Why I'm a Cyber-Farmer

It has come to my attention that some people find the games on FB annoying. "I don't care if you just bought a dairy barn... or lost a cow.... or adopted a bandicoot," they say. "Stop sending me fig trees and quiche. I'm not playing!"

I can certainly understand that. I've never been a computer gamer. I mean, if you don't count Free Cell, 'cause honestly, is there anyone with a computer who hasn't played Free Cell or some other form of Solitaire? I've had friends virtually lost in World of Warcraft and the like, and I always felt a little sorry for them. Poor slobs, bless their hearts. Get a life.

Then at a party one night, I heard two friends talking animatedly about crops and barns, and I knew they weren't farmers. WTF?

"Farm Town," they told me. "On Facebook. It's a game."

"A game?" I asked, incredulous. "About... farming? You're kidding. Seriously?" Snicker.

Out of curiosity, I took a look the next time i logged into FB. It looked... interesting.

What could it hurt? I would just try it. Just to see what it was like. All my friends, it seemed, were doing it.

It seemed harmless enough. Someone sent me a sheep. It was so cute, so adorable. It went "baaaaaahhhh" and walked around. And you can't just have one sheep, it would get lonely, wouldn't it? If you got a few sheep, you might as well have a cow. Ooh, and a chicken!

When the pig fell over and went to sleep, snoring softly, I was utterly charmed. "Gotta have a pig," I thought. "Maybe three or four."

As my farm filled up with crops and animals and buildings, the lust for more land grew. I had to expand! More land! More crops! More cows!

My carpel tunnel began to flare up from nights spent clicking, clicking, clicking. I walked through the produce section at Kroger and felt the strangest urge to click on the piles of corn, as if I could harvest them. I would drive down the road, see a field and think, "I'd put a tree right there."

Still, I thought, "I can stop any time."

Then one night, it was three a.m. and I was actually contemplating buying more coins with a credit card because I really, really, really wanted that mansion and I was a mere thousand experience points from Level 32.

One night, I left my boyfriend in bed so I could go harvest my crops. That should have been a warning sign.

I did the math to figure out which crops had the best payoff to growing time ratio -- and I haven't voluntarily done math in more than 25 years.

When the game went down the night I had an entire crop of pineapples (the biggest money crop at the time) coming in, I hyperventilated, banged my fists on the computer and finally sobbed in frustration. When the game came back up in time to harvest, I experienced something akin to the ecstasy of Old Testament saints.

That's when I realized I had a problem. I needed an intervention. But not until I got to the next level.

And just when I thought I had mastered the game -- I had the biggest farm possible, and the mansion, and all the other neat stuff and animals -- the bastards added new stuff and new levels. Like Michael Corleone, just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.

I've tried other farming games, but I love Farm Town the best. It's the most interactive because you can work harvesting for other farmers, too; of course, that's also the most damnably addicting aspect as well, because you could work Farm Town literally around the clock if you had enough coffee. (In Farmville, the graphics are higher quality, but once you plant your crops, all you can do is wait for them to mature.)

In Farm Town, you go to the "marketplace" (which is really a chat room) and try to get a job. Or you just hang out and whine about how long you've been stuck at Level 24, or how you're scared of the big mutant turkeys that are twice the size of the horses.

If you see someone with a really big farm, and a crop of say, pineapples, almost ready to harvest, you chat them up, ask them to be your neighbor, negotiate trades. But it's not all about the game, you actually talk to other living beings. I've made friends (of a sort) in Australia, Canada, California, England.... seriously. We visit each other's farms, admiring new acquisitions. "Ooh... how'd you make that waterfall?" (There's actually a tutorial on You Tube.)

I even reconnected with friends from high school and college. It was kinda funny that I would be trading harvests with the former football player I was afraid to talk to in high school.

But what I love most about Farm Town is the chance to play God. To create a world in which I have complete and total control. "I will put a pond here... and the meadow here. This looks like a good spot for a windmill." I build orchards and fields, plant elaborate gardens and hedges and entire rivers. True, it takes a bit more than seven days, but what the hell. I have the time.

It appeals to the artist in me, and the apparent completion compulsion I didn't know I had. In real life, I am out of work and broke, but in the cyber world, I am billionaire farming tycoon, living in a mansion amid gently rolling hills and valleys. Life is good.

Unlike life, the rules of the game are clear. You do the work, you get the rewards. You know where you are and how you're doing because you have coins, and points, and levels.

