Monday 24 June 2019
Friday 4 June 2010
Virtual Reality (Bad Habits Punnie)
Stella hadn’t even wanted a Facebook account in the first place, let alone a virtual farm, but Stella’s sister, Anna, had nagged and nagged,’
‘It’s fun, Stel, there’s loads of people from school you can catch up with, and if you become my neighbour on Farmville, I can get a bigger farm.’
‘I don’t want to catch up with people from school’, Stella protested, ‘and I don’t want to play farms online, I’m 32, for God’s sake.’
Stella held out for months, until one Saturday afternoon, beset with the dreaded combo of PMT and a hangover, she left her husband Rob to wrestle with the washing and took to her bed with her laptop and a bag of wine gums, joined Facebook and started a farm….
The game was remarkably simple, Stella had to create a ‘mini Stella’ to walk around the farm, you grew things, then after a specified amount of time, you harvested them, you got money and points, and visited other people’s virtual farms. Stella played her way through the first couple of levels, selecting to grow eggplants and strawberries. She was mulling over which colour of hay bale to invest in, when a message appeared in the bottom right hand side of the screen, Anna was online.
‘Hi Stel, like the farm, look in your gift box, I’ve sent you a chicken’
Stella clicked on the box, and was rewarded with a small white virtual chicken, which pecked happily among the virtual strawberries. Stella had to agree that the game was pretty cute.
By Sunday lunchtime the farm had increased in size, and Stella was growing Soybeans, Squash, Wheat and Pumpkins. The 2D crops grew quickly and colourfully, Stella’s strawberries had to be harvested in four hours, so she organised her housework around gathering times. Stella trawled Facebook, looking for friends with farms to add to her neighbour list, requesting flowers, sheep and trees. Messages from fellow farmers pinged back and forth on the internet, offering encouragement and virtual chicken feed. By bed time on Sunday, Stella was at level 3 and was able to buy a pig.
Over the next week, Stella found her mind wandering regularly at work, she had never liked her job that much, but had always been able to knuckle down and get on with it, but now she found herself daydreaming about her pretty farm and planning what to buy next. Every night after tea, she sat with her laptop on her knee, levelling up and buying more and more animals.
The irony that she worked for the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department was not lost on her. Stella actually spent quite a lot of time visiting real farms, her job was primarily concerned with silage, specifically checking the storage of silage to ensure against contamination of water courses, and then writing long boring scientific reports about it. Stella’s job was smelly, she regularly found herself tramping around fields full of cow shit and had a permanent stink of fermenting plant matter in her nostrils, which no amount of perfume would shift. Real farms were dusty, disorganised and depressing, but Stella’s farm was bursting with attractive animals, colourful flowers and straight lines of perfect crops.
When Stella’s farm was three weeks old it had overtaken her sister, Anna’s farm in terms of its size, Stella had attained level 25 compared to Anna’s 21. Stella visited the farms of her internet neighbours, marvelling at their pink sheep, adorable calves and pretty white picket fences, she collected points towards the items she wanted for her own farm, and dutifully fertilised her neighbours’ crops. Stella’s farm was a model of modern virtual farming techniques, and she had devised a timetable which meant that she got up at 5.30 in the morning to harvest the crops she had planted six hours previously, before going to bed. As the farm got bigger, the amount of time Stella needed to devote to it increased, and she took to nipping into internet cafes at lunchtime to keep up with agricultural demands. At home the housework slipped, piles of laundry lay unwashed, weeds began to grow in the garden, but Farm Stella was a utopia.
Rob eventually intervened some weeks later when he found her slumped over her laptop at 4 o’clock in the morning, waiting for a bumper crop of pineapples to ripen. The farm was so big, that the laptop crashed regularly with the effort of uploading the game, and often had to be re-booted. Stella had begun to price top of the range computing systems.
The GP was very nice, signing Stella off work for two weeks with stress; Rob had held her hand during the consultation, looking at her as if he just didn’t understand her anymore, whilst she told the charming lady doctor all about her beautiful farm, describing the animals in detail and listing her various crop successes. When they got home they had ‘a talk’ Stella agreed to restrict her farming activities, and Rob offered to spend more ‘quality time’ with her.
When Rob left for work on the first day of Stella’s recuperation, she waited excitedly until she was absolutely sure that he wasn’t going to turn around and come back. She had two weeks away from horrible smelly real farms and silage, and the whole day ahead of her. Making bargains with herself, she ran around hoovering, cleaning and sorting the laundry, keeping her promise to Rob in double quick time, postponing the moment when she could log on. Stella had to admit that the anticipation was exhilarating; her heart was racing when she eventually set her laptop up on the kitchen table. Whilst the machine booted into life, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the prescription for sleeping tablets which the doctor had given her. At the bottom of the script, in a careful hand was the doctors e-mail address and a short message;
‘Could you please send me a chicken?’
