Plugging For a Friend

Greetings-

It's been a bit since I last blogged as I've been feeling a little ill these past few days.  Sorry about that.

Anyway, on to the reason for today's post.  From time to time, you've seen me post about my favorite social game, FarmVille.  Well here's a blog by a good friend of mine that is dedicated to the game.

The Blog is titled The Intelligent FarmVille blog.  Be sure to check it out and give him a follow as well so that you can stay up to date with his entries.  Thanks everyone.

Until next time,
-Bill-
 

Yup, another Snow Day

Greetings-

We had another round of winter weather come through Tuesday here in my part of Kansas.  This storm has dumped about a foot of snow here.

Kids are getting another snow day on Wednesday.  This gives them a 5 day weekend before Valentine's day as the school is having P/T Conferences on Thursday and Friday of this week.

The picture is one that I took late last night of our front sidewalk.

It's very pretty outside this early morning, but the beauty hides danger.  The roads are just awful out there tonight.  Stay home unless you absolutely have to get out in this mess.

Until next time,
-Bill-

Superbowl Sunday - 2011 Edition

Greetings-

Superbowl XLV was today.  The Green Bay Packers are the new Super bowl Champions.  They beat the Pittsburgh Steelers with a score of 31-25.  I haz a sad.

However, that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy watching the game.  Thankfully, I missed the butchering of our National Anthem by Christina Aguilera.  I didn't miss the horrible half time show, though.  I don't even think a wardrobe malfunction could have saved that mess.  The Sound Engineer for the halftime show should be fired and never allowed to work as a Sound Engineer again.

Even though my Steelers lost today, I will always have this commercial to put a smile on my face:

Hands down, the best commercial of the year.

Until next time,

-Bill-

The Blizzard of Oz

Greetings-

The snow storm is winding down here in Kansas and things are just a mess.  Here in Central Kansas, things aren't as bad as they are to the south and east, but it's still nasty outside.  Right now, the temperature is 6° F and the wind chill is -17° F.  The wind is blowing the snow around and piling up some pretty impressive drifts.

No school again tomorrow for the kids.  They are happy, but I'm about to throw them outside.  It's been too cold to go outside and play, so they've been stuck inside where their favorite entertainment seems to be a game called "Let's Annoy Dad".

They better have school Thursday or I'm going to make them go up to the school anyway.

Until next time,
-Bill-

I am not the creator of the above image.  If you know who did create it or where it originally came from, let me know so that I can provide proper credit.

More Maintenance on FarmVille Today

Surprise!-

Some of us tried to log into our farms today and got surprised by downtime for maintenance again.  The only thing that wasn't surprising about this week's maintenance window was the fact that things were all sorts of screwy once everything came back online.

I'd really be interested in finding out what the folks at Zynga are doing behind the scenes when they pull the game for these maintenance windows.  Are they busy cleaning up code?  Are they optimizing the coding that's there in order to clear up some performance issues, or are they simply piling more bad code on top of the bad coding that already exists?

If there's anyone out there in the interwebz that knows what the heck these maintenance windows are fixing, please feel free to let me know..

So, what do all of you think was going on behind the curtain today during the downtime?  Let me know down in the comments.

Until next time,
-Bill-

In all seriousness, I complain because I want Zynga to hear me.  I complain because I want this game to continue to get better.  I complain because I love my farm and I love to share with my neighbors.

My Mother-In-Law

Greetings-

Today, we got the news that my mother-in-law slipped and fell on patch of ice last night and broke her leg right above her ankle.  She had to have surgery today to get a pin put in her leg so that it will heal correctly.

She made it through surgery fine, but I must ask all of you to keep her in your thoughts as she begins the healing process.  My wife and I would really appreciate it.  Thanks.

Until next time,
-Bill-

FarmVille Update: 01.26.11

Greetings-

Tonight on FarmVille we saw the release of another round of Valentine themed items.  Here's the screen shots from my market.

What a boring update.  Still no Valentine mailbox and even more importantly, no 28 x 28 expansion for coins.

Way to go FailVille.

Until next time,

-Bill-

Ducklings Released!

