“The Egg,” by Andy Weir
VERY interesting philosophical short story…
Automatic Apology Maker
Have trouble apologizing? Let this handy (and funny) web tool help.
“Death by Oreo” Cupcakes
Oreo cupcake recipe. OM NOM NOM
Q.uote.it
Find quotes about absolutely everything. 🙂
Building on the success of the first Castle Wars game, which I wrote about before, Castle Wars 2 improves on every facet of the original game, and introduces a new mode of play as well.
Basic Game Premise
You gather your resources, build up your defensive wall to protect your castle, and survive long enough to either get your castle to 100 height, or smash your opponent’s castle to 0. (Fans of Magic: the Gathering will recognize some similarities in gameplay along the way).
Just as in the first game, you begin with three different types of resources:
The more Builders, Mages, and/or Recruits you have, the more of those resources you get per turn. (For instance, if you had 4 Builders and 2 Soldiers, you’d get 4 Brick resources every turn, but only 2 Weapons resources every turn.)
The key to surviving in the game is to use your resources efficiently, and try not to depend too much on any one type of resource.
This is the opening screen, with all its options.
Game Modes and Options
Players of the original game will be familiar with the “Practice” gameplay mode–that’s pretty much all that the first Castle Wars was.
In both “Campaign” and “Practice” modes, this is how your screen will look. Your castle is on the left, with your information about resources and castle height at top left; your enemy is on the right.
Symbols:
About the Action Panel
New for Castle Wars 2, the Action Panel helps with tasks during your turn. By default, you can click a lit-up card to use it; you can also click “Discard” and select up to 3 cards to ditch from your hand. Lastly, you can click “Card Info”, then click a card to see what it does in more detail.
Campaign Mode
The “Campaign” mode is a new, story-mode style of play, in which you choose a “tribe” to play as (either “Easy,” “Medium,” or “Hard”), and battle against other castles around you, trying to take over every territory on the map. But once you’ve taken over every territory, there is still one challenge remaining–I won’t spoil it for you! 🙂
Practice Mode
In Practice Mode, you can choose a number of options that aren’t available to you in Campaign Mode. You can choose whose turn comes first, what “tribe” you and your computerized opponent are playing, and even select your own customized deck (if you’ve built one using the Deck Manager, explained below). You can even select what the background looks like and what background music is playing!
Deck Manager
The Deck Manager allows you to build and save your own customized versions of the default deck. Scroll down using the brown scrollbar on the right side to see all the card options; use the up and down arrows underneath each card to choose the quantity of that card in your deck.
Your custom deck must have at least 75 cards, and you’ll want to build in at least 3 of each Builder, Recruit, and Mage cards, but other than that, the sky’s the limit in terms of innovation. When you’re done, click “Save” at the bottom, and give your new deck a name. (To test it out, enter Practice Mode and click the Player 1 tab. Beside “Deck: Default,” click the word “Change,” and a list including your new custom deck will come up.)
Multi-Player
You must create an account with GamerSafe to play multi-player Castle Wars 2. I’ve never tried it–if you’ve tried it, tell me about it in the comments section!
Play the game: Castle Wars 2
Mark 12:19
19 “Teacher,” they* said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 20 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. 21 The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. 22 In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. 23 At the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
24 Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? 25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.”
*the Sadducees
The Sadducees were a small group of wealthy and influential people in Jesus’ day, who believed there was no resurrection and cleaved to Mosaic law (the first five books of the modern Bible). They come to Jesus in this passage, asking him a riddle-like question about the status of marriage after the resurrection…but their intent is not to learn. Instead, they want to trip Jesus up, because they don’t believe in the resurrection anyway and they want to confound this supposed “Son of God” with Scriptural law thrown back in His face.
But Jesus replies with a common-sense answer the Sadducees were definitely not expecting. He tells them that after the resurrection, life will be very, very different for all believers–they will be “like the angels,” having fellowship with God, and as such, marriage and other worldly issues will be of little concern. The Sadducees’ question is thus exposed for the shallow, misguided query that it is.
Many times throughout the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), various groups of people try to test Jesus’ knowledge of Scripture, to try to expose him as a fake and prove that He is not really the Son of God. In each circumstance, as in this one, Jesus proves He not only knows the written Scripture, but knows the heavenly truths which inspired it. He doesn’t just quote tiny bits of Scripture for wisdom or life guidance–He knows how all the Scriptures fit together to depict God and His plan for humanity.
