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.