Gamesville Rewards or "GV Rewards" is a feature on Gamesville that rewards you for playing our games. As you earn more GV Rewards, you win cool new badges. The more GV Rewards you earn, the better your badges get. These badges are Gamesville's way of recognizing the people who play lots of games and earn lots of GV Rewards. Badges are displayed beside the member names in the game's room list -- that is, the chat panel in the game.

Recently, a number of people have written in, asking what badges are available, how many GV Rewards does it take to obtain a badge, and do we have any new ones planned?

You can find the answers to these and more in our Help section; however, I wanted to answer those questions directly here in the blog today because a) it's the right thing to do, and b) we have some new badges to show off.

There are now 10 brand new badges you can go for: the owl, the bell, the butterfly, the eye, the cherries, the lemon, the flower, the Lucky 7, the apple, and the watermelon!

The chart below displays what all the badges look like, and what it takes to get them.

Here are the original 24 badges...

At the Gamesville Blog, our team of crack reporters (or is that, cracked reporters?) keeps an eye out for weird stories that come across the news wires. Here's one from our friends at CNN:

A missing pair of pants has led to one big suit.

A customer got so steamed when a dry cleaner lost his trousers that he sued for $65 million. Two years later, he is still pressing his suit.

The case has demoralized the South Korean immigrant owners of the mom-and-pop business and brought demands that the customer -- an administrative law judge in Washington -- be disbarred and removed from office for pursuing a frivolous and abusive claim.

Jin Nam Chung, Ki Chung and their son, Soo Chung, are considering moving back to Seoul, seven years after they opened their dry-cleaning business in the nation's capital, said their lawyer, Chris Manning.

"They're out a lot of money, but more importantly, incredibly disenchanted with the system," Manning said. "This has destroyed their lives."

The customer, Roy L. Pearson Jr., who has been representing himself, declined to comment.

According to court documents, the problem began in May 2005 when Pearson became a judge and brought several suits for alterations to Custom Cleaners in Washington. A pair of pants from one suit was missing when he requested it two days later.

Pearson asked the cleaners for the full price of the suit: more than $1,000.

But a week later, the Chungs said the pants had been found and refused to pay. Pearson said those were not his pants, and decided to take the Chungs to the cleaners and sue.

Manning said the cleaners have made three settlement offers to Pearson: $3,000, then $4,600, then $12,000.

But Pearson was not satisfied and expanded his calculations beyond one pair of pants. Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, he asked in his lawsuit for $15,000 -- the cost of renting a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.

Manning said Pearson somehow thinks he has the right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment.

The bulk of the $65 million demand comes from Pearson's strict interpretation of Washington consumer protection law, which imposes fines of $1,500 per violation, per day. Pearson counted 12 violations over 1,200 days, then multiplied that by three defendants.

Much of Pearson's case rests on two signs Custom Cleaners once had on its walls: "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service." He claims the signs amount to fraud.

The case is set for trial June 11.

Today's best pet comes from Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska...

Pet Owner:
Gamesviller "chainsawlollipop"

Distinguishing personality traits:
Chainsawlollipop says: "Denali (our husky) and Dorian (our Angora mix) are best friends. They never fight and regularly share a bed ... but Denali still won't share his treats or toys! If Denali has been out in the back yard too long, Dorian will start meowing at the back door until Denali comes back in."

Want to share photos of your own favorite pet with the Gamesville community?

Send photos to: members@gamesville.com

In addition to your pet's picture, please include:

• your member name
• your pet's most distinguishing personality trait

Please note: All submissions become the sole property of Gamesville, which reserves the right to hold, reject and/or edit submissions without notice and without limitation in perpetuity.

Mary, congratulations on your win.
Thank you!

How do you plan to spend your winnings?
Well, it's the beginning of May and we just had snow flurries here, so I'd like to go someplace warm. The Dominican Republic is looking good right about now.

Any pets you'll be taking with you?
We have a six-month old St. Bernard named Beethoven.

He must be a cutie...
Oh, he is. But he has this weird thing where he's afraid of ducks.