Greetings-

In an attempt to appease players that are still angry over the feed reward limit and lack of a coin option for the 28 x 28 land expansion, Zynga released the new ducklings feature onto our farms tonight.

When you harvest your duck pond, you now have the chance to get a duckling.  Once you have a duckling, you will need to get 7 friends to help you raise your duckling into a new feathered friend.  Now, here's the catch.  The quicker you get your friends to help raise your duckling determines what kind of a duck/swan your little dude will grow into.

So, now it's up to you folks out there reading.  Does this in any way, shape or form make up for the lack of a coin expansion and the feed reward limit?  Let me know in the comments.

Until next time,

-Bill-

Thanks to my neighbor Zeke for the screen shot!

4 Days? What's Up?

I know, I know.  I promised you guys a blog entry every day throughout the year this year.

I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping my promise, and I'm not offering up any excuses.

I'll do better this week, I promise.

Bad Mood

Greetings-

Sorry everyone.  Just not feeling it today, so this will be a very short entry.  I'm frustrated, disappointed, and more than a little bit angry at the Zynga team.  

Yesterday afternoon I logged onto Facebook and was looking forward to a wonderful day playing and chatting with a few hundred of my favorite people on earth.  As I read through the news feed, a rather disturbing piece of news from FarmVille Rant caught my eye.

It seems that Zynga has decided to limit our bonus collecting from the news feed for FarmVille to 125 items per day.  Here's what they had to say about it over at FarmVilleRant.com:

This will upset Farmers and will most likely make the few who are left close their barn doors and call it quits. Farmville has OFFICIALLY limited the amount of gifts you can now collect from your news feed in an effort to curb online cheating bots like the GU Snag Bar.

You can read the rest of the article at the link above.

Once again, a few noisy whiners have ruined the experience of the game for everyone else.

I'm trying to get a small protest going over on Facebook.  Here's what I'd like people to do.  "Unlike" all Zynga applications and official Zynga pages.  Perhaps watching their numbers fall will wake them up to the fact that without us, there would be no Zynga.  I also encourage all of you out there that usually buy Farm Cash to stop doing so until they remove the bonus limits.  We need to hit Zynga in the wallet.  When we affect their profit margin, perhaps they will begin to listen to us.  We are farmers; we are everywhere; and we have the power to take a stand and force Zynga to change.

Until next time,
-Bill-

This Week in FarmVille

Greetings-
It's been quite an interesting week in FarmVille.

This past week FarmVille took the servers offline completely for maintenance.  This was a first for Zynga.  A lot of people had been suggesting this for quite a while, and frankly it probably needed to be done.  However, in typical Zynga fashion, they managed to screw things up.  They should have given themselves more than an hour to perform their maintenance, because when they came back online there were more problems than there were before the scheduled downtime window.  Gifting was a complete mess for up to at least 12 hours after the maintenance was over.

Also this week, we saw yet another week go by that the 28 x 28 land expansion NOT released for coins into the market.  According to sources, Lexilicious (Head Community Manager) gives the excuse that Zynga is still trying to figure out what kind of hoops they are going to make us jump through in order to get the expansion.  Here's a great idea;  release the expansion for coins without any other kind of pre-requisite.  No one will expect it and it might gain Zynga some much needed respect.

Another clusterfark this week was the Poo Sheep fiasco.  Zynga wanted us to bother our non-playing friends into helping us get a free poo colored sheep and lamb.  In order to get this sheep and lamb we had to reunite the two by performing certain tasks.  The first task was to "like" FarmVille...okay no problem...second task was to play the game 3 days in a row...alright no big deal, I'll be doing that anyway.  The third task is what got under a lot of people's skins.  Third task was to get 5 friends to help you reunite the poo sheep with her poo colored baby.  You might think that wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that the 5 people you could get to help you had to be non-players.  Take notice Zynga...we are not your marketing department!

Anyway, that's all from me for now.  Let me know in the comments what has ticked you off about FarmVille this past week.

Until next time,
-Bill

Happy Birthday James Earl Jones!

In honor of his birthday, I give you:  James Earl Jones on Sesame Street.

Sadly I couldn't find a video of James Earl Jones reading from the telephone book, so this will have to do.

