I realized I blog sporadically, then whip out these epic novellas when I finally put my fingers to the keyboard. I’ve decided I would write more often in bite sized quantities. Since my last post, I’ve become addicted to “checking in” on Gowalla, Yelp, and Foursquare. It makes arriving at a destination a little spastic because I have to check in to 3 different services, Foursquare updates my Facebook status, Gowalla updates my Twitter stream, and Yelp lets any of my Yelp friends know I am still alive. You may ask yourself, why doesn’t she just pick one and have it update everything? My sister asked what is the point of check-ins? At the end of the day, there really is no point in check-ins. Personally, I like that Foursquare puts a picture on my location status update on Facebook, I like the pictures. I know I can send out a tweet about where I am and what I am doing, then have Twitter update Facebook and be done with it, then there would be no picture.

In my life of leisure, I discovered the world of social media games. For those of you who are unaware, it’s all those Mafia Wars, Farmville, Cafe World, MMA Fighter, Texas Hold’em posts you see cluttering up your news feeds. These check-in applications for the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, or WinMob phones have a social gaming component which allow you to collect items that you carry in your backpack, earn badges, or even become Mayor of a place just by checking in. I am happy to report Foursquare has named me the Mayor of LA Fitness for going 17 times this month. I never had any ambition to run for office, yet I’m the Mayor of the gym. Which means Foursquare thinks all I do is workout. I found at least the silver lining is that I will go to the gym regularly to keep my status as Mayor.