Suburbs of Our Discontent

"O reason not the need!"

(King Lear 2.4.262)

At first I thought it was a joke. Then I figured it was one of those gimmicks to get you to buy something. Then I realized.... this was no joke.

Facebook was taking away WordTwist on September 30th, the pop-up message warned. And then they did it. Poof.

Look, I'm not an especially vice-ridden person. I don't do drugs, or smoke. Sure, I watch too much TV, but I draw the line at "Jersey Shore," and I feel guilty about watching the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" after the suicide thing.

WordTwist was the closest thing I had to an addiction. I played it responsibly. And it was mine.

And then they took it away.

Why? Can't they do whatever they want at Facebook? Was it really such a drain on their profit margin to let we few, we happy few, scramble letters around in clean 3-minute increments? It was my Sudoku. It kept my brain limber, or at least kept mental rigor mortis at bay. I had a perfectly lovely, smack-talk relationship with my long-lost college friend Pier Carlo.

IT WAS A GOOD THING.

Do they want me to beg? Are they pulling a Goneril and Regan on me, trying to deprive me of my paltry entourage, whittling me down from 50 to one to none and then sending me off into the storm?

Are they trying to make me crazy? Because I could go there. I could.

But I'm not going to Zynga. They can't make me.

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