Friday, January 29, 2016

Friday Night Fun!



It's Friday! The rabbits have taken over Sheepdog's blog while he is busy wasting another Friday night on laundry and meetings with boring strangers. Woohoo! We are going to have some insane fun while the Sheepdog is away. But... he only left us with $8.49... Oh well! We'll shoot the works! We have taken a poll from all the bunnies in the apartment, and here are our favorite votes:


Gray Bunny: Homemade Popcorn and Movie (Rented, or $5 bin at Walmart).
Homemade popcorn is surprisingly easy and fun to make, and actually cheaper than microwave popcorn. Buy a bag of popcorn at the grocery store, and some corn oil. Get a pot with a lid, and heat up about 2 tblspoons oil, or enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Pour in about ¼ - ½ cup of popcorn. Cover with lid, and shake/stir occasionally.

Gray Bunny: Hot Air popcorn maker. If you happen to have one of these, popcorn is even faster and more fun to make! Besides, you can aim a hot air popcorn maker at your pet/roommate and see how many they can catch in their mouth. Caution, popcorn will be hot!

Blue Bunny Laser pointer fun. If you have a laser pointer and a camera, turn out the lights, and see what kind of wacky-fun pictures you can get with a laser pointer! Hint, set the shutter speed to a long time, about 5-20 seconds, and wave the laser pointer around.

Blue Bunny: Project Time! At your local home depot, buy a couple small pieces of pvc pipe (half inch). Borrow the tools there to cut them into 1 foot lengths. Take them home and decorate them. Then, pick up a bag of mini marshmallows at the store. Have a marshmallow gun fight.

Brown Bunny: Buy Balloons. Balloons are fun! Water fight, taping them to the wall and throwing sharp objects at them, playing kickball, the possibilities are endless! Shoot marshmallows at them.

Brown Bunny: Wand! Easy! Find a stick, whittle it into a wand. Don’t have a knife? Find one at big lots or a sporting goods store. Often, they have fun/epic looking knives on a “super” sale for about $10 or under.

Ninja Cat next door: Watch your favorite movie, Quote the whole thing out loud just to prove you can. Find funny voices for each character. J

All the Bunnies: Bake cookies. Need we say more? :D Try not to eat all the dough before they are cooked.

Pegasus: Balloon Rockets: Grab some string, a few tacks, a straw and a balloon. Tadaa! Instant balloon rocket!

10: For any of the above, play some party music or cartoons while you are setting things up.

*Bunnies drop list and commence to eat all the cookie dough while trashing the house with all the ideas going on at once* 

"Acckk! Sheepdog, help!!" - Black Kitty here and I'm hiding under the bed.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Desk Tricks for Work



Quick Desk Tricks I use every day:
A quick run-down of windows 7 based tools I use on a daily basis:

Windows Search
Click Start, type in the program you need, or file you need. Done right, it can be faster than clicking an icon on your desktop

Docking things
I have about 8 programs “docked” on my start bar so they are easy and quick to open.

Multiple Emails
I almost always have at least 2 if not 3 email accounts opened simultaneously. Since they are all google accounts, I have one open in each browser. I use firefox for my personal email, chrome for my work email, and I.E. for helpdesk emails.

Alt – Tab
By holding the Alt key, and pressing tab, you can easily switch between multiple windows without having to find them.

Shortcuts
I use these so often I don’t even think of it as a “trick” per se, but they are very helpful:
Ctrl + c   copy
Ctrl + v paste
Ctrl + p print
Ctrl + s save
Ctrl + t in browser, opens new tab

Shortcuts
I use shortcuts on my desktop as well, often for programs or pages I open frequently. I have about a dozen that I use on a daily basis. Most of these are webpages. To create a new shortcut:
Right Click on Desktop
Click New
Click Shortcut
Copy and paste the address in the bar, then create a name for your icon, and Click Finish. 

Finally, while this isn't computer related, I always have a pad of sticky notes and a pen available for jotting notes, and a spiral notebook handy for taking longer notes or thoughts. 

Enjoy! 


Traveling Salesman - Rant

Good Morning All,
I usually don't post rants on my blog, preferring to impart some form of conventional or imaginative wisdom or witty narrative. However, for this one I'll make an exception. I tend to be a bit shy around new people and faces, and forced conversations with complete strangers over any topic tends to make me feel uncomfortable. *sigh* Yet, sometimes, it may be necessary. My master's have been working out some financial opportunities and have found themselves having these awkward conversations about complicated topics with a large amount of complicated numbers. 45 minutes later, they have papers spread out all over the place, even more numbers, and more questions than answers. An hour later, they returned home arms full of fluttering papers, and sticky notes with scribbles on them. Headaches all around, but overall rather helpful and necessary.

My own adventure with strangers came in the form of a knock on the door during my restful Saturday nap.Woken up, and a bit groggy, I opened the door. Standing in front of me was a large boar. He introduced himself, and shook my paw. He then launched into a well-rehearsed 15 minute speech about himself, his cause, and a few corny jokes designed to make me feel at ease and chuckle. I didn't chuckle. In fact, with every passing minute, I grew more weary of this boar. Why was he standing here? Why was he keeping me from my perfectly comfortable nap on a Saturday Afternoon? And why on earth was he wearing a goofy pigeon feather cap? My mind obviously wandering, he blithely finished his speech, then proceeded to show me a list of all the other people in the neighborhood who had already given him money. He even had an average total per person! It's as if these figures would convince me to jump on the bandwagon. I have to admit, I wasn't even impressed by his fancy briefcase or gold wristwatch. I wanted him gone. I wanted to get back to my nap. So I politely responded with: "I think I'll pass but thanks for your time." His response? "I don't play football sir."

