7 Reasons

Tag: FarmVille

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Forgot To Pick The Children Up From School

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Forgot To Pick The Children Up From School

    It sounds terrible, but I would be willing to bet that there isn’t a single person reading this who hasn’t picked their children up from school late at least once – talking to some of the parents I know, here are some of the reasons they gave me for ‘running late’…

    7 Reasons You Forgot To Pick The Children Up From School
    1.  You Were Playing Farmville. In fact all of those highly-addictive Facebook games should come with health warnings, “May cause you to lose large chunks of your day.”. Or, at the very least, they should come with in-game reminders like, “Step away from the computer and pick up your offspring – you can always beat Claire’s Bejewelled score later.”.

    2.  You Were Trying On That Dress Again. Hands up who has ever dropped the children at school in the morning, popped to the high street and still found yourself looking for that perfect cocktail dress ay 3pm? I’ve often found myself battling the shopping devil inside that is telling you to go and try the dress on again for the twelfth time. The children can probably walk home. They need to grow up sometime, right?! 🙂

    3.  You Were Gossiping. As the old saying goes; “time flies when you’re speculating with your best friend about her cougar of a neighbour’s latest toyboy”.

    4.  You Were Playing Bingo. Whether you popped in for an early session with the other mums or got engrossed in some of the cute bingo games online.

    5.  You Had To Stay And Laugh At Your Boss’ Jokes. Ah, the dreaded afternoon meeting where your boss’ showboating drags on a little too long. You’re checking your watch, but he is telling the most drawn out joke in the world. And he keeps getting it wrong. But hey, you’re trying to climb the ladder so you put on a brave face and attempt to chuckle in the right places whilst thinking about what you’ve got for dinner.

    6.  Those Pesky Soap Operas Were Just A Little Too Gripping. As you sit enjoying the last peaceful cup of tea for the day, wondering if that woman will make it out alive, who’s the daddy of that baby or if she really did bury her husband under the shed – don’t forget that it isn’t real. The children are waiting in the playground so you’d better get a wiggle on…

    7.  Some Legitimate Reason. There really are quite a few legitimate reasons for running late. The previous six probably aren’t going to cut it – I doubt your child’s teacher will take kindly to you telling them you wanted to finish your game of Pathwords. Running late and temporarily forgetting to pick up your kids doesn’t make you a bad parent – we’re all busy and we’re all human.

  • 7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Play FarmVille

    7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Play FarmVille

    If you use the social networking site Facebook, you’ll doubtless be familiar with FarmVille, the most successful Facebook game there is.  Here are seven reasons that you shouldn’t play it.

    A Road Sign with No Farmville on it

    1.  Imagination. When you’re playing FarmVille, you’re pretending that you’re a farmer.  Farming is not exciting.  It’s essentially portly, ruddy-faced people and mud, or portly, ruddy-faced people and blood, depending on which type of farming it is.  If you’re going to pretend to be something, pretend to be something interesting; a pirate, an astronaut, a mermaid, a flying horse, a rock star, an oculus, an aardvark, a many-headed warrior-beast, the Archbishop of Canterbury…anything, it’s all better than pretending you’re a farmer.

    2.  Spam.  Your friends want to log onto Facebook without being inundated with updates on the progress of your pretend farm.  Tell us about something that does exist instead.  How are your children?  How is your husband?  How is your pet?  Step away from the “farm” for a moment and check that they’re all still there and in good health, then tell us about it.  Perform a head-count if you need to.

    3.  Reality. Instead of pretending to grow vegetables on your computer, why don’t you actually grow some vegetables?  It’s not difficult.  All you need are some seeds and some mud.  Just weed and water them occasionally (this takes less time than tending your suppositious crops) and eventually you’ll be able to pull them up and eat them.  You can’t eat your computer can you?  No, no matter how much the rest of us wish you would.

    4.  It’s not sociable. My Facebook friends that play FarmVille assist each other on their imaginary farms that don’t exist.  I know this from my news feed.  Yet these people don’t come and help out in my garden, which is real.  I grow real things there (badly).  If you came to help me grow my real plants, I’d share them with you and ply you with beer.  This is how people really interact and bond.  When FarmVille tells the world, via Facebook, that “David helped Rachel harvest her plums”, you haven’t really interacted with each other – unless it’s a euphemism, in which case, well done David, I never knew you had it in you.

    A screen capture of a Farmville (Farm Ville) swastika (NAZI symbol) on a "farm"

    5.  Swastika. Okay, I’m not going to pretend that I don’t find it funny, but it obviously took a lot of time and effort to grow your swastika.  That’s time you could have spent being a real Nazi, goose-stepping about in a fetching uniform, annexing the Sudetenland and shouting things in German…or not, no, that’s a bad idea.  You could surely have done something better with that time though:  Read a book; go for a walk; climb a mountain – no – climb every mountain; ford every stream; follow every rainbow; till you find your dream.  Or perhaps do something unrelated to The Sound of Music, your choice.

    6.  Grow up. This may come as a blow to some of the 7 Reasons team, but it’s not socially acceptable to have an imaginary friend after the age of nine.  So why is it deemed acceptable to have an imaginary farm?  A farm is bigger than a friend – unless your friend is American – so surely it’s a bigger no-no?

    7.  AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! It’s come to this: I’m actually writing about real people growing imaginary plants and tending non-existent animals on their pretend farms which only exist in cyberspace, and you’re reading what I’ve written about actual people cultivating fabricated crops and make-believe livestock on fictitious farms which aren’t real.  What has become of us?  Death to FarmVille!  Stupid bloody fucking FarmVille.