Bingo Blitz - Happy 3rd Birthday!

Happy 3rd Birthday! At whose expense? Well, it all depends on how you take it.

1st day event - Bingo cards at Elvis room going at half price! Wow, you can see a surge of players in that room. You have to collect a total of 12 items, out of which you have to get 6 items yourself, without any help, in other words, non-giftable.

Was in the room just now and finished up my credits and still cannot get the one FINAL item - the buggy. Funny thing is some of them have many buggies in their inventory and they need jackets which I have a few. Well, this is what you can call - LUCK! Good luck players!

Over at the chat, one of them posted - spent 1000 credits. Wow, 2300 credits is worth US$200! Let's just hope this player actually accumulated his daily credits to this quantity, otherwise, spending 1000 credits and more to finish the room which will reward you with 800 credits is ..... leave it to you to do the maths.

What is unique about BB (Bingo Blitz) is you get together with people of around the same level so you pay the same price for the cards, eg. if my sister (level 29) plays in Elvis room, she will pay lesser for the cards as compared to myself (level 102). Of course, she will get lower rewards when she finishes the room. Smart app or should I say, people, right!

What is smarter of BB is instead of dangling the carrot of cheaper bingo chips, it dangles cheaper bingo card cost. This is really effective because players will tend to have this feeling that "I must make use of this opportunity to complete the room". So they play and play and more will pay and pay as compared to normal times. Good strategy. Believe these guys study psychology.

Am glad I don't fall for this. Well, I have contemplated buying credits sometime ago and even wanted to be a elite membes, but am glad that I overcome all these temptations. So, I'm just going to stop Bingo-ing for a while and accumulate my daily credits.

As for Slot-ting, I still have the Free Spins and coins, so I will keep playing but keeping it to a minimum. This will give me time to do my other more important, urgent work.

Cross Stitch Completed - Cute Animals, Rabbit in "Honey Bun" by Margaret Sherry

Margaret Sherry doesn't design cats and cats alone. She has designs of other animals that are so cute. One of them is this Rabbit in Cross Stitcher 2009 Calendar and is entitled "Honey Bun", May 2009.

Learnt the following when doing this stitching -

• Choose the fabric you like. I did this on 16ct Aida which I have forgotten where and when I got it. I did not really like the feel of it, so it slowed down the stitching.
• French knots (FK). It doesn't have to be 2 turns over the needle. Depending on where the FK are going to go to, vary according. 2 rounds over the needle with 1 strand for the rabbit's eyes is perfect but not for the bees' as they appear too big. If you notice, there are some FKs. These are done using 2 strands but 1 round over the needle, so they look just nice.
• Background. I was a little lazy and thought of using 1 strand for the background. However, I know that it will have a lighter effect and changing the colour to a darker one will lose the nice combination of colours (am not good with colours), so I followed the chart.

There are some 3/4 stitches in this chart too, so a sharp needle is advised.

Cross Stitch Completed - Catitudes, Astrocats

This is yet another cute one from Cross Stitcher Astrocats Calendar 2007, by Margaret Sherry. This is the detective from the zodiac sign Scorpio. This time round, am very, very happy with the French Knots (his eyes).

Did this on 14ct aida (ivory) using 2 strands of floss. There are French knots, 3/4 stitches and some stitches that you would need a sharp needle to pierce through the fabric+floss.

Bingo Blitz - a Facebook Game

If you were to look into this app page (mind you, must be the one with a "tick" ie. official page, otherwise the other fake pages are out to scam you), you can see there are approx 4.5 million likes, and at the game site, 1.0 million PLUS gamers.

Wow! This is surely the most popular bingo game in FB. This is true. Do a comparison with the other sites and nothing beats this.

