is too low. Boa is a little green happy face icon which I guess means population happiness. If boa goes to a minus number, the face becomes red and sad.

I can not add more commerce (I think that is how I originally increased boa) because commerce needs to connect to a road. Increasing population took a lot of adding apartment buildings. I found apartment buildings took less space, cost less than single dwellings. Little by little I sold off the bambino casa and other smaller dwellings, replacing with a tall apartment building.

I added all that decor that makes residents happy and gives bonuses when collecting rents. I could sell off a bunch of them, add another roadway and more stuff, but do believe as I remove decor boa will likewise decrease.

This would not have happened if my first 3 expansions had expanded land. But I needed a sewage thingy ~ and that could only be placed in the river, Rio. Since the sewage plant was not reducing river pollution (oh those naughty home owners, sewage heads straight to the river), I had to add a 2nd one. For some unknown reason game would not let me add it near the first one, so my 2nd expansion also expanded river area ~ which did not give enough land space to extend roads.

Too bad I did not try expanding towards the waterfall ~ that may have given me more land as it opened up a bit of the river as well. I decided to expand between my two existing river sections, because it looked silly, with the cutout in middle of rive ~ that added next to no land, so a useless expansion except for aesthetic purposes.

It is a real catch-22 situation, can not add anything without expanding, can not expand without adding stuff. Plus I can not use the lab due to lack of neighbors. So it is bye, bye to Eco City.

Paying respects on social media

2012-02-19T16:47:00.000-08:00

Author, Ian Lovett of Paying respects on social media, published on February 20, 2012 at The Age dot com Au, says: "Everyone else wanted to be part of this collective mourning as well, even those who had no words of their own to offer." He is speaking about the death of Whitney Houston.

When I posted Whitney Houston videos on my Facebook profile, being part of a "collective mourning", in no way entered my mind. I was as shocked to read about her death as I was to learn of Don Cornelius suicide. In by-gone times, my oldest daughter would have been quick to call me to discuss those deaths. Now-a-days her phone calls are few and far between. Sure, I could have called her, but thought for sure she would comment on my Facebook status update.

Both the singer and Soul Train creator/host were part of our lives via the music. I can not say I was mourning either person's passing; just sad about it.

Ian continues: "This compulsion to weigh in on a news event, even one with only a tangential relationship to one's own life, is endemic among people who use social media, according to Jonathan Taplin..."

Well, here I am falling prey to my compulsion to weigh in on a news article. That is not new with me. Long-time writer of Letters to the Editor or discussing current events with family, friends or co-workers. Facebook is social networking, so why would people not comment on things in the news?

Then he writes: "It was not always thus. For much of the 20th century, this type of public mourning, even for loved ones, was frowned on in Western culture, according to Katherine Ashenburg..." and "toward the end of the last century, as celebrity culture rose, people began mourning for famous people whom they did not know, like John Lennon or Diana, more expressively than they grieved for their own family members."

I think it was mid-century when a nation, if not the world, grieved the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Less, due to racism, I believe, grieved the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Oh, but they were not celebrities, right? Being famous or well-known is the definition of celebrity, a celebrated person.

I asked my sister, "Why are you crying?"

She replied, "Buddy Holly died". I did not understand why that made her cry. Mourning the death of a celebrity? Don McLean wrote a song about it ~ American Pie. He definitely mourned the loss of a rock 'n roll singer. Then there was Elvis, who preceded Lennon in death. I guess they qualify as "toward the end of the century", but Marilyn Monroe was closer to the middle of it. Tribute songs after the death of Marvin Gaye became popular.

It is likely that people were mourning "collectively" long before the end of the century ~ we all just did not know it. Or did we? The radio station that started playing Otis Redding songs non-stop when he died, was listened to by many ~ many who like the DJ's were as saddened by his death as my sister was when Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Booper died. The difference now is that our voices are heard faster, instantly, when a beloved celebrity passes.

The reason I read this article, was due to puzzling about what to say to an ambiguous RIP post that landed on my Facebook wall. I have had friends there who lost a parent or other family members to death. They talk about their family health issues as well as their own problems. If we were real-life friends, we would be sharing that info, offering condolence or get-well wishes in person, via telephone or mail. We would even attend the funeral for a friend's parent.

Online or offline, people do discuss news, even news that has only a tangential relationship to their lives. There is no relationship, for example, between my life and the news of a father who committed suicide by blowing up his house, killing his two young sons in the process. I could claim a relationship with the news of an ICE agent being killed after opening fire on his supervisor, due to living in the town where the event happened, but that is not something substantial in relation to my life.

I suspect I am like the majority of people~ we want to discuss current events, even the death of a singer or murders of people we did not know. Truly, I still grieve the loss of a baby due to a drunk driver; I think of her mother, when I cross the street where the tragedy occurred, even though I do not know her. And I have mentioned that death at various places on the Internet.

I do not find think it is news that people do pay their respects on social media, yet do feel compelled to comment on the article.

WTF

2012-02-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

Lyrics to an old song I liked are nowhere near: get full control girl, get full control; yet that was how I sung them for a long time. Before setting off on a search to find something that teaches how to develop self-control, I decided to listen to the song, despite knowing I had the lyrics wrong.

Did not know name of tune, just the artist: Al B Sure. Which reminds me, I saw him in concert...

While I was at You Tube listening to Off On Your Own Girl, I decided I would watch a video I saw last week. I typed in my search: Bobby Brown Oprah interview. You Tube gave me lots of search results for Whitney Houston. Duh, did I mention Ms. Houston? Nooooo

So I tried again: Oprah Bobby Brown interview. You Tube gave me a lot of search results for Whitney Houston. WTF! What part of Bobby Brown/Oprah do You Tube search engines not get? I have not deleted history, so if I go back in time, I may stumble upon a video that has the Oprah interview listed on sidebar selection of related videos. Oy, that will be time consuming.

Like most people I watched a lot of Whitney Houston videos following her death. It would be so much easier if the search engine gave me relevant results. Oh, there was one search result that mentioned Bobby Brown: Bobby Brown is S*#@ (or whatever symbols the poster used to convey his or her feelings about the Brown).

Sad Facebook Status Update

2012-02-16T16:03:00.000-08:00

A status update on my wall was a photo of a young lady and baby: In Memory of Jane Doe*. I clicked on the words, taking me to a full size photo and the words: In Memory of a sweet girl and Mother to our beautiful granddaughter...You life was ripped away from you before you had even begun to live it.

In Memory of a sweet girl and Mother to our beautiful granddaughter...You life was ripped away from you before you had even begun to live it

That is a sad Facebook status update, but not very informative. The person who posted it is a new friend; we play a mutual game and she was looking for neighbors. Since so many of mine quit playing, I added her as a friend/neighbor. I spent some time on her wall, trying to determine how her daughter died (or daughter-in-law). The new Facebook Timeline posts are so huge, it is hard to scroll to find relevant posts.

I do not know what to say to the woman. Is Condolences enough? Was the death recent? After a long illness or sudden, such as car accident? Someone left a comment: I am sorry for your loss. (spelled: lost) I could parrot the same thing, which is redundant. My heart bleeds for her pain ~ do know how I would feel if one of my daughters passed away, especially the one with daughters of her own. Telling a stranger that sounds too gooey.

It is not the first time I have seen stuff like this. I vaguely remember asking a game friend if she minded sharing details of her sister's death. It was uncomfortable doing so.

If people are comfortable sharing personal info with people who are not personal friends or family, I wish they would be more explicit.

*Name changed to Jane Doe for privacy.

Airport City

2012-02-15T14:35:00.000-08:00

Airport City is a little different than standard Facebook games. Player starts game with two square grids, separated by strips tree covered land. When expanding territory, player can expand around the airport area (grid) or city area, but not in those separating rectangles. Some items can be placed on either land area; others, such as an Eatery can only be placed on the city side, or Air Traffic Control Tower can only be placed on airport side.

Player builds houses, in order to have passengers to take flights. Population of city is determined by level of Town Hall building. The number of passengers allowed in terminal is limited by level of Terminal. Game play consists of collecting passengers from houses; collecting profit from commerce buildings; sending airplanes on flights. There are also incoming planes. Player can allow incoming planes to land, thus earning more coins.

The incoming planes also use passengers or fuel from players supply. Those planes are slow unloading, refueling and loading before take-off. Player is limited as to number of incoming planes they can land according to the number of available runways they have. Also, after accepting a few incoming flights, there is a pause, until more incoming flights become available.

Like many Facebook games, Airport City has missions. The mission icons are on the left side of screen with flashing arrow to show when there is a new mission. Thankfully the arrow goes away, and only repeats to show progress or completion of a mission. And, as with many other games, there are way too many requirements to hire neighbors or Facebook friends. The hiring to staff buildings constructed to complete missions, is done by a Facebook wall post.

If you do not have a lot of friends playing this game, you might as well hang it up. Profit from flights is nil; takes way too long to save up enough coins to do buy items needed to improve the airport/city. It is cute watching planes take off and land, but can get old real fast, when not seeing those coins mount up, being unable to advance. Players can, of course, use game dollars to speed things up a bit, if they have lots of Facebook credits and like the game enough to use them to play Airport City.

Slow-loading neighbors for visits and returning home afterwards; get 5 actions when visiting neighbors ~ can pick up extra fuel, passengers, or coins. The missions often involve doing certain tasks at a neighbors, which are hard to complete if no neighbor has, for instance, a Stone Mansion or Ice Castle. When a neighbor visits player, their icon is attached to whatever task they did. If they collected fuel from a hanger, clicking on hanger gives extra fuel, then icon disappears.

Since fuel (and at times passengers) is in short supply, visiting neighbors is important, but time consuming due to loading slowness. There is a limited selection of gifts to send neighbors/friends.

The game does not have a Help section. There is no minimize/maximize option; just a full screen toggle. This means a lot of sliding the game screen back and forth to access city or airport, even when using full screen mode.

Airport City was developed by Cooper Media Inc. and "published" by 6Waves.

Facebook app page: http://www.facebook.com/airport.city.en?sk=info

Airport City info

2012-02-15T13:37:00.000-08:00

Airport City is a cute, little game, but compared to other Facebook games, can only give it two stars. Here is a look at game requirements:

Get passengers from houses.
Cottage costs 40 coins, gives 2 passengers every 5 minutes
Side Wing costs 180 coins, gives 4 passengers every 20 minutes
Townhouse costs 8 game dollars, gives 12 passengers every hour (who would spend that much game cash when same number of passengers are available from Side Wing, per hour?)
Mansion costs 250 coins, gives 24 passengers every 4 hours

Number of allowed houses is determined by population level which is determined by Town Hall level
(will need neighbors to staff, or game dollars to complete upgrades)

Sample Commerce
Eatery earns 6 coins every 5 minutes (costs 70 coins to construct)
Grocery Store earns 9 coins every 10 minutes (cost 90 coins to construct)
Car Dealership earns 90 coins every 4 hours (costs 350 coins to construct)

Houses, commerce, require electricity to run

Power plant costs 100 coins, produces 6 electricity
Wind turbines also create electricity. I do not have info on those because it appears player is only allowed to buy X number of them ~ then they disappear from the store. As player levels up, saves enough coins, other options become available.

Control Tower
Terminal (higher levels increase number of passengers allowed) (requires 10 electricty)
(will need neighbors to staff, or game dollars to complete upgrades)
Repair shop (do not know much about this one)

Level 1 hanger costs 100 coins (needs 5 electricty)
Level 2 hanger costs 500 coins (needs 5 electricty)
Level 1 runway costs 120 coins
Level 2 runway costs 1500 coins

Fuel Station ~ earn 1 fuel every 6 minutes, cost 6 coins

Fuel replenishes at 1 every 6 minutes

Training Flight ~ takes 4 minutes ~ Propeller Driven plane (costs 200 coins to buy, requires empty hanger)
Requires 10 fuel and 12 passengers.
Earns 16 coins and 3 pilot caps

Small Village ~ takes 8 minutes
Requires 10 fuel and 12 passengers
Earns 35 coins and 8 pilot caps

Egypt flight takes 1 hour ~ Powerful propeller driven-plane (costs 350 coins, requires an empty hanger)
Requires 12 fuel and 19 passengers
Earns 45 coins and 21 pilot caps
very seldom drops Light Engine
(need to hire a pilot, either a neighbor or pay 100 coins for apprentice pilot ~ pilots rest between flights, so without a lot of neighbors, limited to how many flights you can start)

Cyprus ~ takes 2 hours ~ Powerful propeller driven-plane
Requires 12 fuel and 19 passengers
Earns 65 coins and 25 pilot caps
very seldom drops empennage

Turkish Coast ~ 3 hours ~ Turboprop (costs 2000 coins to buy, requires empty hanger)
Requires 14 fuel and 38 passengers
earns 74 coins and 35 pilot caps
always drops landing lamp

Jet is not available until Level 13
Delta available at Level 19

Duty Free Shop
costs 400 coins, takes 1 hour to construct
Hire 4 neighbor

Sampling Incoming Planes
requires 3 passengers, earns 6 coins and 4 exp (level 2 runway)
requires 1 furel, earns 5 coins, 2 exp (level 1 runway)
requires 2 passengers, earns 5 coins 2 exp (Level 1 runway)

Okay, so a player can wait 4 hours to earn 90 coins collecting from grocery store or keep game open and earn 216 coins collecting from grocery store every ten minutes or 54 coins per hour. A housebound Facebook game player, can earn coins at a much faster rate than a player who only visits the game once (or less) a day.

When I started playing Airport City, that is what I did: left game board open in a separate tab as I went about the business of playing my other games, reading Facebook status updates, reading news articles, checking my e-mails and, maybe, catching up on Blogger posts. I soon removed the game, due to lack of friends playing it including neighbors.

I went back when a game friend started playing, requesting gifts of energy or staff. Found my original non-playing neighbors were no longer on my neighbor bar. Was delighted when a former neighbor invited me to be her neighbor. Alas, after a few days, when I visited that neighbor, Airport City, told me she had not visited airport in a while, so no rewards for doing tasks there, thank you.

