The distinction between fact and fiction seems to blur more each day. A recent email from someone apparently playing FarmVille-a farming social network game-wrote to the editor of the reality-based Farmville Herald lamenting that “I've lost all my pigs and lots of money.”

Never having played FarmVille, being too busy in Farmville-reality is difficult enough with adding a fantasy version-I wondered what he expected me to do. Did he realize his email was going to the real Farmville or was he under the misapprehension that I was in the game, somehow, and would restore both his pigs and finances?

I hated to ignore the gentleman and so replied that as editor of the reality-based, or so I believe, Farmville Herald I was afraid there was little I could do about the loss of pigs in an internet fantasy farming game. “But I promise to be nice to any pigs I meet downtown,” I replied via email, “and any money I find, of course, I will give that to the pigs straightaway.”

With my own distinction between fantasy and reality clear, I felt a comfortable sense of equilibrium until I learned that several FarmVille game participants will be coming Monday, one from Los Angeles, to plant fruit trees at Wilck's Lake.

A nice project (see the story on today's front page) and the fruit the trees eventually yield would make good donations to FACES and Meals On Wheels.

But what, in the meantime, should I do about all these pigs suddenly popping up in my office?

-JKW-