Stella hadn’t even wanted a Facebook account in the first place, let alone a virtual farm, but Stella’s sister, Anna, had nagged and nagged,’
‘It’s fun, Stel, there’s loads of people from school you can catch up with, and if you become my neighbour on Farmville, I can get a bigger farm.’
‘I don’t want to catch up with people from school’, Stella protested, ‘and I don’t want to play farms online, I’m 32, for God’s sake.’
Stella held out for months, until one Saturday afternoon, beset with the dreaded combo of PMT and a hangover, she left her husband Rob to wrestle with the washing and took to her bed with her laptop and a bag of wine gums, joined Facebook and started a farm….
The game was remarkably simple, Stella had to create a ‘mini Stella’ to walk around the farm, you grew things, then after a specified amount of time, you harvested them, you got money and points, and visited other people’s virtual farms. Stella played her way through the first couple of levels, selecting to grow eggplants and strawberries. She was mulling over which colour of hay bale to invest in, when a message appeared in the bottom right hand side of the screen, Anna was online.
‘Hi Stel, like the farm, look in your gift box, I’ve sent you a chicken’
Stella clicked on the box, and was rewarded with a small white virtual chicken, which pecked happily among the virtual strawberries. Stella had to agree that the game was pretty cute.
By Sunday lunchtime the farm had increased in size, and Stella was growing Soybeans, Squash, Wheat and Pumpkins. The 2D crops grew quickly and colourfully, Stella’s strawberries had to be harvested in four hours, so she organised her housework around gathering times. Stella trawled Facebook, looking for friends with farms to add to her neighbour list, requesting flowers, sheep and trees. Messages from fellow farmers pinged back and forth on the internet, offering encouragement and virtual chicken feed. By bed time on Sunday, Stella was at level 3 and was able to buy a pig.
Over the next week, Stella found her mind wandering regularly at work, she had never liked her job that much, but had always been able to knuckle down and get on with it, but now she found herself daydreaming about her pretty farm and planning what to buy next. Every night after tea, she sat with her laptop on her knee, levelling up and buying more and more animals.
The irony that she worked for the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department was not lost on her. Stella actually spent quite a lot of time visiting real farms, her job was primarily concerned with silage, specifically checking the storage of silage to ensure against contamination of water courses, and then writing long boring scientific reports about it. Stella’s job was smelly, she regularly found herself tramping around fields full of cow shit and had a permanent stink of fermenting plant matter in her nostrils, which no amount of perfume would shift. Real farms were dusty, disorganised and depressing, but Stella’s farm was bursting with attractive animals, colourful flowers and straight lines of perfect crops.
When Stella’s farm was three weeks old it had overtaken her sister, Anna’s farm in terms of its size, Stella had attained level 25 compared to Anna’s 21. Stella visited the farms of her internet neighbours, marvelling at their pink sheep, adorable calves and pretty white picket fences, she collected points towards the items she wanted for her own farm, and dutifully fertilised her neighbours’ crops. Stella’s farm was a model of modern virtual farming techniques, and she had devised a timetable which meant that she got up at 5.30 in the morning to harvest the crops she had planted six hours previously, before going to bed. As the farm got bigger, the amount of time Stella needed to devote to it increased, and she took to nipping into internet cafes at lunchtime to keep up with agricultural demands. At home the housework slipped, piles of laundry lay unwashed, weeds began to grow in the garden, but Farm Stella was a utopia.
Rob eventually intervened some weeks later when he found her slumped over her laptop at 4 o’clock in the morning, waiting for a bumper crop of pineapples to ripen. The farm was so big, that the laptop crashed regularly with the effort of uploading the game, and often had to be re-booted. Stella had begun to price top of the range computing systems.
The GP was very nice, signing Stella off work for two weeks with stress; Rob had held her hand during the consultation, looking at her as if he just didn’t understand her anymore, whilst she told the charming lady doctor all about her beautiful farm, describing the animals in detail and listing her various crop successes. When they got home they had ‘a talk’ Stella agreed to restrict her farming activities, and Rob offered to spend more ‘quality time’ with her.
When Rob left for work on the first day of Stella’s recuperation, she waited excitedly until she was absolutely sure that he wasn’t going to turn around and come back. She had two weeks away from horrible smelly real farms and silage, and the whole day ahead of her. Making bargains with herself, she ran around hoovering, cleaning and sorting the laundry, keeping her promise to Rob in double quick time, postponing the moment when she could log on. Stella had to admit that the anticipation was exhilarating; her heart was racing when she eventually set her laptop up on the kitchen table. Whilst the machine booted into life, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the prescription for sleeping tablets which the doctor had given her. At the bottom of the script, in a careful hand was the doctors e-mail address and a short message;
‘Could you please send me a chicken?’
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