I've dallied with other games: Sorority Life (a horrible, horrible game built on shameless material acquisition with an inordinate amount of face-slapping) and Mafia Wars, but I much prefer the building games. In Cafe World, you build a little diner -- though I am more about decorating the restaurant than cooking the food. I've started and abandoned some games --- such as Social City -- because they are so ridiculously slow.

My current obsession? My Town. Again, I'm building my own little world. And I like it there. I like it a lot.

So don't judge me too harshly when I post about my new amphitheater or parking garage. It makes me ridiculously happy to have something I can control. Something I can win at, when I can't seem to bend real life to my wants and needs.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go collect my rents and see if I am any closer to buying that big honking shopping mall.

FaceBook Is Eating My Brain....

Oh, I remember when we first met. I was in my middle years, feeling like I'd done it all, seen it all... and then, there you were. The Internet.

You made me feel like a kid again - a kid struggling to understand long-division, true, but once I mastered AOL, it was love at first password. You had me at: "You've Got Mail."

Some said it was just an infatuation, a passing fad; but I knew our love was here to stay.

Still, the relationship has gone through some changes. AOL gave way to Yahoo; Yahoo melted into MySpace... and then FaceBook captured my heart.

At first I felt like I was cheating on MySpace. But Facebook just seemed to really understand my needs, what I really wanted from a social networking site. Namely, a vehicle for posting minute-by-minute updates on every move I make, every breath I take, every thought -- profound or inane -- that skitters through my addled brain.

I also desperately needed a way to keep in touch with 2,534 of my closest friends. Because I really need to know your Disney princess name.

I love FaceBook. It's brought me back in contact with friends I haven't seen or spoken to in a coon's age. But I am beginning to think I may need an intervention.

It's bad enough that I feel compelled to come up with something moderately witty before noon for my status message. A little sad that I've actually started to post a new status message late at night, only to think, "Wait... most of my friends are in bed. I'd better wait or they might miss it."

But it's the GAMES... those freaking games!

I'm not a gamer, never was in the "real" world. No D&D, no marathon Risk games, none of that. And for years the only thing I ever played on the computer was Solitaire, which, in the computer gaming world, is really lame. Kind of like playing Spin the Bottle when everybody else is playing Howard Stern's Orgy-Mania. (It's like Twister, only dirtier. Yes, I made that up.)

But then a FB friend kept sending me sheep. Chickens, cows, orange trees. I caved into peer pressure, and thought, I'll just try it. What harm can it do?

So I began my first farm in Farm Town. I thought it was just a little innocent fun, and I could stop any time I wanted to. But by the time I expanded my farm the third time and made a spreadsheet to calculate the optimal profit per field, I began to suspect I had a problem.

I hit rock bottom the night Farm Town went down for six hours and I couldn't get to my farm. My crops, I wailed, beating on the computer screen. My crops! I've got pumpkins coming in, you have to let me harvest!

I thought about finding a twelve-step program, but I was too busy plowing, planting and harvesting.

Then it happened. I reached Level 24. My farm could expand no more. I bought my mansion, my greenhouse, my river. There was nothing left to do in Farm Town.

I wandered the web searching for another fix, trying to recapture the thrill of that first level-up. YoVille. FarmVille. Mafia Wars. Sorority Life.

Sorority Life is my dirty little secret. The game is the pinnacle of crass materialism and anti-feminist smut based on the idea that women will climb all over each other in stilletto heels for a chance at a Guicci bag and a dozen cookies, slapping each other silly the whole time. Because they do. I'm so ashamed of myself.

But I have 402 sisters now, as well as 148 Hummer stretch limos, 74 lifetime tans and one yacht. And it pisses me off way more than is seemly when a rival smacks me upside of my head and steals $70,000 from me.

First thing in the morning, I log into FaceBook and head straight for Sorority Life, to bank my earnings, send Juicy Couture dresses to all my sisters, and make sure I haven't been put on the Burn List.....

Then it's off to Mafia Wars, where I check my properties for break-ins and send my family members wire taps, sawed-off shotguns and stolen Rembrandt paintings.

Then to YoVille, to feed my cybercat, punch the clock at the Widget Factory, and shop for a new dining room set. If I have time, I dance with a few friends before rushing off to Farm Town.

Once the flowers are watered at my Farm Town estate, I run over to FarmVille, where I have to milk the cows, collect eggs and harvest all the eggplants.

I've also got my own amusement park in Rollercoaster Kingdom, where it seems i do nothing but feed my employees.....

It's all becoming a big blur, more a job than my job.

What I fear is that one morning, I'm going to send Juicy Couture dresses to my goodfellas, throw grenades at my sheep and try to milk my sisters.

Someone stop me, before I farm again.