Author: Cassandra

Throwing Killer Baby Dinos!

Well, okay, that’s an unlikely result. But it’s what the friends who introduced us to Evo called it. What is Evo, you ask, besides throwing killer baby dinosaurs? Well, it’s a game of dinosaurs trying to survive and reproduce, in an ever-changing climate with new mutations to match, and the unlivable temperatures of each area necessitating migration, and sometimes a fight, to be able to reproduce, and hopefully survive the “survival phase” better known as the “death phase.”

Evo board game

There are a lot of fun parts to this game, but by far my favorite is the mutation phase, because of all the options. What happens with the climate phase, which comes first, is a new climate is arranged, determining which spots are hot, which are cold, which are instant death, and which are safe. Mutations make it easier to survive with a number of possibilities, like an extra pair of legs for more movement, fur to protect from cold, thermal regulation to protect from heat, extra babies to, well, get extra babies… and the special mutations.

Special mutations are a real treat. I honestly haven’t seen most of them, but there are special mutations for increased attack, increased defense, a ton of other awesome things I don’t remember, and the two from which this game got its nickname, Throwing Killer Baby Dinos. The first is called Hard Shelled, which allows the baby dino to be one space away from the parent, as opposed to next to it (usually babies are born in the tile adjacent to their parent). The other, while I don’t know its official name, is, in essence, Killer Baby Dinos, stating that the baby can be born into a space with an enemy dinosaur. Presumably, a fight ensues, though we didn’t actually get that tile during our round. While getting both special mutations to throw Killer Baby Dinos is unlikely, it’s a fun concept!

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Jaguars!

Yes, the cat, not the car. Cats are very near and dear to me, as I may have mentioned in a previous post, but so are jaguars in specific. One of my favorite places to go is Guatemala, visiting the relatives I have there (I’ve mentioned that some time, I’m sure). Jaguars, being important to Mayan culture, a characterization that artist friends of ours used for my parents and I, and a cat, are a species that I feel connected to. As such, when I had a Biology project involving choosing a species to write about, you can guess what I chose! And here it is:

The jaguar is a prime example of a species being perfectly adapted to its environment. Its distinctively short legs, powerful jaws, thick skull, and its affinity for water all help it to maximize its efficiency in its native environment of remote Central and South America.

In the heavily forested areas in which jaguars live, camouflage is well-put to use and chasing prey can be difficult due to the myriad obstacles. With conditions as such, jaguars adapted to a stalk-and-ambush style of hunting prey that minimized effort while not lowering the amount of food intake. For this reason, jaguars have a short, stocky limb structure, which allows them greater success at climbing, crawling, and swimming, which are directly helpful in the above mentioned hunting style. For instance, they have been known to climb trees to ambush their prey.

When they reach their prey, they try not to leave room for a hassle, going in for a killer bite through the skull. They can do this thanks to their powerful jaws. In comparison to other types of cats, jaguars have slightly stronger jaw muscles and slightly shorter jaws, allowing for more leverage on the bite. The result is a bite which, relative to the animal’s size, is the strongest of any big cat.

Jaguars also have thick skulls, which, besides supporting their killer jaws, may be to protect them in the event of a fight. While jaguars have no natural predators, some of their prey can be just as dangerous. Besides many of their prey potentially outweighing them by up to six times, they’re also known to go after caimans as one of their many food sources. And while jaguars may prefer to kill by biting through the skull, they likely also prefer not to be bitten through theirs.

If it was being attacked by most any other type of cat, the caiman would probably be fine just to retreat into the water, but not with jaguars. This is another trait of jaguars’ that sets them apart from other types of cats – they don’t mind water. In fact, they’re excellent swimmers, a trait they likely adapted due to South America’s wide network of rivers, teeming with potential meals, such as fish, turtles, and, as mentioned above, caimans. Swimming is also a convenient trait should the jaguar have reason to cross a river, as a much easier way across than going around or trying to find a dry path over.

Jaguars are truly remarkable creatures, beautifully adapted to the habitat they live in. Their specialized limb structures, jaws, skulls, and swimming capability allow them to better hunt their prey without expending superfluous energy. Even if on an efficiency scale alone, these beautiful, well-adapted cats are to be admired.

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A Series of Snacks

I’m not sure exactly where I was introduced to this series of restaurant-owning games, but I think this is yet another interest of mine that my best friend is to blame for. However I came across it, I picked up an interest in the Papa’s restaurant games, as I found them via Cool Math Games.

