Archive for September 2008

You’ve heard me whining about my back and hip problems — well, maybe not that much as I don’t like to whine in public. Turns out I have a herniated disc and an inflamed piriformis muscle. Let’s just say together they make one big “OUCH!” The doctor recommended an epidural steroid injection (ESI).

Since all this happened on Friday and the doctor does injections only on Fridays, I managed to get an appointment for the injection late Friday. But I had no idea it was more involved than a standard cortisone injection, which happens in the doctor’s office. I went home and researched ESI on what little information I had.

I realized it was as much work as an endoscopy. No eating or drinking, involves anesthesia through sedation, and an xray to ensure the doctor inserts the needle in precisely the right place between L4 and L5 (bottom two lumbar vertebrae). He had to do it twice because of the thinning disc between the two vertebrae.

Had to show up 1 1/2 hour early (yuck) to register. Well, I limped and followed the signs to registration only to find I went to the wrong desk. I needed to go to outpatient registration. Never saw separate signs for that. A worker retrieved a wheelchair and took me to the right desk.

The woman at the registration desk was a delight and worked smoothly through the paperwork. As soon as we finished, she called the patient area and the nurse arrived within five minutes — wow! No long wait. The long waiting came in the preparation and going into the surgical room — but that was expected.

In the prep room armed with a bag full of magazines, I looked around the room reading the signs on the wall. The first one I noticed asked, “Tired of us asking the same questions over and over?” “Good! That means we’re doing our job!” The gist of the sign was that asking repeatedly questions wasn’t a sign of one hand not knowing what the other was doing — but to make sure they had the right patient, the right procedures, and the right notes such as what medicines was the patient allergic to.

That sign earned my respect and provided comfort. Instead of aggravation when asked the same question, I felt safe and secure. Several other signs posted on the wall had similar information. What a great way to to be proactive with patients already grumpy from not eating and drinking and having to wait.

The nurse updated me throughout my process in the prep room. She also announced whenever she was about to do something such as take my vitals and put in the I.V. Ack! I saw the I.V. was going into my hand. Arm — no problem. Hand and wrist area… problem due to bad experience when I was 14 (let’s just say both wrists turned into pincushions).

She talked through the I.V. insertion process including cleaning it and verifying I wasn’t allergic to latex or iodine (another safety check). She did a beautiful job with the needle that I barely felt it. Bless her.

The procedure was supposed to be at 4:30pm, but I didn’t go in until 5:00pm. I knew it wasn’t the doctors’ fault because they were in the staff area. They were probably waiting on the surgical room’s availability — something I wish someone had let me know about. The was the only complaint about the whole service — not bad!

My husband had to chauffeur our kids after dropping me off, so he couldn’t get there until near the end of my stay. The staff had no problem reaching him and bringing him to where I was after the procedure.

I have to go through this again in two weeks. I can only hope the staff I get will be as wonderful as this one especially the nurse who will insert the I.V. (the hardest part about the whole thing). I share this because it shows great customer service is possible even in an industry bogged down with paperwork, strict procedures, and insurance pains.

It feels like the original Cake Mania came out years ago because it’s one of the first casual games I reviewed. Here comes Jill Evans (no relation to me) again in Cake Mania 3 – this time as a bride trying to prepare for her wedding. Nothing can go wrong. Yeah, right. A time bender appears on the scene falling to the ground and shatters. The family picks up the pieces and disappears.

The disappearance mystifies Jill who sees one piece left. As soon as her fiancé, Jack, comes to the door — she grabs the piece and goes >poof<. She arrives in limbo where she faces five doors with a relative lost behind each one. Here’s the exciting part: we get to pick the door for her to enter. Unlike many time management games, this one doesn’t follow a linear pattern.

Not only does she visit five places, but five different times and cultures: Egypt, China, England, France, and the Stone Age. Well, one more place, but I’m not in the business of spoiling things. Anyway, the customers’ dress also reflect the locale and some not (more on that later). She needs to bake cakes to raise money so she can free her relatives from wherever they have landed.

This one will be tough to get help on because with six locations going in any order can create 350 possible level combinations. So unlike other dash games, you can’t ask for help with level such ‘n such because it won’t be the same for all. This isn’t good for me now because I’m stuck in the third locale and have played it until my mouse arm went numb. It takes me longer and longer to conquer each level.

