The First COG Addicts Post Ever…Whoddathunkit?

So…out of the blue yesterday, Alissa texts me with a “Look what I found…check your email.” These can either be fun and great news, or can be horrible “dear God…don’t look!” kinds of things. She was vague…saying it had something to do with my past. Again…at this age, that can be good (Wow! I found an old royalty check you didn’t know you had coming!), or (WOW! I can’t believe there is a picture of you doing THIS online!!!!).

As it turns out, it was neither. It was actually a copy of the first article I ever wrote for Addicts. As in…WAY before the “unpleasantness” (also known as Whacking Day), and way, way, way before the Monorail every showed up in our towns.

It was a hoot, and reminded me just how ridiculously simple this “Silly ‘Lil Game”(not copyrighted by Bunny) used to be…and that there were STILL people who whined about the downtime in the game.
 Here’s what she sent…

For anyone who has been playing the game since at least last year’s Halloween Quest like I have (as in Oct 2012), we have found ourselves faced with the same challenge of kids stuck in the backseat, waiting for hours to get to Disneyland, or in the case of some of the less-than-stellar updates, School Clothes shopping (fun…but hardly worth the wait…like the hollow, random additions of a couple of the restaurants, and the flower shop, after the Valentine’s quest was done, rendering them useless). But I digress…

And now, even when EA seems to be on the road to releasing an update every two weeks (sure…I’ll believe it when I see it…) those of us who have run the course of completing level 34 AND have completed KrustyLand, find ourselves in TAPPED OUT mode…looking for some reason to do more than send everyone into 24-hour mode, in endless loops and promises of excitement “just around the corner!”

Certainly…the TAPPED OUT syndrome of having no REASON to tap, is exacerbated (look it up kids…and yes…it rhymes with that other “bated” word) if you are a house farmer, who is intent on farming for cash, then XP, and then donuts in an endless quest to speed up life as we know it, and reap the next reward! I won’t get into the reasons I abhor house farming again…but that would certainly be one of them…Speeding up the game so you can WAIT. Nice. But, I digress…again.

Instead, here are a few suggestions of what I do when I am TAPPED OUT…and waiting for the next update. SEND US YOURS…

1. Play the game in REAL time… don’t rush it with donuts, or house farm. Remember the old saying, “It’s not the destination, it’s enjoying the journey!” (made up by some parent driving a mini-van full of kids to grandma’s house in Wisconsin).

2. Create New areas of gardens, side retail expansions, or special story lines involving the re-shuffling of houses, accessories, or decorations. OR AUTOGRAPH YOUR WORK! I have created a small garden center area to go along with the almost useless flower shop. I have also Autographed my town, with my real initials. (CrankyOldGuy took too many shrubs).

3. Try creating one of the fantasic 3-D effects that are springing up all over the TSTO Landscape (and don’t require 3D glasses).

4. Use the Nuclear Option (probably not the best name given the current unrest in the Middle East) CLEAR YOUR TOWN, YOUR SQUIDPORT, or your KRUSTYLAND and Start all over again!

In short, be CREATIVE…stop relying on EA to entertain you all of the time…it’s a FREE GAME (OK…even I don’t believe that) CREATE YOUR OWN FUN!! What’s wrong with you kids today?

Keep on Tappin’!
Cranky Old Guy

Uhm…like…WOW! I can’t believe I was digressing clear back then…and this was WAAAAAAY back then in TSTO time(TSTO Time is like Dog Years (x7), but to the 9th power).  Level 34??? Sheesh! That was back when there WERE level updates…and downtime…and being bored with EA. It was also when there were still server outages that could last a day or two or three (OK…so for some people, that hasn’t changed).

What is more amazing than Alissa holding on to this, is that I held on to the graphics that went with it! I TOTALLY laughed my butt off (notice I didn’t say “literally”) when I saw the “extensiveness” of my landscaping and building.  What was “My HUGE Springfield” back in those days, is now what I affectionately call “Old Springfield” or “Original Springfield” when I call at all…which I don’t often, because “Old Springfield” still has rotary phones. But, I digress.

Here is the basic Outline of my OLD Town… (click to enlarge)…see if you can spot the “peeing man” from the aerial view. It’s STILL in my town today…but harder to find with the monorail near it.

And just so you know things change for the better…here are my initials as they appear today…monorail passing by, and fountains spurting in excitement (which still has nothing to do with exacerbating).

It was great to read this…realizing that I used to write short, mostly silly posts, with a cranky attitude, and that I purloined (look it up, even thought it doesn’t rhyme with exacerbate) Grandpa’s image as my own. I didn’t actually create my own “cartoon Cranky” until months later…and didn’t get the lovely, much more realistic “Former-CrankyOldGuy/Patric” version until I came BACK to Addicts.

Now I write LONG, mostly silly posts, with far more attention to detail, and a much more specific knowledge of what REALLY makes me Cranky about the game (not nearly as much, once they gave me the monorail!).

I stopped doing screen grabs of my town years ago…because it is simply too damn big!  It would take hours if not days to grab…bit by bit…and piece together with Photoshop. And frankly, at my age, every minute counts!  You only get so much “tappin’ time” in this world, and now that I am back on friendly terms with my “New/Old Home,”  I would rather spend the time doing other things than whining about how lousy EA is…(and frankly, no matter what anyone says, the game is MUCH better than it used to be). rEAlly!   (Sorry…couldn’t resist after one of the whiners said how much they hated it when I capped the EA in the middle of words. They said it would be EAsier to read  if I didn’t do it…rEAlly???).

Oh well…looking back at beginnings is only fun if everything turns out well in the end. There are loads of little bits of my life I would prefer to expunge from the old “gray matter hard drive.”  But, starting my relationship with Alissa, almost FOUR YEARS ago…isn’t one of them.

Thanks for the memories, kid! I love that you saved it.