The Epic Saga of Carlos

Some of my Facebook friends have been with me from the beginning and were able to witness firsthand the events which transpired between November and December of 2013 which propelled my turkey, Carlos, to worldwide superstardom. 

But I realized that many of my current Facebook friends are newer friends of mine who may not know of Carlos and his epic saga. So when I ask them to sign his petition or vote for him for mayor of FarmVille, they are probably wondering, "Carlos who? I don't even..." 

Well wonder no more, newer Facebook and Blogspot friends, for I now bring you the Epic Saga of Carlos!

The Heliumburg Disaster

#19

This is the nineteenth installment of Friday Facebook Foto Fun, where almost every Friday we have fun with a new picture that one of my friends recently posted or shared on Facebook.

Farming Bad: Mineral Madness

Remember on Breaking Bad when Hank started collecting minerals, and he would get upset with his wife, Marie, for referring to them as "rocks?" Now that Walter collects them, I couldn't help but to wonder if he and Barbara play out a similar scenario at home.

Bonus remix:

Election Update: Bobblehead Bonanza

“Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason.”

  

— José Maria de Eça de Queiroz

As you may recall from September 14th's Election Fever post, I agreed to be Carlos' campaign manager in connection with his bid to run against Marie and Walter in the 2014 FV2 mayoral election.  Since Carlos is not on the ballot and there is no way for people to actually vote for him, I circulated a petition to Zynga in hopes of getting enough signatures to make this happen.

Despite a week of heavily advertising on Facebook that we desperately needed signatures on the petition to get Carlos on the ballot, I found that only 40 of my 534 Facebook friends had actually signed the petition. So in hopes of discovering why over 92% of my friends had yet to sign the petition, I created a very sophisticated and scientific "Venn diagram."  I have put "Venn diagram" in quotes because I'm not really sure what it is, but I heard they are very popular.

Oooh! Pretty colored circles!

I figured the friends who had not signed Carlos' petition fell into one or more of four categories.  Either they hated turkeys and/or petitions, loved and intended to vote for Walter, loved and intended to vote for Marie, or quit playing FV2/and or using Facebook.  I posted the diagram on Facebook and asked the 494 Facebook friends who hadn't yet signed the petition to indicate in the comments below the post which category they fell into.

A lively debate ensued.

The ever-astute Lynn Hubbard was first to point out, "Well, if they have quit Facebook, they will not answer, ya know?"

"Darn it," I thought. "I have not fully thought this through!"

Then Bobbie Tower Cannamela asked, "hey Choo...whats in this for me !!!!"

Anita Merritt then pointed out that I failed to include a "color for people who are just plain lazy," and further, that I failed to "take into consideration the basic nature of people in general - in any survey, less than 1/2 the people contacted will respond without an incentive to do so."

Despite making me feel like a total failure, Anita's comments seemed well-reasoned, and also seemed to be borne out by Bobbie's comment.  Here I was thinking all along that my friends would be happy to do me a small kindness by taking the 17 seconds required to click the petition link, click SIGN IN WITH FACEBOOK and then click the SIGN NOW button, because that's just a nice thing that friends do for each other.  But no, it seems that I must actually somehow incentivize them; to lure them in and bribe them with trinkets of dubious value.

But how?

And then it came to me...

I noticed from the election souvenir stand which Barbara forced me to put on my farm that people really seemed to enjoy Walter's bobblehead figurine.  Look how overjoyed this man is to receive one!

By the looks of this man's reaction, he has either won $1,000,000,
or just received a Walter bobblehead figurine.

Indeed, Walter is a master of shameless self-promotion, plastering his face all over our farms, on everything from cupcakes and posters to bobbleheads and life-sized statues. In order to help Carlos succeed, I now realize that I must do the same for him.

And so, at great personal expense, I created a Carlos bobblehead figurine that I would like to give to everyone who has signed or intends to sign the petition for Carlos. 

Therefore, if you have signed or will be signing the petition, please click here to claim your free limited edition Carlos bobblehead now!

In a related subsequent Facebook post, Lois Newbegin Valentin shared a video of bald eagles to my timeline and commented, "Maybe Carlos needs these with him for inspiration. Patriotic attention getter might get votes."

