Monday, November 9, 2009

Eee Eye Eee Eye Ohh

When I first started at Outback one of the girls that trained me was telling another girl something that went like this: "I was so tired when I got home last night all I could do was harvest my crops and go to bed."

I was floored! This girl sooooo is not the farming type! So I said, "holy crap! Where do you live???" I knew she lived with her sister and sister's family somewhere near me. Don't get me wrong, there are farms around me. But this girl? Uh...no.

She then informed me that she was talking about Farmville on Facebook. And the second she said "Farmville" EVERYONE started talking about it. Talking about their strawberries and eggplants and cows and someone sent someone else an elephant (something no farm should be without) but they didn't really have room for it so they just built a pen and put the elephant in it. These people were literally speaking a foreign language. But it was only foreign to me. Everyone else knew what they were talking about.

So my friend D'Laina asked me if I farmed and the look on my face must have indicated that I didn't so she said she'd "neighbor" me. You see, you want neighbors. You need neighbors in order to expand your farm. Plus, everyday you can go to your neighbor's farms and help them do things like pull weeds, rake leaves, scare away raccoons or foxes, get rid of gophers and then you can fertilize some of their crops. All of these good deeds gets you coins and you want coins to buy more crops or tractors or make your farm bigger. You can buy houses and barns and butter churns and ponds and yes, elephants. The list goes on and on and on.

So of course at first I was all aboard the "mocking train". This was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard of! You buy crops, wait a certain amount of time depending on the crop (four hours for strawberries, three days for cotton) and when they're fully grown you harvest. When you harvest it makes you more money. Typically, the longer you have to wait to harvest, the better the return. And as you plant and harvest you earn "experience points". These points advance you to the next level opening up a whole new set of things for you to plant or buy or give as gifts. You can even buy a hot air balloon.

One day Harley was wanting to see the "bird" on Tavis's computer. So Tav told him to wait a minute and he'd pull it up for him. I asked what bird he was talking about and he said he has a duck on his farm that Harley likes to look at.

Again, floored!!! My husband is Farmvilling!!! Of course I spent a few days mocking him. Then I reluctantly joined him. I've found my new addiction. Forget blogging. Forget solitaire. This is what I live for now. I get so excited when I log on to FB and see I have new gifts waiting for me or even better? A new neighbor request. That's better than Christmas! (Especially since we'll be so poor this Christmas, that FV gifts will be the only gifts we'll be getting. Hope the kids don't mind getting a virtual bird bath.)

So as if blogging wasn't enough, I've entered another popularity contest. First you have to have a fair number of FB friends. Only because those friends then need to be your neighbors. Tavis knows first hand how this contest works. He's not huge into FB so he doesn't have a ton of "friends". And of those non-tons of friends only a handful of them farm. So he's got tons of money but not enough neighbors to make his farm bigger. I have enough neighbors but not enough money. (Story of my freakin' life, I tell ya.) Although, make no mistake, "if this was the real world of farming, he'd have all us us whipped!!!"

So, MB, when you ask me, "harvest your crops, wth???" Now you know. If you don't Farmville you really should. It's tons of fun. And if you do, you really need to neighbor me. And if you're not my FB friend then you need to remedy that, too. Although as I type this I'm thinking of the 10-12 people who comment here and I'm pretty sure I'm FB friends with all of you.

Oh! Gotta go! I've got bell peppers that are THIS CLOSE to being ready to harvest and I don't want them to wither!

16 comments:

Kristina P. said...

I will never jump on this bandwagon.

Oh, and thanks for spelling out the letters in the title. I hope you did that just for me.

I am thinking about delicious mini burgers!

Stephanie said...

I'm afraid I'm still in the mocking stage, but I'm not stupid enough to make any guarantees. I may send you a neighbor request someday, much to my own dismay.

Lesley said...

I'm glad you explained it. I have been avoiding it because of it's addictive nature (ya know cuz of the WOW and all---LOL).

DeNae said...

Yeah, like I need one more reason to sit at my computer. Honestly, little sister, is the goal to just never move another muscle as long as we live??

I will not be joining. I mock you now. Mock mock mock.

Laurel said...

Hmm, came over here to read while I was waiting to harvest my strawberries.
Nuff said.

val of the south said...

I just love you - and DeNae and her mocking!

My niece and several friends are addicted to Farmville - but I've never ventured there. I'd like to mock it, but then that's a sure fire guarantee that I'll be next to join :)

Vanessa said...

Nerd.

Quit Farmvilling me.

And get me some cheese fries.

Emma said...

Stoop the madness!! lol.

tiburon said...

I can't do it.

I shall stay in the mocking camp.

And for the record - when I saw you were "harvesting your crops" on your status I thought it was slang for having sex.

GreenJello said...

I avoid Farmville. I know what will happen if I go and take a peek...

mCat said...

I'm on the mocking train. for good.

Just SO said...

I can't even keep a real garden alive. Let alone a virtual one. I have to stay away from this. Ty actually did it for a while but gave it up. Good luck harvesting!

Sarah said...

I would like to say I will never be a part of farmville, however I have given in to almost everything else I once stated I wouldn't be a part of ie. FB, blogging, etc.) so I will just keep my mouth shut, and try not to mock.

D'Laina said...

haha, I have never laughed so hard as when i was reading this...farming was additing for a while now I'm super bored with it, too bad I can't sell you or give you all my crap I've got cause mine farm is gonna see the delete button here pretty soon!! plus mike makes me get off the computer so this limits my farming/blogging abilities hehe

wendy said...

I LIVE farmville girl.
But, we don't have an elephant. I have enough trouble shoveling horse poop -------can't imagine the size of elephant ka ka.

sounds fun, but I have enough trouble just keeping up with my blog. You know I would be your farm neighbor!!!!friend!!!

gotta go, churn me some butter

Casey said...

Please tell me you're not a Farmville junkie too.. I've lost too many friends to it so far.