Facebook Addict

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while - I'm alive and well, honest.

Been spending waaaay too much time on my computer, mostly playing silly games. I've become a veritable Facebook addict (for those of you not acquainted with Facebook, it is a networking website where you can see what your friends are up to, share your own activities and photos, join groups, and play games. Some people are in it to see how many friends they have and to check up on their friends.

I initially only signed on because I enjoyed being able to refer to myself in the third person with clever little status updates, such as my current status which reads: "Jean is a dork who forgets to take her dental floss out from the pocket of her bathrobe before throwing it in the wash." I've played games on it on and off, usually the type of games where you're a character and you add a few points today, then wait until tomorrow to add more points; in essence, these are very slow games that require only a few minutes a day, and you build it up little by little. This is what keeps people coming back to Facebook.

Lately, I've been playing two very addictive games: My City and Elven Blood. My City is a game for urban planning nerds (like myself) and anyone who has ever dreamed of building a city. Little by little, you populate your city with different kinds of people, which in turn corresponds to the city's physical development. The best part, because the people are creative and funny, such as "flying terrorist," "anarcho-syndicast," "rock star," "facebook addict," and the like. Each type of person has different point values, and you keep track of how your city is doing by the cumulative points of all the characters. Most characters have both positive and negative points, while others are purely positive or purely negative. You have a quota of how many characters you can add in a day, and once you use it up, there's nothing left to do but wait for this quota to be reset the next day. It got even more fun after I started adding to other peoples' cities, and they reciprocated by adding to my city, it's a never-ending cycle of fun. I've been playing this for a couple of months and have over 400 people in my city.

This next game is extremely, dangerously addictive. Elven Blood. You're an elf, and your king has gone crazy, so it is up to you have to go battle to rescue your buddies and knock some sense into the king. You also earn gold to go shopping for weapons, and can wage war with other players. Unlike the other games, your life and stamina points slowly replenish over time so that you are ready for another battle in another hour or two. Also, you need to keep inviting friends to join your team in order to continue to advance. It is definitely keeping me hooked, so much so that checking my life and stamina points has become the first thing I do when I turn on my computer and get online. To be honest, now that I'm describing it, the game doesn't really sound all that awesome.

Will I never learn to stay away from senseless and time consuming computer games? *sigh*