You could be cooking in France and see characters from Egypt appear. What’s up with that? Well, the time bender doesn’t work right. The cut scenes also differ from most games. Most games use comic strips to tell the story. Cake Mania 3 goes further with its animated scenes and talking characters complete with lip movements.

Of course, upgrades figure in the game except this time you can customize the kitchen a little. You can’t move everything at will, but you can make some changes. You can change Jill’s outfits, but I prefer to have her wear the current period’s costume. You can dress her back up as Marie Antoinette while in ye olde England.

Some of you might like mini-games and others tired of it. Cake Mania 3 gives you a choice to play ‘em or skip ‘em. Or play them later. One thing that bugs me is that you can’t replay a previous level in an attempt to reach expert level. You’d have to start over. No thanks.

Every period has a troublemaker. In England, Robin Hood will steal Jill’s hard-earned money if you don’t pick it up fast enough. In France, Napoleon won’t let anyone else be served until he’s served. In Egypt, Anubis turns other customers into mummies AND changes their orders if you make him unhappy. I do that too often.

Also, every period has its own special feature. France has a colorful button on the froster that lets you remove frosting. England has a crystal ball you can use once per level to see what the customer wants to order without having to provide a menu.

New feature Sugar Rush makes everything instant. Push a button to make a cake and it’s there. Put the cake on the froster and it’s done. Make tea or coffee — done. All these features require figuring out strategies and adapting as you go. Sugar Rush can start anytime based on your progress (a progress bar displays on top to give you a heads up).

The mini-games don’t excite. Not spectacular. In one, make a cake that looks exactly like the cake on display. In another, assemble a cake order from cakes that flow down the conveyor belt. Also, several bonuses sit at the bottom of the screen like lightning feet to make Jill move faster. It’s not clear how these bonuses work.

Cake Mania 3 brings a fresh eye to the Cake Mania enterprise that we haven’t seen in many time management games. The game starts slow, but give it time especially until you can upgrade Jill’s shoes. It’s worth the wait. After all, you need to eat your veggies before you get the dessert.

Download Cake Mania 3.

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. September 29th: 60% off on AlphaQUEUE

Tue. September 30th: 60% off on LEGO Bricktopia

Wed. October 1st: 60% off on Fashion Solitaire

Thu. October 2nd: 60% off on Girls Inc TeamUP

Fri. October 3rd: 60% off on Minuet Mixer

Sat. October 4th: 60% off on RocketBowl Plus

Sun. October 5th: 60% off on Unipong

• From Great Writers of Note: Advice from great writers divded into eight categories. [Link: Steve]
• Be a Better, Tastier Booyah Blogger [Link: Cincom Expert Access]
• VocabTest.com: Boost your word power.
• 3-point Game Plan to (Way More!) Productive Meetings
• 10 Examples of Truly Exceptional Writing

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Cupcakes That Take the Cake: Cupcakes are enjoying a revival. One show presented a challenge of creating a cupcake the size of cake. Many stores now offer cupcake cakes. A local newspaper’s food section recently discussed mini cupcakes that looked yummy.
• Totally Useless: Collection of useless web sites.
• FunnyAnimalz: Photos of… what do you know? funny animals.
• Disability Awareness Month: This week is deaf awareness week. I was on the Department of Transportation Deaf Awareness Week committee in 1993. We were fortunate to have Jack R. Gannon, author of Deaf Heritage, as a speaker.

Back update: Herniated disc and inflamed piriformis muscle. Thanks for asking and for caring.