I have a feeling she never sent me the invite ~ the game likely did. Do not know how I earned game dollars ~ perhaps with level ups or rewards from missions ~ all spent to get item needed to do plane repairs or hire staff. Do not have enough neighbors or game dollars to hire people to complete the Duty Free Shop, so will not be playing the game, except when the three (maybe) playing neighbors send gifts. I do like to help my game friends, else I would remove Airport City right now.

Whitney Houston

2012-02-13T13:22:00.000-08:00

I never finished my eulogy song list posts. Whenever I got around to continuing those posts, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" by Whitney Houston would have made the list of songs for my funeral party.

I heard about Ms. Houston's unexpected death via a friend's Facebook status update. Why unexpected, she was on drugs, right? When I think: Whitney, I do not think: drugs. Nor do I think: Bobby Brown. I still love watching "Every Little Step" video at You Tube. I watched a few days ago. I did not once think: Whitney Houston.

Christmas time 2010, I posted videos of stars singing "Oh, Holy Night". One of those stars was Ms. Houston. I had a hard time determining which diva did the best rendition of the song. Whitney or Aretha? Celine? Patti LaBelle? Do not think Dionne Warwick's version impressed me much. A singer I did not know was right up there at the top with Whitney. Jennifer Hudson, I think. It is like flip a coin. No one can out sing Aretha for soul; no one except Whitney Houston, that is.

I think most all Gospel trained singers do an outstanding job, better than most anyone else, when it comes to putting sheer emotion or feeling into their voices as they bellow out tunes, be it pop or religious or even patriotic. I do not know; it comes from their gut, the bottom of their souls, or something that gives me goose bumps listening to them.

Yes, I am one of Ms. Huston's fans. Still it surprised me that I became teary-eyed as I read about her death, did the usual thing, started watching videos of her old songs. Too sad.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/whitney-houston-found-underwater-bathtub-unconscious.html

Drowned in Bathtub?

2012-02-13T12:22:00.000-08:00

After seeing the Facebook status update about Whitney Houston's death, I became obsessed with finding out more information. Most of the early news articles reported the same Reuters press release information. I read a lot of opinion or tribute-like articles about her passing. I do not know why I forgot about the drugs. All I thought about was a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice dying much too young. The stuff I read reminded me that Ms. Houston was having problems.

I did a quick web search ~ I thought I wrote an article about my favorite R&B singers. I found two articles ~ will post about them later ~ where I mentioned Whitney Houston. I will also visit the former AC and check my entire list of articles for the ones I wrote about female singers.

As I listened to other Houston tunes at You Tube, I clicked links, learning more and more about the star. I am not a tabloid person; do not keep up with trials and tribulations (real or created) of celebrities. I will read the headlines, that is all. I now want to find the entire Diane Sawyer interview and watch the Oprah one. Insatiable curiosity now.

Today's story says she may have drowned in hotel bathtub. I read news yesterday that said that is where her body was found, so not surprising to read that today. What is bothering me is personal.

I was in bathtub, maybe on Friday, maybe on Saturday, felt chest pains. I thought, well, good place to die, in a bathtub. Wondered if my body would sink under the water; how long before the smell of decay would have manager check out apartment, find me dead in my tub. Wondered if Village people, specifically Sarah would assume: drowned herself in tub.

I was thinking, as I sat in my tub, back to 2006. How silly of me, submerged, wanting to sink under the water to drown myself. Vague recollections of Dr. Mina asking: what stopped you? Well, that was not about drowning self ~ it was about taking a knife, violently stabbing self on wrist over and over again, dying on the sofa bed. What stopped me: was not very nice. The Village, specifically Sarah, got me that sofa bed. Better than to drown in the tub, easier clean up; no sense ruining a sofa bed, some other homeless person could use.

So odd, that I was having these tub drowning thoughts a day or so before Ms. Houston met her death in a bathtub. I doubt anyone will every know ~ did she slid under the water with intent to end it all? Have a heart attack? Fall asleep due to prescription drugs? Maybe the autopsy will pin point which came first ~ death or drowning.

I wonder, too, why the body guard went into the bathroom. Maybe that question will be answered sometime in the future. Like how long was she in the bathroom, before he went in to check on her and why did he check on her?

There is one more thing...

Cousins

2012-02-10T22:01:00.000-08:00

If Facebook were not Down Right Now (2/3/2012, 10PM) I would go look up the cousin thing.

Is it Cousins Week (again)? Or is it a "If you have a cousin..." copy/paste this message thing?

It says cousins are our first friends. A few of my cousins are my Facebook friends. How dare I not copy/paste the message! Um, I have a fairly strict rule: I do not copy/paste things at Facebook. But also, the message does not work for me. My cousins were not my first friends. Not sure they were ever friends.

My first friend was the little red-haired girl that lived across the street. I used to think my younger sister was a friend. What is a friend? A friend is someone with whom you dare to be yourself. Frank Crane. Well, I think I dared be myself around cousins. We were kids, how much pretending were we capable of doing?

My second friend, whomever that may have been was likely someone I meet in 3rd or 4th grade. A person with whom I walked home from school everyday. I walked home from school with a gang of girls; I was not friends with all of them. I would consider Phyllis a friend; but maybe she was my friend because she and the little red-haired girl were friends. Most of my friends were Joanne's friends and I was kinda included.

Toby, Bernadine and Carol W. were probably friends independent of JC. Maybe Beth T. as well. They were all people I met at school. Being friends meant calling each other on the telephone, hanging out with each other after school and maybe spending time doing stuff together on weekends, going to each others' houses to play. I think my cousin Eileen and I would get together sometimes independent of family outings. She did not live too far away from where I lived ~ walking distance.

My other girl cousins my age, did not live in my hometown. I visited their homes more than they visited mine ~ that is in the stay-over-night kind of way. Two girl cousins did live nearby, but they were younger and we did not hang out, except when visiting. Perhaps Teresa was a friend; I did spend overnights at her house; yet I have no recall of any of us calling each other up, to chat or invite over to play. We sort of became friends as adults.

I would not mind having a cousin as best or just good friend. Well, now I live 3,000 miles away from most of them. I like that my daughters are friends with their cousins. They hang out together, get together for a weekend party, go to Yankee games or whatever type of events they go to. It is nice that they are friends with their guy cousins, and in some cases become close friends with their wives.

The thing is, do they have to go to Facebook and get all gushy about the friendship with their cousins? Who cares really if someone I play Facebook games with has cousins that were his or her first friends? Not sure that sentence came out right; do not want to fix it.

Maybe on the cousin thingy going 'round on Facebook, I would not comment; Why, but instead, comment: So what? Maybe it is a snobbish club. Like my brother, Joe, may consider our cousin Charlie (RIP) as one of his first friends. They (and brother Robert (RIP), sometimes cousin Johnny, a gang of Joe/Bob's buddies) hung out at our house often enough. Where would that leave brother Richard (RIP)? He did not have a cousin friend coming over to hang out with him.

Okay, maybe Facebook is back up and I can finish up what I was doing there. I am definitely rambling on this cousin thing.

Why?

2012-02-09T21:51:00.000-08:00

Every time someone posts a status update at Facebook that says:

If you agree, copy and re-post this...

I am tempted to comment: Why?

Ditto:

If you have ever known someone who...

Why?

If you believe in God...

Why?

If Jesus is your lord and savior...

Why?

Facebook has a Like button. If people like the status update or agree with it, they can click: Like. If they really, really like it, or love it even, they can Share. No need to try to rule the world, insisting that all your friends copy and paste this ~

I surely was not going to copy/paste a message that began: Hey, bully...

Gee, seeing that at the top of my news feed first thing in the morning, kind of upset me. Who you calling bully? Some of my Facebook friends may be bullies; um, as a matter of fact everyone of them that insists I have to copy and paste some inane message are bullying ~ Let's just see how many of you are paying attention...

Well, gee, I would comment, but you told me I am not allowed to comment unless I copy/paste the message as my status. If I did that every time it landed on my wall, I would be spamming my friends with cries for attention. WTF is wrong with people; afraid to just say no to friends who post the idiotic, repetitious messages some juvenile wrote. Jeez, people, grow up already.

Stop trying to rule your friends Facebook world. Thank you.

Everybody Wants To Rule The World

2012-02-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

I never understood what this song was about ~ a married man upset with controlling wife? Marriage on the rocks? Couple's relationship about to end due to the others (parents, friends who want to rule their world)? A man coming out of the closet?

Despite not getting the song, the title was enough for me; seemed everyone in my little corner of the world wanted to rule it. Some still do. I dedicate it, today, to my Facebook friends.

Eco City Lab

2012-02-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

Amazing I am still plugging away at Eco City. Learned to open Google Translation in a new window, rather than a new tab. Can not reduce size of tabs. Seems the windows automatically open slightly smaller than tab windows. Um, I guess tab windows are not called windows, eh.

With the reduced sized window, it is easier to type and translate words on Eco City from Portuguese to English. I was excited when I leveled up enough, amassed enough game dollars to buy and build the lab. Joy short-lived; need to hire people to work in the lab. Since I do not have any active neighbors, that means I can not use the lab.

I also can not expand the land without acquiring more neighbors. I did the first expansion that extends a little bit into the river. Struggled to earn $10,000. game dollars to buy a sewer whatever plant that can only be placed in the river. The river is getting mighty polluted; dirty brown, lots of rubbish floating (standing still floating that is, the waterfall, does give illusion of falling water) in Rio waters.

The game is sure to remind me that the sewage is polluting the river, via pop-ups telling me, well, not sure what they are telling me, do not translate them. Definitely Warning!!! Took so many days to collect the money, first for the plant that I did not know went in the water, so first needed to expand, then buy it, I got a lot of warning messages.

WTF did they want me to do? Oh, I can answer that: get more neighbors, so I can speed up process, I guess.

I made money mistakes in the game in my effort to go from negative happiness to positive. And it is only a game. I did remove the game from my Facebook after a day of it not loading ~ Internal Server issue. But I really, really wanted to get that plant in the river to start the process of un-polluting it.

I could go to the EcoCity app page at Facebook, translate, add more strangers as friends. But since I know I have to move from this apartment complex, which means no more dilly-dallying at Facebook, no point in doing so.

Sailing by Christopher Cross

2012-02-06T19:32:00.000-08:00

I guess it is Christopher Cross (not Chris Cross) who wrote/sang Sailing.

The lyrics actually start:

Well, it's not far down to paradise, at least it's not for me, and if the wind is right you can sail away and find tranquility...

But a later lyric does say:

Fantasy, it gets the best of me, when I'm sailing...

and

All caught up in the reverie, every word is a symphony

And in between the two is:

It's not far to never-never land, no reason to pretend

So I had them fairly right in my mind, just mixed up the order a bit. I did not remember these two:

And if the wind is right you can find the joy of innocence again...
Well it's not far back to sanity, at least it's not for me...

Might as well add this:

And if the wind is right you can sail away and find serenity
Oh, the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see.
Believe me.

Did Anon hit Facebook?

2012-02-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

Image used without permission of Down Right Now. It is normal for Facebook to have service disruptions through out the day, and at times for the site to go down completely. These interruptions usually do not last long. Ever since Friday night, February 3, 2012, I have been having nothing but trouble trying to access and use the site.

Many of my Facebook friends posted status updates that they were having issues with Facebook on Thursday and Friday. Since that time it seems I am the only one having problems. If it were not for the games, I would delete all my status updates, then cancel my account. Just like that. Sure I would miss seeing the occasional family news, especially photos, deaths and births, but, sooner or later I will get the news via e-mail.

Maybe I would also get more e-mails with photographs. I slowly stopped checking my e-mail accounts on a daily basis ~ visits just to delete spam, so whybotherism took over.

Wasted my day yesterday, keeping The Big Farm Theory open. It worked even when I was unable to access Facebook at all. Since it stayed open, I wanted to catch up from not having access to it since Friday night. Still not working properly today ~ can not send the requests to neighbors (sour cream for the kitty, meat for the new dog, other things they need to complete their missions).

I am determined not to let Facebook take away another day of my time. But it is 52 degrees according to online thermometers, so...

Facebook status updates said the dastardly group Anonymous planned to shut down Facebook on Jan. 28, 2012 by asking FB users to do whatever it is that they do which disrupts sites. Supposedly Anon said they had no plans to do so, and the You Tube video calling upon help from FB users did not originate with them.

Since my FB friends do not seem to be affected by the "likely service troubles" I am having, I wonder if Anon did hit FB, mainly in the So Cal area. I do experience those brief issues every time FB makes changes. They did make a change, adding a new thingy above my news feed ~ only saw it once. Their sidebar links do not work anymore. I have been accessing games via cached copies or just luck out and am able to get on Facebook and load a game via the game's app page.

I also thought, perhaps Google is trying to destroy Facebook, by not allowing people to access the site. Come on over to Google+ instead. But I tried IE, then Firefox and same issues. Was hoping whatever change caused the problems would be fixed today. No such luck. And already wasting time trying to get connected to Facebook...

aargh

A World of Fantasy

2012-02-05T19:55:00.000-08:00

Teenage angst, yes I sure played this 45RPM record a lot back in that day.

Sweet Pea

2012-02-04T19:32:00.000-08:00

Fantasy, it gets the best of me, all caught up in the revelry...its not far down to never, never land, at least its not for me, if the wind is right, can sail away, find tranquility...

Okay, I got to look up the lyric, just popped into my mind like that. It's a world of fantasy (Cubie and the 5 Stairsteps), but no, the lyric is from Sailing, um, Chris Cross? Do not remember, maybe I started creating fantasies to make me fall to sleep when I was a child.

I do remember creating elaborate fantasies that would last for weeks when I was married. "Okay, where was I?" I would silently ask brain when I laid my head on the pillow. I would be staring out car window, while moving the fantasy along. I still do this now, like today, walking home from library, think, "Okay where was I?" then go right into fantasy thinking mode, "so the guy says, 'do you need a job?' and I ask, "well, what kind of job."

