One of the complaints about Yoville is that it is a silent world. Well, not quite. The Yoville landscape beyond one’s apartment has background music; the factory has vaguely industrial sounds (of the rather cute sort). There is also expensive merchandise one can buy that emit sound.

Last night, I saw a notice for “Loudest Party Ever OMG.” I checked it out.

The guy in the purple asking us to rate the place (it’s a Yoville popularity thing) is the owner. Notice that his apartment living room has:

• five tyrannosaurus skulls (one obscured by people entering the apartment)
• two cannons on the bottom of the screen shot
• a rare king duck on the coffee table

These all make sounds when you click on them: the cannons boom (you can see the smoke); the skulls growl; and the rare king duck squeaks.

All that’s missing is the harp.

Note: the fish are called “Cheech” and “Chong.”

With people nonstop poking the squeaking, growling, booming things, it was quite cacophonous. And brilliant. This is the first Yoville party that really felt like a party. Of sorts.

(Some people wanted the duck to die. Personally, I kinda want to save up for one.)

Then suddenly, the owner shouted that the cops came:

Amid the noise, only one person heard:

The pigs!

In Yoville, I have a sense of urgency in making money to buy stuff because the stores eventually stop selling stuff. You see, I missed buying a rookery of penguins. I snagged only one lone penguin before the penguins went bye-bye. I’ve also missed buying the lamp I wanted and the zebra rugs disappeared. Since then, I have been aware that things come and go, and that I better buy now.

When Easter accouterments made their debut at the Yoville florist, I made myself a wishlist with prices and calculated how many days, working at the Yoville Widget Factory at 6-hour intervals, it would take to make enough funds. I coveted and got the egg vase, the marshmallow rabbits, the box of Easter eggs and the chocolate bunny. Matt presented me with the cupcake tower, which you can see below in my living room, and I eventually decided that the Easter basket was too much pastel for my taste.

Here’s my kitchen:

Someone gifted me a parrot, probably by accident, at a Yoville gathering. (The parrot’s name is Snowy, in homage to Tintin’s canine sidekick.) Matt also gave me the hanging flowers and the red microwave, which decided the colour scheme of my kitchen. I am now saving up for a red fridge. The leaf table, I bought on whim. I may save it up for my eventual real estate expansion. Once I decorate the apartment, I am buying a house which can have some theme, perhaps an animal refuge - I can use my apartment for living and for Yoville parties, my house will be a fantasy hangout.

Now here’s my living room:

I have nearly completed my arabesque living room set, just one desk left to buy. I am not so sure what to do with the ottoman on the bottom right hand side. There’s something else that’s missing, maybe more vibrant wall paper?

As for my bedroom, I am not really sure in what direction to take it:

The screen and the dead tree (from the trailer trash decorating theme) are a start. Matt is constructing a bathroom in his apartment, so that’s an idea. However, Matt is giving up Yoville for this mobster game. Oh well. I will probably start using his account to make money that his avatar will donate to my cause.

I go to a lot of Yoville parties these days. Tonight I saw one advertised: “Chicken fight with beer.” My kinda thing.

It soon broke down into chaos:

Everyone was rather pissed there were no chickens. The crowd began chanting for the host’s place to be rated down:

Some people were really vocal about it, others worried about the non-existant Yoville chickens. Water balloons flew at the host.

Meanwhile, someone got into the host’s meth lab:

Yeah, that was a good way to spend a Romanian Easter.

From the October 5, 1935 issue of Woman’s Own magazine.

The fine print reads:

Allenburys Humanized Milk Foods Nos. 1 and 2 are made from fresh cows’ milk by an exclusive process which renders them almost identical with mothers’ milk. They contain added Vitamin D to prevent any possibility of rickets and to ensure the formation of healthy bones and teeth.

Human milk - except one’s own mother’s milk until a reasonable age - sounds as repulsive as other body secretions. (Except perhaps for lactation fetishists, I suppose.) For that matter, even drinking anything but cow milk (or goat or horse milk, depending on your geographic location) sounds just as blech. Which is why one of my favourite practical jokes is when I tried to convince my sister that this:

was milked by little milkmaids yanking on cat nipples.

At first I thought that the only point of Yoville was to decorate imaginary apartments. It turns out that there is a social aspect to it as well, though probably more geared to the under-20 set. Besides leaving messages, you can chat with other Yovillians in real time. So far, I have been chatting to others to figure out how to make more coins. There are other applications.

For example, there are “events.” You can go to “Grand Openings,” “Parties and Music,” “Trading,” “Debates and Discussions,” “Dating,” and so on, then choose from a selection of offerings. I haven’t tried making my own event. I imagine it will be some discussion on zombie movies when I do try it out very soon. Or maybe a Yovillians-of-Romanian-descent party.

I have been to a few other Yovillians’ events. I went to a bikini party (before I realized I should be taking screenshots). The females were all asking where the men were. I went to the hospital-themed apartment, was offered a receptionist job, then kicked out by the “doctor.” I also checked out a costume trading event somewhat reminiscent of a stock exchange floor:

Yoville doesn’t allow for transexuality, but it does permit transvestism, as Matt found out. A friend lent Matt her blouse:

Such a trim waist!

Then she lent him her evening gown:

From the October 5, 1935 issue of Woman’s Own magazine:

The print reads:

How My Wife Lost 60 lbs. Fat
A Husband’s Tribute to Kruschen Salts

In many homes the first test of a husband’s devotion comes with the saddening spectacle of the slender and attractive girl gradually expanding into the massive matron. Fortunately, however, good humour can generally be relied upon to save a husband’s affection from waning with his wife’s growing girth.