Lois' suggestion that Carlos employ eagles to inspire patriotism for his campaign struck me as humorous and ironic, as it reminded me of the story about Benjamin Franklin lamenting the choice of the bald eagle as America's national symbol; expressing his preference instead for the turkey!

So when it comes time to cast your vote, be sure to ask yourself, "What would Ben Franklin do?"

That's right, he would vote for Carlos; and so too should you!

Pod People

#18

This is the eighteenth installment of Friday Facebook Foto Fun, where almost every Friday we have fun with a new picture that one of my friends recently posted or shared on Facebook.  

Goodnight, Sweet Prince

“When I die, I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather... Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.”    ~Will Shriner

Dear friends,

It is with great sadness that I must inform you all of the passing of a very dear friend and loyal farm hand, Buck.  It happened so suddenly - one minute he was here, snoring away on his bale of hay - and the next minute he was gone forever.  I have only now just begun to overcome my shock and start coming to grips with his sudden departure.  An overwhelming sense of loss overwhelms me, overwhelmingly.

I've been missing Buck so much in fact, that I created this memorial video tribute for him.  I hope that you will join me in mourning Buck's loss and condemning his murderers, while celebrating his life and remembering all that he did for us.  It's just a shame that we never got to actually express our gratitude to him while he was still alive, on account of his constant sleeping.

Farewell, Buck.  You were taken from us too soon.  Gone but never forgotten, you're yawning with the angels now.

RIP

Election Fever

"We have the best government that money can buy." ― Mark Twain

Dear FV2 Friends,

As a faithful reader of the Turkey Troubles blog, surely you know of the many trials and tribulations my turkey, Carlos has managed to overcome in heroic fashion.  Last year, Carlos escaped being the main course for Thanksgiving dinner, then traveled the world in a hot air balloon while being doggedly pursued by a psychopathic private investigator, only to become snagged at Chernobyl where he became unwittingly irradiated.

Later, when he was shot down over the North Pole all hope was lost and poor Carlos was presumed dead.  But we soon learned that you just can't keep a good turkey down after discovering that Carlos was rescued by Santa's elves and nursed back to health with hot chocolate!  This was good news for Santa and the people of FarmVille too, because Rudolph was very sick last Christmas, and Carlos was able to fill in for him by using his radioactive snood to guide Santa's sleigh!  Long story short, Carlos saved Christmas for FarmVille and was declared a hero!

But how soon we forget.  

The FarmVille mayoral election race is now in full swing, and Carlos has not even been asked to run!  Apparently Walter and Marie are running against each other, and despite Carlos' desire to run against them, he has not even been placed on the ballot! This is a turkey who has done so much for FarmVille that he should be automatically proclaimed the defacto mayor of FarmVille - and yet he is being denied the opportunity to even run.  Preposterous, I say.  What say you?

We cannot abide this injustice.  Carlos deserves a chance to run for mayor.  Let the voters decide!

After all, what have Walter or Marie done for FarmVille?  Absolutely nothing!

Carlos is a true FarmVille hero who deserves to be mayor more than any other candidate.   His arbitrary exclusion from the mayoral race is simply unacceptable.  We will not stand for it!

Friends, Farmers, Countrymen...  This is a call to action!  We really need your help!  Please click the "Sign Petition" button below to show your support for putting Carlos on the Mayoral Election ballot. It only takes a brief moment, and you can sign into it via Facebook so there's no messy e-mail/password nonsense to deal with!

If the widget isn't working for some reason, here is a link to the petition.

Please also download the campaign posters below and post them to your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media resources using the hash tag #Vote4Carlos to help spread the word about Carlos' campaign.  

To do so, click the image to enlarge it, then right click on the image to pull up the following menu, from which you can click "SAVE IMAGE AS" to save a copy to your desktop.

Here are the campaign posters you can copy and post:

On behalf of Carlos, I want to thank you all for your help and support in this noble endeavor.   

GO CARLOS!

The Bearded Lady

#17

This is the seventeenth installment of Friday Facebook Foto Fun, where almost every Friday we have fun with a new picture that one of my friends recently posted or shared on Facebook.