Most of the games follow a basic premise – there’s the order station, where you take orders, various stations to assemble and cook the meal, and then perhaps one more for sides, like the soda and fries station in the hot dog place. Each “day” you take orders from customers and complete them to your best ability. One of the interesting things about these dishes is that they’re custom built by the customer, kind of like Subway, so it’s not an “I’ll have the number 4” sort of situation. As you might imagine, I spend a lot of time consulting the orders as I cook, especially since as you progress you get more and more ingredients to use. You get rated for each dish and at the end of the day get points according, as well as tips that you use to buy upgrades. My go-to first purchase is the doorbell. You’d be amazed how much time is saved when you don’t have to keep shifting to the order station to check if there’s someone there.

Tips can also be used to buy decorations. Decorating your lobby increases the waiting score, and, if the poster markets a certain product, gives you a bonus on all dishes with that product in them. If this is one of the newer games, you then get tickets for a minigame, which you can win prizes from, like furniture, posters, and outfits. In these newer versions, after the first couple “weeks,” you will find yourself in some holiday season, and there are corresponding clothes, furniture, posters, wallpapers, and flooring that will give you boosts for that holiday. Each holiday comes with new ingredients special to the holiday. For instance, my sushi rolls took on jalapeños for Cinco de Mayo.

You can also get “specials” from customers with golden envelopes, which give you some bonus, as well as the general bonus of having a memorized dish instead of having to do everything customly.

And now, I suppose, I should tell you what the games actually are. They all start with the word “Papa’s” because they all supposedly belong to Papa Louie, but I’m just going to leave that word out, because I don’t need to be repeating it that many times over again. There’s an ever-expanding list of them (Sushiria, Scooperia – ice cream on cookies – and Bakeria – pies – are new since I started playing), but as of now, they include the above listed and the following: Burgeria, Cheeseria (grilled cheese), Cupcakeria, Donuteria, Freezeria (milkshakes), Hot Doggeria, Pancakeria, Pastaria, Taco Mia, and Wingeria. There’s also the Pizzeria, but I don’t play that one. I tried it once, and quickly realized that it’s probably the oldest of them. I can appreciate it as the source of the games that I do like, but I don’t like the system of it as much as the later ones.

There are also the spinoff games, which are more of a food-based action, fighting, quests style game, When Burgers Attack and When Sundaes Attack. Also fun games, of a completely different variety while still being connected by the characters, who are customers from the other games.

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Hawaiian Wizard School

In preparation for my 11th birthday, my parents and I set up a Harry Potter themed birthday party. My dad had a lathe for wand making, we had foosball as Quidditch, my mom made an awesome Dementor piñata, and I invented a school, complete with houses and symbols.

Aloha is a running joke in our family (which I won’t explain because it isn’t actually relevant) and we named the school based off of a slight misspelling of a common spell. We named our school – Alohamora. Below are the houses and their designs (bear with their simplicity, I was ten).

House 1: 
Symbol: Shark
Founder: Sirauwani Sharktooth ♀
Colors: Orange and Grey
Characteristic attribute: Courage
House 2:
Symbol: Nene
Founder: Guinairo Goosefeather ♂
Colors: Brown and White
Characteristic attribute: Loyal
 House 3:
 Symbol: Volcano
 Founder: Lilinokeao Lavaglow ♀
 Colors: Red and Tan
 Characteristic attribute: Ambition
 
House 4:
Symbol: Awa
Founder: Kanisoria’a Kavaroot ♂
Colors: Green and Yellow
Characteristic attribute: Studious
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Woah Quotes

“Woah,” not necessarily as in the most profound things you’ve ever heard/read, but because I needed a short way to say “Food for thought and maybe, just maybe, you’ll have an existential crisis while you’re at it” for the title. This is the other side of my quotes document, and for sanity’s sake I’ve posted less of those than I did of the happy quotes (you might need those, they’re here).

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” -William Shakespeare

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” -Ambrose Bierce

“Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.” – Cecil Baldwin, Welcome To Night Vale

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Escape Rooms! …Digitally?

Yeah, you read that right. So, as far as I know, I’ve never done a real escape room. I have, however, done plenty of these online ones! A while back I stumbled upon HoodaMath (probably thanks to school friends, but no guarantees on that) and consecutively their entire Escape Games page. My cousins and I obsessed a bit, all three of us hovering around the screen and binge playing them together.

I’m not really going to be comparing this to real escape rooms, since, as I already mentioned, I haven’t really done those. Hence, these will be judged by their own merit and someone else can do a comparison.

