Gaming For Dummies

It's Remembrance Day today. I posted one of my favourite Heritage Minutes. I miss those being on TV. "Doctor, doctor, I smell burnt toast!" Awesome. I spent an afternoon re-watching them all not long ago. Everyone remembers them, if not misses their charming little anecdotes. They were just lame, informative and endearing enough to become beloved by all Canadians. I wish they would go back on the air.

As for things on Facebook that I'm seeing all the time: applications for made-up fantasy lands. Never in my life would I have imagined that so many people I know or have met love these virtual world games. Cafe World, Farmville, Mafia Wars, Yoville... I play none of them.

Don't get me wrong. I play games. I play all kinds of games and totally waste my time with equally silly time burglars on the computer. I just don't do it with Facebook. Why? Why?

Because then I don't get caught, that's why. The Dude is yet to learn these lessons, as is my buddy, B. I discovered Dude's Mafia Wars obsession due to a congested newsfeed advertising all his Mafia Wars activities. I told him it was happening, he was sheepish, changed the settings and he thought he learned his lesson.

Not so. The other day when I passed a glance at him and asked if he was playing Yoville, he was surprised, had an embarrassed laugh at his own expense and then I let him know his newsfeed yet again exposed how he spent his time and it had been up for quite some time. Yoville being infinitely more effeminate than Mafia Wars, I wanted to wait for the right moment to tell him for my personal amusement.

Now he's Farmvilling. Everyone who gave me grief for playing multiple incantations of Harvest Moon are now on Farmville or Farm Town and raking in... I don't know, farm dollars? I suppose there's an interactive aspect to it which makes it more compelling. But I personally enjoy a level of privacy when indulging in my nonsense. What Farmville does is not only expose that you play, but how much you play. Therein would be the death of me.

But I'm not anti-Facebook games per se. They do offer me occasional moments of joy, such as when on Facebook, Buddy-B's girlfriend "liked" that he fed his Farm Town pig, and Buddy-B felt the kind of shame that his friends can delight in at his expense.

So farm away, Facebookers. I'll just run my burger shops, kill zombies with plants, build western towns, and operate my island resorts in secret.