My Birthday and My New Project

I like to complain a lot about non-milestone birthdays. I’ve gone on the record a lot about how after a string of milestones (License, Rated-R movies, Adulthood, Decade #3, Alcohol), that there wasn’t much left to celebrate save a blip at Year 25 when your car insurance goes down. Well, as of Friday, I will have made it to 29 — which many like to refer to as the “final birthday”. There’s something in me that likes that, and I might have to go with calling next year the “2nd Annual 29th birthday” or some such idea.

The Daily Blink!

In any case, the year so far has been fairly calm save for one major initiative on my part to try out a project that I’ve had on the backburner for a couple years, and that would be the comic known as The Daily Blink. This was an idea I started back in 2007 and it quickly got put aside for other things, but my recent WoW adventures have caused too many ideas to be cast aside again. I’ve teamed up with my friend CP to put out three strips a week, and now the site is up and purring like a kitten.

We’re both pretty excited about this, and it’s our hope that WoW players of all stripes get a kick out of what we’re up to. If I could make one request of everyone for my birthday, it’s that you tell at least one person about the comic strip. Even if you’re not into WoW yourself, statistics would seem to dictate that there’s a good chance that you know someone that is. That would make my day far more than any gift card.

5 Bejeweled Blitz Tips & Strategies

Boom! Headshot!

Bejeweled Blitz now currently stands as the #1 time sink in my Facebook experience. The combination of popcorn casual play, addictive gameplay, and high score ladder among my friends list makes it so I have trouble putting it down if I have some time to kill and a friend with a score higher than mine.

I currently hold a personal high score of 443,800, which isn’t the highest amongst my friends but an auspicious enough score to earn jeers from friends about using cheats to inflate my score. I can assure you that my score is legitamite, and besides: If I’m going to cheat to get a score, don’t you think I’d push it up to a point to where I have the #1 spot on the high score list?

In any case, Here’s a few things to know when it comes to playing Bejeweled Blitz that can help with your score:

1. Start Early. There’s a couple seconds of hesitation as the game says “One Minute… GO!” You have full license to start moving jewels around the instant they drop onto the board. You might have a bit of annoyance if the graphics get in the way of what you’re trying to do, but this time period is vital to jumping out to a good score. With everyone depending on multipliers, an extra second or two head start will make a huge difference once you get into the endgame.
2. Keep Moving! In the same vein, you can continue to move jewels while others are still falling into place. This is almost a requirement in order to generate enough points for a huge score. Always be looking ahead for where your next move is going to be.
3. Multipliers. In order to reach over 400k, you will usually need at least a multiplier of 6x. This means finding a multiplier at least every 10 seconds. It can be a tricky thing to start to get a feel for when a multiplier is going to pop up, but when it does, your top priority has to be collecting it.  Interestingly enough, if one is already on the screen, a second one seems to be less likely to show, even if you’ve caused a chain that would normally make one appear. So you HAVE to get it quick! The most reliable way to find one is to have a Flame Jewel pop and start a chain. Even one extra chain score usually causes a multiplier to appear.
4. Know your Jewel arrangements. What I mean by this is that while Flame Jewels are fairly common, Star Jewels are not, and frequently you will be plowing through the round and not catch that a Star Jewel is possible. The arrangements necessary to pull one into being created can be easily confused for a Flame Jewel, and this is a huge hit to what your score could be. Since Star Jewels can be made out of L or T shaped arrangements, the variety of placements is a lot bigger than you might think. Keep an eye out for them and take the extra second to look over the board if you think you might have one on your radar. The extra second will be worth it.
5. Save Something for the Last Hurrah. I have seen friends brag about earning as many as 200,000 points in the last hurrah alone. If you don’t have at least one special jewel sitting on the board when the time reaches zero, you won’t be able to capitalize. Once you get under 5 seconds, make sure to leave a special jewel out and avoiding breaking it so that you can try starting a good chain. On the other hand, don’t bother leaving out a lot. Blowing up 3-4 jewels as opposed to one seems to actually lessen your chances of a good chain reaction, since the game will be sending down a huge group of jewels en masse, which aren’t likely to have pre-made rows of jewels ready to create more Flames and Stars.

This is all I have for now… everything else is elementary. Play a lot. Compare notes with friends between trash talk sessions. And most importantly: Try not to take Bejweled Blitz as seriously as I apparently do. People will start to look at you funny.