Batch

10-05-2012 -- I'm in my first bedroom in the Hickory House, laying in bed watching TV. The room is messy, and I can see at least a couple of plates on the floor and two or three of those huge metal trays we used for pizza dough at the parlor, stacked up for some reason.

There are hints of my playing several different computer games, though only hints, then I decide I'll break down and give the new Farmville 2 a try. [I don't know if they really have come out with a Farmville 2, or if it is just a scam that people are still falling for, but in the dream, it was real.] I'm thinking to myself that, while I will give it a try, this time I am not going to clutter up Facebook with a couple hundred people I don't know, just to have neighbors. I don't expect to play the game more than once.

I start the thing up, and I find myself standing in a real life field, and a fairly big one. I think I plant a small crop of corn (only about three squares by four) with seeds I already have on me (probably from Runescape), but if I am only going to play once, I think I want to plant the entire field. I am wondering how to get some money for more seeds.

Turns out that to get the tutorial started, I have to go speak to Farmer Fred [a Runescape character]. I find him parked just outside my farm in his old red pickup truck, and as I start to speak to him, he drives on to my farm. I accidentally double click on the truck, and it seems I've caught a glitch, because two Lego figure farmers climb out of the truck and start speaking to me in stereo.

They give me a rather boring spiel about how to play the game which is far too detailed for somebody who played the original version, and then explain how a loan of either $500 or $500,000 will be on a credit card in my wallet. I pull my wallet out of my pocket and open it up, and sure enough, there is a Farmville credit card in there, and I'm wondering how on Earth they managed that.

As I approach the farmhouse on my land, I find an odd paper wallet with a Farmville logo on it, and realize this is where the credit card should have appeared. Instead there is a $1,000 bill which quickly changes into a check for payment for a crop that I haven't even grown, yet. Still some glitches that need to be worked out in this game, obviously.

As we reach the farmhouse, Farmer Fred's wife continues the tutorial, explaining to us that if we feel we need more continuous space for crops, we can pick up the farmhouse and move it right to the border of the property, more out of the way. Meanwhile I find myself staring at this huge, empty field, and remembering the fact that I don't yet have any tractors or anything. Just thinking about having to click on all those little farm plots one by one is already getting me bored with the game before I even start, and I quickly decide I'm really not that interested.

Oddly the next thing I know, I am in Long's Drug Store, walking down one of the aisles looking for a large plastic spoon for stirring stuff in pots, and I'm not finding any because the entire aisle is filled with toys.

There seems to be a big wrestler here who seems to be a little upset with me for some reason, and he is starting to threaten me and the other people around me. I'm not really afraid of him. Soon I find myself in some sort of hideout with two mafia-types who are connected to the wrestler, and they are trying to threaten a friend of mine who they have tied up in a chair, when he walks in the door and stands next to me, angrily glaring at them and himself, sitting there, tied up.

They are freaking out a little, and he asks them if they really think he's enough of a fool as to let himself be caught by them. He split himself up into about 20 of himself and all of him are running around, so they'll never find the real one. I decide it is about time to leave and I lead my friend to my car, but now the thugs are telling us we aren't allowed to drive out their driveway, and we'll have to find another way to the road. We just laugh them off and drive out the driveway, anyway.