Been there, done that, messed around

Listening to: La Roux, "Armour Love." I think Bulletproof is their big song but I think I like Armour Love best. Then again, the whole album is kinda great.

When NKOTB released "Games" I thought they were saying "Oh, ee, oh, oh, oh, gangs, gangs, gangs, gangs, gangs." I saw these five tough looking Boston guys and thought, "Oh yeah, they are singing an anti-gangs song, definitely. Because they know about the streets." In my defense, English was not my first language and I was pop culturally retarded at the time. Now I know the difference between a gang and a game and I'm here to tell you about two new ones I'm currently playing.

Remember last year when I started up a MTV Challenge: Ruins 2 fantasy league? Well it ended with me finishing a solid third (out of ahem, five) even though my team was filled with super boring people. I did get to watch in awe/shock as Shauvon's breast implants popped and she was forced home, and then Brad gave me some nice late season drama during an alcohol fueled tirade and fight. But that eliminated himself and my number one draft pick, Darrell. Anyway, I've been eagerly anticipating April because MTV is back with a new challenge, Fresh Meat 2! Twenty six contestants pair up and fight their way to three hundred thousand dollars.

But that's just small stakes compared to what I'm competing for: pride, honor, and a non-existent medal. Yes, we've got another fantasy season drafted up and ready to go. This time around we've got six owners and the next few Wednesdays should be mighty exciting indeed. If you're watching Fresh Meat too, follow along at Ain't Too Proud to Watch! And don't be all like "But I'm so above MTV, blah blah." MTV is the truth and I won't have it any other way. Unless you believe Netflix Instant Queue is the truth, in which case we can still get along.

The other game I'm all excited about is Ngmoco's "We Rule." Near the tail end of last year, my friend Des got us all hooked on Papaya Farm and despite my protestations and mockery of all that is Farmville-related, I find myself still checking on my vegetables on the daily. Papaya Farm added an animals ranch and my sole goal in life for awhile was to get a super panda and some special dinosaurs. These games have no skill involved and they're so lame but somehow P-Farm captured all of our attentions and we have this long running email chain -- I think we're on our fourth centithread -- talking about stuff like when we get caught in embarrassing situations harvesting. Ameer contributed this gem just last week: "At a concert once, some girl looked over my shoulder and said 'nice dog'... it was between acts I swear."

We recently confirmed our suspicions that the makers of Papaya Farm were Chinese (bad grammar, constant misspellings, way too smart at staying one step ahead of us and feeding new things into the addiction pipeline) and I needed to get us out. But we didn't want to give up our social gaming so I went on the hunt for something new. That turned me onto We Rule, which is a very similar game but has the added bonus of just having been released and showing some promise.

My favorite aspect of this game so far is that you can rearrange your buildings on the fly. It's like being an architect and landscape artist. You can also have buildings that produce wares for your friends to purchase. The game isn't perfect (or that stable yet) but there's room to grow. Won't you join us? Or um, save yourself a few months of your life and avoid this game at all costs. As for me, I'll be thematically building my little plot to resemble Gaudi's Barcelona, or creating a wonderful maze of trees, or perhaps a university campus, complete with little medieval school children escorted by their dragon overlords to arithmetic class. The possibilities are endless. Unlike your respect for me, which probably just nosedived.