I'm going to try and write a food blog. Let's see how it goes.

Friday night I was playing with my Cafe World restaurant and noticed that there was a new menu item but it was only available if you were in Mafia Wars. I was immediately irritated. There is another menu item that you can only get if you're in the email club. Also irritating.
Two things that have been so loathsome on the Internet that software was designed to destroy them: pop-ups and spam. Facebook games are loaded with both. I get so tired of closing pop-ups that remind me to invite my friends, or be a fan, or sign up with email. And there is no way I want a gazillion emails reminding me to feed a pet, or harvest my crops.
I should probably make note of my spectacularly bad mood. It's about pain. My knee is way better but still hurts. And it's limiting. I pushed myself to get to the pool the other day. It hurt to walk up there and it hurt when I was swimming and it hurt for three hours afterward. Swimming is essential to my well being. So I'm cranky.
But Facebook games have been increasingly annoying. I've ranted about my unfinished stable and spice rack. Friends have made efforts to help me but they don't always have what I need. If I could add together all of the things that people have sent I could have three spice racks but the game is designed so that different friends have different items. I have lots of secret spice and no bleepin spice rack. Is this some one's idea of a challenge?
Most of my Facebook friends don't play the games. I've begged a few of them to sign onto a few because I needed them to level up and I've stopped playing games because I arrived at a place where I couldn't get higher without more friends. I know that Facebook is a social networking site. And I know I'm not that interested in networking. I have enjoyed finding and having been found by old friends. But I'm not really that into networking.
I have seen two solutions to the need for friends in games issue. Create a second (or more) FB account with an alias. And 'friend' people who you don't know. I have two 'friends' who I don't know. I accepted their friend request because they knew someone I knew. It soon became apparent that they were gamers looking for neighbors. It bugged me a little bit but ... oh well. I came close to creating an alias account but decided against it. I don't think there's anything really wrong with doing that but ... it doesn't exactly feel right. What really feels wrong is the fact that I need more friends to play.
Zynga seems to be trying to link up their games. There's Farmville toys in Petville and now Mafia wars in Cafe World. I guess the idea is to make sure everyone knows about every game.
All of the games I'm in I joined because someone asked me to join. I don't really go looking for them. I have enjoyed some of them. I usually like them all the first time I play. I really like the restaurant games. I don't really like Farmville. I get tired every time I load the game and see all the trees and animals ready to harvest. So much clicking! But there are two games that I never wanted to play: Owned and Mafia Wars. And now I need to be in one of them to be able to make a new dish? It's not really a big deal. I used to make every new dish but I stopped. Some of them are too much time on the stove for too few servings. It's just the principle of the thing. It feels coercive.
And then there's the time. Time to take care of my own stuff and visit all my neighbors and accept my gifts and send gifts. And now I need to try and remember what everyone needs and they're supposed to remember what I need? It's too much. These are supposed to be casual games.
So. Yesterday I didn't play many Facebook games. I'm new to Social City and am having some fun with it so I did play that. Although even there I'm on the edge of needing more neighbors.
The fun to frustration ratio is off. Maybe I just need to wait until my knee isn't aching and see if my mood improves but there's only so many hours a day I want to be playing a game and ... I'd rather be playing with my Sims.
I have observed some of my friends on FB being engaged in playing with their friends. They help each other and they seem like they're having fun. I admire their spirit. I wish I was ... I dunno ... more playful.
Anyway. I'm not playing for awhile. And I feel sort of bad about that. Which I think is me taking things too seriously.