Now, as then, I was escaping life, creating a solution, as far-fetched as the fantasy might be. Would think: why not write them down, turn them into a book? Theme: homeless, s/he says: I need someone reliable to house-sit would you be interested? You bet your boots I would be!

A common homeless fantasy, that one. The guys, want it to be a rich, sexy woman who falls madly in love with them, maybe jump starts their musical career.

Need to move, no money, today's fantasy involves house-sitting in a way. The rich uncle dies leaving him a fortune and a house, he needs someone to sort through uncle's lifetime of possessions (shades of real-life cleaning my mother's house, prelude to homelessness) ~ a job, a place to live, no rude, loud neighbors.

For a while, in the he (or she) rescues me from my plight, well, it was a he in this particular set of them, he started calling me Sweet Pea. Do not know how that worked its way into my dream world. Reason I mention this now: cleaning up papers as a prelude to finding real-life solution to my problem ~ gotta move out. I scribbled the note several times: Sweet Pea ~ that is, I was reading very different books when a character was called Sweet Pea. Weird co-incidence.

Aargh Facebook tag

2012-02-04T08:05:00.000-08:00

Well, now I think I do not have a tag cloud on this blog ~ or any blog for that matter, yet I use Labels on my blog posts, thinking, they may be picked up by search engine web crawlers. Leave it to Blogger...

...why oh why do Internet sites think people want machines to second guess them and automatically fill in stuff. Like my Labels here. If I type Facebook, enter, the site automatically changes it to Facebook games. I do not want to label the post Facebook games. Or homeless this, that, the next thing. On the Homeless blog.

Blogger please I would rather do it myself!

Frustrated last night trying to create a new label that simply says Facebook, I gave up and typed aargh Facebook. I thought I had created a label that said: Just Facebook. Maybe that was on the Homeless blog. Not that anyone reads my blog posts, or pays attention to my tags, but in case anyone was wondering...

...aargh Facebook seems to be offline for me again this morning.

Is Facebook down?

2012-02-04T07:57:00.000-08:00

Take away an addicts substance unexpectedly and see how they react. My substance is Facebook and I guess the social networking site is having major issues. It has been a while since I had major problems accessing Facebook.

Usually I am returning to my profile news feed from a game when the site will not load. Or trying to load a game from the bookmarks. I can tell there is a "likely service disruption" when this happens and I go to Google, type in the search box "down right now", then click the link to Down Right Now website, Facebook and find, that yes, there is a "likely service disruption" or sometimes, learn that Facebook is indeed "down right now".

The disruptions usually do not last long. By the time I check, then recheck my bookmark, Facebook is back up and running normally. Not so this morning, nor last evening. How did I react when my substance was taken away? Well, first I did all of the above, then reported to Down Right Now that I was experiencing problems with site, mainly, could not access it. Then I tried loading Facebook again.

Then I distracted myself, by typing some blog posts, then back to access site. Since Down Right Now said it was Up, I did another web search asking: Is Facebook down? Right now? I came upon a Huffington Post article that said Facebook was experiencing major outages on Thursday. I left a comment because site asked readers to do.

The Huffington Post article had a link, which told me, that Facebook was fine, it was me ~ or my computer. So, I rebooted, blah, blah, blah.

Again this morning Facebook is not loading for me. Frustrated. I want to take care of my games, then get on with my day. Does not help that online thermometer tells me it is 48 degrees in Long Beach right now. Brrrr....

QB Code

2012-02-03T19:12:00.000-08:00

Having absolutely nothing to do with games...

Flyer from USPS said: Scan this QB code with your Smart Phone to see more cheer.

Um, I do not have a Smart Phone. I am not sure I know what a Smart Phone is exactly. Is it a brand? Or generic, like cell phone (cellular phone)? Okay, okay, I am not asking, I can easily do a web search and find out.

Ah, well, I found a way to turn this into a post that belongs here ~ since I have taken to writing about Facebook stuff here, that is.

I can not say how many times a week a Facebook friend asks a question they can answer themselves by doing a web search. I tend to do the search for them, come back with their answer. I must sound like a Ms. Know-it-all. It can be an educational process.

The question wondered what was up with all those Hello, friend television ads. Since I do not own a TV, how would I know? Ah, the wonderful Internet, not to be left out, got to watch several Hello, friend commercials online. Learned that they are generated by Bright House cable company which is blitzing areas of Florida with the ads to generate interest in the company.

The ad works, eh, when someone in So Cal is searching the web, then visiting the website, giving the dot com Google spider worthy page views. Back to USPS...

...so I guess it is official now, we the people, are old-fashion, out-of-date, if we do not own Smart Phones to scan QB phones. WTF.

Gardentopia

2012-02-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

Gardentopia is another typical Facebook game. Start with a square, plant, grow, harvest, earn coins, expand and so on. These are notes I took after accepting a neighbor request:

Plow an existing plot costs 15 coins.
Plant Yellow Daffodil for 15 coins.
Harvest Yellow Daffodil in one minute, earn 31 coins.

Or earn 1 coin for each daffodil player harvests.

Things look up when unlocking Violet Pansy which only costs 5 coins to plant and earns 25 coins for a net profit of 5 coins when harvested 3 minutes later.

Next up is Marigold which costs 10 coins, earns 110 when player returns to game in 8 hours to harvest it.

Reaching Level 5 will unlcok Red Tulip which takes 1 day to mature, cost 5 coins and earns 110. If player sticks around long enough to reach Level 21 there will be more flowers that are ready to harvest in 1 minute. Everything in between takes 4, 8, 10, 12, 16 hours or 1 day.

Plowing a new plot cost 210 coins. A player will take quite a while planting daffodils to earn enough coins for more plots to grow more flowers. Plowing cost increased to 550 coins.

I reached Mastery Level 1 on Daffodils. I hoped that would improve profit ratio. Nope.

I reached Level 1 Mastery on Pansies which earned me a Throphy.

First expansion to 7 x 7 costs 100 coins or can buy with game dollars.

I got to Level 6 in the game. Earned 1 game cash, need 145 experience to reach level 7. I had 14 plots or will get 28 experince every 3 minutes by plowing, planting, harvesting violets. Player does not earn any experience planting the frightfully expensive starter flower ~ daffodils.

Magicgrow costs 3 game dollars and instantly grows all plants. Mistake I made was to use it thinking it was for one flower. Yikes who needs to instantly grow 1 minute daffodils and 3 minute violets!

I actually stuck it out with this game for several days, attempting to jump levels in order to get to a level with more quick growing flowers. I did this by using the game dollars I earned to use the Magicgrow to speed up the one day, two day flowers. Each time a player moves up levels, those new plots cost more money.

There was no way to sell all the potted plants I kept getting awarded for finishing missions I was not trying to finish. I got to a point where I could no longer expand the garden without adding neighbors. That was enough of Gardentopia for me.

According to Gardentopia application page at Facebook, the game was added on November 14, 2011 and has 5,000 monthly active users. I guess most Facebook game players do not have the patience to earn 1 coin a minute (per plot) at the onset. Making a game hard, costly in time, slow to earn game coins is not a good idea for developers who want to milk the Facebook game market; too much competition. Increasing cost of plots is also a very bad idea. It is as if one is always just going to stand still in the game, due to how long it takes to earn coins in the first place.

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=186528201418761&sk=info

Slate Account

2012-01-25T20:18:00.000-08:00

Re: Slate article titled: Does Google Accurately Guess Your Age and Gender?

Last paragraph of article by Torie Bosch published January 25, 2012, says: Does it get you right? Let us know in the comments.

I typed away in the comment box, because above it, said Guest. I often do that, usually changing Guest to a name, such as Mary or Alice or alyceclover. Using this function usually requires providing an e-mail address. Nope, I need to log on using one of a number of accounts.

Okay, I went and logged on to my Gmail account, then signed in here at Blogger. That usually works when I want to comment on the Los Angeles Times. Did not work at the Slate. I tried logging on to the site using my old standard user name and password. I used to read Slate articles and comment on a regular basis, so know I have an account with them. Nope. Gave up.

Puck, if you want me to comment do not make it a big ordeal.

First it was Blogger, then it was You Tube, then online media that I once was quite active commenting on articles. Some would take me to a forum, which was okay, I like reading what others have to say, and, yeah, I guess I must like duking it out with,,,

...never mind with who, I do not like assigning uncomplimentary names to people.

45 - 54 year old male?

2012-01-25T19:18:00.000-08:00

Did it get me right? I do not know exactly how Slate was able to give me Ads Preferences Manager results in the blink of an eye or click of a link to be more accurate. I assume the result page is factual.

According to that, Google thinks I am a 45-54 year-old-male. My oldest daughter is closing in on 45, so I do not think that humanly possible. Not even logical as to the reason I get so much spam e-mail advertising Viagra and talking 'bout the size of my member that I do not have.

I was surprised at the number of Arts & Entertainment results. Ha, ha, Google, I constantly tell you I do not want to see Arts & Entertainment news, get a clue, eh. I do watch a lot of music videos, or search song titles and lyrics, yet think the Arts & Entertainment, Rock Music result was off ~ I lean towards watching/listening to more R&B, Soul, Reggae, Jazz, Motown, than rock 'n roll.

References sounded like something I do on the Internet a lot, be it looking up words in dictionary, or finding author of a quote. Reference - Language Resources, likely means Google Translation. I gave up on the Chrome gadget that was supposed to allow me to left click on icon and translate an entire page. You will seen learn why I have been trying to translate entire pages or web sites.

News equated simply politics. Okay, I even have a political blog, and do read a lot of political news articles. Just as often I only scan Google (Yahoo, Bing) news headlines, which generally tell me all I need to know about the article. Some of those news headlines are actually opinion pieces masquerading as news reports.

The news I search for most often, due to boredom with offered news headlines, are crime, homeless and weather related disaster news. When I hear police helicopters circling round and round my building I want to know who did what to whom. That is news. No idea why I am interested in who got murdered in Chicago or NYC or who was arrested for doing what anywhere at all, just am.

Fear, likely paranoid fear, of Identity Theft has me fudging my age a bit. I will only admit to female, senior citizen, with Internet habits associated with a 45 - 54 year old male. Sports was not on my list at all, but SEO was.

I say "was" because the list likely updates given time.

EcoCity

2012-01-24T13:51:00.000-08:00

Bored, I check out Facebook games for a new challenge. I clicked sidebar link, Apps and Games, then scroll the lists. As with most FB changes, the old system was much better for locating different games. I clicked to view Newest games and came upon EcoCity. Nature and the ecology interests me, so I checked it out.

The first issue: link did lead to application page, but there was no information on Info page, nor any posts on Wall, despite sidebar claims that there are 60,000 active users. I did a search and found another app page for EcoCity using a different icon than the one on FB games list. This page had Info and Wall posts, with 21,867 Likes.

The second issue: the page was not written in English. Might say a third issue is why Google Chrome 'left click to translate page' icon does not do it. Okay, so I took a chance, clicked Allow to load the game. Instructions were in language foreign to me. Easy enough to follow the short tutorial, click here to do this, open shop to buy that, check out missions and so on.

Unlike other city games, EcoCity is already established. Sure, a player can add more homes and commerce, as they earn income, but unusual that a city is so complete at onset. Flipping back and forth from game to Google Translation page, I learned that some buildings are abandoned. Messing around I found I could demolish the abandoned buildings for $10. game cash. I was hoping they meant coins; I did not see that I had any game dollars and surely did not want to pay via Facebook credits!

Yes the game does deduct ten coins, not ten dollars worth of coins. Phew. After demolishing there is a bit of rubble on ground. Need to click on it to remove. Costs energy to do that.

Without translating I figured out that there is a building that gives energy. I thought supplemental energy. Nope. Collect 20 energy in twenty minutes, recharge, wait. I built a second electric company; noted there is a max of 75 energy, so wanted to build a third, but there was no option to buy another in the shop.

It does not cost energy to collect rent, but it costs 3 energy per certain size casa to do what it does, re-rent perhaps (more for apartment buildings, less for the bambino homes, bungalows, perhaps). Commerce also requires energy to restock with goods, as does building new stuff. One cost 10 energy ~ maybe it was the energy generating plant.

Two friends are on my neighbor bar.They are both on level 1; I am on level 5. Good chance they quit the game early on. Google Translation detected Portuguese as the language.

More about EcoCity

2012-01-24T13:39:00.000-08:00

I moved my stuff around several times in EcoCity. When starting the game, I guessed I was being given a choice of location and choose the seashore. If I can survive in the game until Level 7, I will definitely expand towards the Rio Grande river, rather than to either side ~ if allowed and if I have the game dollars which look like round gold coins. A closer look showed the circles do have a $ sign in them.

My confusion, likely due to all items I saw in shop were listed with a blue link using the $ sign ($100). Most games show the icon, coins/dollars, dollars/gold or whatever medium of exchange they use.

More about EcoCity:

Before I figured out I could demolish buildings, I learned that I could remove trees, that do not count as decor. I also could pick up rubbish lying around the city. Both items get put into the garbage. Did not know the tutorial had me build a garbage disposal building. I have two of them now, next to the USINA DE CARVAO, separated by the road.

On the same road is a Recycle building. To the north or left, next to the garbage buildings are thee trash dumps. In front of them are three forests. The forests need to be chopped, then regenerated using energy. These create goods needed for the coffee shops and other commerce buildings.

I learned that cities are only allowed a maximum amount of trash. I could not pick up rubble from a casa I demolished. I also learned that the recycle building will take trash and, um, recycle it. Perhaps the garbage disposal buildings do likewise. 4 energy to restart the recycle work. The amount of trash in the dumps is thus reduced. Trash is also generated when collecting earnings from commerce buildings.

Purpose of the game, I guess, is to generate trash to recycle back into goods, to create a real ecology minded or EcoCity.

Where's the lab?

2012-01-24T12:57:00.000-08:00

Before giving EcoCity a try, I translated a wall post from game's app page. It said the lab was ready to start producing. I thought perhaps the game would be more like The Big Farm Theory, which is getting boring. Where is the lab? Gee, I dunno, most likely I will have to level up quite a few more times to find out.

