Thank You!

Thanks to everyone who came by and left comments during the last few days. I do have comment moderation on, but I posted every single one received, and I'm grateful for each and every one of them.

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Crazy

I'm not addicted to Farm Town. I can stop whenever I want. Just let me plant one more row. (Just like knitting! Sort of.)

This image is of my farm early this morning. I was too tired last night to plant it all, but I did get some commemorative art work done in the bottom left plot before I fell over. (I try to only plant in the evenings because of the growth cycle. Yes, I have thought about it this much.) The dollar $ign will stay -- this is a gulch after all! (Atlas Shrugged reference FTW!)

It's been a lot of fun, and because I have so many friends that play, that makes it even better. I was "hired" to harvest a couple of big farms* right off the bat, which gave me a significant stake, allowing me to plant my entire garden and get the ball rolling.

In turn, I've tried to hire all of my "neighbors" who are just starting out, at least once, to give them the same leg-up. If they aren't online when it's time, I've found a forum I can go to & request help, rather than going to the dreaded Marketplace, which is full of beggars. Plus, the forum people leave my trees alone (I like them for color).

*There's a real false economy in the game. It starts out okay enough - it costs (in-game) $ to plow every square, and varying amounts for the seeds. Then there is the growing period (4 hours to 4 days (a day is 20 hours)). Then it's harvest time. If you harvest your own crops, you make X. But, if you hire someone to do it, they get a 25% cut PLUS you make 25% more.

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On an unrelated note, word to the wise: temper tantrums are not attractive and they don't make people like you or want to help you. After a while, it doesn't matter what your real-life problems are, people are going to quickly move past pity, to annoyed, then peeved.

Online, some people exhibit all the behavior patterns of a troll, even if they aren't intentionally doing it to create drama and tension. I don't know if this makes a person a troll or not, since it's not on purpose. But it's definitely not the way to win friends and influence people. In my mumblemumble years participating in online forums, I've developed a list of things that don't work, and make you look silly:

1. Constantly demand that an entire site be reprogrammed to match your preferences. The fact that other sites do it a certain way doesn't mean it's the only way, or the right way. Some site owners are innovative and are capable of thinking outside the box.
2. Keep bringing up the same shit, over and over, after you've been told "no, it's not going to happen."
3. Refuse to use the tools that are in place to help you avoid dealing with people you don't like. (It's called managing your own experience. Firefox extensions (like AdBlock or MyImageHere) are a prude's best friend. They're also the friend of people like me who are not prudes, that still like managing their own experience.)
4. When people disagree with you, accuse them of being trolls or being mean to you.
5. When it becomes obvious that you are in the minority, or that people are not coming around to your view, demand that a topic be shut down or deleted. Better still, just declare that the conversation is OVER. (We saw a thread like that somewhere a couple of weeks ago, and it was hilarious.) At some point, type this in ALL CAPS.
6. When that doesn't work, start insisting that everyone else is a loser for being online and not doing something real. (Because, friend, you're online, not doing something real, right at that moment.)
7. Start ad hominem attacks by calling people names based on their user names or avatars, or going through their profile and finding something to use that has nothing to do with the discussion.

The above may be slightly related to events that happened on a forum yesterday, but they're really universal. I've seen every one of these happen (there are more steps beyond #7, but you get the point - I didn't even touch on Godwin's law): on a scrapbooking forum, a cat forum, a wedding-planning forum, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer forum and, yes, Ravelry, time and again. If you find yourself exhibiting any of these behaviors, it's my advice that you turn off the offending browser page/tab and either find something else to do or go for a walk.

A lot of times before it progresses to #7, someone will flounce. That is, announce that they're taking their ball and going home. But usually... they don't. They cannot stay away.

Another thing they might do is get mad and start deleting all of their posts, so the discussion looks lopsided and weird. To that I say: BLOCKQUOTE, people. If you're in an online discussion and what you're responding to is crucial to your post, copy it, paste it in your post, and mark it so it's obvious it's a quote. Some sites have tools for this. If they don't, put quote marks around it and italicize it or something. You'll thank me later.

PS: If you're viewing this via a reader or anything besides the blog page itself, you might be missing some of the formatting. Facebook, for example, does not display the post formatting.