Beauty
Originally uploaded by fatshadow1008

Grocery stores put things by the cash register to educe impulse purchasing. It's smart marketing and sometimes fun. Yesterday I bought the new Tricycle. I love magazines. I have purchased Tricycle in the past, usually because there's something I want to read in it. This was all about the cover. The peace and tranquility in that face captured my imagination.
The bagger made a comment about it and a funny conversation ensued. I wish I could quote it verbatim but it was fast and frenetic. The gist being that a Buddhist magazine had effectively marketed to me. And they used the same technique that magazines often use. They used beauty.
The bagger suggested that the young man has an erotic look and, yeah, he does. We only see his face and a bit of his shoulders. He is in recline. One arm is above his head and

the other is at his side. He has a slight smile. Uh ... yeah. Erotic possibility. And that might have been what caught me. But not consciously. What I thought I was reacting to was the beauty of tranquility.
Beauty is an important part of my life. I posted a picture of my breakfast last Sunday because it looked so beautiful.

Sunday
Originally uploaded by fatshadow1008

I don't always take the time to make my meals look beautiful but I often do. I always do when I'm cooking for someone else. And sometimes things look beautiful to me even when I put them together casually.
I bought more tangerines and made extra effort to find the ones with leaves.
All of this made me think about beauty and fat people, including myself. Sometimes people will talk to me about size acceptance and say things like people should people shouldn't be judged by their appearance. I don't agree. Judge me by my appearance. Just try to think about your judgments. Any knee jerk reaction to appearance is suspect. My hope is that people look at each other with an open and receptive mind and heart and then become active in the process of reacting. Of course, given that we live with a media drenched idea of beauty I don't have much hope.
But I do have some.

Started Wednesday with a nice swim. Came home for breakfast and then went to see Barbara for a great adjustment. The sun was out. The sky was clear. All was well. And then ... I sat down and did something weird to my knee.
I really don't know how I did it. There wasn't anything fancy about the way I sat down but as I did the back of my knee seemed to rip. Mom leaves a cane here, fortunately. I've been hobbled. Lots of ice and ibuprofen. I'm still hurting but it is better. Pain is exhausting.

At EA I worked with mostly young men who weren't that into the doll house aspects of The Sims. They would use the money cheat to mac out a house and play parties and they killed Sims in every possible way. I'd venture to say that the many ways there are to kill a Sim are well tested. It kind of irritated me but these days my game play is all about killing Sims. I'm not trying to set them on fire or swarm them with flies. I'm just playing the game until they die of old age. I'm doing this with all of the Sims I made to build my community. It's actually a very emotional experience.
This morning I started to play in a house in which the grandfather had died and the grandmother had a day of life left. When I entered the house the grandmother was having breakfast with her grandson just as I had left them. The game zoomed in on the table when the lot loaded and seeing them there made me weepy. I played out the day and put the grandmother's headstone beside her husband's under a lemon tree in the back yard.
They both had long and successful lives. In her last days she wasn't rolling any wants that I could meet. It was like she had given up. For no obvious reason one of the dogs began to sleep on her bed with her. This is my favorite kind of game play. Filled with surprises and sweetness.
In the Sims it is possible to resurrect a Sim but I don't really play the occult stuff. I like seeing my Sims floating around as ghosts. I like the alien abduction/pregnancy scenarios so I let them happen but no zombies, werewolves or plant people. I did test the occults when I was working.
Funny.

Clean the kitchen week did not go that well. I got distracted by too many things. The goal is to do really deep cleaning, which means taking a gazillion things off the butcher block and wire shelving so I can sweep and mop under them. In the process all the stuff I take off gets cleaned. This is my favorite kind of cleaning. Everyday cleaning makes everything look better but deep cleaning makes everything feel better. When I was still working I gave some thought to hiring people to clean the kitchen before Mom came. But I didn't really have the money for that even then.
There's always a point during this kind of project when everything looks much worse. That was last night. There were dishes and kitchen machines (Cuisinart, juicer, etc) pots and pans all over the living room. I've gotten a lot done today. I'd say I'm mostly done.
Times like this make me feel old. I don't have the stamina that I used to have and things take longer. I get frustrated.
But I love walking in the kitchen right now. Even though things are still messed up. The parts that were really dirty are shiny.