Yvonne Russell rustles up a great discussion about email subject lines. Though email has become a standard tool in our communications box, I still see subject lines (or lack thereof) that could easily send a person’s email into the spam or junk folder. So here’s a list of bad subject lines (or good if you don’t want the person to read the email):

1. [blank]: Many people scan their inbox by reviewing the subject lines. Seeing nothing in the subject line doesn’t make always them more curious. Instead, they skip it because they figure it’s not important or it’s spam. Sure, they might recognize the sender’s name, but they might not look in that column first.
2. Hi, Hey, Hello, How are you?: Spammy spammy spammy. Even a catch up email needs a better subject line. Capture the main subject of the email. If it’s small talk and catch up, then use “Catch up” or “Checking in.”
3. Today: But I might not see the email until tomorrow and then I’ll be confused. This applies to “tomorrow,” “Tuesday,” “Next week.”
4. [First line of message]: Some people start their email in the subject line and finish it in the first line of the email. It doesn’t work well because they still have to look at the body of the email. Put the main point of the email for later scanning. People save emails and scan them by looking at the subject line. Who wants to open every email until finding the right one?
5. [Name of newsletter or company]: Actually, it’s good to start a newsletter or company email with the name because many people set filters to send such emails into the right folders. Don’t stop there, though. Add the topic of the email after the name (you can filter by the first part) so if someone recalls an email covering ABC and wants to find it — it’ll be in the subject line.
6. FW: Re: [Old subject line]: After a couple of back and forths about one topic, an email conversation can easily take on a new direction. I’m guilty of this when I get absorbed in the discussion, but then I catch myself and change the subject line. I don’t think it’s necessary to write “Re: [New topic] Was [old topic].”
7. Check this out, I think you’ll like this or some variation: I had to break this habit. When I find a web site to share with someone, I would put this in. But now, it’s turned into a spammy line. Instead, put the topic of the resource.

Anything else? Add yours.

Rebecca and Robert return in Turbo Fiesta taking their high energy and crazy-paced business out of space selling Mexican food. This time management game never feels too slow, not even at the beginning. In fact, it doesn’t take long before I fail to meet the level’s goals.

I cruised — with lots of bumps along the way — in Turbo Pizza and Turbo Subs. But hit a brick wall (or space station in this case) early on with Turbo Fiesta. This is a good and bad thing. It’s good because those who complain they never feel challenged by time management games should meet their match here.

It’s bad because Turbo Fiesta goes from 0 to 100 too soon. I can’t be too bad if I finished its predecessors’ games. Novices to time management might want to skip this one unless they’re patient and ready to jump in head first.

When I say “out of space,” that’s what I mean. Location, location, location matters in the restaurant business. I suppose this game fast forwards to the future to a time when there are plenty of customers in the sky. The customers’ attitudes (their moods drop as fast as ever) remain the same despite being way up high in the atmosphere.

Robert does the cookin’ while Rebecca does the runnin’ to pass out menus, pick up orders, nuke food, and collect change. Robert has it easy since he has robot arms that help with the food. Although the game remains similar to the previous two, it adds a turbo meter that rewards combo actions. When making enough combo steps, the turbo meter cooks in and Rebecca becomes Wonder Waitress, moving as fast as a speeding bullet. I love this.

After turning on turbo mode three times in a level, you’ll reach Fiesta mode and have a ball. Unfortunately, the two times I reach Fiesta mode… it’s the end of the level so I hardly enjoy my siesta. The dark space scene brightens up with Mexican decor that comes with a piñata and Mariachi music. Ah, that’s the best part since everyone is happy and you don’t have to rush anymore. Alas, it takes work to get there.

The mini-game offers a fresh perspective of the Pipes game. Turn the pipes and parts until everything connects — except in this case, it’s to restore power. Clever way to blend the mini-game with the story as the restaurant loses power.

Plenty of upgrades await including one that lets Rebecca carry three items at once. Only a couple of games have this feature, so I keep forgetting she can carry a third item. Upgrades up the price of food items, add color to the restaurant, help Rebecca and Robert work faster, and more. The superb graphics still impress and the music lifts.

Turbo Fiesta needs to offer an easier mode even for us experienced time management players. It stinks to get stuck early in the game or else the game is no fiesta. While the latest in the Turbo series introduces only a couple of new features, it remains as hyper and colorful as ever.

Download Turbo Fiesta.

It’s a good thing I keep an open mind when it comes to playing and reviewing games, or else I might’ve never met Peggle. How appropriate that its follow gets the name Peggle Nights. The original kept hubby and me up many nights past our bedtime. I’m not a big fan of arcade play mainly because I don’t like the pressure of move, move, move!