Why?
We don't know! We have a pond out back and whenever the poor thing sees a duck out there, he just freezes. He won't move.

What's your favorite Gamesville game?
Bottle Rocket and Frantic Fish.

Favorite movie or book?
Dirty Dancing.

If you could host a dinner party and invite anyone, living or dead, who would you invite?
Patrick Swayze, obviously. Julia Roberts. And Elvis.

Please be advised, there was a problem this weekend with some game rooms not loading properly. This issue has been resolved. Thanks to everyone who pointed out the issue; your very specific comments helped narrow down the issue and enable us to fix it that much faster.

Over the last week, we've been testing different styles for emoticons and badge, in an effort to improve the chat  experience at Gamesville.

Well, the tests are over and you pretty much universally told us that these styles were not going to work for you. As a result, we've decided to stick with the old style and not move ahead with any of the new styles we were testing. Effective about two hours ago, we reset all emoticons and badges back to the old style.

If your emoticons or badge still looks different now compared to a week ago, please exit your browser, start it up, and reload your game. If that doesn't work, please let us know which game and room in particular are causing a problem. 

If you had an account with Skilljam through Gamesville, then you have likely received an email from WorldWinner to let you know that our new skill gaming partner, WorldWinner, is handling the Skilljam refunds.

Refunds are in process, and we've been working with WorldWinner to get you a firm timeline on when all the refunds are expected to be completed. We now have that timeline.

If you had a VIP subscription with Skilljam through Gamesville, or you had money in your Skilljam account through Gamesville...

• Skilljam VIP subscriptions will be refunded by May 11.
• Skilljam account balance refunds by credit card and/or PayPal will be refunded by May 11.
• Skilljam account balance refunds by check will be refunded by June 1.

Please note: Refunds are issued via credit card, PayPal, or check based on your individual deposit method. For example, if you made your deposit by PayPal, your refund will come by PayPal; if your deposit was made by check, your refund will come by check.

As long as there is no delay in normal bank processing times (a rare occurrence), this will be wrapped up very soon. Thanks for your patience in this matter.

If you have questions or comments about your refund, please contact WorldWinner customer service.

And please be sure to let us know if you don't receive your correct refund by the dates above, as well, so we can follow up with our friends at WorldWinner and get the problem resolved.

Thanks,
Chris

On some far flung day, Dolly Parton and the Queen of England both died and, naturally, went to Heaven.

St. Peter was there to greet them at the gates. "Before I can let you in," he said, "please state why you think you should enter heaven."

Dolly said, "Well, the Lord gave me these two large boobs as a gift, and I have used them to create a great career and bring happiness and joy to many people on earth."

The Queen of England spotted a toilet behind St. Peter; without a word, she went over to the toilet and went to bathroom. After she finished, she came back over to Dolly's side. Dolly looked confused and a little disgusted. St. Peter looked pleased.

"Very well," St. Peter said. "Come on in, Queen."

Dolly tilted her head, her brow furrowed. "What the heck is going on?" she asked. "Why does she get in before me?"

To which St. Peter replied,"I'm sorry, my dear. But everyone knows a Royal Flush beats Two Pair."

Thanks, mc07200; your GV Rewards are in your account as of today.

Do you have a joke to share with the Gamesville community? Do you want some extra GV Rewards?

Post your joke here--and please remember to include your Gamesville member name so we can credit the joke to you.

If we use your joke as a featured post, you'll receive 100 GV Rewards.

Please note: All submissions become the sole property of Gamesville, which reserves the right to hold, reject and/or edit submissions without notice and without limitation in perpetuity.

Perhaps more importantly, we're looking to make some enhancements to the game over the next few months so that it more lives up to its name.

If you have ideas of what you'd like to see in Quick-Draw Poker, please post them here and we'll take them under consideration as we start building out the plan for where to take the game next.

UPDATE - March 4, 2009

Quick-Draw Poker's 10th anniversary is coming up this spring--and we have some big plans for celebrating--including an all-new version of QDP. Keep your eyes peeled for big changes coming Spring 2009!