Today, even established Christians can begin to question Jesus or test Him, trying to determine whether He is who He says He is. We can worry ourselves to distraction over small bits of Scripture taken way out of context. But as Jesus proves here, only knowing bits of the Scripture and using that to question God’s identity and nature won’t help you “prove” anything–it’s knowing the full gestalt of the Bible, how all the Scriptures fit together, plus your own faith, that gives you peace.
I’m no beauty maven, but I’m still a girl and still want to look good…and I’m used to finding my own solutions for problems and issues. We all like to find shortcuts and lifehacks, even for girly stuff!
Over the years, I’ve found that all of the following hacks have been my mainstays in helping me look put-together without too much fuss–just the way I like it! Read on to discover the little beauty tricks I use just about every day.
Makeup/Skincare Tricks
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My fix for chapped lips:
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Caught without blush? A little rosy lipstick (matched as closely as possible to your natural flush) on your fingertip, blended onto the apples of your cheeks, works just fine. (I start with a tiny amount, as seen in the bottom picture, and build up color until I get the blush color where I want it.) |
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When I don’t have any actual contouring powder for my cheeks, I sub in a little bronzer, swept with a fluffy blush brush under my cheekbones. (Be careful not to apply too much–you’ll end up with a dirty-looking face if you’re too generous with the bronzer! LOL) |
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I use a facial scrub once a week, but I do it in the shower, right at the end when the water’s a little cooler, my skin is softened, and my pores are more open–and my skin glows even the next day! (Usually, I follow it up with the moisturizer tip below for even better results. 🙂 ) |
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Want to moisturize your face even better? Don’t let all the steam escape from the bathroom right after your shower. You can use all that steam and heat to help moisturizer sink in even better.
I usually dry off my face a little, then apply the moisturizer and let it absorb while I dry the rest of me. (This is best done after you’ve put your hair up and out of the way, so you don’t grease up your hair accidentally. Speaking from experience here.) |
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When I want to subtly highlight my eyelids, I use a metallic cream eyeshadow, applied with my fingertip directly on my bare eyelid. The cream formula warms up and spreads easier with body heat, and it looks more dimensional and pretty instead of glaringly obvious. |
I use the two eyeshadow palettes above to mix my own eyeshadow shades when I want to try a new color, or I just want to match my eyeshadow to my clothing.
Some shades I’ve made:
Hair Tricks
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If you’re like me and can never get the conditioner distributed through your hair right, a conditioner/water mix in a spray bottle might be just the thing for you. I mixed up about 2 parts conditioner and 1 part water into a spray bottle, seen at left; I spritz the mixture into my palm and rub it onto the ends of my hair for easier/less heavy application. (You can also spray it directly into your hair if you trust your aim–I don’t trust mine. xD) |
 
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I find that if I match my shampoo and conditioner to the time of year and weather conditions, I end up with a better-looking head of hair right from the shower. In the summer, or in more humid conditions, I choose lighter-weight shampoos (top left picture) and use conditioner more sparingly, just at the ends. In the winter/drier conditions, I choose creamier shampoos (bottom left picture) and use conditioner from the midlength to the ends of my hair. |
 
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To tailor my shampoo to my hair’s daily needs, I become something of a shower chemist. (LOL) If my hair needs more cleaning power (say, after a workout), I’ll mix my regular shampoo with a bit of clarifying shampoo (top left picture). But if my hair needs a bit of TLC due to weather outside or hard styling the day before, I mix in a little conditioner instead (bottom left picture).
This really seems to help–it makes both the drying and styling process much easier, and my hair feels better to the touch throughout the day. |
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As a girl with very sleek, very flat straight hair, static and flyaways are a huge problem for me, especially in the dry wintertime–I can’t wear anything on my head without my hair clinging to it like a creepy ex. (It always seems to happen most when I’m nowhere near any styling cream or anything, too!)
To calm my needy hair down when there’s no mousse in sight, I use just a tiny, tiny bit of light hand lotion; I rub my hands together briskly to distribute the product, and then lightly glide my hands over my hair. |
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I’m not vain about much when it comes to beauty, but I am concerned about doing my hair lasting heat damage. One trick I’ve found is to dry my hair mostly using the “low” setting on my hair dryer–I only blast the fastest hot air for 1-2 minutes, and I only use that setting for the spots that take the longest to dry (for me, that’s the sides and back of my head). This seems to help my hair look shinier when dry, as well as less damaged in the long run. |
When you’re first building a website, you usually want to make it an experience for your user. You want it to be awe-inspiring, enveloping, amazing. You want the user to browse your site for hours, enjoying every moment.
How do you achieve that encompassing web experience, you ask?
Definitely NOT by having music autoplay as soon as the user loads your page, the same song looping forever, un-mute-able, un-pause-able.
Why is This an Issue?