Hope you had a great birthday JEJ!

Consistency

When you are a parent, you learn very quickly how important rules and enforcement of the rules can be.  However, rules and enforcing the rules means nothing without consistency.

These same principles can be applied to an online community as well.  Being a moderator or administrator of any large online community is a lot like being a parent.  The online community needs rules in order to establish what is expected of its members.  The online community needs enforcement of those rules in order to establish some sort of order within the community.  Most importantly the online community needs consistency in disciplining its members that chose to break the rules.

Without consistency of enforcement and discipline, the online community will collapse in on itself.  Without consistency the moderators and administrators of an online community will lose any semblance of respect that they may have garnered in the community.

The official FarmVille forums are a prime example of what happens when administrators and moderators lose respect from the members of their community.  Overmoderation/enforcement of the rules is also a sure fire way to lose valuable members of a society as well.

You need to walk a fine line when it comes to being fair yet firm when you are a parent, and I believe the powers that be over at Zynga need to learn how to walk that line without falling either way, or I fear for the future of the FarmVille community.

What Would You Like? (Open Thread)

Greetings-

I'm dry on ideas today.  So I turn things over to you, my readers.

What would you like to see me write about?  What do you think I should focus on?  Should I just stop wasting everyone's time?

Let me know in the comments.

Also be sure to check out my blog about TV, Movies and Books at http://talkiestomestube.blogspot.com/  It's a little sparse over there right now, but there's more coming soon.

Until next time,
-Bill

A Few Thoughts

Bill here-

A few thoughts came to me over the course of the day.

A few days ago a man was severely beaten and left to die on the sidewalk.  The victim later died at the hospital.  Luckily the local PD has arrested four young men (and I use that term very lightly) and charged them with 2nd degree murder.

There are people here in the community that are describing these four young men as "good kids".  Let me just tell you something.  "Good kids" don't go around allegedly beating people to death at 1:30 in the morning.  Some say it was just kids making bad decisions.  Let me tell you something.  A bad decision is calling in sick to work when you're not really sick and getting caught at the movies by a co-worker that has the day off.  Some say that these four young men didn't mean for their alleged victim to die.  Let me tell you something.  I don't give a damn what they meant to happen.  The end result is the same.  A man is dead due to their alleged actions.  A family is now without a husband, father and brother.  I don't care if these four young meant to kill anyone.  The end result is that a man is dead.

"Good kids" don't resort to 4 on 1 violence.  "Good kids" aren't out roaming the streets like a pack of hungry wolves looking for a meal at 1:30AM.  "Good kids" don't beat someone unconscious and then run away.  "Good kids" don't murder another human being.

Justice will be served, and if there is any righteousness left in the world, these "Good kids" will spend a long time away from the rest of society where the real good kids live.

Until next time,
Bill

Surrounded by Silence

This is my favorite time of the day.  At this hour, it's all about me.  No more dishes to do, no cleaning, no homework to help with.  Total "Me" time.

It's so quiet in the house that I can hear my own heart beating.  I can hear the sounds of my digestive system as it processes every thing that I've eaten.  I can hear the snap, crackle and pop of my body as I get up to stretch.  Time also seems to slow down at this early hour.

Don't get me wrong, I love listening to my family talk about their day, the adventures they've had and what they are looking forward to for the next day, but sometimes it's a great thing to be surrounded by silence.

Getting Sick Part Deux

Greetings-

Well, I guess my fever yesterday was just my body's way of telling me to go lay down and rest.  I'm feeling relatively well today.

Things aren't looking so well for one of my male spawn, though.  His ear is an enraged organ tonight.  I try to tell him to pull his stocking cap down over his ears when he goes outside but, as any of you with children can attest to, my child thinks that I am the dumbest creature roaming the earth.  Anything I say to my child is summarily ignored until it comes to the "I told you so" moment.  I then become the wisest human being to ever walk this blue planet.

He's finally asleep now with a big wad of cotton stuck in his ear and a Tylenol coursing through his blood stream.
Hopefully he'll be able to stay asleep as I don't think I could handle many more howls of pain.