Will I stick around long enough to find out? Doubtful. Graphics not very colorful. I seem to have run myself out of money buying decor to get my popularity or comfort level out of the red zone. It was out of the red zone (minus red unsmiling face) and I somehow managed to get myself back into the negative zone. Not sure if it is due to removing all the trash, not having enough houses, needing to increase population or what.

The recycle and garbage building animation is simple but cute. Vehicles roam the roads. They even stop at intersections before making turns, or even heading straight ahead, to allow other traffic to pass, as if there are actual Stop signs or traffic lights. I have only seen two vehicle traffic "jams" or lines stopped at an intersection. A nice touch for a city game.

Buildings, however, only rotate in two directions. For a picky person like myself that is not cool. I want the homes to face the streets, not facing the "backyard". I can do this by adding more roads, but then it will be harder to add decor that gives (I assume) extra bonus money to homes within a certain range of the park or flower plots.

EcoCity did alleviate my boredom the other night and it does not hurt to leave the game active for a while to see if I can reach level 7.

Facebook Status Updates

2012-01-23T08:03:00.000-08:00

All I can say to a Facebook status update like this:

"I have 2 Witches towers needing staff thanks...CL :5,069"

...is, "Oh, really?".

This particular update is different in due to additional information. CL means to me Cafe Life. It has been a long time since I ditched Cafe Life, yet seems odd that a Facebook game involving cooking and filling counters with product to be sold would have moved on to add witches' towers. What does the staff do? Cook up some witches' brew? Witch presiding over either tower too busy to collect the eye of newt or bat wings herself? Um, how many towers, how many witches? Maybe the game needs a friend to staff a tower as the witch herself?

The update is odd, too, including the number. What does that mean? The player needs over 5,000 staff? Um, maybe the staff is not workers, but a walking stick. Or flag pole.

I do not know this friend; added for neighbor at TBFT (The Big Farm Theory) which she stopped playing soon after requesting neighbors. I see by her wall posts she plays Hidden Haunts (HH) and West Glory (WG), and maybe she plays GR (Gourmet Ranch) which I blocked. Last night her Facebook status update said:
"Hoping my wee Grand son Ethan is ok Mom at A&E with him now"

Now that concerns me. Is A&E a hospital emergency room? What happened? I see a lot of these ambiguous Facebook status updates. My first impulse is to comment and ask: What is wrong with him? Or in the case of other game friends' own health issues, "Why are you getting operated on? What illness do you have? Cancer?"

It makes me feel bad that I do not know enough about these people to understand their status updates concerning their health issues. I go to their profiles, reading back over their posts to see if they mentioned: I am pregnant; I am having a biopsy; I broke my leg. I only "show older posts" so far back in time, before giving up on locating the first post regarding a person's health issue.

Some of my game neighbors, once strangers, are friends of a sort. I know enough about their lives to guess what something like this means: 13 hours and 7 minutes. again.

One of her friends quickly asked if everything what was wrong and if she was okay. She replied: just have a thing to get though over the next 70 hours. so was kind of keeping track here...

I am guessing the thing is she succumbed to temptation to light a cigarette and at the time she posted, was how long she had been smoke free ~ this go-round. Why 70 hours? I am not keeping track, but think the two week ultimatum has passed. Maybe she had three more days to accomplish quitting smoking for good. It seems to me she will have to get through the thing, even after 70 hours; broken habits and addictions keep calling a body back to them.

What trees?

2012-01-23T07:08:00.000-08:00

"Farmers will do more trees later need to hunt down some water and clean up the trees on my farm...its so sad that i must sell the trees i grow...wish i could send them directly from my farm to my friends....happy farming everyone see you all later..."

"2nd comment gets the tree...no double comments please"

"1st comment gets the tree...no double comments and no previous winners please give everyone a chance"

"Sorry farmers Ive lost track here of who I owe trees....so im just going to share on the wall...good luck"

"In hostital will grow more trees as soon as they are done with the drip happy farming"

The lady who spams her wall with posts regarding trees; some with icon image pictures posted with the update, is a needing neighbors at The Big Farm Theory friend. I have not seen any of the pictured trees at TBFT, nor can we water or sell the trees. The first time I saw one of these posts, I thought she was violating Terms of Service (TOS) somehow bypassing the game to give tree gifts. I have not seen posts from other farm games on my news feed from her status updates.

I checked her wall ~ new Timeline ~ about a dozen posts from one of her friends who sent her a Christmas gift of 5,000 free Facebook credits. Surely a scam that spams.

The same game friend posts a lot of messages, be it a copy/paste wondering if we are paying attention or a quote meant to uplift or inspire. She starts and ends her days with a good morning and good night status update which also includes some positive message. It did not take me long to hide her status updates from my news feed.

I am sure she must have non-gaming friends, family, maybe even co-workers, most of us do. I use game specific lists when posting about games, so as not to spam their news feed with things they have no interest in seeing. Of interest to a general audience of friends was this post from same game neighbor/friend:

"Terrible storm....hail....lightning thunder....electricity off...im shit scared"

Love Notes

2012-01-23T06:32:00.000-08:00

Can you name the tune that begins with the lyric, "...remember love notes, the teacher found, in school, the whole class laughing, gee I felt just like a fool"?

Facebook friends have no concerns about being laughed at when they use their status update to post a love note.

I logged on to Facebook one day, and the first thing I saw on my wall was:

"I love how we are together"

Um, that was nice to know, but many moons had risen and set since the last time we shared time together. For a brief minute, I wondered if the friend was complimenting me on our Facebook time together, that back and forth comment banter. Well, not just me, but all her friends. Oops, I guess it was a private message to her guy.

Another example:

"I love the way you speak and I feel like its spring again and I can take a breath and feel as if I am taking the crispness of the air into myself."

That friend posted so many love notes, I was getting uncomfortably embarrassed and hid her from my news feed. What type of relationship is it, when one has to leave a public message on Facebook to tell someone: "...your warm arms,big bed. . sleep should come easy tonight"? Are they sitting in same home, each with faces focused on different computers, both doing their own thing on Facebook?

Since all their friends, relatives, maybe even a boss and co-workers can read the messages, what is the point? To let everyone else know they are a thoughtful person taking time to leave a love note? To make friends who are not in a relationship jealous? To sock it to the ex-lover, who is one of their FB friends?

I am not a person who objects to most Public Displays of Affection. When we type something in the Facebook status update box, post to our feed, without using a list or otherwise specifying who can read the message, it is as if the friends are speaking to us directly, not just pecking the cheek of a loved one, in a show of public affection.

Excuse me while I...

2012-01-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

...use he rest room or in brb (be right back).

Yes, when we are in social situations we excuse ourselves to use a rest room. Some people are more direct, specifying what body function needs attention. People do not commonly use words like urinate or defecate, they use whatever word they were taught as children. You all know what they are, so no need to elaborate.

A retail merchandiser supervisor who was also retired military, excused himself one day, he had to "visit the little boys' room". I guess he was too embarrassed to say men's room. The company would have done better by hiring a much younger mature professional adult with prior retail merchandising experience ~ he thought he was a little boy.

No embarrassment to people who use Facebook status updates to inform everyone:

Jane Doe: "is jumping in the shower!! (I stink)"

Jane Doe: "I hate this loo seat, I keep falling off!!"

G'day

2012-01-22T10:23:00.000-08:00

When I sill played Cafe World, I would include a message on my first bonus post of the day saying "Good morning." Well, I knew my brother would see it, and a few other game friends. It was still morning for them, even though mine started a bit later. Lots of friends greet their friends.

John Doe: "Good 6rning what a great day to be alive"

Okay, that was a typo and I know Mr. Doe meant "morning".

Or sign off for the night:

Jane Doe: "is going back to bed. I'll try this again later."

Try what again later?

I switched to saying "G'day" for two reasons. One is time zones ~ my morning is their going to bed time and vice versa. The other is ~ even if we are in the same time zone, they may be reading my good morning message in the evening. Or vice versa.

The greetings are a nice social gesture, indicating, also, the change in status from sleeping to awakening.

Okay, I bite

2012-01-21T11:43:00.000-08:00

I think it was Mr. Malifi who said "Like trying to pull teeth from chicken." I was not the only kid in the class who never heard the expression and did not understand it. Good thing a classmate asked him to explain ~ chicken do not have teeth.

Sometimes the answer to comments questioning the ambiguous Facebook status update, are like that ~ pulling teeth from chickens. Depending upon who the friend is, I might take the bait and bite. Sometimes my comment is simply "????". Other times, I wonder, to whom are you speaking? Are you speaking to me? What did I do? Or more likely "Who did what?"

John Doe: "it's about darn time!!"
comment: what is?

Jane Doe: "wow really"
comment: what did I say?

John Doe: "oh hamburgers"
comment: why not hot dogs?

Jane Doe: "why?"
comment: Why what?

John Doe: "You are toooooooo funnny"
comment: I was being serious.

If we think our friend Jane is funny, post it on her wall. Or at least preface the status update: Jane, you are too...

First thing I see when I log on to Facebook is "You" and I truly think the friend is addressing me, not just speaking to another specific friend. I guess the people who post ambiguous status updates like to keep people guessing.

Vedic Moon Sign: Scorpio

2012-01-20T21:37:00.000-08:00

This* was interesting to me, because a sister started calling me "bossy" when we were children. As with older siblings who were put in charge of younger siblings telling us what to do or not to do, I was put in charge of my younger sister and brothers, doing as my older siblings did. It did not enter my head to get angry at my older siblings or call them bossy; just the way things were done.

Many years later, I learned an older sister thought I was bossy as well. Yes, I would say "Stan, set the table," or "Tony go downstairs and bring the chairs up so grandma does not have to do it" ~ stuff like that. No bedside manner, that is for sure! I saw it as assessing the situation, organizing, delegating ~ you know ~ taking charge of helping my mother to get the holiday meal served.

That ability to see what needs to be done, and get it done served my mother well at the after-funeral meal when my father died. My sister-in-law, Barbara, and I were both waitresses; perhaps that is why we were so efficient. My mother thanked us for organizing things so quickly. Bossy, a good thing when done properly.

*Your Scorpio Moon sign gives you innate talent. You are clever and prone to take quick action. In addition, you have a take-charge personality and are fixed in purpose. You have great mental strength and can face adversity alone. The ability to make revolutionary changes and be a great reformer is also indicated in this combination. In addition, you are very effective in leading and guiding others.

According to the site, my Element is water; ruler is Mars; gender, feminine; color, dark red coral.
http://www.astrology.com/vedic-moon-sign-scorpio/2-d-d-56271

Chinese Astrology

2012-01-20T20:38:00.000-08:00

According to Chines Astrology, I am a Rat which is good. Clever, quick wit, charming, excellent taste, ability to hold on to things of value and rats are considered a symbol of good luck and wealth in Japan and China, according to Astrology dot com.

Fixed Season is winter; Fixed Direction is north; fixed element is water; Associated Sun Sign is Sagittarius.

http://www.astrology.com/chinese-animal-sign-rat/2-d-d-58142

The Big Farm Theory Overview

2012-01-13T16:42:00.000-08:00

My review article was twice as long as it should be to fit publishing site guidelines; turned it into an overview with intentions of using the edited out info for a review.

Image, used with permission from developer rep, was created via screen shot taken on October 30, 2011. I believe I started playing the game on the evening of October 27, 2011, about ten days after the new game arrived at Facebook.

The Big Farm Theory Overview

Facebook support?

2012-01-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

Copied and pasted a reply from Facebook regarding a problem with their new Timeline.

As with the last several times that I attached a screen shot with either feedback or need for a problem to be fixed, they tell me to take a screen shot. (see the copy/paste)

They are nice to enclose a link that will teach me how to take a screen shot. Like the one I submitted to them.

I already visited Known Issues. Mine was not there. If it had been, I would not have bothered with the screen shot, the request for customer service.

Facebook customer service? Non-existent. Then again, it is a free site so why bother fixing what they broke with their inane changes. I would enjoy playing a joke ~ send off something totally screwy ~ but will not do so. Would not want to have my account deleted. At least not until after I remove everything I posted there.

Facebook "Support"

2012-01-02T15:40:00.000-08:00

Thank you for submitting this bug report and taking time to help us improve the site. Unfortunately, we are unable to respond to every bug report individually, but we are reading them.

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Serf Wars

2011-12-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

Facebook games require neighbors. "Invite All Your Friends" is a common pop up, especially at Zynga games which pops it up so often it makes playing the game difficult. Zynga is still FB's number one game developer and their games hold top level ranks with millions of users daily.

I guess that is the reason other games that never had the Invite Friends pop up, added it. An old long time favorite, because it was peaceful and relaxing, My Vineyard, started that (and other stuff) and I quit playing it. I startle easily; no relaxation when constantly startled while playing a game. Go to click to harvest, oops, must invite your friends to play. Redundant.

Once a body has invited all their friends, and all their friends declined or ignored the invite ~ many because they block game applications ~ who is left to invite? No one. Yet they will keep demanding: invite, invite, invite. The majority of neighbors for any game come from Add Me posts at the game's FB page. Those game friends than have game friends who send friend requests, desperate for neighbors.

I am a sucker for helping my game friends. They invite, I accept. I am also curious about the new games. Serf Wars is one of them. It has got to be the dumbest Facebook game I have seen. Only that one friend ~ new invited via a mutual game friend for a different game ~ is playing Serf Wars. Or thus far I only have that one neighbor. I am highly unlikely to invite anyone else to play it.

After the tutorial, I sat staring at screen trying to figure out what to do. There are food crops. Okay, I click them, check the store to find out what time these crops the tutorial had me plant will become ready to harvest. Still clueless, I checked Help and FAQ's. That is a plus for Serf Wars ~ most of the game developers do not think to add a tab or page to their page to answer common queries.

The crops do not get harvested. Okay what next? How to earn coins? Collect taxes. Once a day. Amount of taxes depends upon how many dwellings there are. Of course, one has very few coins to buy dwellings. So there is nothing to do except wait for the next day to collect the 300 coin tax levy. (my current tax revenue, a bit over 300).