Autoplaying music might be a great addition to webpages, except for the following three truths about Internet users.
Users generally…
Autoplaying music, with no pause/stop buttons visible anywhere on the page, thus offends users on three levels. Not only is there mysterious music playing, usually at an ungodly volume, clashing with the music you’ve got going, but you’ve got to hunt through all your tabs to find and eradicate the source of the annoying sound. And when you finally find the maddening site, you can’t pause the music, stop it, or even lower the volume–it’s just THERE.
The only cure for autoplaying music is to leave the site entirely, and most users will be all too happy to click that Close button. Thus, autoplaying music loses your visitors almost as soon as they hit your page–not what you want, as a designer and developer!
Are There Any Ways to Gently Incorporate Music into Your Webpage?
There is a trusted way to make music on a webpage infinitely more bearable–make sure you have a visible audio player (complete with pause, volume, and stop buttons), and make sure the music doesn’t autostart when the user loads the page.
Draw attention to this little audio module with special formatting, and leave it at that. Your users will find it and use it if they so choose–all you have to do is leave the choice up to them. That, my friends, will make your visitors so much happier than an uncontrollable loop of tinny music drilling its way into their brains.
Lifehacks–nifty tricks that just make life a little easier–are now a standard thing on the Internet, showcasing the creativity and ingenuity of ordinary folks with every photo and blog post. I don’t know how these people came up with these tricks, but I benefit from reading about what they’ve come up with!
In honor of this most practical form of creativity, I’ve gathered a list of favorite lifehacks from across the Internet; I’ve already started using some of the tricks I learned about by doing this post, and I hope you’ll find a few hacks you can use, too! (Scroll down to the end of the article to see selected images from the 99 hacks list that’s been making its way around Tumblr 🙂 )
Brain/Body Tricks
From 35 Life Hacks You Should Know:
Get out of the house on time: Make a playlist that runs exactly as long as you have to get ready in the morning. Go from chill songs to more energetic. You will be able to tell how you’re doing on time by the currently-playing song.
See in the dark: when you wake up in the middle of the night to do something, cover one eye with your hand and leave it there until you return to darkness. The eye that was covered will have retained its ability to see well in the dark so you won’t run into the dresser on the way back to bed. This is why pirates wore eye patches–to be able to see below deck as well as on deck!
Techie Lifehacks
Didn’t You Get That Email?
Tricky and a little dishonest…but funny, too.
3 Tips to Make You a Gmail Master
How to Extend the Life of Printer Ink Cartridges in 1 Step
How to Search More Efficiently on Google
Neat little tricks to perform either/or searches, search within a range of dates, look for similar terms to the original search term, and even by filetypes!
The Best Social Media Advice You Never Hear
How to Make Quick Animated GIFs from Videos
Household LifeHacks
Catch a Mouse Without Killing It
Great for pacifists/animal lovers like me, or people who need live mice for …reasons. 🙂
Picture Frame Jewelry Hanger
Hang jewelry in a frame filled with corkboard and studded with pushpins/nails.
10 Brilliantly Simple Hacks that Will Make Your Life Easier
I like the “sharpen your razor’s blade on your jeans” trick!
Lego Key Hanger
Lego key ring + Lego brick hung on the wall = Lego key hanger. 😀
Make a Spray Bottle that Works in Any Direction
Food Hacks
10 Incredibly Easy and Cool Kitchen Hacks
I like the chocolate milk vanilla ice cream trick, as well as the Jiffy cornbread corn dogs and grilled PB&J sandwich.
Cooking a Perfect Round Egg
You have to see the pictures of this hack to believe it. :O
A Few Life Hacks
This article includes the “cookie bowls” food hack: spreading cookie dough on an upside-down muffin tin’s wells to make little holders for ice cream, etc.
Other Random Hacks
Top 10 Most Creative Gadget Hacks
Some are funny and some are downright ingenious. For instance, the Mac desktop revisioned as a beer server, and a Blu-ray laser fused with a toy gun to make a “phaser.”
4 Things I Wish I Knew Before Self-Publishing a Book
Last but Not Least: Honorees from the Infamous “99 Hacks” List
Organization/Display
Food/Cooking
Cleaning
Travel/Safety
Just Plain Nifty
All the above images from 99 Hacks to Make Your Life Easier, from Tumblr.
The Way You Think About Time Has a Big Effect on Your Behavior
How do you think about time? Do you idolize the past, live for the (pleasurable) moment, or dream of the happy hereafter? 6 perspectives of time show us how time perspectives change the way we live our lives.
