If there’s one thing that will get me back to my blog it’s a good laugh

It’s been quite a while since I posted anything on here because I’ve been spending most of my spare time on my little project (www.farmeramaaid.com) but I had to blip back here just to share this with you.

American TV viewers may have seen it before, but it still deserves another airing.

I think Charlie Sheen rocks!

Stay well!

It’s all Double-Dutch to me

Amanda will occasionally tease me by “cursing” me in Chinese. This I accept.
But this evening, in the kitchen, she muttered something that I didn’t understand and when I asked her what she had said her reply was “Oh, it’s ok… Not even Mandarin speakers would have understood that. It was in my local dialect.”
What ?!
My few words of Mandarin, (my name, “Nihao”, and about five items of food), don’t stand a chance of helping me to understand her when she’s blabbering in Mandarin, but now I’m expected not to understand her in some strange dialect too !
That woman expects too much of me.

Times are hard

Right, that’s it. Either that hamster starts paying rent or she goes !

Hits – What do people expect from me ?

Prompted by Kelly’s list of search engine hits on her blog I thought I’d have a look at my own and see what inspires people to visit the old Honorarynewfie.
The all-time record goes to “who said honesty is the best policy”, but here’s a selection of the finest of the others and, me being me of course, I can’t let them pass without a little tongue-in-cheek comment.

some dislikes - and you ended up on my blog…. thanks, all 3 of you !
some dislikes. - You can’t fool me… that’s you again, isn’t it ? I recognise the style
some of sacagawea’s dislikes - Dunno… go ask sacagawea
communist velociraptor - politics must be older than I thought…
velociraptor on bicycle - … and bicycles
sleep weasels - or there’ll be no toast for breakfast (anagram of stoat, get it?)
not environmentally frinedly - nor particularly good at spelling, but I like you
name two things you would have to interpret - easy, Spanish and French. Next !
disadvantages of traffic jam- don’t you know already ?!
what does bicycle mean in china - Um… don’t tell me, it’s on the tip of my tongue… I know it… I know it…
how many cyclists in china - This is Honorarynewfie, not Wikipedia
old englishman - Guilty as charged, M’lud
us travel assenvironment - strangely enough “assenvironment” was going to be the subject of my next post
abba dont remember - it’s their age, bless
“delicate bits” - you came here for that ?! No, I can recommend a much better site….
who said honesty is the best police - I don’t know, but it was a cop out
grems-2010@hotmail.com - How on earth did that point at this blog ???
zombie bicycle - Imagery… a modern remake of Thriller with everybody on BMX’s, and you know that bit where they all jump up at once ?… go for it !
farmeromer - farm aroma… love it ! Haha !
on farmerama how do you go to night time? - you just look up from your computer and find it’s there already !
congratulation on japan earthquake - Thank you, but in fairness I can’t take all the credit
old english man - is that the guy with the sheepdog ?
could you survive an intense love making session with a dog - No ex-wife jokes allowed
farmerama bald eagle - :O Hell’s teeth, what level do you have to reach to get that ???
i’m sorry i haven’t a clue sean connery - That’sh perfectly all right, shome would shay
φαρμεραμα blog - It’s all Greek to me
astronomy - I hope my humble little blog was able to answer all your questions, but if there’s anything you’d like me just to go over again for you…
eaten by a bear - and still Googling ? There’s nothing some people can’t do !
the world greatest eagles vs sheep - Big ones; very big I would think
abomination - I love your blog too

and there’s a plethora of hamster-related material…

golf hamsters - I swear I’ve never made that connection
hamster tyre - would be as a spare for on the “golf” ?
the biggest hamster sheep in the world - hamster sheep ?! I’m not having that running around in a ball all night in my living room !
would a hamster run at night or day - Yes
amanda the hamster - No, Amanda the wife. Pay attention, there will be a test later.
how fast are hamsters? - I’m sorry, because of falling educational standards these days it has to be multiple choice… at least a) very, b) not very
ow many miles do hamsters run in a day? - shouldn’t that be “amsters” ?
how far do wild hamsters go every night - all the way, mate, all the way !
how many times does a hamster run on its wheel over a 10 hour period? - Why, specifically, 10 hours ? I’ll tell you 24 hours, you do the maths. (Lazy sod !)
how far does my hamster run - how should I know, it’s your hamster
what do hamsters do at night - Ooo… hamster-type things, you know…
how do hamsters know day and night - One is dark….
how long should hamsters run - Until their little legs ache, then they should unwind with a hot shower, a rub down and some sunflower seeds
how far does an average hamster run - an average distance… Doh !
tapewarm in hamster - So that’s how to get that tape warm. Thanks. Here Hammy !…
how long can hamsters travel - until their passports run out
do hamsters far? - Now that could be one of two questions….

Why did you stop playing Farmerama ?

Just lately I’ve noticed a lot of my Farmerama neighbours have stopped playing the game, even some of the older, really keen players.
I know there may be a zillion reasons for this but it seems to happen in batches; I get a nice settled bunch of neighbours and then about a quarter of them will stop playing all at around the same time.
If you’re an ex-Farmerama player I’d be interested to know what prompted you to leave.
Thanks.

