a mild obsession...

Yes, so...you hear strange noises coming from my living room at 3:30 am. It sounds like some strange alien language. Could we finally be getting contact from an alien race?! Is the parakeet speaking in tongues (though I suppose he does often sound like a record playing backward however and I've often wondered if he is some weird alien mutation of his own.Another blog for another time though)? Whatever could be that commotion?!
No, none of the above. Don't worry, don't even get out of bed, it's just me playing with my new mild obsession..."Animal Crossing" . And whatever could that be you may ask with one eyebrow raised. Animal Crossing is a cutesy-wutsey realtime 'strategy' game if you want to call it that. In the tradition of Sim City (without actually building anything though) kinda like neo-pets without the pet...you run around buying things and talking to animals who inhabit your town, planting crops, digging up buried fossils (yes fossils), finding paintings for the museum, catching bugs and a plethora of other strange activities. How could someone spend all night playing this game then 3 hours the next afternoon? Sound banal, something for your 4 year old brother? Think again, this game is a fairly entertaining way to uselessly pass a couple of hours. I won't spoil it for you. If you decide to rent or buy this game though invite another friend to come with a game card of their own and you can trade things back and forth and even visit each other's towns. My roommate and I were talking Saturday and she exclaimed in wonder and mild dismay at hearing I stayed up until 4 am playing this game. Perhaps these are not the halcyon days of yor when you were 10 and staying up until 3 am playing Super Mario 3 for regular ol' Nintendo. But I'll tell you what...right before I left last night for the evening I came out to the living room to hear a strange noise...kind of like an alien language...or a parakeet speaking in tongues...my roommate has moved into my village and left her blithely playing staring at the screen with a knowing laugh I walked out the door. I wonder what time she went to bed.