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Why I Want to Live in Wallaby, My Animal Crossing: City Folk Town

Apr 152009

In late January, I purchased the Wii game Animal Crossing: City Folk for myself. It took me a week or so to get it out of the package. It took me another week or so to figure out what I was doing. And then it took me another week to become a total, absolute addict. For those unfamiliar with the game, read a review written by my friend Christina over at Mommy Must Haves. In short, you make a town and try to make it perfect.

And I’m nothing if not a perfectionist.

Right now? I have a perfect town. I do. Phyllis the Pelican who works at Town Hall told me so. I have decided that I want to move to Wallaby myself. Why?

1. The flowers I have already planted give me around four new flowers per day and I can plant seven others that I purchase in the shop. Everyday. That’s up to 11 flowers per day. To boot, simply planting the flowers and watering them everyday ensures that they will continue to live. You know, nothing like the real flowers I deal with all Spring, Summer and Fall. I could water my real flowers everyday and love them and talk to them and pet them and make sure they have appropriate sun… and they still die on me.

2. Having everything I need in walking distance sounds fabulous. Even a bus trip to the city only takes a minute.

3. I have over three million bells (what you use to buy things in the game) in my account. If only that was true in the real world with real money.

4. My house is decorated nicely. Each room has a theme. Each room in my house almost has a complete theme as well so that everything matches. I can’t pick a theme for any room in my own house. I still don’t have curtains for the front window. I fail at decorating in real life. I also have greenery in each room on the game. In real life, I kill inside plants faster than I kill outside plants. It’s quite sad.

5. Shaking trees or hitting rocks with a shovel and finding money seems like it would benefit me in real life as well.

6. If you ignore your neighbors for long enough, they move. I just ignored an annoying bunny (Carmen) out of town today. Oh, if only that was the case here on our lane.

7. I am a good fisher on the game because I have the gold fishing poll. I am not, I repeat, not, a good fisher in real life.

8. If I utilize my wifi connection, I can travel to my friend’s towns in just a few minutes. I go to my one friend’s town on a regular basis. She lives in Australia so visiting her on a daily basis isn’t an option. I wish real travel was that fast. Seriously. Wouldn’t it be fabulous to just log on to a connection and zap yourself to wherever you chose? Definitely.

In short, I have been sucked into a virtual world and I may or may not prefer it to real life depending on which day or hour or minute we are talking about. My friend says that it is just a kid version of World of Warcraft but as the only things you can kill in Animal Crossing are flowers or fish when that one guy who runs the fishing tournament eats them, well, I’ll stick with my game.

Do you have Animal Crossing: City Folk? Do you want to come to my town, promising not to pick my flowers or trample them by running? (Oh, that’s right. I know exactly where each flower in my town is and has been planted. If you steal my flowers, I will haunt you.) Are you addicted as well? Do you want to listen to my voice via WiiSpeak or hear BigBrother talk about the game, cars or anything under the sun? Feel free to leave me a comment with your favorite part of the game. I’ll then email you so we can exchange numbers!

[This post brought to you by extreme dorkery.]

All 80′s, All the Time!

Entertainment, Parenting 10 Responses »

Jan 152008

It started just after he turned one. During a visit with my parents at TheFarm, BigBrother discovered their clock-radio-CD player. In it was an 80′s CD. The first song was “What I Like About You” by The Romantics. The dancing that ensued was hilarious. And it hasn’t stopped.

Every time we get to my parents house, BigBrother exclaims, “Dance Radio! Dance Radio!” And we all traipse upstairs to my parents’ room and have an eighties style dance party. I think I need to be sporting a side ponytail, bigger glasses and florescent colored clothing but, well, no thank you. I did that once and I’m not looking to do a repeat fashion mistake. We all laugh and dance. It’s like a fun workout.

My Mother, bless her, bought the CD for BigBrother’s second birthday. And so now his room has turned into an 80′s style dance club. All day long. And all night, too! You see, we have played a “night time” CD for the kid since birth. It was a calming mix of classical piano. I have fond memories of rocking him in the middle of the night and listening to beautiful piano tunes. Shortly after his birthday, when he discovered the presence of said CD in his own room, we started having fights at night.

Nick's Expression While Dancing! “DANCE RADIO! DANCE RADIO!” I would sigh. “No, honey. Let’s listen to our night time CD. It’s nice and calm.” He would scream. “DANCE RADIO!” For awhile, I demanded that he listen to his classical music at night. For awhile, bed time was a huge fight. Finally, I gave up.

So, after two years of listening to intellectually stimulating music in his sleep, my son now listens to the 80′s in bed. Which, in turn, means that we listen to the 80′s in bed via the monitor. It’s like a Time Warp over here. Bed time, of course, isn’t as much of an issue now that we’re not fighting over music choices. And last night? We had a full on dance party before he got in bed. FireDad, BigBrother, LittleBrother and I all shucked and jived around the room to BigBrother’s favorite song, of which he has taught himself an alarming number of words. (Of course, the main word in the song just happens to be, “HEY!,” so we also hear that all day long.)

Letting him listen to a mix of 80′s music isn’t going to set back all the smart brain waves from two years of classical music. Right? RIGHT?! Sigh.

The 80′s were cool and all. But maybe he could start digging one of the bagillion 90′s mixes that FireDad and I have made over the years. (Because, like our son, we’re not digging any current music. Unless it’s Justin Timberlake. No, really.) I’d really like to fall asleep to the same music that I fell asleep to during my angsty teenage years. That sounds sweet! But I’m sure he’ll find that music lame. Just like I did my own parents’ music back in the day.

Ah, generations of music.

Oh! If you’re wondering what we’re watching on TV/DVD when it comes to music as of late, hit up the review blog for our review of a new kid’s music DVD. And it’s educational to boot!