We go together

It’s been my pleasure to “bump into” another Farmerama player this past week whose life, let’s say, could be a lot easier than it is. No names, no pack drill, but you know who you are.

This person (L) and their spouse (K) are both wheelchair users but, after a comment L made in an email about what they were doing last night (dancing together, even through the pain) I wondered what they might have been dancing to ?

Given that L had referred to them as “soul mates” and detailed how well they work together and help each other, just one tune came into my mind, along with the image of them dancing to it in their wheelchairs out in the back yard.

In case you can’t remember exactly how it goes, L & K, here’s a little reminder…

Oh, and Happy Birthday, L.

Anonymous Valentine

Just to show that I’m not an old stick-in-the-mud and to prove that I can move with the times, I sent an anonymous Valentine Card… by email !

Tom’s Diner

Yes, that takes me back…..

So having played around with the various farming and restaurant elements on QQ, (all in Chinese ), I decided I wanted to try setting up a restaurant of my own on there. None of the attached farms and factories, just the restaurant element.

Why ?  Because that’s the bit that has the design element as well, and I love playing around with that part of it. (See later, below)

Eventually Amanda set me up with my own ID and a starter restaurant. Well, what else could I call it ?…

Tom's Diner (Click for full size picture if you want)

That’s me having a quiet word in the waitress’s ear, and Amanda doing the cooking with a silly mask on.

It’s only very basic at the moment (because it’s only been open 36 hours), but from little acorns etc. etc.

Eventually the plan will be to have something like Amanda’s (design by yours truly), but that’s a couple of months down the road yet.

Amanda's Restaurant

As you can see, although all the restaurants are actually on just one level I’ve been playing around with the perspective effects you can achieve by careful utilisation of the available pieces. Click on the pic for a full screen version to get the full effect. I’ve actually seen designs that appear to have four different levels on a board of about the same size as Amanda’s, although whether they work particularly well from a gameplay point of view is probably another matter. (Reminder to self: Must have a word to Amanda about that cleaner ! )

I’m also working on field designs within Farmerama, although the recent Alien Visit challenge forced me to temporarily abandon what I was working on there in favour of making a tidy profit on the Cow market.

Such a busy life….

Time to come clean about “Angry Poo”

(It will be interesting to see which search engine terms feed into a blog post with that as a title)

Yes, it’s time to come clean about why I haven’t been blogging much lately.  Blame Amanda. (!)

I used to watch from a distance as colleagues at work messed around during their lunch breaks carefully tending their Facebook Farms. Occasionally I would enquire, “How’s your Coo’s ?”, but given my total dislike of Facebook that’s about as far as it went… until Amanda revealed the amount of time she spent playing with the farming game on QQ, which is like a Chinese version of Facebook. (Yuk !!!)

However, with her spending so much time on it I thought to myself, “I might take a look and see if there’s another free, non-Facebook, English language farming game that I like the look of, just to see what the fascination is.”

Mistake.

Big mistake !

Farmerama Logo

I have now been farming for two and a half months.  I have three farms on Farmerama (all at around level 50), have spreadsheets tabulating information about crops, trees, animals and their relative benefits with regard to cash and experience points, neighbours and their complete gift histories, etc., etc..  If you want to know which is the best crop to plant at any particular time of the day (or night) in order to take best advantage of the various challenges that might be on offer, just give me a call !

And, I’ve been given control of one of Amanda’s QQ farms (with its associated restaurant, crops and animals) along with monitoring her and her nephew’s similar “businesses”.

Help !!!

It certainly helps to pass the time, that’s for sure.  Constant calls of “Go to John’s animals…”, “You have angry customers…”, “You can take my Rice in ten minutes…”, interspersed with “Haha… I got your Sheep…”, “I can’t, I’m in the middle of something….”, “Oh, I can’t bash any more mozzies today “, and so on, and so forth.

Well, what’s life for if you can’t have fun together, eh ?

I’m seriously considering starting a new blog with some “Tips for beginners” for Farmerama-ers, along with pointing out some of the high (and low) lights of it, showing some of my favourite graphics (very often the best part of the game), and such like.

Oh yes… and the “Angry Poo”… ?

Well that’s on QQ, appears in the animal field, and you get a bonus for shovelling it up…

Angry Poo

Ain’t it cute ?

Must dash, have two fields full of strawberries to harvest….

Frosty the Snowmam (Yep, that’s right)

Frosty the Snowmam

I think I probably made a snowman in the winter of ’63; I know I did make one once when I was a kid.

Amanda has never made a snowman before and, dear little wife that she is, she badgered the living daylights out of me this morning until I finally went out to help her and offer some well needed technical advice. (It’s what us men are for).

There was me thinking that she would just go downstairs and make a little one outside the door, maybe behind my car. But, oh no, over into the car park she went to make as big a one as she could !

“Frosty” ended up at 4ft 3inches (1.3m) and with no arms, but oh, so cute.

I don’t think my back will forgive me this side of Christmas but Amanda’s happy, and that’s what matters.

Oh, and yes, it is called “Frosty the Snowmam“, because that was how Amanda labelled the folder that she uploaded the pictures into.