And here, I was lost for words. What does he want? For me to feel shamed into giving him money? For me to respond with another word for no? Laugh and slam the door in his face? The only reason I could come up with was he wanted me to feel awkward and embarrassed. Which I did. Which made me even more emphatic that this guy wouldn't get a cent from me. I closed the door.

Don't get me wrong, I like girl scout cookies and supporting local fundraisers as much as the next sheepdog, but this veritable arsenal of salesman tactics really gets under my fur. In order, here are the top 10 things that bug me about salesman:

1. "I'm not here to sell you anything" -Oh? They why are you here?
2. "Look at all the sales I've gotten already from your neighborhood" -Why would I care about that?
3. "Small talk" -Look, just finish your speech and leave. I'm not your friend, and I don't really care what your aunt's cousin's friend has done with his motorcycle.
4. Looking past me as if he thinks I plan on inviting him inside. -I do not plan on inviting you in, that's why I'm standing in the doorway.
5. Talking down to me. -You insult me then expect me to buy from you?
6. Invasion of Personal Space. - The only thing I want that close to my face is my food, thank you very much sir. Come any closer and I'll bite your nose off.
7. Willful ignorance of my body language. -Take a hint, my frown, and frequent meaningful glances to the couch means you do not have my interest.
8. Speed Talking - Sometimes I think they talk fast to make us look puzzles and say "What now?"
9. Bragging - Ever notice that salesman seem to have a big ego?
10. If I really wanted to buy something, don't you think I would just go to the store? Or Amazon?

*Pauses* Hmm, my rant went a little long. Ah well, feel free to skim it, it's just a rant after all. Anyway, I'll have something more uplifting and creative next time. Thanks for listening!

-Sheepdog-

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Board Games (Vol. 2)



How to “Win” board games
Hello chaps and chappesses! Today we will go over the basics of board game etiquette. Mainly, how to win! Now there are a variety of different ways to go about competitively playing board games. Obviously for skill games, practice is the best way to become an expert. However, what if it is a new game you haven’t tried before? Or one you don’t own and only play when someone else brings it to a game night? Here are a few methods to do better with games you aren’t an expert at. J Enjoy:

Method 1:
Copycat – Pick out the best player in the room. Hint, it’s usually the person who brought the game. Watch carefully the way they play, and as best as you can, copy their moves and playing style. You may not beat them, but you have a pretty good shot at getting 2nd place, which is close enough. J

Method 2:
Stick to your guns – If playing board games has taught me anything, it’s that some strategies are better than others. But, any strategy is better than no strategy, or worse, switching strategies halfway through the game. Adjusting your strategy can be helpful, but don’t turn the whole boat around in the middle of the game. You are much better off sticking to your strategy through the game. And who knows? Your plan may pay off near the end of the game!

Method 3:
Pick the winner – In a lot of board games, by the 4th quarter, it can be pretty clear who is in the lead and who is trailing behind. If you are trailing, and are confidant you won’t be in first, you still have the option of “road blocking” the leader, or helping someone go from 2nd place to 1st. If you opt for this method, be sneaky about it. If done right, you can have the fun of knowing you had a hand in the outcome, and no one will be the wiser.

Method 4:
Play for the evening – You may not get 1st place every game, but if you consistently get 2nd or 3rd place each game, you may very well be seen as the best player of the night overall! Especially when playing a wide variety of games, no one will always be 1st place, but it’s possible to be always in 2nd place!

Remember, at the end of the night, it’s all about the fun. Keep a smile on your face, even if you were thrown into a few games you have no idea how to play. No one will remember who won and who lost, just that they had a fun night playing games with their friends.

Lastly, here are some additional tips for specific (popular) board games in the bunny’s circles:

Dominion:
Dominion is a deck-building game where you buy cards that you use over and over. In this game, there is always one strategy that prevails; the gold rush.
Gold Rush:
Turn 1: buy a silver
Turn 2: buy a silver
Turn 3- buy cards that work well together.
Turn ???: as soon as you can afford it, buy a Gold. This allows you to begin buying more expensive cards as you build your deck.

Ticket to Ride:
Ticket to Ride is a train game where your goal is to connect different cities across the board to complete “route” cards to score points. Strategies differ, but in general, go for long routes that score 10 or more points each. Then, try to find short routes in between your long routes that will be easy for you to complete.

Settlers of Catan:
Settlers of Catan is a city building game where your goal is to be the first to collect 10 points total. Each settlement is worth 1 point, and each city is worth 2. There are other ways to collect points, but the best overall strategy is to upgrade all settlements to cities. This way, you collect more resources quicker (as cities double your resources).

Any Dice Game:
10,000, Lowman, Zombie Dice, Liars Dice, Yahtzee… Most (if not all) dice games are pretty much just chance or luck. Here’s what you do. Pick an item either on your person, or a random item in the room. Claim this is your good luck charm. If you start winning, compliment yourself on your good taste for finding a good luck charm. If you begin losing, try to pawn off your “charm” onto another player. Maybe it will make them lose!

Have a charming Wednesday!
-woof-