A little sidebar here. While growing up, my parents had a classic pachinko machine (classic uses a lever to make the ball pop not electronics like today’s pachinko machines). While living in Washington, DC, hubby and I took a weekend trip to Atlantic City in January of 1993. We watched the Dallas Cowboys whip the San Francisco 49ers then went out on the boardwalk.

There, we discovered a store selling pachinkos! I had always wanted another one because my parents’ pachinko machine died years before and never worked well. Only, these were electronic and we bought one. Still have it, but poor thing sits in a corner drowning in dust. You see, when we moved back to Texas, we had an 18-month old followed by two more kids. No parent wants pachinko marbles all over the house or G-d forbid, a kid swallow one.

We should sharpen up the machine again now that the baby is five. It needs a stand or cabinet rather than sit on the floor. So where am I going with this story? Peggle is pachinko with brighter colors, cooler music, and rockin’ slow motion. Besides, the background changes every time. Pachinko only has one background and so many special effects.

Peggle Nights brings all new scenes with the same masters. Fans won’t see any new features or upgrades, but more like a big change of scenery. Adventure mode returns with 60 levels that take more work to beat. Each of the 11 masters tells you its dream — thus, “night”, lends you its bonus power, and sticks with you for five levels. The final five levels let you select the master you want to use.

Pumpkin dreams of being a painter, so the background reflects his painting. One of the funnier backgrounds — cliché, but funny — shows the famous The Scream painting with the pumpkin’s face replacing the screamer’s face.

All the masters return with their famous powers that help us whenever we hit a green peg. The lobster’s claws come out working like flippers in a pinball machine, rabbit’s magic hat helps hit more pegs, and King Tut’s pyramid expands the bucket to improve your chances of catching the ball.

The goal for every level is to clear all the orange pegs. Blue pegs dominate the screen to act as barriers, green turns on the power up, and purple triples the score. Though 60 levels sounds like a lot for most games, it still doesn’t take me more than a day to complete adventure mode.

New in Peggle Nights is the introduction of Ace Score. Every level has an ace score where you can win a red ribbon whenever you beat the score. So after you finish adventure mode, you can replay any in level Quick Play mode so you can win every Ace ribbon. Clear all the pegs for a bonus blue ribbon.

Duel mode lets you compete with other players or against the computer. Challenge mode contains challenging peggle games where may have fewer balls.

Another wonderful feature is colorblind mode, which makes the graphics more efficient to those with colorblindness.

Perfect your shots to win points and recognition for style shots. The Super Long Shot, worth 5000 points (10,000 in Duel mode), requires hitting a non-blue peg, traveling two-thirds the width of the screen to hit another non-blue peg. Off the Wall, valued at 25,000 points, involves bouncing the ball of the wall and traveling one-fifths the width of the screen to hit a non-blue peg.

Masters also have specific style shots. The lobster awards Flipper Maniac and 25,000 points whenever bouncing the ball off a flipper and hitting at least one peg four times. Zap 12 one more pegs with Electrobolt for a Shock It to Me reward and 25,000 points.

I put off this review for as long as I could. After all, it was my excuse for playing Peggle Nights instead of handing it over to hubby so he could play. Now, I’ll have to share. It’s still a delight to hear Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and watch the fireworks when I win. It certainly lessens the pain I’ve been in for over a week with sciatica. Count on Peggle Nights to chase away the blues or ease the pain and even make you smile.

As a deaf person, I love technology and it helps connect me to many people. But even I can’t believe this true story from Michael Katz of Blue Penguin Development, Inc and I disagree with the conference leader’s actions.

{Begin story}

I attended the Inbound Marketing Summit here in Boston. It promised several excellent speakers, offered lots of interesting topics, and the entire thing was blogged, twittered, flickred and videoed from start to finish. So I put on a suit (yes, I own several) and headed on down to the Cambridge Marriott.

That’s when things got interesting. The keynote speaker addressed a packed room of about 300 people. He spoke for 40 minutes or so, after which they opened it up for questions from the audience. Sort of.

Because as it turns out, the only way you were allowed to ask a question was by emailing it or Tweeting it to the front of the room. The conference leader then selected the questions he liked and read them to the speaker.

