Category Archives: blog

#BlogEveryDay – Bing’s payment system

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Ever since its inception, Microsoft has found one way or another to pay it’s users for searching on Bing.  Today I’d like to talk about the “another” way, which is when using Bing for 30 searches gets you 15 rewards points.  Here are all the rewards you can spend your hard earned rewards points on. And I do mean hard earned. Bing is just so unnatural to me after using Google for so many years, even if Bing steals Google’s search results.

From something as simple as restricting my search parameters to only one month back, rather than the past year, to the distance down the page pictures start showing up, to even the overly elaborate default front page I find myself asking “Why?” Why not just go all the way and straight up copy Google if you’re going to copy them.  Look at how poorly Playstation Allstars Battle Royale did when it tried to copy Super Smash Brothers and left out the key mechanic of “ringing people out”.

I guess I shouldn’t complain, because they’re giving me something for nothing and in the end, if running www.freefoodatdrexel.com taught me anything, it’s that you never look a gift horse in the mouth.

#BlogEveryDay – Things cost money

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Sometimes when you get into the swing of things, you forget to take a step back and remember that things cost money.  I’m a sucker for shiny things.  “What’s that Fantasy Flight? You have a new expansion to Arkham Horror? Why YES, I do want that!” Or even, “Oh look! New paints for my 40K troops!” I spent over a hundred dollars in the first month I was playing Magic the Gathering and that was just to get started. Thankfully I’m playing with some upstanding individuals who give me their commons/uncommons after our booster drafts, thus increasing my card count and more importantly giving me a chance to make a real deck.

And then there’s Minecraft.  It’s a seemingly innocent game that can be played in an internet browser.  Having a private server costs money though. So who pays? Well, that’s where ingenuity comes in.  Everyone likes “Donation” links (by Paypal), but you have to register for non-profit status and file taxes accordingly.  Now, this isn’t beyond my realm of expertise, I already do this.  But do I want to run more non-profits? Not really, there’s no gain beyond more work.

I didn’t want to play Minecraft, I didn’t think I’d like it, but I also didn’t want to start playing Magic again. Or D&D, or blogging, or learning how to design websites better, but I did and I’m loving every second of each.  Yesterday I said I have trouble following through on things and I’m still looking at that post and thinking how I could become more consistent.

Something that doesn’t cost money and offers great value is Mint.com.  Mint.com is a financial analyzation tool. It’s free to use and it tracks everything you let it.  I have all my student loans and credit cards in there so I can track EXACTLY what I’m spending and make a huge effort to both code every purchase and tag it with why I bought it.  I see where I’m spending money and that’s really, really helping me correct this problem.

#BlogEveryDay – Drafting Magic the Gathering

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I’m inconsistent. Not in a Jamie Lee Curtis kind of way, but more in fulfilling obligations.  In an effort to change that, I’m going to #BlogEveryDay.  And yes, those hashtags were necessary.

My high school friends started playing Magic the Gathering (mtg) on a weekly basis again and I’ve decided to join them.  I always knew how to play mtg, I learned when the game first came out because my best friend’s older brother was addicted to it.  Back in ’94-95, mtg and Pokemon were all the rage.

So, every week we gather and put in a few bucks for a booster draft.  Last night we started a new box, Avacyn Restored and I got schooled.  This is actually fairly typical, because while I started playing mtg at a young age, I didn’t keep up with the game until college.  Even then, when I started drafting with this group last month, I hadn’t played a competitive match in almost 3 years.  Needless to say, I’m not rusty, I’m just plain bad (against these guys, who are near pros, might as well be judges).

Unlike Gatecrash, Avacyn Restored has a lot more of a learning curve because there aren’t guilds. Guilds enable you to easily and quickly pick a… well, a guild, a set of cards that go well together and complement each other. So I was at a disadvantage, as usual, not knowing any of the cards or how their abilities resolved.  Thankfully, I managed to win 5 games (overall I went 2-3) and came in 4th of 5 (last place guy went 1-4).  This didn’t help since the rares weren’t that great, but it was better than nothing since I got a foil of this bad boy.

Dual Casting

Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has “1 Red, tap: Copy target spell with new target”

I’m slowly learning strategies, such as block with creature, exile it and return it to the field under my control (a common ability for the blues in this expansion), but I’m still going to be trash for a couple months until I learn A LOT more about this game.

Hello faithful few!

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Hi free food at drexel followers!

I just got back from work and BOY are my arms tired.  Anyway, best of lucks over the next two weeks, study hard for those finals, and when you get back in september, I’ll be ALLLLL over the free food scene, promise.

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta

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Foreword

Let me just say, it feels good to be posting these from beyond the grave that is CAT 73.  Last summer, I started free food at drexel after my friends and I bitched that there was no one source where we could see when free food events would be.  Instead of doing the “free food tour”, we wanted to know ahead of time, much like one of our heros did. 

Free food at drexel graduated, all 4 of the originals and 1 member we added right before graduation, but have no fear!  I have taken an administrative position at a company I once co-op’d for. On that note, damn you crappy job market and my need for money to remodel my house, which I only mention because that will be a free-food-at-my-house-in-jersey event (or free food at rutgers when I eventually get the money to enroll there and begin a higher degree).

Now that we’re gone though, we still need some eyes on the ground.  If you’d like to help out, feel free to use that email link above the calendar to get in touch with us, but please, keep the fan mail to a minimum