Until next time,
-Bill

Getting Sick

I absolutely hate getting sick.  Sometimes I wish that I could put myself in some kind of germ-proof bubble and keep all the bugs at bay.  I could be the new boy in the plastic bubble, but I don't think that would be very fun.

I've been feeling the crud coming on for a little over a week and tonight this morning I find myself running a fever.

My youngest was running a fever Monday night, so I let him sleep in bed with me...maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all.

I'm going to go take a pain pill, the rest of my night time meds, and go lay down.

Until next time,
-Bill

Ack!

My last entry was supposed to be posted as today's post of the day in my ongoing "Post A Day" pledge for 2011.

I guess I didn't realize that it wasn't yet January 11 when I hit that publish button.  My apologies.

Be sure to check out my new blog "Talkies, Tomes and the Tube" here on Blogger for my views, reviews and reactions to some of our favorite TV shows, Movies and Books.

Until next time,
-Bill-

The Snow!

We finally got our first snow storm of the season here in Salina.  I can't believe I was so excited to get snow.  It's cold and miserable outside!  What was I thinking?

The kids sure enjoyed their day off from school today, though.

I don't think there is an undisturbed patch of snow anywhere in the yard.  They were out pulling a sled around, throwing snow at each other, and having a wonderful time.

It looks like the snow is done falling for a while and I actually caught sight of the moon in the west.  Unfortunately, it's supposed to be very very cold and breezy for the next couple of days and that means dangerous wind chills.  If you have to be outside, make sure you are bundled up.

Until next time,
-Bill

The Cape

NBC's new show, The Cape, had its 2 hour premier episode tonight.  It's the return of costumed heroes and villains on television!

I've suffered some disappointment lately when it comes to the television shows that I like to watch.  My favorites usually end up cancelled by the corporate suits.  I've decided to take another chance on a show and I'm hoping it gets to stick around for a while.

The Cape stars David Lyons (ER) as Detective Vince Faraday.  After being framed for the assassination of Palm  City's new police chief, Faraday is rescued by members of the Carnival of Crime led by Max Malini.  After gaining the trust of the members of the Carnival and finding a really cool cape, Faraday is taken under the wing of Max who has trained a generation of illusionists, escape artists, hypnotists and other carny types to show that one man can make a difference.

Did I like The Cape?  You bet I did!  It wasn't overly gritty, deep, and dark.  It was camp without becoming too campy and melodrama without being overly melodramatic.  It was a fun ride.  I'll definitely be tuning in Monday nights to watch more adventures of The Cape.

Cast:
David Lyons (ER)-Vince Faraday/The Cape
Jennifer Ferrin (As the World Turns)-Dana Faraday
Ryan Wynott (Flash Forward)-Trip Faraday
Keith David (Pitch Black)-Max Malini
James Frain (True Blood)-Peter Fleming/Chess
Summer Glau (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)-Orwell

Violence in Arizona

Yesterday was a dark day in America.

The attack in Arizona should serve as a reminder to all of us that while we may have the right to "freedom of speech", we also have to realize that we need to exercise that right responsibly.

Until next time
-Bill

Winter Weather

I love the winter time.  I don't know of many adults that look forward to snow days.

Kansas is about to be hit with a pretty decent winter storm starting late tonight and lasting through Monday.  So far the computer models that the local news stations have been using are predicting anywhere from 5-8 inches of snow in my area of Kansas.

I'm shivering with anticipation of the clean feeling that a blanket of snow brings to the world outside my door.

Hopefully, I'll have some good pictures of the snow storm later on in the weekend to share here on the blog.

Also want to say to all the folks here in Kansas to be careful when you have to travel this weekend.  If you don't absolutely have to go somewhere why don't you stay at home grab a big cup of your favorite hot beverage, and watch the world go by from the comfort of your living room?

Until next time
-Bill

The Story of the Nursing Student and The Placenta

Doyle Byrnes wins her case against Johnson County Community College!

I suppose by now many of you have heard the story about the nursing student that was kicked out of nursing school for posting photos of a placenta on Facebook.  That nursing student, Doyle Byrnes, sued the school and won her case!

