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Mafias and Clans

Several years ago, my brother and sister got into one of those Facebook Zynga games, Mafia Wars. They kept talking about it, and there were a bunch of goofy jokes related to it. Initially, I wasn't all that interested in the game, but eventually, hearing about it so much piqued my curiosity. So, I decided to give it a go.

That didn't last, but my point was that it became a family thing for a little while. We'd check in with each other about the various tasks and accomplishments, and there was a lot of banter about it. Remember, these are the same people that commissioned the "Court of Life." It should come as no surprise that there were jokes galore.

Recently, though, this phenomenon repeated itself with Clash of Clans. As was the case the first time around, my siblings were the first to jump on the band wagon. I don't quite know who the first was, but soon a bunch of my family was playing. My siblings, a spouse, and some in-laws were all in on it. And just like the first time, eventually my curiosity got the better of me.

What makes it more interesting, and blog-worthy, is that there is more cooperation required in this version of the game. As the name implies, the game allows you to pit your team (e.g., clan) against other teams. For the people in our clan, that means coordinating who attacks whom, what troops we should donate, and otherwise talking with each other. In other words, it's more involved than the original version. So, once a week, I will get together with a bunch of family and friends to wage war with some random group of people across the globe.

This results in a lot of chatter, and a lot of banter. A whole new language seems to have developed around this game, and there are a lot of jokes. My favorites so far include:

  • "Ey, quit wansering!"
    The troops in the game are controlled by an AI. You place them somewhere, and then the AI takes over. Sometimes, the AI does something you don't want it to. The troops wander, basically.

    However, someone was trying to describe this phenomenon with a phone, and misspelled the word "wander" by accident. Yup, he spelled it as "wanser." In a moment of whimsy, the group as a whole decided that this was the new verb appropriate for this action. It wasn't just wandering, it was wansering. No one spells it with a "d" anymore.
  • "Who's got the Post Its?"
    We were in the middle of a weekly war against another clan, when a visitor commented that we probably did a better job of coordinating our attacks than he'd seen in the past. Well, yeah, that's because we had a fearless leader (my sister). Then someone joked that she had Post Its and everything for coordinating. It stuck.

    So now if you have a question about the strategy or who is attacking whom, you can ask about the Post Its.
  • "It was Mega Cousin+"
    At one point, we noticed that something like 2/3 of the clan was all in our family. But since we all joke around, someone inevitably decided that everyone in the clan was family. Some of these folks were long time friends, the explanation went, so they practically were related to us anyway.

    Shortly thereafter, we jokingly started calling everyone "Cousin." I don't even quite remember what came next, but someone decided that that wasn't good enough. We needed more superlatives to prove the point. Cousin became "Mega Cousin." Mega Cousin needed some more punch, though, so someone added the plus at the end. One guy in particular is usually on the receiving end of this, so if someone refers to Mega Cousin+, we all know who it is.
  • "Hey, it's Grean!"
    Once a long time ago, one of the guys in the clan decided that he was going to use his favorite color to create a screen name. His favorite color was green. I should note, however, that this guy speaks Spanish and is apparently a terrible speller. So, his screen name became some iteration of "varde" (hint: the proper spelling of that word involves two e's).

    Eventually, someone asked about the origin of his screen name, and the story came out. My brother, being the smart aleck that he is, decided to "translate" the spelling error. I chortled/guffawed quite loudly the first time I saw this. Regardless, that is my favorite nickname for the guy.
  So yeah, there are quite a few jokes related to all this. Somehow, I suspect that this game might hold my attention more than the last one ...

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