PlayFirst Grapevine

There's something important you should know about your favorite band: they suck. Their droning repetitive sound, whining cliche lyrics, and artificial stage presence really grate. They don't? Are you sure? Maybe I should ask you again in a few years when you have a new favorite band.

The sainted Oscar Wilde once said that, "the only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice will last a little longer". So it is with the things we all enjoy. Can you remember the first time you heard the first song by your favorite band? Can you remember the musician you considered your favorite before that? Maybe you still have a CD by them or a tape or, if you're hip, a vinyl platter of their songs.

If you want to call my bluff, go grab that music and give it a listen. Be honest. Doesn't it just pale in comparison to the music you really enjoy now? Aren't you so over that old crap?

So what happened?

Maybe the music sat there in your collection until the freshness date passed. Maybe it's gone sour, spoiled, grown a glossy coat of mold. More likely, the music's still the same. You've changed. No reason to be sad about it. We all change until we stop changing. Humans are pretty decent at a number of skills. One of them is learning.

Most people are capable of finding out something they didn't know before and recognizing it as such. I'm not talking about some new product in some new triumph of packaging or another form of the same old pablum. I'm talking about stuff which has always existed but you never noticed it before.

I've got some examples, coming up.

We're excited to introduce Gable875 as our very first Player of the Month! This busy mother of 3 manages to squeeze in games when she's not busy chasing after her children who range in age from 8 years old to 9 months. Read more about this avid gamer!

How were you introduced to video games and what was the first game you remember playing?
I was introduced to video games when I was about 7 or 8. We had an Atari and Ping Pong was our favorite game! When my brother brought home the Nintendo, Mario Brothers ruled our house (I still play that game!). When my son was born in 2004 I discovered that my computer had games and the rest is history.

How often do you play games?
Constantly! I play my daughter's games before she does so that I can help her. I probably play a game every 4 hours or so, in between changing diapers and other house hold chores.

What are some other ways you like to relax and unwind?
My family has a game night for cards or board games and a movie night (so not all my time is spent on the computer lol). But I think the thing I like to do most is read a book (really don't have time very often though).

Mouse or joystick?
More often than not, it's a mouse

Currently playing:
Fairy Godmother Tycoon, Pirate Poppers, Virtual Villagers: A New Home, Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children

Like many people, I can't walk to work. And since my job is in a very large city, I take public transit. In my case, that public transit is called BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). Let me just begin by saying BART's very name is a misnomer. It is anything but rapid. On any given day of any given week, I will arrive to the office, harried (and very often 15 minutes late) and begin to give my poor co-workers a detailed account of my morning commute. "I was sitting on the platform waiting for 15 minutes... in the cold! During rush hour!" or "The train stopped... just stopped! In the tunnel, under the bay. No explanation! ARGH!" or (my favorite) "the guy sitting next to me was smelly and listening to VERY LOUD horrible music..."

My recent solution: Games.

Before I worked here, I wasn't too into games. But NOW, I am (I admit it) addicted. Now, on my way home, I pop open my laptop, put in my ear buds and start to play my addiction of the moment. Right now, I am really digging Ravenhearst. This way, if the train stops, NO PROBLEM! The time just flies by. If the guy sitting next to me is playing awful music too loud, well, I am humming away to the eerie background music of MCF and am no longer bothered.

So if you, like so many others, have to endure sometimes painful commutes to work... I would advise that you start playing games... either on your laptop, your handheld or your mobile phone. They make your commute so much nicer! They don't make the guy sitting next to you smell any better though.

Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.

So what can you do, when any link could be a trap but you need your game fix?

If you're like most people and you're using Internet Explorer to surf the web and you're doing it on Microsoft Windows, we're doing what we can to make your life a little easier. We filter URLs just enough to give you a chance to contemplate what you're about to do.

I can't tell you to stop using Windows or even Internet Explorer because most of our games work specifically with them. But when you're not playing one of our games, remember how inventive you were as a kid.

Go us one better and find some new ways to do what you want to do. There are other web browsers, free to use and, often, more safe, like Opera and Firefox.

There are other operating systems, like OS X and Ubuntu GNU/Linux which make it easier to know what's going on with your computer and really be secure when you're online.

Because we want to try to protect any data you give us, like the email addresses in your accounts, we use the most secure operating systems we could find, OpenSuSE and OpenBSD. Because that's where the security is, through transparency. It's not quite as fun as sketching rude pictures, but it'll do.

I gotta go. I need to reboot to scan my computer for viruses. Again.

Continued from Part 1.

Let's recap. Profanity is gauche but you may have noticed that's not all we look for in the forums.

What about that other part of filtering?

Are URLs tedious or profane? Sometimes, yes. But the reason we filter those is to protect you from a different threat. Maybe you've heard of phishing or viruses or malware. Those are all threats that Windows users face. We can't do a lot to protect you but we can make it a little harder for somebody to do something mean to you. We filter URLs so that your browser doesn't see it as a link you can click on. It's easy enough to type the address into your navigation field if you really want to visit it.

But we'd like you to give it some thought before you do.

Can you trust the URL? Can you trust the person who posted it? Can you trust your browser? Can you trust your operating system? Most of the time, yeah, you can. But it only takes one instance of no to get burned. You can lose data, you can lose money, you can lose time.

We don't encourage you to visit an unknown URL anymore than we'd encourage you to post your email address on a public forum for any spammer to find and use.

Next time I'll have some hints to make your web life a little more safe.

In 5th grade, I once ate my way through a dozen pudding cups so that I could mail in the lids and score a free calendar. During my college years, I bought many a lipstick just to get that "gift" with purchase even though I didn't (and still don't) wear make-up. And even now, I find myself adding all sorts or random items to my online shopping cart just to get free shipping.

I guess you could say I'm a sucker for extras... who doesn't enjoy a nice little present every now and then? Sometimes it's the little things that make a difference. A dash of sugar and spice. Chocolate sprinkles. Free lipstick.

Which is why I'm excited about our new Extras page.

We've got goodies galore - including the new March calendar -- and the best part?

No pudding or lipstick required!