The only other way to earn coins to buy dwellings to increase revenue is to visit neighbors. Nothing to do at my neighbor's place. I randomly clicked on items hoping to see I was gaining experience or coins or goods, like most games. Nada. Until one of them started loading a Plate Filler (Platfiller, maybe it is called.) It took a good long time to load. Aha! A mini-game. I read about them in Help.

BRB

Serf Wars Mini Games

2011-12-13T13:47:00.000-08:00

It took me a few minutes to get Serf Wars' mini game requiring filling a giant's plate. The game seems to be created for grade school level intelligence ~ both in icons used and how to play it. The mini game screen has a large plate with grids; in the corner is jumbled puzzle pieces representing cows and chickens. The cows being L-shaped taking up 3 squares, the chickens using only one, it took me a few to figure out how to fill the plate effectively.

I am not quite sure what a player needs to do to change choices from snack and lunch plate to lunch and dinner choices. One of those has curved fish and soldiers 3 squares straight. It does take some thought to place them correctly and quickly. Once I got the hang of it, I submitted my scores. I think I did that incorrectly. Have to submit a score individually, then play again. Serfs, I guess we are called serfs, can submit 3 scores per day.

Why then, do we need more than one friend? I found other games on his ranch. I did terrible with the frog hopper climbing a tower. Reminded me of a game I played somewhere, um, Fairyland? I got very good at that one. I might master climbing the tower given time, but I had better things to do with my time. I wanted to get back to my territory to see if there was work for me to do.

Aha! Little icons appear outside the territory borders. One is a fire, click on it to put out the fire. Another is a big X marks the spot. These appear randomly, and take a very long time to show up. What do the developers think, players just want to sit staring at a screen waiting upon some action?

I clicked the map, which took a long time to load. That reminded me of City of Wonder. But this one did not give me a clue as to what I was up against when picking a territory to fight. I choose one, then waited as app took its sweet old time loading. Then I was told I could not do battle due to not reaching proper rank. Okay, back home I go.

I click barracks, recruit a soldier. That takes 5 minutes, cost 100 coins. Do not know how many soldiers I will need to recruit to up my Rank from level 1. Do not know if Rank 2 will allow me to do battle. I earned some coins playing a mini game at my place. They gave me two ~ or maybe the first day it was one. I could not play it at all. Move worm around the screen to get food ~ using up/down arrow keys. I kept smacking into the ceiling trying to use down key to get worm to go south.

I am arrow key challenged from the get go and find it even harder to use them on laptop. I did manage to get a score high enough to submit. Too, too irritating to me. Then I spent the earned coins on a quest. Did I mention the game has that awful pointing arrow to let players know they have a goal to complete? And we truly need to see the flashing arrow to tell us we mad Progress. Aargh.

So the goal insisted I make my people happy by buying decorations. There goes that build new dwellings to get more people, to buy more food crops to feed them, and ensure they are also happy by buying more decor. Dumb, dumb, dumb, game.

I saw a comment on the app's FB page. Guy said he usually complains about energy games, but would prefer it here, because of the waiting. After trying out Serf Wars, I truly understand why! It is not a playing game, it is a waiting game. What is the point of that?

The friend who invited me has not posted any bonus things on his wall or sent me any gifts. Maybe he quit playing already. I see several other game posts. He seems to have also stopped playing the game I sent him the friend request to be neighbors. I am waiting upon his next move before removing the app from my profile.

http://www.facebook.com/serfwars?sk=info

Toy City

2011-12-12T15:21:00.000-08:00

Another game I tried due to a friend needing a neighbor to send whatever she needed sent, I tried Toy City. Cute if one is into Christmas and children's toys. She has a brand new baby; um, he must be over six months old now, so not so brand new. Shopping for baby toys could be why she likes this game. Or liked it. She seems to have gone, so I finally removed it from my profile.

I try to ignore that side bar listing of games I play. The temptation is there to load the games even if I have no intention of playing them ~ except to send friend what they need to play there game. Um, I think I need to add Toy City back ~ did not take a screen shot.

Toy City is typical blank square with tutorial having player buy this, place that, click on the next thing. And don't forget to check your goals, never fear we will be sure to remind you with flashing pointing arrows. Sigh.

Okay I had to build a community building, maybe called community building. In game trouble already, need to hire workers. Six or more of them. Can buy them if no friend/neighbors apply. Several of my game friends are listed as playing it, but they did not populate neighbor bar automatically as many games will do. Well, I have no intentions of sticking it out, so do not want to invite those to be my neighbors. If they play, see me, let them do the inviting.

Especially grandma of above mentioned baby. I moved the building to a corner where I did not have to look at the under construction Lego type bricks with the hard hat construction guys. It cost 3 game dollars to hire workers if one does not get friends to fill the positions. I am not sure how I earned dollars ~ perhaps with level ups, but I finally had enough to pay to hire.

Doing that increased population allowing building of more homes. Cute mushroom houses to name one style. Collect rent which is due often with starter homes. More population required to unlock more commerce stuff. Collect earnings, fill with goods. The goods are balloons, collected by popping them. I lost a lot of balloons, not knowing they had expire times. The red ones that take a short time to inflate never deflate, so how was I to know the green one hour ones will go plop if not popped in a timely manner.

The game requires energy which refills slowly. I did not have enough energy to pop all balloons that day. I also constantly ran out of storage when I had enough energy to pop all balloons. I built more as I earned the coins, then built more storage units.

The game was a struggle to have enough energy to do all tasks, or having too much energy and no task due to lack of storage space for popped balloons. Then when I had enough storage, I seemed to run myself out of balloons, have energy to spare and nothing to use it on.

The game icons are colorful and cute. If it were not for the flashing arrows I might have kept it as a diversion. Would be fun to play long-distance with my granddaughters. Can not advance without neighbors, can not expand property, can not add anything new, just kept earning coins and would soon run out of space to add yet another decoration (decorations add bonus points to house rent and um, maybe commerce.) Also could not complete goals, so pointless game for me.

How I got addicted to Flower Shop.

2011-12-11T15:45:00.000-08:00

There are several Flower Shop games at Facebook. How did I get addicted to this one? As usual a friend sent an invite to be neighbors, then promptly stopped playing it. Before that happened, quite a few neighbors on my bar, I gave it a try. Frustrating game.

The avatar can only perform the task of arranging flowers on a counter and nothing else. That can take from one minute upwards to twenty minutes. Another waiting game. I clicked on Hire a Worker icon. Costs 99 Facebook credits. Are they nuts or what? Spend ten dollars on a game you are not sure you are going to play? No wonder why, during neighbor visits, I noticed every one of them has fields of wilted flowers.

After a day or two when no more bonus flower posts appeared on her wall and her growing flowers wilted I removed the app. Round two: another neighbor sends me a request to send whatever. Then all his flowers wilted and I removed the app a second time. Then neighbor one makes a come back. Then disappeared. Remove app. But I kept thinking about the game. Bored, I added the app back. Am I nuts or what?

This is how I play Flower Shop. I arrive at Facebook in the morning, open Flower Shop in a new tab. I harvest the flowers planted before I went to bed, then start avatar working on a flower bouquet. Then I return to original window, check on other games. 50 flowers with no extras takes 5 minutes to prepare, so I go back every 5 minutes to cut the ribbon, start selling and start another counter.

I got it in my head to just fill all counters, then cut ribbons, then go away. But when I went into game to harvest more daises ~ they take 5 minutes to grow ~ start the next counter ~ seeing angry customers enter the shop and leave bothered me, so I would say, "Well, I will just cut one ribbon", but the next thing you know I was cutting all the ribbons because the counters would sell out faster than I could fill the rest of them.

BRB

Florist

2011-12-10T17:13:00.000-08:00

I worked at two florist shops in Long Beach. 1999 I was still recovering from 1998 health care nightmare. I was juggling several retail merchandising part time jobs. Not stories for a games blog. Can not remember name of first florist, nor boss or his wife's name, nor co-workers names, although I have clear memories of my time there. It was located at Queen Mary Village. A lot of the orders were for weddings being held on board the ship. I got to make many runs across the parking lot, to deliver bouquets to chapel or banquet rooms. Lots of fun.

My car died. I skated from my apartment on 7th Street and Orange Avenue to the bridge. Took off skates, walked up one side, down the other, down steps from bridge to the island ~ I guess it is an island ~ then skated the rest of the way to the florist shop. Bounced paychecks caused me to quit and I quickly replaced that part time job with another one at the World Trade Center. Ditto on forgetting names. I best shut up on that, except to say, perhaps that is how I got addicted to the Flower Shop Facebook game.

Facebook Game Addictions

2011-12-09T17:22:00.000-08:00

Mafia Wars started it all, my Facebook game addictions. Will skip that lead up to Flower Shop addiction except to note that I have been playing Farm Town, Gourmet Ranch and maybe Fairyland for over a year now. Gourmet Ranch (GR) replaced Cafe World ~ a hard game to give up. I never much cared for FarmVille ~ too many loading issues, too slow, other problems ~ but GR seemed to combine the best of both games. Oops, said I was skipping that.

I try other games, play some for a while, then leave. I generally go to Facebook (FB) first thing in the morning to check on my two main games Farm Town (FT) and GR. I froze my garden at Fairy Land, unfroze it due to getting gifts or something. Am at the point of freezing it again. While I am there reading status updates, waiting upon something to finish at either of the two, I get bored, want something to do.

As mentioned in earlier post , that something to do became playing Flower Shop at the same time via an open window. I must be nuts. Could not get all counters filled, although I did manage to do so one day, then leave the game, intending to be done with it. Yeah, right. That may have lasted a whole day before I went back to visit my shop.

The problem with one worker is compounded by having limited storage, space enough to hold 400 flowers. To upgrade one needs to ask neighbors for parts. Since the majority of my many neighbors are not playing, it makes doing so not only difficult but impossible. 25 nails and I forget how many windows, boards and white picket fences. A friend told me it was 70 parts total ~ she was a non-playing neighbor who suddenly decided to play again. I think it was slightly less than 70, even so, with her the only person sending them, that means 70 days to upgrade.

Many people complain at app's page about those two things: a second worker costing 99 FB credits and limited storage space. The game is new and those two things are causing them to lose potential players. Most "hire employee" games allow hiring a friend to work for player. As the player levels up, they are allowed to hire, a second employee, third and so on, no cost involved.

As I advanced in the game, unlocking more flowers to plant, with longer grow times than the 5 minute daises, in addition to more expensive counters that hold more bouquets, I would run out of flowers or have flowers ready to pick, but unable to do on account of storage limits. As mentioned, I must be nuts.

I can not say why I feel compelled to play this game other than having a love of flowers. It is not as if I am getting a benefit playing it ~ ya know, like other addictions, the person gets thrills (at least in the beginning) and keep going back to recapture that high. I guess it may be more a compulsion than an addiction.

Flower Shop Temp Workers

2011-12-08T17:43:00.000-08:00

Gee, when I opened this blog earlier today (12/13/2011) my intention was to give overview and review of new Facebook games I have tried. Perhaps I am playing my own therapist as I type about the games. Okay, back to Flower Shop.

At level 20 a player can hire a temp worker by posting For Hire status update on their Facebook wall. It says temp worker can work up to two hours per shift. I still do not understand what that means. My longest held game friend is Kat; my avatar was given the name Olivia. Kat hires me and I hire Kat. That was wonderful for a short time ~ hooray, I was doing two counters in the same amount of time.

What we learned was, even though she hired me, I could not work for her, because I was doing my own counters. I told her I would stop, so she would get the benefit. I think that was the last time we worked for each other. Her Temp Worker icon told her I was "on break". Mine said she was "off work". When I arrived the next day it asked if I wanted to clock in for Kat, I said okay, yet I was still "on break" or "off work" the rest of the day.

Kat helped Olivia pick flowers, then did one counter, then was "off work". That was hardly two hours, more like 15 minutes max. Ditto the following day. Huh? As they say it was great while it lasted. We both fired each other. Do not know if she has managed to hire anyone yet. I have not. I left a note on a neighbors "For Hire" post asking what her time zone is. I would gladly work for her (after she posted it for several days, same as me and Kat) but not if we play at the same time of day.

No reply at all. Seems she once again joined the wilted flowers club. Ditto friends one and two mentioned in earlier post. What is a poor overworked floral designer to do?

Flower Shop Speed Ups

2011-12-07T18:28:00.000-08:00

Okay, I said "one more thing" actually it is two. One is gifts. If player is lucky enough to have lots of active neighbors, they can get lots of coffee as a gift. One of the goals is "Have Coffee With Friends".

It took me a while to realize I had to click on Goals icon to pop goal list. I kept wondering how long it would take to unlock more flowers. The icons have padlocks on them with a single word: Goals. I am so used to games popping up a Share notice when completing goals, I did not notice that it was not happening.

The game's Help page has this to say:

Goals
Goals provide players with rewarding tasks to complete.

Leveling Up & Unlocking Items.

As players gain experience (XP) in the game and level up, they will unlock additional items including Flowers, Floral Displays, Vases, and more.

I was leveling up at an alarming rate, due to playing all day while taking care of other games, reading news articles, cleaning up e-mails, washing dishes, going to store or post office and what not. No explanation at all about that little word: Goals. Until I woke up and clicked the Goals icon (which I likely knew about the first time I played, forgotten with my removing, adding, removing the game). I collected a whole bunch of rewards that day, and unlocked a couple of the padlocked flowers.

Players can, of course, buy their own coffee which will cause avatar to work 2x's faster ~ at a cost of 1 Facebook credit. Espresso costs 2 credits, Energy Drinks, 3 neither available via gifts.

Visiting neighbors gives a player 5 XP. A pop up greets Olivia every visit saying so and "feel free to pick some flowers" (or is it "take some") while visiting. Only one plant, which yields ten flowers. Roses are everlasting, so Olivia can always get ten roses per neighbor per day, even though anything else they planted wilted.

Less neighbors have Camellias, but she or me gets some of those also.

Okay, I think I am finished blogging about the Facebook Game, Flower Shop and can move on to the next one ~ the hottest new game on Facebook.

