Halloween Board

Welcome to a new week - have a Happy Halloween (or as they call it, Hoppy Halloween!)

Your frog turns into a Werefrog automatically this week if it isn't a spirit animal, by popular vote from the users. (Otherwise, it would be a Drac or a Skelefrog coming out of the coffin).

Two additional food items are only available this week, the Sticky Apple which slows down the curve a bit, and Combo Corn which increases those Combo bonuses by 15%. You wish you could stack this with Candy Lei, but no, it's also a food item. Unlike last week, there aren't any free samples, you'll have to buy them before you can try them out. (I suggest you don't.)

You can, however, pick up a game of Plants vs. Zombies for free this week using this link.

Other than that, whether you're trick or treating with a awesome costume or braving the hurricane on the East Coast... maybe without power... be careful out there.

Strategy: Gap / Double tap on the bottom right hand side of the board, or on the top of the curve goes far enough. Grabbing fruits is necessary for those high scores.

Recommended Powers: The typical x3, Time, Epic Fruit, Spirit Eagle, and your choice of either Gapple Sauce or Candy Lei.

Sharing More Coins Per ZB Post

Note: Solved by daily gifts and message center, which give you 4k per gift received (once per friend, per day).

Previously, people had a much easier time grabbing mojo though conventional methods (mainly through fortune cookies, which through a trick allowed players to collect hundreds of thousands of mojo from a single person), allowing people with just a few friends to play quite a bit with that extra mojo. Now, coins gained are only based off of leveling up and feeds, and top players were mainly determined by those who could collect the most - which meant having to join groups and add tons of fellow players for both competition and coin sharing.

Unfortunately not everyone is comfortable adding tons of strangers in order get lots of coins. Even more are not comfortable about the near requirement of using third party programs to collect bonuses for them.

Solution? More coins shared in fewer posts - it won't have much effect for those with hundreds of Zuma friends, but for players who are only comfortable with a small amount Zuma players on their friend lists, this should even the odds a bit.

Effect: Greatly increases the amount of coins you can share to others per post. You get no additional coins from doing the below steps.

1. Fire up Fiddler, make sure you disable FB Secure Browsing

2. Enter the following, somewhere between the OnBeforeResponse Brackets...

        if(oSession.uriContains("/facebook/zumablitz/ajax.php")
            && oSession.GetRequestBodyAsString().Contains("getZumaSpinResults"))
        {
            oSession.utilSetResponseBody('{"response":{"payoutColumn":10,"consecutiveDays":1}}');
        }

This will make the game think you got 1 million coins per spin (and this is the only payout that allows you to share 4000 coins compared to 1000). However the server will know your true coin total, and will reset to that amount when you refresh.

3. (Optional) Enter somewhere between the OnBeforeRequest Brackets...

         if (oSession.uriContains("/dailyspin.xml")) {
            oSession.url = "bchantech.dreamcrafter.com/zumablitz/custom/dailyspin.xml";
        }

Not required, but prevents spamming others with feeds saying 'I just won ONE MILLION free coins', because you didn't. It connects to my server to get a replacement string file, so if you are unable to load the game, you can omit these lines.

4. Clear browser cache.

5. Start Zuma Blitz (from bookmarks, not via a collect feed). - and keep Fiddler open while the game is running to share extra coins for your spins.

Platter Board - Just Like Switchback Snap

Layout seem familiar?

Looks like we're into a whole new set of graphic designs for old boards. Now they've got shadows casting on the balls themselves.

The speed of the balls here aren't going to cut you any slack, making it a true 90 degree nightmare. Except for the newly introduced Blue Velvet Cake, which its extra fireball during Hot Frog can give you an edge. Pick up three of them with this link.

Strategy: Use the same two gap technique as on the Crab Board - align it bottom / left or top / right. Your choice. Or...

Recommended Powers: Either of the following strategies will work:

• Gaps: x3, Time, Speed Ball, Spirit Beetle, Gapple Sauce. You could sub Speed Ball with Epic Fruit.
• Fruit: x3, Time, Epic Fruit, Spirit Eagle, Gapple Sauce. A combination of gaps and fruit makes the best scoring option.
• Third Option - All out. x3, Time, Epic Fruit, Spirit Eagle, Curly Fries. Your job: Try to clear as many curves as possible, and collect fruit as fast as possible too. Example video

Requesting Supplies: Using any of the above strategies could cost a considerable amount of coins for any casual player (65k a game average). If in the very unlikely event ZB gave you enough coins to play through a certain strategy mentioned above, which would you go for?

Popcornopolis

2-3 servings of it

First batch of Popcornpolis Popcorn bought from Costco. After trying it today and a year back, I've decided to buy some (at 4 bucks for a 4-11oz package).

Where to buy: There's not very many places around to buy them at, but Roseville Galleria might have some, as well as Costco, but only if they're doing a demonstration - when they're there, pick them up while you can, since they'll most likely disappear when they're gone.

At Costco, they typically offer these flavors: Zebra Chocolate, Caramel Corn, Kettle Corn, Cheddar Cheese, Pecan Caramel, and Cinnamon Bun.

Note: They're extremely good, and they're addicting to eat as well, but don't get too carried away with eating it. Its saturated fat is quite high in one serving (which is an ounce) at 25%, and there are 11 servings in a sizable container at Costco.

Update: You can still buy them at Costco as a small 12-pack and normal-size 4 pack (13.49 last I checked), you just lose the option to select your flavors (locked at Kettle Corn, Cheddar Cheese, Zebra, and Caramel Corn).

Creating separate Post Excerpts and Full Post Content

Sometimes there are occasions where you want the a blog excerpt to be different than just the beginning of a post when users browse through archives. This post explains how to do just that.

I discovered how to do this while trying to find ways to hide certain content on a blog post, and also because I didn't like the way some articles read 'post after the break' like you were reading it from a RSS reader and the same text showing up on the post itself. Having only excerpts prevents people casually scrolling through the blog and reading all the content in one go, and instead clicking 'read more' if interested - this allows me to see what types of posts people are reading, and what to post more of.

1. Insert the following code at the beginning of the post:

 <span id="customexcerpt">Enter Post Summary Here</span>

<!-- more -->

<style type="text/css">
#erhide {display:none;}
</style>

2. Change the 'Enter Post Summary Here' with what you want your excerpt to say.

3. Insert the rest of your post data after that.

You are set - the post summary will be different than the rest of your post.

Although this will make the data hidden from both the actual post and a RSS reader (if you set the RSS feed display to Full, at least on Blogger), if one were to copy the entire post it would also display the hidden excerpt data. Therefore it's recommended that it's used for images or for coherent posts.

Fry's Gangnam Style Ads

Found this in Roseville Fry's today - they've gotten more creative with their ads, combining it with Gangnam Style (complete with the music video playing on a laptop). Yes, this is for bundle sales.

GSKA @ Montbleu

Video jobs take place far and wide - GSKA is one of them. Doing a filming job over at the Montbleu Casino, on the balcony (where all the spotlights and other equipment are at).

Quite the most unusual theater arrangement I've seen so far - instead of the usual seat arrangement, there's a bunch of tables for seating, as well as a bar on each side.

Also introduced to the Pro3 Soundboard as well.