The image you see here is a piece of watermelon that I recently cut into.  I was fascinated by the way it was split open on the inside, so I decided to take a 3D picture of it.  You will have to settle for the 2D version, but rest assured, it’s pretty cool in 3D.

I’ve posted a picture of a watermelon on a gaming blog because I want to take a moment to talk about Farmville.  Farmville is a social networking “game” that simulates the operation of a farm.  I quoted the word “game” because I only loosely define it as such.  As I look through the plethora of invites that I am getting for Farmville and other Zynga games on Facebook, it seems more like a mechanism for getting other people to join than an actual game.

I love people, and I don’t want to be rude, so will not tell you to stop sending me invites to Farmville, Pioneerville, Cityville, Mafia Wars, etc.  I will, however, promise now that such invites will go unanswered.  If I want to play a farm game, I’ll play Harvest Moon; if I want to get into a city building game, I’ll play SimCity or Civilization; if I want to deal with the mafia, I’ll play Yakuza 4.

I don’t need games that apply a social pressure for me to get other people into the game.  It smells too much like bad watermelon.