Flower Shop Extras

2011-12-07T18:06:00.000-08:00

Flower Shop objectives:

Grow flowers.
Pick flowers.
Create bouquets.
Earn money to expand shop and grounds, buy more expensive, nicer counters that hold more bouquets.
Decorate shop.

Without checking, I can not say how much a daisy bouquet of Flower Shop flowers earns. To increase the selling price player can order, then use extras. Olivia orders 100 Thank You notes for 270 game dollars and they arrive ten minutes later. Olivia uses a lot of thank you cards that can pass for a standard real life florist gift card. Maybe Olivia's customers have a lot of people to say thank you with flowers to.

Or I can pretend the roses with extra box of chocolates is an anniversary gift. Other extras take progressively longer to be delivered. I do not much care for the jar of jelly beans. They look odd sitting next to the display's flowers. Most of the longer deliver time items, like a snow globe, also do not please my eye, so over night I will order the diamond necklaces. The gift box adds color to calla lily bouquets and goes great with the roses, despite the box being blue.

The other way to increase selling price is to put the flowers in a vase, rather than the standard over wrap. Olivia uses a lot of the twenty minute deliver time vases, because most of the other short delivery time ones do not look good with the flowers. One, for instance, is plain, wide mouth vase. The flowers sit in the middle of its huge mouth. In real life those flowers would fall over leaning over the edge of the vase.

It is clear, so perhaps filling the bottom with colored floral stones would have enhanced the look. I like a tall narrow blue vase the best, but not its delivery time. Overnight I have Olivia order some other pretty vases that go well when flowers are added to them.

That is about it with Flower Shop except for one more thing: speed ups.

Note to self

2011-12-01T12:26:00.000-08:00

Check copyrights on poems shared here.

This morning (12/13/2011) I read a niece's lament about her child removing garland from Christmas tree, wrapping it around herself. J considers herself a "tree Nazi" ~ I heard her stories about her family spats due to her perfectionism when it came to decorating trees. The Facebook status update called to mind a line "dust go to sleep" and "cobwebs". Cobwebs what?

My mother sent a copy of it to her adult children when they began having children. Since I could not remember the ditty, I did a Google search. Learned that it was not a ditty, but an entire poem ~ mom only shared the last verse of it. Since a nephew's wife tossed a lifetime's worth of quotes ~ my collection ~ without thinking, I copied the poem, posting it here. Oops, maybe I violated a copyright law.

I did likewise with To-Day ~ that due to the large number of Facebook friends who post over and over and over again about the loss of a loved one. I know about grief, healing takes time, pain due to loss of loved one, especially someone close, such as a spouse can be unbearable, lasting a good number of years.

Yet I found myself wanting to shout: s/he died; get over it. Perhaps if the friends were posting their own comment, not simply copying and pasting something some one else wrote, that instructs us "If you ever have lost..." copy this. Paste this. Seeing the same things day in and day out, I guess leads to my fits of temper.

I want to write "My, you certainly wear your heart on your sleeve," whatever that means. Which is mean. Not compassionate, nor showing any empathy. Truly, if one is hurting, say so, do not ask all your friends to share it. Death is a part of life; if any of my Facebook friends have never lost a loved one, and likely, never lost someone near and dear to them due to cancer, they would likely be very, very young people.

Give it a break already. Everyone hurts, sometimes....

Dust go to sleep

2011-11-24T11:59:00.000-08:00

Song For a Fith Child, by Ruth Hamilton. 1958

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
and out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
but I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

2,488,,562,685

2011-11-23T12:41:00.000-08:00

2,488,,562,685

Um, I saved this as a draft and have no idea why or what it means. Where ever I copied the number sequence from, I think I did so due to the 562 being my telephone area code. A Google search now shows 655 and 488 as being area codes as well. Um...

To-Day

2011-11-22T18:24:00.000-08:00

To-Day

With every rising of the sun
Think of your life as just begun.
The past has shrived and buried deep
All yesterdays; there let them sleep,
Nor seek to summon back one ghost
Of that innumerable host.

Concern yourself with but to-day;
Woo it and teach it to obey
Your wish and will. Since time began
To-day has been the friend of man.
But in his blindness and his sorrow
He looks to yesterday and to-morrow.

You and to-day! a soul sublime
And the great pregnant hour of time.
With God between to bind the twain!
Go forth, I say--attain, attain.
With God between to bind the twain!

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Facebook Status Update

2011-11-21T18:24:00.000-08:00

Hardly a day goes by when a Facebook status update repeats a rather long copy/paste thing about missing someone who is smiling down at them from heaven. As with all of those copy/paste things, we are supposed to copy it to our status, if we have ever lost anyone to death, and miss them. Well, gee whiz, I am sure most everyone on Facebook has experienced the death of a loved one, or maybe miss a favorite famous person.

Think Elvis. Or Michael Jackson. Today is the where were you when you heard the news that JFK was shot. Seems like only yesterday same friend posed the same question and I commented, ever dutiful to answer questions, repeating the same thing I wrote last year.

That is why I did a Google search for the poem To-Day. Yeah, I know someone who lost a spouse after a long battle with cancer is hurting. Still. Perhaps until the very day of their death. That makes me feel real bad that I refuse to copy/paste those messages. Oh so you do not miss my wife, eh!

I guess I am not one to wear my heart on my sleeve. (another expression I will need to look up) I miss people who have moved on to the Great Beyond. I even mention getting teary eyed to a friend via regular pen and paper letters sent via the USPS. Still I see no reason to constantly copy/paste the same old tired messages that someone else wrote about someone they loved.

Hey, go ahead, post it, but dang, stop telling me to post the same thing. It is even beginning to irritate me reading personal posts: in two days it is the anniversary of my mother's death. So what do I comment? Oh, sorry to hear you lost your mom, condolences? Or, Sorry you are still grieving for loss of your mom? Many of these friends are game friends. I am not going to remember all the details of their lives, no matter how many times they tell me they are still letting the ghost of their past sadden them today.

Farm Town Homeless Guy

2011-10-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

Facebook game, Farm Town, has a great selection of decor. I added the Supermarket facility to my game, placing the empty shopping cart in parking lot next to a parked car. Could never actually see the cart unless going full screen.

When I knew I had to get rid of Cable due to price increases, I sold off most all of my Farm Town decor. I am so attached to the game, I planned to try playing it via library computer Internet connection. Slow loads, wanted as little on my farms as possible. Away went the asphalt squares that created parking lot and roads; away went all the vehicles; away went most everything that did not serve any purpose except to decorate my farms.

My lovely daughter, Dawn, decided to get me Internet and despite my promise to self to utilize it for more worthwhile purposes, it did not take long to start playing the games on a regular basis again. I found my empty shopping cart, overlooked due to it being barely visible. Then one day I noticed the dumpsters and that is how my main Farm Town farm got its resident homeless cat added.

Never mind that I had to use a leprechaun; FT does not offer miniature people; it was either the green fella or a farmer statute. I figure that there are homeless cats who dress in costumes of a sort so it works for me. I could not locate the "primitive lean-to" when creating my dumpster alley behind the bus station, so went with "earth bag house" ~ too bad the bags were not black, because it would have been more authentic.

I consider taking the lean-to from another farm and switching them; yet plastic bag tents are very much a part of the homeless scene here in Long Beach.

Dimwit

2011-10-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

I had to look up definition of dimwit. I am not exactly a stupid person, yet it seemed the right word for this one.

Gourmet Ranch, Facebook game, introduced Speed Ups. Soon after Facebook decided game applications could no longer sell their own cash to players (thou must now buy Facebook credits if one wants to get game cash), GR added a Gift. The Gift icon keeps on flashing which is totally annoying. Click on it and a box appears in a small window. The box has video ads and players earn free Speed Ups by watching them.

Smart developers at Rock You (who now owns GR), getting around the new Facebook rule, garnering advertising dollars. Advertisers get people like me to watch their ads, because I do want the Speed Ups. Some times I get tired of watching the same ads over and over again. One of those would be the one advertising a new game, Beach Club, I think. It is a promotional game, rum, I think. I tried it, because it looked cute; is cute; liked the music playing as it was loading, loading, loading, and finally gave up on the game.

But that is not why I am a dimwit.

Nitwit

2011-10-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

Maybe nitwit is a better choice of words; foolish sounds better than stupid.

Because I load Gourmet Ranch a lot during the course of a day, and can not tolerate that flashing Gift icon, I have earned a lot of free Speed Ups. One ad shows three men sitting in front a bunch of angels. On stage a huge guy with stern expression is getting ready to kick a ball. The angels hand the three guys Heineken beers. The guys accept them, never taking their eyes off the man on stage. The guy kicks the ball; it flies over the heads of the audience and hoards of angels, to a goalie. There is a quick look at this goalie's face; all ready, concentration.

Okay, the men sitting look familiar to me, as does the goalie. I want to know who the guys are, so I start some Google searching. Heineken ad angels opera hockey. Some ads came up, but the ones about angels were old, not the one I see at GR. A day later I get the idea to try the Heineken website. I had already tried You Tube and could not locate the ad, forget about finding out who the actors are.

The Heineken website was not too helpful. I accepted their invite to take a short survey rating the site. Why? Talk about being a nitwit. I do not drink beer. One of the questions asks if I am highly likely down to highly unlikely to recommend their website. Well, gee, who am I going to recommend it to? They want to know why I would not recommend the site. I think, well, my son-in-law drinks beer, Coors Lite, I think. Yet it is highly doubtful I would be telling him: "Hey Mike, check out Heineken's website."

I did not know Corona was considered beer. Mike's wife, my daughter, drinks a lot of Corona when she is not drinking Tequila or something like Mudslides. How I stray from my, ah, can no longer use the understood illustration, dumb blonde moment story.

Hockey?

2011-10-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

In ninth grade I was chosen as Most Observant. Maybe I used to pay attention to details.

At least I got the opera part correct, but why was I searching for hockey? I saw search results for Seedorf's angels. I skipped all ad results that mentioned football. I was looking for hockey. Back to Gourmet Ranch, I paid attention when the ad came up again. Duh, the title of the much watched video is: Legendary Football. I am quite sure I saw the title many times over, read it as I waited for the ad to end, so I could get my reward and serve dishes or harvest crops. Hockey?

Oh, I see, it was the goalie. My nephew, Craig, took me to a King's game. His sons play both roller and ice hockey. I watched many a hockey game when visiting Craig and his family. He also took me to a Ducks game. I never liked hockey before he took me to that first King's game: violent sport, I thought.

Yet that does not explain this; I saw the ball. It was not a football, it was not a hockey puck. I guess the round ball is a soccer ball. Now I fully understand. The guys in the ads are not actors; they are legendary football players. Not American football, European football, which we here in the United States call soccer.

Okay so maybe I am not such a dimwit. I do not follow American football at all, nor professional European football. Why the guys looked familiar to me, is a mystery. The guy kicking the ball is obviously Seedorf. I did do image searches for all the guys once I found an article that explained who was shown in the video ad. Still, it is fairly stupid to mistake a soccer ball for a hockey puck.

Postscript: Okay now that I blogged about both Gourmet Ranch and Heineken beer, do I need to add the disclaimer that this is not a paid for blog post? Heineken, nor Gourmet Ranch, paid me to promote their beer or game, just having a laugh on myself here on my game blog.

Heineken Legendary Football

2011-10-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

As an afterthought, decided to share the video I have watched over and over again to earn Gourmet Ranch Speed Ups. I have also watched it several times for free, once I found the article about the ad.

I want candy for Blog Action Day

2011-10-16T14:37:00.000-07:00

I found my thrill, on Blueberry Hill, it was filled with cherry pink and apple blossoms white. Really wanted some apples, peaches, pumpkin pie, and American pie, I plan to bake. 'Cause pie is better than bread and butter for breakfast. If we have breakfast at Tiffany's we can get jam up, jelly tight, the orange blossom Speical, one mint Julep, peaches or peaches and cream.

My candy girl says "I want candy", so will have to go to the candy shop for candy, a tootsie roll, a lollipop, a peppermint twist; then to grocer for brown sugar, green onions, honey, "honey", the candy man says "a taste of honey goes great with those Georgia peaches", but the candy man says "sugar, sugar, ah pour some sugar on me".

Okay off to sugar mountain, to the sugar shack; look at all those strawberry fields. Forever forgetting to try the banana boat; good ship. Lollipop wants incense and peppermints. Found one bad apple among the little green apples.

I am in the mood for some soul food, but who's gonna do the soul cooking? Jambalaya or Sukiyaki? Maybe dinner will be mashed potatoes, it's mashed potatoe time. My boy. Lollipop, says "Gravy (for my mashed potatoes) and some pumpin soup". One thing for sure: we will have hot buttered popcorn when we watch the movie "Sunshine, Lollipops & Rainbows " tonight. "Careful not to spill the wine," and "why the rapsberry?" Beret asks when she enters the room.

Okay how does one write on the subject of food for Blog Action Day, the theme for 2011? Create a game using song titles with food in them, that is how! How many titles can you pick out in my spur of the moment, hurry story? I have not counted yet, so will let you know at some other time. Laugh, laugh, I thought I'd cry...

The Living Years

2011-06-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

Looking for a song that reminds me of my sister-in-law, Donna. My memory is not so hot. I babysat one weekend when she and brother, Rocco, went to a concert. Only group that comes to mind is the Moody Blues, yet I do not think that is it. I ended up posting The Rose on my Facebook status update as a Happy Birthday Donna on June 2nd. Was going to publish this one ~ an always reminder of Rocco.

My sister, Susan, and I were quite young when we learned not to blame the older generation. The gist: if we blame parents, they in turn blame their parents who blame theirs, ad infinitum. Yeah, you had a tough childhood, well so did your father, and so did his mother and so on.

I had two brother's named Rocco. One only visited in the cemetery. Second born to my parents, he only lived a few days after birth. So not really a brother, anymore than my sister's stillborn twin was a sister, right? My parents went on to have three more daughters and three sons before Rocco Junior was born. I guess the death of the first Rocco kept them from honoring the Italian tradition of naming a son after the father.

