About Unmoderated Comments…

A quick word about unmoderated comments on this blog:

1 … I’m a ‘rules geek’ when it comes to playing any game (or in life, in general, for that matter). So while I’m not judging, at all ~ I will not moderate any comment that mentions (or has links or any ties) to hacking, cheating or even glitch exploits. In cartoon terms, I’m a Dudley Do-Right. Yes, I mean I’m a (sometimes) bumbling fool (Dp. 63) who always tries to do the right thing. Heck I’m so straight-laced that I don’t even exploit glitches in the game to gain extra swag that was not intended by the game’s creators. I’m not being high-handed here, everyone chooses their own path. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations or in less geeky terms… It’s all good 🙂

2 … Comments that are unrelated or that contain references (or links) that I simply don’t know anything about (and more importantly don’t have enough time to research). I strive to keep all material on this blog relevant and family-friendly ~ meaning within US TV-PG guidelines content-wise. I’m truly sorry about not moderating these comments but I only have so much time. Plus I’m easily distracted and really need to try and keep the focus on my chosen topics ~ which I can more effectively manage.

For more please read my http://drewdabble.com/about/ page.

Miscellaneous TSTO Speculations

Is “Cheese it” a Futurama reference? It’s one of my all-time favorite Bender sayings

Outside of old 1940’s and 1950’s black & white gangster movies, the only other place I ever recall hearing “Cheese it” was Katey Sagal as Peggy Bundy in Married with Children. Sagal is the voice actor for the character Leela in Futurama. That’s what Kelly Bundy would call a ‘coinkydink’  😉

So anyway, if you think that was speculative, I’m just getting warmed up… How about the possible return of the Mapple Store?

The next new episode of the Simpsons “Four Regrettings and a Funeral” is airing Sunday after next – November 3th (in the US). This is apparently the episode where someone dies. Folks are sharing regrets at the funeral. Homer’s is about selling his Mapple stock to buy a bowling ball. This would seem to be a perfect opportunity for a TSTO tie-in bringing the Mapple Store back for a very limited time. Please EA – oh pretty please! It sure would be nice to finally be able to do these locked tasks that have (excuse the Halloween pun) haunted me since I started playing the game in late February 2013…

And now I’m going completely farfetched…  Actually it’s more like I’m still really enjoying the TOH XXIV Couch Gag. Every time I watch it, I see something new. Like this ‘Krusty.. Now Doing Funerals’ billboard.

It was also in Season 20 “Take My Life, Please”

Could we be getting this Billboard or maybe a Funeral Home in TSTO?

Has TSTO jumped the shark?

Has The Simpsons Tapped Out jumped the shark? Let me say upfront… I sure hope not! I personally think TSTO has a bright future (rama). However, everyone must understand that everything changes and TSTO will too. I have been considering this unpleasant thought for a while now. My foreboding has increased since Halloween 2013 started. I’ll give my reasoning for this in a moment, but first I want to say that it makes me feel better knowing that (in the super-friendly global group of TSTO fan-sites that I frequent) I’m not the only one with these concerns 😐

The key issue here is (and always will be) to realize that TSTO is a ‘product’ that is ‘produced’ by a ‘business’ and in business the bottom-line rules. We can all tap, surf, comment and blog until our fingertips are calloused, our egos are satisfied and our brains implode, but in the end………….. buying donuts, from EA 😉 is what will ultimately keep this wonderful game going forward.

To that end, I bought another 900 donuts (that BTW, I could scarcely afford) to let EA know where DrewDabble stands 😀

Now back to my personal reason for concern about TSTO’s future…

Two words: “TIME MANAGEMENT”

I’ve commented and blogged about this for months foreseeing this upcoming challenge; just Google or Bing “DrewDabble”. One major improvement that would seem to be technologically possible is a powerful new character/task management system. We desperately need a more efficient way to task all the current (plus hopefully many more future) TSTO characters on a daily basis. Part one of two (maybe)…

Dabble Dog Down

I think EA’s done a pretty good job responding to TSTO character imbalances lately. For instance, they’ve started giving us many more female characters ~ four in Halloween 2013 alone. We got  Ghost Maude Flanders, Booberella, Senile Zombie, Susane the Witch!

Hopefully now it’s time to deal with the fact that Springfield has gone to the dogs 😉

Not sure if this is complete, but there’s plenty of K-9’s these days. We have lots of interesting dogs roaming around alone, being walked by characters – even a puppy, robot & zombie dog.

Now we get a cat to wander round our Springfield’s – but an undead one. Very cool though. Thanks EA and the Global Goo Tapping Communtiy!

Warning, Wild Speculation: So, it’s early Thursday morning and I would normally be anticipating a possible new update… Level 36 ~ maybe. However with Halloween 2013 going on right now, who knows. Anyway, what would I like to see in Level 36? Glad I asked… a character that not only would bring more cats to TSTO, it would also bring another female character. Crazy Cat Lady (aka Eleanor Abernathy).

