Happy April Fool's Day from Zynga

Business as Usual

Another banner day for Zynga!

Zynga Gives Us The Cold Shoulder

I reckon Zynga figures us common folk ain't good enough to be havin fancy winter duds fer our youngins?

Otterly Ridiculous

As many of you know, Zynga despises me on account of the countless exposés I've written about them over the years on my blog, such as the time when I exposed the dangers of their Yerba Mate crop, the time when I revealed Cornelius' double-life as a cold-blooded killer, the time when I brought the senseless deaths and disfigurements occurring at the pig races to light, the time when I encouraged everyone to answer Zynga's surveys in a nonsensical manner in order to entertain the interns they enslave, the time when I exposed Zynga's evil plan to replace all of us with robots and the time when I revealed my evidence that Zynga had murdered everyone's favorite farmhand, Buck.

As I have warned you all before, Zynga is a vindictive corporation that enjoys making things worse on us when we complain to them about anything, such as the time when their 1 hour "maintenance" lasted all night and improved nothing, and that time last Christmas when they sent their evil dog to defile my farm.  Zynga will stop at nothing to silence their detractors, and this is why I have become their favorite target.  They even tried to shut my blog down that one time, remember?

Clearly they have been trying to force me to quit playing FV2 by making each of my quests exceedingly difficult, and this one is no exception.  Feeding 500 otters per race is quite a challenge indeed, but as you all know from previous challenges I have undertaken, such as making 220 Bries and collecting 155,000 flower points for FarmVille's Frustrating Flower Fiasco, I relish a difficult challenge.  Especially because I know with the help of you, my wonderful friends and neighbors, no task is insurmountable!  

Therefore I humbly beseech you, my loyal and faithful neighbors, to please visit my farm and ruthlessly force-feed every last one of the ten otters that I have mercilessly imprisoned within the small pen at the forefront of my farm.  

If they resist, simply grab them by the scruff of their necks with one hand while using a gardening trowel to cram shovelfuls of feed down their throats with the other.  If one tries to bite you, don't worry, that just means it is extra hungry and you should feed it twice.

Yes, it's true, all of this mindless feeding has made them fat and listless.  Each race takes between 25 and 30 minutes to complete as the cute corpulent critters flounder and waddle, breathlessly meandering around the racetrack towards the finish line at a snail's pace.

Yes, some of them have unfortunately died from exhaustion, diabetes and high blood pressure.  And there was that one time we don't like to talk about when one of their obese little hearts literally exploded during a feeding.

But the important thing is that I receive my coin winnings and my lovely Dorset sheep, so please help me!  Feed them.  Feed them with reckless abandon.  Feed them like there is no tomorrow.  Feed them like it's Thanksgiving, Christmas and the 4th of July all rolled into one.  Don't even think twice about it, just feed them.  Thank you.  Oh yeah, and water the trees too, please.  Thanks.

Otters! <3

Abbott and Costello Meet Zynga (1955)

#46

This is the forty-sixth installment of Friday Facebook Foto Fun, where every Friday or so we have some fun with a random comment or picture that someone recently posted, shared or sent me on Facebook.

 

Pain-tenance Time

All day long Zynga reminded us with a little message at the top of the game screen that they would be going down for a bit for maintenance this evening.  But that didn't make it any easier on us FV2 addicts when maintenance time finally arrived.

Frustrated FV2 players were treated to the screen shown above upon loading their favorite game.  At first most of us were like, "OK, so it's just an hour; I'll do something else for a bit and come back and the game will be improved!  No worries!"

But of course, our ignorant optimism soon turned into incredulous outrage as one hour turned into two, then three, and then four or more.  None of us could get into the game for most of the night, so we all sat about and vented and complained, commiserating with each other in various FV2 Facebook groups and message boards.

I tend to express my feelings about the game in a more visual way, especially when its down and my idle hands become the devil's workshop Photoshop.

"Any day now!"

"Just sayin'"

Yet, after all that down time no one seems to have noticed any game improvements whatsoever.  Typical!