This song is especially poignant because family lure has it that Dad was hardest on Rocco, Jr. being his namesake. My father and I did not see eye-to-eye on most anything. I likened our relationship to the one Jane Fonda's character had with her screen and real life father in On Golden Pond. Towards the end of my father's life, I came to acceptance. Stopped "trying to get" from him what he "couldn't give".

Dad did not live to see Rocco and Donna's sons birth. If memory serves me, the "newborn tears" would be their daughter, born four months before our father passed away.

Its a Celebration

2011-06-05T14:12:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday little baby brother, Larry. Any number of songs remind me of my 6', graying 'round the temples, reed thin, father of three sons, last of my parent's children.

No Patience

2011-06-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

Oy, trying to add link to my Yahoo Contributor page to replace the Associated Content URL, aargh, will not let me add the link.

http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/56332/alyce_rocco.html

The Rose

2011-06-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

This song taught me about long, lonely winter roads. It reminds me of Jill Kellett, a neighbor from Mt.Pocono days. Likely because she told me how much she loved the song, and I may not have heard it prior to the mention.

Listening to it now, I would say love is a drowning river, a razor cutting straight through the heart; taking chances does not mean dreams will waken; opening up to being taken will lead you straight to hell on earth, homelessness, losing all, left to bleed alone while your jagged teeth fall out of your mouth...

Here I Go Again

2011-06-02T14:53:00.000-07:00

Recurring theme of my life? Don't know where I'm going, do know where I've been, on my own again, naturally.

You surely must know magic...

2011-06-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

I so enjoyed choosing eulogy music last night (5/15), I was planning what I would write for today's post. I would explain why I was not going to use Santana's Evil Woman, a song that instantly reminds me of my younger sister, Dorothy, to post something to celebrate her birthday. I wanted to use another Santana song, that had meaning to me later in life. Thinking about Santana reminded me when I saw Carlos Santana perform ~ at Rock House Church in Long Beach, a story I may have posted somewhere.

Came upon this video in a roundabout way. Read an article about Weird Al Yankovich scheduled appearance in my home town, New Brunswick, New Jersey. I went to You Tube to view his new song: Perform This Way. Then I tried to watch Lady Gaga's "Born This Way". Checked out a Black Eyed Peas tune, onto Chambers Brothers, to the Dells to "You're My Everything", an old fav tune.

Hearing the first bars of this song instantly transported me back to the very first time I heard it. As I listened, I pictured my portable record player, sister Dorothy sitting in passenger seat of my 1962 Mercury Monterey, sitting sideways to steady the player, or maybe she had it on her lap. Can not say for sure this was one of the 45RPM we listened to when we took a ride to the Jersey shore. Yet there it is; within seconds of watching this video, Dorothy came to mind.

Dorothy and I used to practice Temptation dance moves, specifically had their My Girl moves down pat. I do not remember her liking Motown music as much as I did. Our musical tastes were different. I would say she liked bubble gum and folk rock music. She moved on to what I called psychedelic music; I moved on to blues, strictly R&B for me.

Later years I concluded that romantic love ballads could mess with the mind. "You walked about with a light, so that I could see..." was the lyric I would sing about a man that I did not like, but ended up married to. The lyric actually says: "when my way was dark and troubles were near, your love provided the light, so I could see...".

Eddie Kendricks was my favorite Temp; loved his voice and thought him perfectly gorgeous. Many memories of me, Dorothy and music. Happy birthday sis.

Imagine...

2011-05-30T23:38:00.000-07:00

I wonder if my daughter, Dawn remembers me saying, "I guess I sang that song one too many times ~ imagine, no possessions," when I was living on the streets. I only bought one Beatles 45rpm record back in the day, as theysay. I thought the guys were goofy looking; did enjoy dancing to their early tunes with Joanne Cicerale and her cousin Andrea Rodreiquez. I did not come to understand tunes like Hey Jude or Revolution until I was older. I did not buy Lennon's Double Fantasy album for this song, though Imagine could sum up a theme of my life: Make love, not war.

What A Wonderful World

2011-05-29T23:28:00.000-07:00

Do all children relate to wanting to fly like pretty little bluebirds over the rainbow? Internet made it possible for me to hear this version of What A Wonderful World. A favorite and happy eulogy song.

Life is just what you make it...

2011-05-28T23:23:00.000-07:00

This is likely my 2001 theme song. May have first heard this tune watching Good Morning, Vietnam which rather sums up life or the world: bittersweet.

Don't Make Me Over

2011-05-27T23:14:00.000-07:00

Recurring life theme: if you do not like me the way that I am, then go find the woman who meets with your approval. I made a bumper sticker: I'd rather be liked than loved. Um, maybe it was "I'd rather be loved than laid." My ex-husband insisted that he loved me, as did other people who constantly picked me apart. Good thing I liked myself, warts and all. That did change. No longer like myself. Oh, I still like me, just not what I became and regret choices I made that lead to ending life this way.

Freedom

2011-05-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

Did not matter if it was 1965, 1975, '89, '98, 2001, men seemed to think it was their place to tell me what to do, what to say, which always lead to arguments. How many times did I say something like: my father is dead and I do not have a husband, so don't boss me around. It got worse the older I got ~ I was way adult, and the arses acted like I was a child. No wonder I ended my life alone.

My Turn

2011-05-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

no ones gonna say at least I didn't try...

Well, if they truly know me, they will know that I did indeed try, just fell flat on my face...

I'm Just Me

2011-05-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

Another theme song from bad marriage days. He was always trying to make me over in his image and I kept trying to get it into his thick skull, that I was just me. And I did like me better than then what he wanted me to be ~ a racist, hater, liar, thief, just like him.

A recurring theme in my life; did not know where I was going, I was gonna be gone from that hell on earth.

Right for me

2011-05-23T22:34:00.000-07:00

In 1998, I told a man, "I'm already right for me." What was I thinking? That he knew I was talking about this Sammy Davis, Junior song?

Back in the bad marriage days I wanted to live, not merely survive. I went it alone, truly believing that my future offered a world of success. I dared to try, fell flat on my face, several times, never obtained my dreams. Did have a lot of fun after arriving in California, learned to inline skate at 48, in love with life with hope that someday, someday, a childhood dream would come to pass ~ being an old person skating arm and arm with a man that I loved who loved me back. C'est la vie.

Wild and free

2011-05-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

"please don't ask me where I've been, I've been alone through thick and thin, on the outside looking in"

My lifetime theme song. Again, I wonder why this song reached into my soul. I likely wore out the vinyl on my old 45rpm. This song may also have been on one of my Stevie Wonder albums. Can not say how many times during my life I sang about that old worn out heart in my hands. Now my heart is literally worn out. Definitely alone, again, naturally.

Start at the start?

2011-05-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

When writing a eulogy do you start at the start or start at the ending? I guess a eulogy is a brief statement or speech, usually told by a minister or priest at the deceased's funeral service. A funeral playlist can be long, perhaps played at the after burial event. Family tradition, people leave the cemetery, go to deceased's home, for a meal, often drinking, some stay a short time, others hang around and basically party the day away. People comfort the loved ones left behind, reminisce about the dearly departed, often causing laughter as they recall times gone by.

Stevie Wonder is two years younger than myself. As a way adult, I looked back wondering why such a young man could get weary from the load, and more so, why did I relate to the feeling?

My ex-husband did keep us moving around from place to place. I often had a feeling of now belonging, as if I was dropped off in the middle of nowhere. In 1998, I said my poor restless heart found my place in the sun. Heaven was Long Beach California. Sunshine and warmth does tend towards positivity and feelings of hope for everyone.

Hold on Tight

2011-05-20T21:27:00.000-07:00

Embedding disabled for this video. Very pretty. Seeing a Bleeding Heart brought back memories. One of my favorite flowers.

Misheard lyric: I sang this song as "Lord I'm tied to your dreams...". Might be the reason I had a hard time locating it ~ 45RPM, if I remember correctly. This is a song I would pump up the volume, aerobic dancer-sizing, I got so down, I could not get up, so many times, Hold On Tight was a staple in my get back in the race playlist.

Know when to hold them...

2011-05-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

This song reminds me of my mother. She thought my sister Susan's husband, Drew, looked like Kenny Rogers. I used to sing this song as a prayer for mom to die in her sleep, while everyone else was praying she would survive whatever the latest health issue was. She is still around physically bed-ridden, mind off where ever minds go when Alzheimer takes over the brain. If she is aware, she must hate being the way she is now. C'est la vie.

The song was also inspirational to me, applying lyric "...never count your money while sitting at the table" to various situations. Do not exactly remember how it applied while homeless, except knowing when to walk away and knowing when to run. When I hear it, I get a strong urge for a shot of whiskey.

I have been singing this song about me for several years now, "the gambler got lucky, she died in her sleep". Amen, so be it. But let me finish my eulogy first?

That's Life

2011-05-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

I guess I did pick myself up and get back in the race many times. Now, I guess, life defeated me.

Season in the Sun

2011-05-17T21:02:00.000-07:00

I am sure my son and daughters know this is my eulogy song. It is Lori and Chris' also.

Song reminds me of sister, Dorothy. One of our many spats, both thinking we were the female black sheep of the family. Brother Richard definitely got the label, due to his drug usage. Dorothy may have had me beat, due to running away from home with a man friend, leaving her three sons living with our mother. The youngest was still in high school at the time.

Yet I was the sister who quit being Catholic soon after my eighteenth birthday, whereas she taught Catholic instruction classes to kids, owned a house (with her husband), had a more normal lifestyle than myself, despite both of us marrying alcoholics and drug users. The difference being her husband, a veteran, got involved with drugs later in life. My ex was in trouble with the law even as a juvenile.

I think, because I did live on the streets, a homeless bag lady, I definitely bested her for the title.

I'd Love You to Want Me

2011-05-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

I would not have known this song was popular in 1972, although it was a favorite for many years.

I Want You To Want Me

2011-05-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

Go Now

2011-05-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

This is one of my life theme songs, that is, I often thought about the lyrics ~ do not prolong goodbyes, relationship over, get it over with, go, NOW, so both can move on to whatever the future holds in store for them.

Richard, My Brother

2011-05-14T20:47:00.000-07:00

Richard would have turned 63 today if his lifestyle choices had not caused his death at an early age. If I were to choose a song for Richard, it would likely be "Mr. Tambourine Man" or the Drifters "Sand in My Shoes" or something by Bob Dylan. So many memories! ...funky, funky, Broadway....

This song reminds me of brother-in-law, Drew, may he be resting in peace. We talked about the song prior to Richard's funeral. I wanted it to be his funeral song. Sister, Ruthie wanted "Amazing Grace". I said Elton John was more in line with who Richard was than a religious song. Drew said he never heard this song. I played it for him. He liked it. Line: "do you still feel the pain of the scars that won't heal, your eyes have died," brings Drew to mind. I sang it for years after, "Richard, my brother."

Lyric, "You're the star in the breath of the sky" reminds me of sister, Dorothy. I can not help but think of Ruthie. She got her way and cousin Teresa did an amazing rendition of "Amazing Grace".Yet this will always be my funeral song for Richard.

ah puck

2011-05-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

I did a lot of posting on this blog yesterday. Every post scheduled to publish for the next couple of weeks are gone. Ah puck, do not feel like doing this all over again. Especially since I am not likely to remember exactly what I posted yesterday. Dang.

May 15, 2011: Ah puck, all those disappeared posts are back ~ all scheduled to post on May 12. Strange. Makes it easier to post them now, just by changing the publish dates.

Judgement Day?

2011-05-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

I came upon this list of Judgement Day predictions after a Facebook friend posted about the latest prediction. Weeks have gone by and during those weeks the date, May 21, 2011, became May 12, 2011 in my mind. Maybe I had it confused with October 12, 2011 or the Mayan calendar prediction which cites a December 2011 date.

As soon as media announced ahead of President Obama's statement that Osama bin Laden was killed, my mind wandered to the predictions. Could that event be the beginning of the end for all human kind? Now I am sure this date is as much hogwash as all those predictions previously stated with convictions, yet...

...I nervously awaited today. Dang, still nine days to go before I can fully relax.

End of the World?

2011-05-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

The Ecology

2011-05-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

Games People Play

2011-05-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

This song reminds me of my ex-husband's brother, John. I did not like the tune, but it rather grows on you.

Games People Play

2011-05-08T11:32:00.000-07:00

Where do we go from here...

I am not a big rock fan, but liked that lyric. 1981 I was close to getting self out of an abusive marriage, so may have liked this at the time. In addition there was not a big choice of radio stations to listen to in the Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania. When husband was at home, or in car together, only allowed to listen to Country & Western, Oldies, or Yankee baseball games. When he was not home, I could listen to whatever I wanted, which was likely WZZO or better, Stroudsburg radio station, WSBG that played contemporary rock and roll tunes.

They Just Can't Stop It

2011-05-07T11:42:00.000-07:00

Facebook games are developed to be addictive which is why the games people play ~ they just can't stop it.

Spnners are right up at the top of my all-time favorite musical artists list. Do miss my 45RPMs, LP Albums, cassettes and 8-track tapes. This is not one of my favorite Spinner tunes, but do like the music that comes along with the lyrics.

I'd Love You to Want Me

2011-05-06T11:13:00.000-07:00

I would not have known this song was popular in 1972, although it was a favorite for many years.

Yes, I'm Ready

2011-05-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

I would likely label this tune as pop music, but I guess it is considered soul.

Happy birthday Joanne Cicerale! We repeated the story so often, I guess it is true; we met when we three years old. Each standing at unpaved road in front of our homes. The usual "what's your name", kid stuff, then neither of us allowed to cross the street so we could play with each other. I am guessing she asked her mother, who then asked my mother, for permission to take me across the street to play with Joanne.

We did everything together, walking or taking bus to school, religious instructions on Wednesdays, play together after school on weekends, to the stores on the corner and so on. People often asked if we were sisters, assumed she was the oldest sister. She was a head or so taller than me, yet it insulted me, we were the same age. She had carrot-orange hair, fair skinned, lots of freckles. Her father, Italian, mother, Spanish. Many years later I learned her mother was actually Cuban descent.