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Olden Times

This is where the "rambling" part of the blog title comes in.

Nothing like ripping apart an old tv show, but I'm in the mood. I have a fondness for some of the PBS "House" "reality" shows and have three of them: 1900 House, Colonial House and Frontier House. They're frelling expensive, so I make sure friends, like Heather and Anita, who are also into this kind of thing get a chance to borrow them.

The deal with these shows is that they are promoted as historical/educational, but they are not too different from The Real World, just with different costumes and a limited locale.

I'm watching Colonial House for the second time since I received the DVDs, and have some observations to make. Some of these issues could be due to the editing/direction, but I'll name 'em anyway:

• Of course, the knitted wool hats and stockings rule. (I knit a Monmouth cap after I caught a couple episodes during the broadcast times, and want to do another, with more authentic yarn.) Sad to see no one knitting at all, and doing little in the way of needlework. Proof that these are more about the drama than the history, that they didn't have time - in 8 episodes - to show much beyond fighting and whining. (There were 2 instances that I'm aware of: 1 participant darning a sock, and a few of the ladies doing needlework once Heinz officially became governor.)
• Speaking of the Heinzes... I really wanted to like them. Especially the wife. But I couldn't. I realize that some of what we see was due to careful editing, but they can't fake the snark and elitism. I can understand why many of the participants didn't like the new CEO-type they sent in, but I thought he was pretty cool.
  
• From the voice overs, they make it clear that this cast of participants/characters was similar to real colonists in that many of the originals starved because they didn't know how to hunt or fish. But I doubt that they'd stand around and scoff after being shown where free and easy food was. (The clam flats. I only like my clams deep-fried, but I'd learn to love steamers if there was only 1 ration of meat a week!)
• I started writing this while I was halfway through the series, so "I guess there was a garden, because they had a radish once. But wouldn't this be crucial?" isn't 100% accurate. They actually show a garden in a later episode and show one of the servants cleaning up. Still, never showed anyone harvesting or eating from it (or planting it) except for that radish.
• Another early note: "If I could have been involved in the planning, I would have allowed people to do some research and make notes that they could take with them." Later: Turns out they had books, but I got the impression from something governor Wyers said that they never opened them. Helpful, that.
• The original colonists might not have known what plants were edible, etc., but some of them must have had a trade to bring with them. No one knew how to brew beer, make wine or cider. Hunt or trap. Or, if they did, it was never shown.
  
• Like how they didn't introduce all of the second group of colonists? One of the guys (Craig) finally - in the second-to-last episode - had his name under his face (another, Jeff, was identified a couple of episodes previous). Neither he nor Jeff were actually introduced.
• The best part for me: seeing how messed up a combined church and state was, and seeing people realize it.
  

Quickies on the other two series I have (the only ones I've seen):

Frontier House: LOVED seeing the newlyweds think outside the box for ways to earn money (cheese) - and the wife was actually shown knitting! LOVED the fact that the community decided on a private school because - if it were a real situation - the newlyweds' future (mixed-race) children wouldn't be allowed to attend a public school. The kids were the real stars. It was sad to watch a marriage fall apart, the exact opposite one I would have bet on during the first episode.

Even if the guy was kind of a whiny baby (I'm starving. No, you're dehydrated. That will be 50% of your savings, please), the one that picked a still as his one special item was pretty darn clever. I think his family was perceived as cheating more than once, but they showed some real ingenuity. If they hadn't gone into that one house to watch TV, I think they would have been fine trading with the family.

The 1900 House: Shortest, I think, but still one of the best. The first episode showed how they got the house retro'd to 1900 standards, then the family they picked. Because that time had regular mail delivery, she had access to resources and was able to research activities and food to keep the kids happy. I was right there with her and the one daughter when they couldn't go swimming (in their fabulous bathing costumes) because they were on the rag and tampons hadn't been invented. Finding out that take-out existed, in the form of fish 'n chips, is probably what got her son through it.

Not so good: sneaking to a drugstore to buy shampoo. Tsk tsk. It would be SO hard to be right in the middle of all the hustle & bustle of a big city and have to pretend it doesn't exist. Knowing that there's a bottle of Suave with your name on it, just around the corner.

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