But, nevertheless, it is every wife’s duty to resist increasing bulk as an unnecessary strain on domestic bliss. Is it worth a woman’s while? Well, here is the case of a seventeen-stone woman who succeeded in unburdening herself of 60 pounds of fat. And it is her husband who is prompted to write to us: it is he who is “pleased to say” that she can walk five or six miles in perfect comfort; it is he who is “glad to thank” us for all the benefits she has derived from Kruschen Salts. Read his grateful letter: –

“My wife is still taking Kruschen Salts and still reducing her weight. Before taking Kruschen she was seventeen stone; now she is 12 stone 10 lb., making the reduction to date 60 lb. Before taking your Salts she suffered much with depressing headaches, aching limbs, shortage of breath, and several other little ills. She could not walk very much without much discomfort, but now I am pleased to say she can walk 5 or 6 miles in perfect comfort, at a good pace, and feel quite fit at the end. Kruschen Salts has simply worked wonders with her, although she has taken rather more than the stipulated dose, but on the whole she has not reduced her amount of food. Many have asked my wife what she has been doing to reduce her weight so and she has been only too glad to recommend Kruschen. She is continuing with the treatment until she has reduced her weight to 11 stone, and in the meantime I am glad to thank you for all the benefits my wife has derived from your Salts.” T.H., Rotherham.

Kruschen contains those six mineral salts, proportionately balanced, found in the waters of famous European Spas used by generations of fat people to lose weight.

Get a 1/9 bottle of KRUSCHEN SALTS at your chemist’s (lasts four weeks) and take half a teaspoonful in a glass of hot water every morning.

A few pages later:

Text reads:

A beautiful bust can be acquired by every woman. You can obtain perfect fascinating curves with Beautipon, the amazing Vegetable Flesh Former. Simply rub this harmless cream into the skin last thing at night and in a few weeks you will have a glorious figure. Develops bust 3-6 inches. Adds healthy flesh anywhere. Guaranteed harmless - amazing results.

Miss G.A. (see photo, published with special permission) writes: “I have actually developed my bust 4 1/2 inches, and my breasts are now a lovely shape, high and firm. It is a joy to me to be told how young I look. I am so pleased with Beautipon Cream.”

This is a typical example of thousands of letters received in praise of Beautipon Cream treatment. You, too, can increase your bust 3-6 inches and have lovely rounded feminine curves. Beautipon Cream treatment acts upon the mammary glands, breast cells and pores, and nourishes, builds, and strengthens the bust as no other method can. There’s no need to have a “clothes-peg” figure any longer. Let Beautipon Cream treatment give you those rich lovely lines, softly yet firmly moulded, the generous swelling curves of fascinating womanhood.

The full 30 days’ Beautipon Cream treatment costs only 5/6 post free. Send privately under plain sealed cover. Post form to-day - NOW!

Now I have that stupid Lady Lumps song stuck in my head.

A few days ago, Matt convinced me to make an avatar for this online world called Yoville, accessible through Facebook and Myspace. In a rather poor judgment of time commitments, he got me to join up during the last part of a work-related course I am taking. Between writing a paper on human capital theory and wandering around a fake pixel world, I chose the latter.

In Yoville, you create a mini you of delectable cuteness. Then you decorate your apartment. There are set themes, like “girly,” “Shaker,” “Tiki,” “Medieval,” and so on. Some people love their Yoville homes: this kid (?) prefers to live in Yoville because Yovillian residences never get messy.

My favourite rooms are the more creative ones. Some people turn their bedrooms into hot tub dens and invite their (real-life) kids for a soak. Today I visited a hospital-themed one, an Egyptian one, a desert island with a cave, and a labyrinth one with teleporting devices.

Before you can decorate, however, you need to make money. As far as I can figure out there are six ways to make money:

1. Work at the factory every six hours. The base wage is 200 coins.

2. Spam your friends so they join your factory crew to increase your wages. Yoville works like a pyramid scheme. The growth rate is very small.

3. Do 15-minute long consumer surveys for a pittance. I read that these are a scam. Many Yovillians have not received their coins.

4. Play tic tac toe or rock paper scissors with Yovillian strangers for ten coins. The game is real time, so you are playing with real people, probably teenagers, from god knows where. Other Yovillians tell me that there is a 200 coin maximum win allowance per day. The trick is, I have learned, to get ties - both you and your opponent get five coins each. This makes everyone happy. The other trick is to approach Yovillians in the factory for games; that’s why there is always a glut of us waiting there to make money.

5. Perform actions on your friends. You can joke with them, dance with them or kiss them. But you can only do this once a day per friend.

6. Leave messages. I found out that if you leave the first message on a friend’s message board, you get ten coins. Another Yovillian told me that, if you get up to twenty crew members, you can get around twenty coins per friend per day by leaving messages. The trick here is to use the perform action function, not the room’s message board, to send messages. This Yovillian also pointed out that this is what is called a “coin run.” Many coin runners simply leave a message reading “coin run.”

This brings me to a little Yoville joke:

When they said to make your blog specific to one topic, who knew there would be a niche for everything? Here’s a blog about cat ladders. Seems as if Central European and Scandinavian cat owners are the biggest proponents of the cat ladder movement.

Have a look at them. Some of them are really well-made. The indoor ones give the cats an impressive play area.

Apparently, Matt’s photo of an Alba Iulia cat ladder got in there. I wish they had asked for permission before taking the photo, though. Matt would’ve said “yes.” Plus, I would have told them to credit the photo correctly. They took the photo from my blog and assumed that it was mine.