There’s always a little bit of plot. Let me start there, because… well, the game starts there. They aren’t just throwing you into the situation; they have a blurb at the beginning explaining why you are where you are and usually some reason for why you can’t get out. You got lost, you stayed too late and the gates are now closed, etc. Not always realistic, but not all of the games are either. Hence, Escape with Hansel and Gretel.

The rest of the game is running around using the green room movement arrows and clicking on things to find clues, helpful objects, and locks of various types that need opening with your smarts and the clues you’ve found (or haven’t yet). They have an impressive variety of things to do and find, and despite the kids’ game animations they’re still difficult for me. In other words, fun!

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Eat This!!!

Or, really, please, please don’t. We need that. You know, for the rest of the game. And hopefully the many to come after. Because throwing burritos at your friends is too much fun to pass up.

Throw Throw Burrito items - 2 squishy burritos, a stack of Burrito Bruises, and a Fear Me token

Yes, you read that right. Throwing burritos. Yes, I’m serious. No, are you crazy? Of course they’re not real burritos! Do you know how much of a mess that would make?

Throw Throw Burrito is a fun speed game that involves collecting sets of crazy cards, and sometimes throwing fake burritos at your friends, in a variety of ways. You can duel with one other (like a good old Western back-to-back, walk, turn and draw), battle between just two, or have an all-out war, giving someone else (hopefully) a Burrito Bruise!

But that’s only if you get three cards of that type and color. Otherwise, you’re collecting other types of cards in groups of three, looking to gain points to become the Burrito Master, to be feared by all. There are no turns, just drawing from your deck and discarding on top of someone else’s, and occasionally drawing from the pool decks. So, you know, points for points and burritos because… throwing stress burritos at people is lots of fun? I mean look at those! They’re adorable and squishy and so much fun to peg Mom with. Repeatedly.

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Writing Competitions

I wrote “For All Time” (parts 1, 2, and 3 here) for a short story contest. I told you about the contest in the first of the three posts linked above. What I didn’t tell you was how I found out about that contest.

My editor/publicist/manager/mother also writes, largely short stories, and at some point she stumbled across Almond Press and their list of writing competitions. What they do is make a list of creative writing competitions that other groups have set up, take the highlight information and a link to the page, and they put them all in one place for easy access. This is how I found out about the Felix Dennis competition that I wrote “For All Time” for.

When I say “highlight information,” I mean just that. They have the competitions ordered by deadline, with their name/title (unsurprisingly), followed by where they’ll accept entries from, the entry fee, if there is one, the maximum word count, and the top prize. Each block doubles as a link to more information about their corresponding contest, with more about the theme and requirements. That page has a link to the website that’s actually running the competition for entry.

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Writing Prompts

You could call this a writer thing, but I look at it more as a source of entertainment and less as an actual influence in my work. Thanks to a certain personalized media platform, *cough* Pinterest, I am consistently bombarded with what have become one of my favorite things to read on the internet.

The types of my prompts vary wildly – some are serious, some are uplifting, some are downright hilarious. Some of them make you want to think about them for hours and some stand alone. Some of them are long, and some are only a sentence. Some include a response from someone else who has written a short story based off of the prompt. But all of them are great. Below I have included one of my “Fun” ones, a serious one and a happy one. Enjoy!

Switch villain and hero to ensure it goes un-creepily tho
This is how mermaids are born
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Soundrown

Soundrown is one of those small, obscure internet programs that turns out to be immensely helpful. It is exactly what it sounds like: a site for sore ears. Tired of listening to a conversation when you want to be reading? Soundrown! Want the calming effect of listening to a coffee shop on fire with birds in the background? Soundrown! Want to write and need the right sounds to get in the mood? You guessed it… Soundrown!

Okay, in all fairness, I think the only intended purpose is the last one. But hey, they’re all fun. And you can relax, it isn’t like they recorded a coffee shop on fire. What they do have are multiple audio tracks you can listen to, multiple at a time if you’d like. Presently, these are Coffee Shop, Rain, Waves, Fire, Birds, Night, Train, Fountain, White Noise, and Playground. Each has its own volume bar, so you can adjust them accordingly. They have a random button if you don’t want to select one yourself, as well as music, which is currently in Beta and has exactly one song. I’ve listened to that song a lot.

They also have links to a couple of articles in the Menu, Knowledge section. Quite honestly, I haven’t gotten to reading them yet, but they look interesting and I’ll likely be reading them soon. I mainly use this site for the song; it’s just under six minutes of gentle instrumental music, which I’ve found to be the best music for me to read or write to without getting distracted.

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