A Wee Little Glitch

The Boats

April 7, 2011

Since being laid up I have become rather fond of CityVille and FrontierVille on Facebook.  Yes I know it is not the best way to spend my time but I like both and they give me a bit of linear thought so that isn't a bad thing.  I have what I think a rather awesome city in CityVille.  Every single time I go there to check I end up moving stuff around and doing a bit of tweaking.  Hey, it's just one of those things I can do in the wee hours of the morning when I can't sleep.  Anyway on Aril 6 I noticed a bit of an oddity with boats going up and down my one street.  I knew I hadn't done anything to cause this but figured by the next reset of which Zynga seems to require a lot of, the problem would be gone.  Nope.  The following day the strange boats going along the roadways was the norm.  I even took a couple of videos because in a bizarre way was this was a hoot.  And so there you go, my humour is coming out even with an online game.  I should say what the hell since Zynga changed the rules of the game so I'm not a happy camper but this was funny!
on
Garden Gnome
©2006-2011

My New Spouse

My New Spouse

March 31, 2011

That's right folks...yours truly has a brand new spouse!  Lo and behold when I refreshed FrontierVille there he was.  I didn't ask for a new spouse because quite frankly I'm rather pleased with the old one.  Besides it has taken me over thirty years to train the old spouse to be the perfect spouse that he is.  The new spouse has a few issues.  First, he just showed up declaring we were married.  Hmm, sounds a bit fishy if you ask me.  Second, I either slept through the wedding because I was exhausted from tending crops and animals, rescuing sick animals, fending off bears and other wild critters, building buildings, and visiting neighbouring farms or the new spouse simply omitted that little bit of legality.  Well since the new spouse is here I've decided to make the best of sticky situation.

Now the new spouse does have a few perks in that I get to choose his wardrobe.  Unlike my old spouse the new spouse will not be wearing Hawaiian shirts, short or sandals 365 days of the year!  The new spouse is appropriately attired for work on the homestead.  The new spouse will not be enjoying golfing, going to hockey games, playing darts, hosting game nights, boating or traveling because he will be working on the homestead.  And here is where we have had our first marital discourse.  New spouse likes to hang out in the mint patch watching me do all the work like tilling, planting, hammering, clearing and looking after the animals.  He just stands there doing nothing!  I suspect he moseys over to visit Hank at the General Store when I'm not looking.  Hank is another suspicious character that just stands there watching me work.  The new spouse does nothing!  Honestly now, I am just a tad too old to be training another spouse.  He arrived yesterday so it isn't an April Fool's joke either.  Goodness, I think I'm going to have to get that still going on the homestead ;)

Garden Gnome
©2006-2011

Gnome Empire

Gnome Empire

March 21, 2011

I have had a lot of down time with my leg injury so along with FrontierVille, I also discovered CityVille, FarmVille, Cafe World, and Mafia Wars.  I'm quite active in both FrontierVille and CityVille as those are the two I enjoy the most.  At any rate I was surprised I enjoyed CityVille so much.  The premise is you build the city of your dreams.  That includes community buildings, housing, decorations, and commerce.  To supply goods for commerces you need to grow crops as well as bring goods in via shipping and rail.  Expansions are possible with each expansion cost more and requiring more permits that can be given by friends or purchased.  That's one thing about Zynga games is all of them have an option to purchase the currency (eg. horseshoes in FrontierVille, city dollars in CityVille) or you can wait and let the currency build as you move up levels, earning one currency per level.  I have spent $10 on the game which is considerably less than what I would spend at a casino or even buying a video game and I can play it 24/7 if I want.  The thing is you don't have to buy credits if you don't want to.  The more neighbours you have the more you can hire for positions in your community buildings rather than paying for the position but you do need the community buildings as they determine your population cap.

Pictured is my city, Gnome Empire as it looked yesterday morning.  The look changes on a daily basis as I twaek and expand.  My city has a population cap of 1840 with 1170 as the current population so I can still add more housing.  As you can see I have expanded quite a bit.  My next expansion will cost me 43,000 (coins not city dollars) and  9 permits or 9 city dollars.  I have 6 permits so far and am hoping some of my friends send me more.  Yesterday I added the shipping piers to my newest expansion.  I'm finding that this game has a bit of finesse to it.  It is not as easy as plucking down buildings and hoping for the best.  Of all the Zynga games this is likely the one I will continue playing on a regular basis.

I have encountered one problem with the gam and that is loading my friends and neighbours.  The game simply refuses to do that even though they load fine for the other Zynga games so it is a problem specific to the game itself.  As a result I can't hire my friends or send gifts to them from the free gift section.  I contacted customer service who is working on the problem.  Other than that I really like the game!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2011

Pots of Gold!

FrontierVille Pots of Gold

March 18, 2011

During the first two weeks of my leg injury where my mobility was greatly reduced, I started getting involved in Facebook.  There I discovered a game called FrontierVille and while that has led me to also playing CityVille and FarmVille, FrontierVille is my favourite.  On March 16 the leprechauns came to FrontierVille in celebration of St. Patrick's Day.  They were to replace that pesky groundhog but what I didn't realize is you had to have finished the find a spouse mission and plant certain crops (10 clover, 15 potatoes, 20 cabbage) for the leprechauns to appear.  I was a bit disappointed as I haven't finished that mission yet.  Then when I was feeding some of the animals a collectable appeared for the St. Patrick's Day Collection.  You need to collect a penny whistle, pint glass, shamrock, hurly stick and celtic harpWithin a short time I had collected enough of the various collectables for this collect so traded in for my first pot of gold!  The pot of gold is just the packaging though.  Inside each pot of gold can hold goodies like: green waterfall, green fountain, leprechaun statue, festive table, or keg of green liquid.  I haven't opened mine yet but will likely when I'm finished playing tonight.

By evening I had 4 pots of gold but then all Zynga games went down so I wasn't able to play further.  This morning I finally got FrontierVille to load and quickly traded in another collection for a pot of gold.  I'm having a hard time getting FrontierVille to load right now so there are some ongoing issues that need fixing.  Hopefully they get things fixed soon!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2011