The Moment You Realize…
How did I miss recognizing these actors in different roles? :O
The Little Boy with Hip-Hop Skills
Adorable little boy shows off crazy hip-hop dance skills! 😀
EveryonesMixtape
Make a free account and start making virtual mixtapes with this awesome web tool.
Ravnica’s back with a new attitude in Magic: the Gathering’s newest block; this first set, called Return to Ravnica, features new mechanics (such as Overload), awesome creatures (like a one-drop Lifelink Cat and a creature-bouncing Bird), and plenty of spells to breathe new life into old decks.
This is only a small cross-section of what RtR has to offer, and all of these are cards I’d actually play–my personal focus is primarily on life-gain, creatures, and the colors of White and Green in general. But as with our first trip to Ravnica back in 2005, there’s something for everyone in this grand cityscape, and definitely something to please all MTG players!
Mono-Color Goodies
White
 A one-drop Lifelink creature? AND it’s a Cat? AWESOME! |
 Two-drop double-striker…in white?! Can I have, like, 16 of these? |
 OK, now THIS is going in my White Enchantments deck. |
 Where have you been all my (gaming) life?! |
Blue
 The effect for 1 blue early-game is great–and the Overload cost gives you a late-game option, too! |
 This would be a hilarious card to Overload on late-game against a bunch of pumped-up tokens… xD |
Black
 For 4 mana, a great little creature that keeps you from decking out as well as keeping your life points safe while it’s on the field. |
 A cute little rat that can make a player ditch if you so choose–great for a Rat deck, or any Black deck that needs a little hand control. |
Red
 Imagine paying two mana to get rid of an army of 1/1 tokens…mwahaha. |
 Pay 1 mana to Oxidize, or pay 5 to get rid of my boyfriend’s entire Jinxed Choker deck. Sure, why not? (And the flavor text is LOL, too.) |
Green
 Fog the attack, AND have something to block with next turn, all for 2 mana. OKAY! |
 Good to play even for 2 mana early-game, when you just NEED mana that bad. Mid- to late-game, however…shenanigans. 😀 |
 Awww yeah. Great for any deck that needs mana sources on other people’s turns…or if you just want to be free to Fog an attack. |
Multi-Colored Awesomeness
 All three options on this card are great for 2 mana. It’s like a Swiss Army knife for your deck. |
 Definitely getting this for my Green/White deck. |
 There’s a subtle option here–either place one counter each on two different creatures, or load one creature up with both counters. Nice! |
 While this is a little expensive, you do get a huge bonus for it–+3/+3 instead of the +1/+1 that Glorious Anthem and other such enchantments give. |
 So I get to bounce a creature back to my hand, saving it from lethal damage, AND I gain 2 life, all for 2 mana? WOOT! |
 7 life for 1 green and 1 white mana. I’ll take it. 😀 |
 I like the first option best for 2 mana–a great way to pump up a little creature so it can punch through some defenses. |
 Creature control in the form of a 3/3 Bird, all for 4 mana. Not bad! Might need to add this to my Bird Soldier deck! |
 For 4 mana, a life-gain source AND a token source. AND it’s a Dryad. WANT. Want want want for my Green/White. 😀 |
 This is absolutely hilarious. Just 3 mana gets you this stompy thing, and the populate ability is just thrown in there? AWESOME. |
 Great for building up token-heavy decks, or even just for generating creatures to block with if you have a token to start it off. |
 Combine Naturalize/Disenchant and a little populate action for the same cost, and it’s playable for White AND Green. A win-win! |
Favorite New Basic-Land Art
 Love the sunset-lit cityscape. |
 I like the hints of a misty rainbow on this Island. |
 Dank and dark, but with a few slivers and points of light scattered about. |
 Lots of emphasis on the skylines and steep mountainside cityscape. |
 Like a well-maintained tree garden, and yet…just a little wilder than that. |
To view all the cards in this set, visit the Wizards.com RtR visual spoiler, where all these card images originally came from. Happy playing! 😀
Ezra 5:3-5
3 At that time Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and their associates went to them* and asked, “Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?” 4 They also asked, “What are the names of the men constructing this building?” 5 But the eye of their God was watching over the elders of the Jews, and they were not stopped until a report could go to Darius and his written reply be received.
*the Israelites
King Cyrus of Persia, quoted in the first chapter of the Book of Ezra, had already decreed that any Israelites who wanted to do so could go back to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple to God, which the Babylonians had destroyed when they took the Israelites into captivity years before. Over the years of rebuilding, however, this decree was challenged time and again and the efforts of the Israelites were opposed–this quotation from chapter 5 of Ezra is the last challenge.