Since JC and I spent so many hours of our childhood together there could be any number of songs that remind me of her. Whenever I hear, "Yes, I'm Ready", it brings back specific high school memories of Joanne and my friend, Nancy Hall. I guess I could blog memories of my life ~ a memoir of sorts ~ yet highly unlikely that JC and Nancy would show up at my funeral and do some reminiscing ~ so my virtual funeral will just have the song included on the playlist.

World Without Love

2011-05-04T21:23:00.000-07:00

I do believe I also had this version of World Without Love on a 45 and liked it better than Bobby Rydell's version.

World Without Love

2011-05-03T21:19:00.000-07:00

Bobby Rydell was one of my teen idol crushes. Listened to older brother, Robert's 45RPM records, such as Wild One and Swinging School. Do not think I ever had a Bobby Rydell album. Quite sure I had this song on a 45.

Float On

2011-05-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

Do not know if I ever saw these guys on a music video TV channel. Or even at You Tube. Strangely reminds me of my oldest daughter, Dawn. Will have to check the year it was popular on the airwaves. I have it on my Windows Media Player, Sleep playlist.

More Than I Can Say

2011-05-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

Who did this song used to instantly call to mind? Will have to check release year to answer that question. I used to listen to this a lot. It seems I forgot it existed, likely after I moved to California. Or maybe when I sold off the last of record collection. Dunno..

Kim Saunders

2011-04-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

Think I will rename this blog to: Complaints or Ranting & Raving. Kim Saunders has nothing to do with games. I have no idea who she is. Except that the home she had on Elm Avenue was foreclosed. Now, I would think a bill collector agency that is trying to get in touch with Kim, after leaving her a zillion messages over the course of seven months would get the hint: Kim is not going to return your urgent call. Losing her home, for all I know she is now living among Long Beach's street people and does not have a phone number.

Of course, if said bill collectors are leaving the messages on someone else's phone, it fairly certain that Kim is also, never gonna return their calls. There are laws protecting consumers from harassment by bill collectors. If I were Kim I would invoke them. Of course she does not know that she is being harassed, she is not getting the calls. I AM. The first time I checked voice messages, upset that I had an Urgent call, and the caller was addressing Kim (they did not for the longest time say her last name), I assumed: mis-dialed. As the calls kept coming, I assumed: they have the wrong number. So I called the message number, told them I am not Kim, and that was that.

It was a relief, no more ringing cellphone to wake me from a nap or at 10PM ~ causing me to think: Okay, who died. I get very few calls, and my daughter would not call that late unless something was wrong. I think I was already in bed that night. For about a month or so the calls stopped coming. They started up with a vengeance a month or so later.

I have a reason that I did not have an incoming message on my Voice Mail. Does not matter, my daughters and maybe my son, have the number on speed-dial or phone memory. If anyone else calls, it announces the number, and if they are calling someone, maybe they need to listen to the number to be sure they have reached the number of the person they are trying to reach.

One woman called me so many times, I finally called her back. Then she called me back from a different number, then called me back from her same number. I pre-pay for cellphone minutes. They are for use to speak to my son and daughters. With 75% of my income going to rent, there is not a lot left over for food, soap, toilet tissue and everything else. Should ditch the Internet connection. Got it due to complex flickering light issue, sitting in the dark evenings being unable to read, playing my computer games because I could no longer read until bed time. Ah! Games!Worked there way into this post.

Problem Solving and Rage

2011-04-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, so why not just call Kim Saunder's bill collectors and tell them, AGAIN, they are calling the wrong number. I guess because of all my minutes they, the lady with the accent who used to keep leaving messages for someone I did not know, the few telemarketer calls that slip their way onto my phone, the Orange County sports thing needing money, and checking my Voice Mail because "You Have A New Message" message does not go away until I check them.

I just finish calling the Voice Mail, erasing messages, when I get a new one. Yes, I am that poor, my minutes were low. I would write the 800# down, plan to go to phone booth around corner, to call, then lose the scape of paper where I wrote the number.

"Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret." author unknown

And lawd was I angry, remembering the time a machine woke me as I was napping. I had stayed up at the hospital all night, so my mother would go home. When her phone rang, I thought it was going to be that call: He died. One of the times, I did call to leave a message, what started out nicely turned into an insane old ladies loud voice ranting. I erased it, re-recorded only to do the same thing a second time.The machine that woke me when my brother was on his death bed, asked me if any member of the family was a veteran. Cuss, swear, cuss, not even a human to express my rage.

Why rage? I guess lack of sleep will do that to you.

Silliness or Insanity?

2011-04-28T16:55:00.001-07:00

I do not know why I could not force myself to call Kim Saunder's bill collectors 800#. I think I figured out they cost me ten or twenty dollars worth of minutes by December 2011. Or maybe that was when the calls renewed in January 2012. Maybe because my minutes were low as was the checking account balance. Maybe it is due to my constant state of anxiety due to neighbors noise? Lack of sleep? Do not want to talk to people? Mental.

So I finally put a voice message on my machine. Hello this is not Kim. If you tell me where to find her I will rely your message. Scratch that one. Hello, this is not Kim. I do not know who she is. Please stop calling me RANT RANT RANT. Definitely scratch that one. Hello, this not Kim. I do not know who she is...I suggest you stop leaving her messages on my voice mail BECAUSE IF YOU DO NOT I WILL...

Do not know what message I finally left. After several days of no messages from Kim's bill collectors, feeling embarrassed, that maybe my daughter would hear that piece of insanity, I returned it back to just my telephone number. My daughter did call, leaving a message. So did Kim's bill collectors, grrrr.

I finally change my incoming call voice message to: MARY ALICE MARIANO. For a few days, or a week, all quiet. Then messages left that were blank. From Kim's bill collectors. I know, I view the incoming calls telephone numbers. I did a reverse look up. I looked for AMS. I wanted to write a letter. I did actually write the letter, very short and polite, but could not locate an address to send it to. Seems AMS is a nationwide collection agency...

I wonder if I can turn off voice mail? Of course that means my daughter can not leave an Urgent message if my phone is off. Um, I think I will go check that out right now. I used to be able to block incoming phone numbers on my old Tracfone phones. Could not figure out how to do it on this one.

Customer Service

2011-04-27T17:09:00.000-07:00

Walking to return library books, intention to spend day at park or beach, in pain, head home. As I walk I am writing the Customer Service blog post.That was going to go on Homeless in Long Beach blog ~ which I have been filling up with rants & raves; hence, change title of this blog...

Just before I head out, I check my Voice Mail messages. Two days old? One from Kim Saunder's bill collector, the other silence. I wrote down the number and called. Prior to calling, I got out my little address book that has my telephone number in it, so when Casey answered I would have it handy to give to her. I put a smile on my face, because smiling is supposed to put a smile in your voice.

"Hello," I say, "this is Mary Alice Mariano. You have been leaving messages on my cellphone for Kim Saunders and I do not know who she is."

Bill Collector rep replies, "Do you think I know the names of every person I call every day?" HELLO? its on.

A customer service rep ~ not that I am her customer, or she in the customer service business, but the same thing applies to all people whose job is to deal with people. ~ first job is to apologize. "Oh, I am sorry to hear that, thank you for calling, can you repeat her name?" "Can you hold on a second while I pull her name up from the database?". "Okay here she is, now which telephone number have I been calling. Okay I see it, and have removed it. Thanks again for calling."

What Casey did was take my problem and turn it into her own. Well, it is hers, she is the one who keeps calling me. It is obvious I called to solve the problem, not to be treated to her complaint of how overworked and underpaid she is. Her job is to gather info and right the mistake. Simple, easy, done.

I do not recall what I said next, because whenever I tried to speak she interrupted me. She said "Do you think I care? Because I don't care." WTF? She wanted my telephone number. I told her I would give it to her as soon as she let me finish what I was saying. She still spoke right over my voice, causing my voice to get progressively louder, so loud I could not hear a word she was saying, just hearing her voice.

I tried to tell her I was going to give her the number but will not, now, but she kept right on blabbing. Then I told her, I would not give it to her and hopes she calls again because I am going to sue the company. She said "...go right ahead". I think that is when I hung up.

There are laws protecting debtors from that kind of belligerence from bill collectors. How sad, it is Kim Saunders she is trying to collect money from; a woman, that I learned had imminent foreclosure on her house. That call was from a bank representative, but unfortunately by the time I processed the info, that this was a second party that had the wrong number, I had already erased the message. Probably because there were 3 other URGENT messages for Kim.

"This message is for Kim Saunders. Kim, I need you to call me right away...". Why say "Kim" why not "Ms. Mariano, I need you to give this message to Kim."? Not that it makes a difference, yet Casey is now speaking to Kim via my Voice Mail message system. Being that she has been calling leaving messages for months, she might have noticed the change from no message to Hello this is Mary Alice Mariano. In all caps firm loud voice.

But of course, she can not remember the names of every person she calls everyday. Which was a good reason for her first word to me to be: Can you repeat that name, so I can write it down. She is trying to collect a debt; she should have a file with information as to what that debt is or how else will she be able to talk to Kim once Kim finally decides to reply to the URGENT messages she is not getting.

At any time during the call, it is a customer service person's job to calm an irate customer. The customer is always right, even when they are wrong. Apologize. If a person calls with a complaint they are irate. Without even knowing it they want to be told "I am so sorry," for their perceived injury or hurt. A really irate person might counter with "Yeah, right, you don't give a damn (which Casey clearly stated to me) about me and my problem." But most customers or callers will calm down.

I know. I answered a lot of phone calls from irate customers over the course of my lifetime. Treating a caller as if they are bothersome (and yes some of them are) and acting like there issue is not important are red flags that will further enrage the person who called to solve a problem or get restitution, get the charge taken off the bill, and so on.

Complaints

2011-04-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

A short-lived Facebook game friend wrote a personal message saying "You are always complaining." Beware the words always and never.

Well, yes, I have grievances, do not we all? Long lines at the checkout, price of gasoline, rising taxes, shrinking paychecks, almost get run over by a text while driving fool, asthma blues, feet hurt, headache, husband will not help around the house, too much laundry to do, the ex-wife deprived him of contact with his children, where do you find a good mechanic (lots of #@* included) ~ all examples of stuff that passes my Facebook on a daily basis.

The weather is lousy. Is that a complaint? Well, someone might think the lousy weather is just peachy, but lets not quibble on labeling weather. True, lousy weather makes me blue, yet I do not see that as a complaint; more like sharing info, stating a fact. It is a beautiful day today! Maybe ex-friend missed those status updates when I posted them.

Maybe I do sound like a chronic complainer. Could it be due to life being chronically disturbing? Yes my leg hurts, foot goes numb when I walk to the library or beach ~ do I tell people about it? Maybe one friend gets the earful. Unless someone, like my ex-Facebook game friend, starts asking "Why do you not go to the beach?" or offering advice "You need to go to the library." Well, then, I am going to reply: My leg pain...

That is not, however, the conversation that she started that lead her to berate me. WTF?

! ! !

2011-04-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

The former game friend started sending me in-game messages and Facebook messages. I find that red exclamation point bothersome. Oops, there I go complaining again. It is red on purpose, to suggest urgency and I guess the ! means: important. The eye is drawn to the mark. I want it gone, so I am not distracted. I read, long ago, "One Minute Manager". Even before that, though, I did tend to answer offline letters the day I received them; pay bills the day they arrived. That could be the gist of "One Minute Manager": Do It Now.

So, even though I told myself not to reply to the woman's messages ~ I wanted to finish up on my farm, finish reading status updates and leave Facebook, maybe go to bed or go to the grocery store. She, online, would promptly reply to my reply with questions. I would dutifully answer. I would get annoyed. Especially due to her misunderstanding what I wrote. So it went for weeks.

"Oh, no, her again," is what I thought when I clicked th ! to see who sent me message. "Not again." Our last conversation, I was losing patience with this dimwitted woman who can not seem to understand the simplest sentence. I felt like I was talking to a baby. Okay, will repeat what I just said, in simpler language. I kept my temper in check. The older I get the less patience I have.

In a prior message conversation, much like the last one, she apologized, saying something about her mind not functioning because she had a few glasses of Sherry with dinner. Um...

Obsessions

2011-04-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

I would be the first one to admit that I have a Facebook game addiction, that is for sure. I ponder, as I drift off the sleep at night, how I got myself into it. Read an article, recently which said the developers of the games intentionally make them so that they are addictive.

One needs to return to the game in ex number of hours to serve dishes, harvest crops, feed the pet or fishes, or else things spoil, wilt, die. Some of the games require Energy to perform tasks. If the game interests people, they will return to the game over and over again, when they have built up a new supply of Energy.

Then their are neighbors. The games require ex number of neighbors in order to do things, such as expand the game play area, or to buy items needed for game play. They will up the ante on that one. When no other Facebook friends will come along and play, be thy neighbor, that is the point a player starts seeking new friends, strangers who already play the game.

Go to any Facebook game's page and check out the reviews. A long line of 5 Stars, the review saying ADD ME!!!! Pleasssssse. I need neighbors. Ditto on the discussion boards.

My former Facebook friend, told me, after chastising me because "all you do is complain", that she kept asking me questions because she wanted me to see how obsessive I was. Talk about red flags!!!

My very first instinct is to ask her who the fuck she thinks she is, hypocrite Christian, to pass judgement upon me. To actually show you who I am??? Old drunk and witch may have made their way into my reply. Witch because her game name is Hagatha. Ironically when we first became game friends, her avatar name on my neighbor bar was next to Wood Witch, so it read: Hagatha Wood Witch.

Instead, I simply said "You can remove me as your game friend". Having that much anger spat at me ~ via two back-to-back messages was unnerving. The quotation about arguing with a fool came quickly to mind. Have been down that senseless roads too many times defending myself against someone's accusations. Waste of time.

I removed her from My Neighbor page then waited. It was not 24 hours later when she had the nerve to click Like on one of my non-game Status updates. Her reply arrived earlier. I let curiosity get the best of me, and did go read it prior to removing her from my friends' list, then taking time to go to her page and block her.