Time A-Facebooking

A year ago, I would have told you that I don't care about Facebook much. I didn't use it then, I created an account because a dozen or two of friends keep sending me emails asking me to join and I'm tired of receiving those invitation emails, so I just created a presence so to shut them up. I was more of a MySpace kinda guy. Now, I actually have to look up what the name for MySpace actually is. i haven't touched it for months and don't think I'd ever use it again. There was a migration, the old space was dry and deserted, everyone had moved to the new land.

Other than this blog, I'm actually quite the reserved private person, there's nothing much exciting in my life that I'd have to report to my friends hour by hour. At the same time, I don't really call a lot of people my friends. There are polite acquaintances but I wouldn't necessarily want to impose my daily activities on them. Though, the nosy voyeur in me appreciates the others for their status updates to give me a glimpse in their lives. For the relatives and friends overseas that I don't get to see much, it's particularly nice to see their new pictures and I do try my best to return the favor when a good one of mine pop up every now and then.

Other than it being a way of communication and networking, I've discovered the gaming aspect of Facebook. There are a lot of developers creating flash based application on Facebook. From your basic questionnaire type application that tells you which Sex & The City girl you are, to more complex time killing machines. You have your standard Word Twist, Sudoku, Bejeweled Blitz.



From the repeated nagging from my straizian Mahjong friends, I've tried out a few recommended games. There were a slew of FaceBook friends who constantly update people on their achievements on farming games, such as Farmville, Country Story, Happy Farm. Simple premise, go to a farm area, buy and plant a seed, water your plant, plucking weed, killing bugs, wait for the plant to grow crops, harvest and sell you crops. Not particularly fun, given most of the time you have to wait hours or days for the crop to grow. Graphic-wise Happy Farm seems to be the best and it seems to be a very popular game in Asia where workers rumored to request for Happy Farm breaks for them to go online and check on their crops. Since it doesn't produce real money, I wonder why they make such a big deal out of it. My straizian friends create phony Facebook accounts to set up a few farm so they can speed up the coin earning aspects and manipulate the game. I have time on my hands but I doubt that I could get that fanatic.

Simulated games seems to be the trend. That's a simulated aquarium game called Happy Aquarium with similar scheme. Feed your fish, raise them, clean you tank, wait for hour for them to grow up... boring, does not particularly makes me Happy. Pet Society, where you create your own pet and do really silly things with them, entirely too childish for me. Cafe World where you run and design your own cafe, make dishes and sells to your customers. Takes days to hours to cook and sell to your customers. I'm automatically drawn to anything food related, so I kinda like it. My 40 year old cousin is actually a big fan on all of these games, she let it known from her often updates notification on all of them. My favorite game of all is God Game Mahjong, where it connects you with other players to play Mahjong and other Asian card games. It's a lot of fun hearing Chinese and looking at great graphics while playing. Too bad most of the above mention games all takes to much time to commence and all wants you to lose somehow so you can purchase more credit using real cash.

I realize it is a waste of time, especially in a time I should be looking for a job. It especially do more harm to my laptop than good, it particularly turns my laptop as hot as a frying pan, so I'll try to cut it back and do more constructive things, it's not like I can earn real money from playing. I know.