A Federal judge overturned Ms. Byrnes' dismissal from the nursing program at JCCC and basically told the school to go screw themselves.

In Melgren’s ruling, he found:
•Photos are taken to be viewed, and if the students were given permission to photograph the placenta, it became irrelevant what they did with the pictures.
•There was no violation of any patient’s privacy because there was nothing in the photos to identify whose placenta it was.
•Byrnes was not allowed a fair hearing on her dismissal.
Melgren acknowledged that the Facebook element of the case mystified him, but he said: “Today’s generation of students is today’s generation of students and I don’t know that what they did was disruptive. I think the college’s reaction was disruptive.”

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/01/06/2566180/facebook-placenta-photo-case-goes.html#ixzz1AKrInum7


Chalk a win up for common sense.


Until next time,
-Bill

Quickie

Just a quickie-type post tonight.

I've been searching my butt off tonight trying to figure out how and where the FarmVille fan sites are getting a hold of images of unreleased content.  All the searching is starting to give me a headache and the hours just keep melting away.  

So far, I have found the sound of a pig oinking.  I guess I should be happy that I've been able to find that much, but I thirst for more.  I want to see what's coming up in FarmVille without having to rely on other sources to find it for me.

Wish me luck folks, it's going to be a long night morning.

-Bill

UPDATE:  I'm now able to find some images that reside server-side, but nothing that isn't already in the game.  This is progress!

The Return of "V" and "No Ordinary Family"

Tonight marked the return of both "V" and "No Ordinary Family".  I enjoy both of these shows, but things weren't looking very good for the future of "V" when the series went to break back in May of last year.  To be honest with you, I won't be surprised when the show gets the cancel-hammer.

I was a fan of the original "V" mini-series and the follow up sequel mini-series "V:  The Final Battle".  I was even a fan of the short lived TV series that followed the further adventures of the Visitors and the Resistance.

With this new "re-imagined" series, the magic just isn't there.  We have a resistance consisting of an FBI agent, an accused terrorist, a priest, and a ex-pat visitor...that's it.  Where's the action?  Where are the rest of the people that can see behind the facade of friendliness that Anna and her alien cohorts hide behind?  Where's the paranoia?  The visitors haven't even been publicly "unmasked" yet.  Color me disappointed in the direction the creators decided to go with this show with so much potential, but not disappointed enough to lose hope that there's something better coming with this series.

Until next time
-Bill

You've Been Cancelled: Television Shows I'm Going To Miss

We all have that moment of dismay when we find out that one of our favorite television shows is no longer going to be with us.  Here's what I'm going to miss this year.

The Gates (ABC)-ABC's supernatural crime drama only made it through the short summer of 2010.  Yes, the vampire genre is over-saturated.  We have the Twilight Franchise in movie theaters and "The Vampire Diaries" over on the CW, but something about this series hooked me.  Maybe it was just the hotness of seeing Rhona Mitra on my TV screen every week.  However, I'll still miss this show.

As the World Turns (CBS)-One of my favorite soapers of all time ended on September 17th, 2010.  I started watching ATWT when I was a college student and became an instant fan of the residents of Oakdale.  

Caprica (Syfy)-Syfy canned this series when it finally seemed that it was hitting on all cylinders.  I can't believe they cancelled this show, yet Ghost Hunters and Wrestling stay on the channel.  The final five remaining episodes will be aired in a marathon showing on January 4, 2011.  Syfy is working on yet another BSG prequel called "Blood and Chrome" which is supposed to be similar in tone to BSG...I don't know if I'll trust Syfy with another new show, yet.  I'll take a wait and see approach to anything new that Syfy has to offer for a long time.

Stargate Universe (Syfy)-Another blow from Syfy came when they announced that they were cancelling SG:U after half the second season had aired.  There are 10 remaining episodes and they will be aired sometime in the spring of 2011.

There you have it folks...my short list of television shows that I'm going to miss.

-Bill

New Year, New Entry

The new year has begun.  As such, I'm going to set a goal of writing at least one blog entry per day throughout the entire year.  Remember, I'm not a very good writer by any stretch of the imagination, but I will do my best to try to make things readable and understandable.

I hope everyone has a great year this year!

-Bill