Huh? I’m sitting ten feet from the stage, but if I want to ask a question, I have to mail it in? If you ask me, this makes about as much sense as telling restaurant customers that the only way to eat in the dining room is to first have your meal delivered to your home and then drive it back to the restaurant.

And so as someone who’s been trying to follow in his wife Linda’s example of making the world a better place, I figured I ought to say something. So immediately after the session, I walked up to the conference leader and politely offered my feedback:

Me: “You know, it struck me as kind of odd that with a roomful of real, live, people, the only way to ask a question of the speaker is to send an email.”

Conference Leader: “You can also Tweet it.”

Me: “Wouldn’t it make sense, particularly at a conference whose central theme is “community,” to let people interact directly with the speaker?”

Conference Leader: “Do you have an iPhone? You could use that.”

Anyway, realizing I was getting nowhere, I thanked him for his time and promised to email him a hearty handshake.

Here’s the point. Technology, for all the wonderful things it brings (particularly to us small business owners), can lull us into missing the bigger picture. The Acres of Diamonds, if you will.

My conference leader friend, for example, was so taken by the Internet’s ability to help people connect instantly across time and space, that when offered the real thing, he chose the simulation.

That’s big. But it’s not just him, we all do it:

…We attend conferences and meetings with our laptops open, listening with one ear and typing emails with the other (not that I think you type with your ear).

…We let the phone go to voicemail every time instead of picking it up when it rings, because it’s more efficient to only return the calls that “really matter.”

…We love our E-Newsletter for the way it lets us stay top of mind with our list of contacts, but when one of those contacts emails with a question, we don’t bother replying.

You get the picture: Technology is great, but it’s no substitute for human interaction. And every time we use it to cut the people out of the equation – whether in the name of efficiency, a desire to appear bigger, or some other “too busy for business” rationalization – we miss out on a golden marketing opportunity.

Because in a world filled with unanswered emails, unreturned phone calls and unreachable corporations, sometimes just looking someone in the eye and listening to what they have to say puts you and your company at the front of the line.

{End story}

Does it seem unreal to you? I’d LOVE to have this feature if I should speak at a conference — but not to this extreme. I’m comfortable with public speaking. My fear comes in not hearing the questions asked. So this would make a great work around. Instead of taking this approach, here’s what I’d do:

1. Tell people to send me questions through a Tweet or an IM.
2. Call out the person’s name asking the question.
3. Let the person ask the question out loud while I read the question.
4. Answer the question.

This allows the person to ask the question face-to-face for all to hear while taking the fear of not hearing the question out of the picture. Hmm … makes me wonder if I should speak at sxsw where everyone brings a computer. But what would you like to hear about?

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. September 22nd: 40% off on Hawaiian Explorer: Lost Island

Tue. September 23rd: 60% off on Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars

Wed. September 24th: 42% off on The Secret of Margrave Manor

Thu. September 25th: 52% off on Mahjong World

Fri. September 26th: 52% off on Great Wall of Words

Sat. September 27th: 52% off on Solitaire Cruise

Sun. September 28th: 50% off on Pearl Diversion

• Permission to Change Direction: Must read if you have a niche blog and strong reader relationship… you don’t mind if this blog turns into one about sewing, right? Just kidding.
• How a Credit Card Makes Freelancers Bawl… by me. I had fun with it… wish I could come up with more stuff like this.
• Why an Ugly Website Might Be More Profitable for You: Sage advice from Yuwanda. Wish I had an idea in the first place.
• How to Redesign Your Web Site.
• Someone Has It Together Over There at Craig’s List: Where can I come up with ideas like this???
• Getting Started Freelancing: FAQ for Beginning Writers
• I am thinking about Yolanda.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Can you guess my accent?
• Top 10 Tools for Soccer Moms… and volleyball moms and baseball moms…
• 12 Promising New Web Sites and Services
• Say Cheese: 12 Photos That Should Never Have Been Posted Online
• Finally got around to watching Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture. Also found Time Management, but it was not captioned as promised. It took further looking to find it. This Time Management video also has German subtitles.
• Top 10 Wild Kitchen Gadgets You’ll Only Use Once

Going to back specialist today. Pray he can figure out what’s going on with me. I can’t go without tennis for too long! I’ve had back problems for years, but this resembles nothing I’ve had before so it has me worried.