With EA having put us on notice that they’ll be feeding out the game info, I’m wondering if they might be leaving clues in the game dialogs (dialogues). For instance in Level 33 Sunsphere quest Bart references ghosts and now we have ghosts! With that in mind, I noticed that Frink mentioned SHROOOEdinger recently…

This is probably just classic Geeky DrewBabble goofiness. Now on to a half an hour of tapping towards the Global Goo Effort, then some ZZZZZZZZZZ’s ~ aka: Dabble Dog Down 🙂

Closure: The References in Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XXIV

This amazing video brilliantly points out most (if not, all) of the references in this epic couch gag! Closure at last, thank you, moviepilot…

http://www.moviepilot.de/news/alle-filmreferenzen-in-guillermo-del-toros-simpsons-intro-125247

This site is in German, so I fired up the ‘ol universal translator
(aka translate.google.com)  Click for full-res version…

I’m glad I did not stick my neck out (speculatively speaking) any further than I did…
I said maybe! Rod Serling –LMSMAO– Jonathan Harris   But still…
Besides, I’m an ‘OG Space Cadet’ and sentiment & wishful thinking may have prevailed here. I would love to watch some Space Academy episodes again.
Anyway, considering the vast and bottomless information well, that the Internet is, it is scary how quickly things can go ‘Beautiful Mind‘… Maybe 😉

Share this via Google Goo Link: http://goo.gl/5HLiQm

Mesmerized by Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XXIV Couch Gag

It blows my mind how many references are packed into this 3 minute jewel! I’ve gone totally compulsive on this thing. Been through it almost frame by frame and I’m awe stuck. The nice thing about having this (DrewDabble) blog is I can obsess about anything I want, without worrying about clogging up other sites’ comment streams with my foolishness. So lets get started. And be warned, this post contains some silly self-indulgent speculation. In fact, I almost feel like I’m getting to close to this game (and the TV shows) and may need a little stay in the Calmwood.

Maggie with a $50 price tag. If the price tag had been marked 50 donuts my head would have exploded. Plus check out those Steampunk items! Yo, Gil ol’ buddy ~ you thinking what I am?

Lisa’s school band scene. The pictures on the wall are interesting. Left to right… Alien Maggie TOH IX. The Island of Dr. Hibbert TOH XIII. And from the 1st TOH Bart the Raven; forevermore in my TSTO Springfield now, thx EA!. Then there’s the Grand Pumpkin that’s on the Halloween 2013 Content Button in ‘build mode’ in TSTO.

Poe and Three-Eyed Raven. Three eyes, again. Hmmm…

I need some help with this one. Who’s being portrayed (parodied) here?

Torches and Pitchforks, LOL… Forget about it Fox & EA, you’ll never out-run the Trolls 😉  BTW: Digging that TIE alien.

Maggie and Bender in TSTO? I would spend sooooooo many donuts for this EA!!!!!!!!! Read more of my Futurama Fantasies on my other fan-site blog… Just in case 😀

Always been a Blinky fan. While Halloween 2013 seems to have taken Blinky (hopefully only temporally) out of our water features. EA most thoughtfully kept us folks, who don’t have the Blinky Balloon, from having Blinky Abandonment Issues by giving us the Three-Eyed Sushi Stand to permanently adorn our Squidports. Blinky Rules!!!

I’m going to skip talking about B-9 on purpose here. There’s way too much opportunity to ‘Beautiful Mind It’ 😉 but suffice it to say The Robot & DrewDabble go back a while. Do fear, Smith is here… Is that Jonathan Harris in a suit, not LiS costume? Went A-Googlin’ ~ Space Academy, maybe ❓

So okay, it’s 3am as I’m typing this and I’m seeing flying Kif Krokers in this scene. Maybe it’s time to get some sleep and dream of Futurama content coming to TSTO…

Here’s the whole thing, check it out. Pure Epicness!

Simpsons – Gooble Goo, One of Us?

Update: Sorry folks ~ please enjoy a good laugh at my expense 😆 Here’s the deal with this crazy post…

It started when I saw the TSTO dialogue where Lisa is talking to the Gypsy Fortune Teller and she asks “How did you learn about GOO, anyway?” and Lisa responded: “Google”. Well, two seconds later I instinctively ‘Googled Goo’. Got some seemly random results, but none looked to be Simpsons related. Unfortunately, by this point ‘Google Goo’ was embedded in my mind.

Then in last night’s Simpsons’ episode “Treehouse of Horror XXIV”  the Freaks chanted what sounds (to me) like  “Google Goo – One of Us” for some reason. Maybe it’s my aging ears or maybe too many super loud concerts in the 1970’s; lots of Rush & AC/DC [with Bon Scott even] – that sort of thing.

