Thursday Thirteen #231

Thirteen Things about Zynga

... because I was wondering about the company responsible for where I spend so much of time online.

1) Zynga is the online developer responsible for some of social media's most popular games.

2) More than 400 million people have played Farmville and/or Farmville 2 (I'm one of them; Level 96).

3) According to Zynga, more than 55 million matches of Words with Friends are being played at any given moment.

4) Founder Marc Pincus named his company after his late and much missed bulldog, who graces the company logo.

5) The company is headquartered in a six story building in San Francisco.

6) In addition to health and life insurance, employees enjoy free meals all day long.

7) Every day is "bring your dog to work day" and there's a dog park on the building roof.

8) Employees are encouraged to take public transportation to work and are reimbursed dollar for dollar for their BART fares.

9) If they drive, they can use the onsite car wash.

10) Despite all these perks, some employees complain that there is little room for advancement at Zynga. Of course, I think it's fair to say that any big company is going to have its share of anonymous, disgruntled employees.

11) Zynga also has smaller offices in Austin, Chicago, Eugene, New York, Orlando and San Francisco. 

12) Their chief, and more successful, competitor is King, the company who gave us Candy Crush Saga.

13) Zynga's stock fell in the fourth quarter of 2013. Experts blame that on the difficulty the company has had converting it's most popular games from desktop mobile apps. For companies like Zynga and King, mobile now represents 60% of their business (I only play on laptop).

Please join us for The NEW THURSDAY THIRTEEN. Click here to play along, and to see other interesting compilations of 13 things.

More than a little ashamed of myself

It's cold here. Really cold. And it's been this way for a long time. In December and January it didn't bother me so much, but it's been dragging on so long I must admit it's even now getting to me.

Yesterday, as I was boarding the el, I was stuck behind two old men. They were moving onto the car soooo slowly, not because of physical infirmity, but because they were trying to decide where to sit. AARGH! So as the train pulls out I'm still standing there in the aisle, holding the strap and being jostled with my laptop bag off one shoulder and my purse off the other, both sliding off my big, puffy coat. My thoughts about these old men were most definitely unkind.

Oh, poor, poor pitiful me.

When they finally settled into their seats, I got a look at them from the front. One of them was wearing an Honor Flight cap. So he was a veteran. Maybe WWII, but judging by his age, more likely Korea.Yeah, Gal, you can stand in the aisle for a second or two while men who served and suffered overseas because that's where their country sent them settle into their seats.

To make me feel even worse (and at this point I didn't think that was possible), the one wearing the cap was talking about a college course he was taking. I get home from my little job and veg out. Here he is, more than old enough to be my father, still improving himself.

It was an everyday reminder that today, I can do better.