In a time where it might have been personally beneficial for the Persian kings to halt reconstruction on a temple built for a competing deity, instead the rulers looked with favor on the Israelites and let them continue. Each time rebuilding of the temple for God was challenged or opposed by the “enemies of Judah and Benjamin,” as the Bible calls them, God moved in the hearts of the kings (first Xerxes, then Artaxerxes, and finally Darius) to set the opponents straight.
Even during this time of positive change blended with sharp disappointments for the Israelites, God was watching over them, using even the human rulers of other lands to look after His people. Already God had brought them through the time of Babylonian exile; they were free to return home, so the light at the end of the tunnel was visible. God does the same for us today–He moves in the hearts of any who oppose or threaten His people, as we see by looking back at even recent history.
Therefore, we should not be overly worried by current events, if we trust God completely the way the ancient Israelites did. We just have to be willing to trust that God has all these situations under control, and that He protects His own.
In 10 weeks, I’ve come so far in my war on clutter. From barely being able to swing my bedroom door fully open, now I can walk freely through nearly half the room, and I’ve cleaned out over half the closet. Who would have thought?
I certainly didn’t think my war with the Clutter Dragon would go this well, since it never has before. But then again, in my past battles, I tried to de-clutter and clean all in one day, and I ended up tired, defeated, and nothing really changed. And in the past, I didn’t really try to get rid of anything that wasn’t just trash.
This time, I made up my mind to sell or donate anything I didn’t need, and that was the big change. Plus, I tackled one small area a week, and documented it with this very series of blog posts, so I held myself accountable.
What Have We Learned from Battling the Clutter Dragon?
Part 1 (The First Sword Charge): Start with a small area to clean out. Don’t try to tackle a whole cluttered room (or a whole cluttered house!) in one day all by yourself, especially not one as cluttered as mine was to start!
Part 2 (The Valiant Sword Sweep): Clearing the floor of clutter is often the most important part–you have to have clear places to put your feet when you’re cleaning, otherwise you’ll get hurt.
Part 3 (Horrors in the Hidden Abyss): If you don’t clean out your storage spaces from time to time, you will end up with clutter so bad you can’t live in your space anymore. Clean out the storage places, and you create places for your new favorite/important items to live.
Part 4 (Blundering in the Dark): When you tackle a cluttered storage space, you have to divide it up into small areas just like a cluttered room. Try to tackle too much and you’ll just get discouraged.
Part 5 (Nitty, Gritty, and Dirty): Arm yourself with cleaning products (dusters, disinfectant, paper towels, wipes, broom, dustpan, vacuum cleaner/sweeper, etc.), especially if you’re cleaning out a storage space that has lain untouched for many a year. You’ll thank yourself for having cleaning stuff at the ready!
Part 6 (A Swipe at the Dragon’s Leg): If you find yourself daunted, take another look at the clutter situation. What’s keeping you from working? Once you’ve found the reason you’re suddenly too tired/discouraged to de-clutter, then set about getting rid of it. Believe me, this helps so much!
Part 7 (A Desperate Sally Forth): Even if you don’t feel like tackling a usual-sized small area of your clutter, do SOMETHING to battle the Clutter Dragon in your life. Even if it’s just half a tiny closet shelf, or one box of books, or one corner of your room, keep fighting the war on clutter!
Part 8 (Where the Beast Hides): Don’t just move clutter around your house thinking you’re “dealing with it.” You haven’t dealt with it until you’ve sorted it out, thrown away everything that’s too broken to repair and sell, and sold/donated the rest of the items you’re not using and don’t want to keep.
Part 9 (Hacking Away at the Cache): Be ruthless about what you’re going to throw away and what you’re going to sell. If the item doesn’t make you happy, isn’t useful anymore, and/or is too broken to use/display anyway, what good is it doing you? When you’ve spent your life trapped by clutter, you can’t afford to be overly sentimental. Keep what is truly meaningful, but make room for yourself to live in your house with your precious items, too.
Closing Thoughts
In closing this series of blog posts, I hope you’ve found courage and motivation to fight your own Clutter Dragons. It’s an ongoing siege, a state of constant vigilance against the problem of “too much stuff and not enough space,” and I’m not nearly done with my own war on clutter. (I’m just done blogging about it for now, since I think 10 weeks on the same subject is quite enough. LOL!)
This series stands as proof that you CAN reclaim a room, a closet, even a small shelf, even if you are a hardcore hoarder like I’ve been in the past. And what’s more, you can maintain the change, just by being a bit more aware of how much stuff you own. (And don’t worry–when I finally reclaim my entire room from the Clutter Dragon’s terrible reign, you’ll hear the shout of joy all the way over at your house, no matter where you live in the world. xD)