This is popular because the creator knows what human wants. I love to win, I love competition, I love to boast. So, this game starts out initially with you finishing bingo games in themed rooms and if you are lucky, you get a collection item in the card you bingo-ed. Of course, to make this more lucrative, you get collection items from treasure chests in your cards and you can also use coins you collect from your cards to buy certain items. Mmmm... there are always 2 items you can get your FB friends to gift to you FOC.

When I first started out a few years back, I lost interest in this because you can NEVER get ALL the collection items in the room without any help. Furthermore, none of my family play this, not to mention my friends. Then, I tried again around 1 year plus back and I found a group who actually help you out, not only with the free items but everything (ie. if they have it).

I love this group because we pay it forward. Yes, that's what I learned. Everyone helps one another. Most of us are strangers to one another, but when we are playing this Bingo Blitz, we share the same interest - help one another to complete the rooms. Yes, we would love the receipients saying "Thanks" but we don't get it all the time. Nevertheless, we help, not only those in the same group but any other player playing this game.

Not sure what happened during the time I stopped playing Bingo Blitz, but heard it changed hands. Not sure if this true but I can see changes. Changes that make players happy, angry, frustrated, delighted, etc.

Bingo Blitz introduced "Elite Players". You pay a premium monthly and you get some benefits like playing the daily tournament free for another 5 rounds (vs. the free 5 rounds daily). And, recently, when they open a new room, just like the new Halloween slot room last Thursday, it was early preview for "Elite players". Of course, those who are non-Elite players (myself inclusive) are not happy. But come to think about it, Bingo Blitz need money too - to pay their programmers, etc. Who in the world would work for free ALL the time? So, we, non-Elite players, will still get to play the new room but a week later. To me, it's "What's the hurry?". Of course, every individual is different. To me, it's "I can do my other work first".

Bingo Blitz also starterd introducing "Non-tradeable" items. In the past, we can gift to one another our excess items but now, new rooms will usually have a few "non-tradeable" items. So you can imagine those who are eager to finish the room get very frustrated when we say "Sorry, that item is non-giftable, you'd have to win it for yourself." Well, this is their way of safeguarding their interests - You must somehow play it yourself to complete the room - in other words, you can always pay to get more credits from the site (Well, this is up to you). So, when humans get excited and anxious to finish the rooms, they will start to buy the credits when they have used up their daily credits. Mind you, the chips you need for a card in the new rooms depend on your level ie. the higher level you are in, the more you pay, but of course, the higher XP and rewards too.

Heard this from the chat in one of the rooms that at that time (I think it was 2 days ago), you get 2300 chips for US$200 (I believe it's definitely not S$). So, I'm getting $7.74 worth of chips daily (am getting around 80 chips daily). Wow, that's not bad. And now that I don't have time to play, I accumulate them daily and I get alot that I can splurge at one go in the future.

Bingo Blitz is smart to introduce this in the slots rooms. If you get a "Big Win", "Mega Win" or "Epic Win" when you strike it big, you can choose to post this picture/photo on your timeline. Players who get such wins are happy, but not some sour grapes. They started complaining that it's jamming up their FB page. Well, you win some and you lose some.

If you have not tried this game, go ahead and try but do NOT get too carried away. I had a hard time stopping my slots spins to work on this post as it's a Never-ending-Last-Spin.

Cross Stitch Completed - Catitudes, Astrocats

This is a cute kitty scientist (love the specs). It's from the Aquarius zodiac sign in Cross Stitcher Astrocats Calendar 2007, by Margaret Sherry.

Did this on 14ct aida (ivory) using 2 strands of floss. There are French knots, 3/4 stitches and some stitches that you would need a sharp needle to pierce through the fabric+floss.

Cross Stitch Completed - Catitudes, Astrocats

Yet another piece completed. This is again by Margaret Sherry and it's from Cross Stitcher Astrocats Calendar 2007.

Did this on 14ct aida (ivory) using 2 strands of floss. There are French knots, 3/4 stitches and some stitches that you would need a sharp needle to pierce through the fabric+floss.