Interntainment

It was while completing one of Zynga's ubiquitous surveys recently that a bleak vision began to creep into my mind.  I pictured a poor, lowly intern charged with the task of quantifying the results of these many surveys for upper management.  What a pathetic scene, sitting in their cramped little cubicle, painstakingly poring over hundreds of thousands of survey responses and ticking off the appropriate boxes in a spreadsheet in order to aggregate data for some ungrateful executive who probably wouldn't even give it a second glance.  What a horrible, thankless, boring job that must be!

So, I decided to help make this person's miserable existence slightly less soul-crushing by answering the mundane survey questions in a somewhat unorthodox manner.  To illustrate my point, here are a few excerpts from responses I gave during the Percy's Clubhouse survey:

In addition, here are some other responses that I provided in response to the Summer Grill survey:

Ooh, here's an oldie but a goodie from the Mayoral Election Campaign survey!

So, the next time you find yourself filling out one of these surveys, remember the lowly survey intern whose job it is to read all of these tedious and repetitive responses.  Why not take an extra moment or two to give them something unexpected and make their day a little brighter?

Zyngwellian Surveillance

#31

This is the thirty-first installment of Friday Facebook Foto Fun, where every Friday or so we have some fun with a random comment or picture that someone recently posted, shared or sent me on Facebook.

A Visit From St. Zynga

'Twas the day after the night before Christmas, when all through the farm,
not a creature was happy, not even the chicken, who Choo had named "Parm."

The tree was all trimmed and gave off a warm glow,
in hopes that Saint Zynga would eventually show.

The family was at the picnic table eating lasagna,
nightmares of farm labor had given them insomnia.

Carlos in only feathers, and me in my suspenders,
fed up with this eyesore, we began smashing its fenders.

When out on the lawn there was a barking sound,
so Carlos and I, we just turned right around.

There on the grass, relieving himself,
stood Zynga Claus, the jolly dog elf!

"What did you bring us?" I shouted with glee,
and after licking his balls, he spoke to me.

"I bring you warm regards from our HQ in Frisco,
and also some crackers, made by Nabisco!"

"That's it?  What the hell?" I angrily shouted,
while Carlos just stood there and sullenly pouted.

"No free farm bucks, or animals, or new decorations?
You owe us something more, we demand reparations!"

"All you farmers do is complain, until the cows come home!"
As he took me to task, his mouth began to foam.

"We've had to cut corners, for our stock's in decline,
and you ungrateful farmers, you just bitch and you whine."

"We've given you a game that you can play for free,
your refusal to spend money is what's killing me."

"But your game runs like crap, it crashes all the time!
Our farming experience is no longer sublime!"

"We've had to outsource to India and do many lay-offs.
Yet we've given you new expansions and feeding troughs!"

"But you've nerfed our spouse energy, and that of our child,
and your impossible crafting orders leave us beguiled!"

"Listen, you ingrate, we don't owe you a thing.
We're Zynga, dammit.  It's us you're bankrupting!"

"Now go buy some Farm Bucks and leave me alone,
I've got more visits to make, so throw me a bone."

"Throw you a bone?  You greedy, mangy mutt!
Count yourself lucky we don't kick your butt!"

"But we gave you that holiday tree, decorated so gaily,
You can click it 12 times to earn a gift daily."

"Go ahead and try it, I'll wait over here,"
said he suspiciously, with a growl and a sneer.

I clicked on the tree and lo and behold,
it barfed out a present wrapped in green and gold.

I carefully unwrapped it, until its contents were freed,
but it wasn't what I wanted; more coins and super feed!

I returned to the lawn to yell at the dog,
but he'd already gone, and left me a yule log.

I glanced overhead and caught a glimpse of him fleeing,
I guess he had a long day ahead, of pooping and peeing.

As he flew away from my farm on his stupid sled,

I shook my fist at him, cursing him, and said, 

"Thanks for this game, riddled with so many a glitch,
goodbye and good riddance, you son of a bitch!"

...but I don't think he heard me.