This issue was compounded by the fact (though I tried desperately) I could not get Closed Captions to work through my Comcast DVR. Like I said, I searched Google (and other SE’s) and got nothing that seemed Simpsons related. Tried all kinds of iterations too – even “Gooble Goo”.

Well my OCD-ish tendencies wouldn’t let this rest, thank goodness. Finally got the CC on the DVR to work and it is in fact “Gooble Goo”, no doubt (duh) derived from….

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freaks

—————-

Gonna leave the “Google Goo” version here also. To deepen my embarrassment and also because it’s a cool service. LMBO, at least I said ‘maybe’ in the original post 😉

Original Post: What was the ‘Google Goo’ bit in The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XXIV about?

Goolge’s url shortener… goo.gl ~ maybe ❓ 😉

Goolge Goo Example…
This: http://drewdabble.com/2013/10/07/simpsons-google-goo/
Becomes: http://goo.gl/e20JpO

TSTO Halloween 2013 (Steampunk?) Content

The Victorian UFO is my favorite prize so far. Thanks again EA! However I’m wondering why they didn’t call it a Steampunk UFO?  Not complaining at all, but just wondering if it was to obscure of a reference, or were they just seeing if anybody would blog about it?

I was trying for a screenshot with a ghost (or two) but guess who kept showing up instead. He seems to be showing up much more often these days. I’m wondering…

Speculative Spoiler Alert…

The Simpsons Tapped Out and Epistemology

Does EA read fan-sites? Who knows. Moving right along… Professor Frink’s ‘Have an Epistemological Argument with Ghosts’ task speaks directly to me though, so-to-speak.

DrewDabble has been around the ‘TSTO Online Block’  (and only as DD BTW*) more than a few times 😉  Been striving to participate in friendly blogging and commentary around the TSTO Global Community for a long time now (at least in Internet viral terms) before a certain TSTO mega-blog ‘changed directions’. Enough said (maybe**) about that bygone era.

Okay, now back on-topic: I’m into Epistemology. No really… Sez-so right here. Since May 9, 2013. Don’t see it? Then ‘Look Closer’ whatever that means. 

So okay, when I went to grab the above screenshot before starting my #1 TSTO Hero – Professor Frink (my discoverer – not avatar***) on a most auspicious task – this scene was pretty much right there. No waiting. No editing. Just cropped it. Honest. Please draw & appreciate your own meanings (to yourselves) and know they are ALL precious to DrewDabble 😐 🙂 😀

*  **  *** will be add here ASAP. Not teasing just gotta get ready because Treehouse of Horror XXIV. It’s airing in 40 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zen and the Art of Growing Perfection

This blog was originated to share insight from a decade of studying Zen. Then I got hooked on The Simpsons Tapped Out. Months have gone by and it may seem as though I’ve abandoned this topic. Not at all; in fact TSTO has noticeably deepened my Zen practice.

And now that the Halloween 2013 event has arrived, it’s also given me flashbacks to the chaotic state of my mind before the study & practice of Zen. It was not unlike (metaphorically) what I find when I open my game after being away for a few hours. What I’m trying to express is just how constantly ‘busy’ (and on so many levels) our human minds are. Meditation is a valuable tool that can help one gain insight into this ‘ceaseless mental busy-ness’.

There are many types of meditation with varying goals. My goal is not to achieve a blissful place which to escape. That’s a long, long way off for me 😉 The best I can claim, after ten years, is I can sometimes slow my mind down enough to unemotionally ‘see’ my thoughts as they originate, or soon thereafter… no matter what’s occurring around my physical being.

TSTO actually contains a wonderful mediation tool and it’s been enhanced by the Halloween event… How long is 45 seconds? How many thoughts does a human mind generate in that time? A good way to find out for yourself is to stay totally focused while Growing Perfection at Cletus’ Farm. Really try to concentrate your mind and not think about anything else (at all) for those 45 seconds; no matter how many ghosts, gremlins or favorite game characters come into view. Or real-world noises around you from people, phones, music TVs, birds chirping  – no distractions whatsoever.

Now do that 10 times in a row staying totally focused without letting a single crop rot… Congratulations Tappers 🙂 you just meditated for seven and a half minutes!

Update about Tapped-Out UK

Hey there Tapped-Out UK fans,  A quick update ~ just got word from Tim Allen at Tapped-Out UK (tapped-out.co.uk) that they are hard at work restoring the site. However, this may take a little longer than expected, but the site will definitely be back online as soon as possible.

This is one of my very favorite TSTO fan-sites, and I (for one) plan to be patient and understanding about this… Good luck Tim!  🙂

 U P D A T E:   Good news, It’s back online Tappers ~ Woo Hoo!