After this, another 8 to go. The next 2 are from this Astrocats Calendar too.

Cross Stitch Completed - Catitudes.

This is the first of 10 cross stitch pieces that I will be working on and have it attached to notebook for some wonderful persons.

This grouchy and I-mean-Biz cat is taken from the Cross Stitcher Catitudes Calendar 2003. I just love all those cats in that calendar. Billie has chosen 2 from this calendar for this "project" - those notebooks will ultimately be given to her teachers.

To accommodate the notebook, I have this stitched on 18ct Aida, using 2 strands of DMC floss (instead of Anchor). Will be posting the rest as soon as I'm finished and the final round of this set of posts will be the notebooks.

Model Cross Stitching 2 Completed - Landscape Fields by Heather Galler @ GeckoRouge, Etsy.com

Can you remember Princess Mononoke? I did the model stitching for GeckoRouge too. Well, Landscape Fields was done by another model stitcher but due to unforeseen circumstances, 1 2/3 pages was left undone, at the top right hand corner.

I continued with the stitching and it's now completed.

If you were to look for Heather Galler in GeckoRouge shop in here, you will find all her designs with vibrant colours.

My First Handmade Spare Toilet Rolls Holder

This item is very useful. You put a few toilet rolls in this holder and put them in the toilet so you will never run out of toilet paper - unless someone forget to refill it.

We bought our first Rayen spare toilet roll holder from Homefix. To date, it has gradually "disintegrated". Two of the holders are no longer complete - they become shreds of material (at one side). The material Rayen used is similar to that of the washing machine cover and that means once scratched, it can become shreds.

I decided to model it and make a whole new spare toilet roll holder myself.

How do you find it? I only retained the suction cup from the old holder and the rest is new.

I found scraps of fabric and bought 2 packs of the bias tape. Putting them together with the aid of a sewing machine is easy, except that this is my first time using bias tape (1/4 in) so I cannot sew a very straight line. Also, running the bias tape round the corners is difficult considering the width of the tape. Nevertheless, I managed to put them together finally. At the top, instead of using an eyelet, I did a buttonhole.

I'm happy I finally took the first step to do this. Next in line is Billie's bag.

Me and Duck Heads

I'm not sure about you, but I like (not love) eating duck heads - be it braised or roasted.

I started eating duck heads when I was young. I started with roasted duck heads. This guy can roast very delicious roast ducks. However, to buy a packet of roast duck rice is expensive, so I just settled for duck head with rice. Yummy.

Till today, I still love duck heads. When I ordered the braised duck heads from this uncle at Sin Ming Road, they tasted delicious because of his culinary skills and the way it's being cut/chopped. Not that difficult to get the meat out from the duck head into my mouth.

However, luck is not always with me. Here's a few of the incidents that made me lose my interest in duck heads.

I tried this roasted duck rice at a hawker centre and I found it good. So, I requested for a duck head. Yes, roasted duck rice with just ONE duck head to go along in the same packet. However, this lady at the stall told me it's reserved and they have like around 10 and more hanging up there. Come on, you can always spare just ONE but she insisted that they were reserved. Seems like they were reserved for her relative and it's not for that day but for every day too. I have stopped patronizing that stall.

Then, there was this stall (closed for good months ago) at this coffee shop. I ordered as usual - roasted duck rice with a duck head. This brother chopped the neck and put them with the rice and he left the head alone. Asked him about the head and he said that he thought people eat only the neck, not the actual head. I was furious and told him, "What is a duck head WITHOUT the head!" No wonder it's no longer in operation.

Just this afternoon, my craving for duck head came again. I went to this stall in the coffee shop and ordered. When I got home, omg, the duck head is not chopped into halves - it is just one big piece. Thank goodness he did chop the neck. Not an easy task eating the head as a whole but still managed too.

Nevertheless, I am still on a quest for duck heads despite all these "misfortunes" - cos I'm a food lover.