Xatal

“We don’t have Pepsi. Is Coca-Cola okay?”

Coca-Cola

At just about every restaurant you go to, the main soft drink is always Pepsi or Coca-Cola — restaurants never offer both. We rarely think about why this is — why are the two most popular soft drinks never sold together?

But why not sell both drinks? The Coke drinkers could order a Coke, and the Pepsi drinkers could order a Pepsi. Wouldn’t it make sense for restaurants to offer both?

From your point of view, yes, this would make more sense. But not from the restaurant’s point of view. Keep reading »

Versus mode in Left 4 Dead can be pretty unforgiving at first. Since there’s no single player to help you learn the basics, your first experience with Versus is an online game with 3 other people depending on you. Moreso than campaign, Versus relies on solid teamwork (both as Survivors and as Infected). If you’re new to the game, your team is going to have to cope with your inexperience.

Left 4 Dead's versus mode is very unforgiving to newcomers

Since campaign doesn’t offer any opportunities to play as Infected, you won’t be used to the controls of the Infected when you play your first Versus game. Since some of the controls take a bit of getting used to (especially the Hunter), it would be really nice if you could learn the basics of Versus mode without actually playing in a real game.

Even though the game doesn’t offer a one-player Versus, through the use of the console you can actually practice on your own! Here’s how… Keep reading »

Having food to snack on in your dorm is always a plus. Some people have massive stores of food — cup of noodles, ramen, cookies, crackers, chips, soda — and others just have a small supply. Even if you have the dining hall food to count on, having food around your room is convenient and (sometimes) more tasty.

Delicious.

Earlier in the school year, my roommate brought up a box of raisins to snack on. Later on, I brought up a bag of M&Ms from Christmas. The next weekend, my roommate brought some peanuts.

As we were snacking, we realized that it would make far more sense to just combine them and make some trail mix. And what a hit it was! Ever since then, we’ve been bringing up more M&Ms, peanuts, and raisins to keep it going.

The last time I went home, I decided it was time to make a much larger batch. I went to WinCo and went to the tubs of seeds/nuts, where you can buy in bulk by weight. I bought sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, raisins, peanuts, and M&Ms. When we combined them, the bag weighed easily about 4 pounds. Keep reading »

Asking a girl to prom can be pretty nerve-racking, even if you think she’s likely to say yes. There are all kinds of doubts swimming around in your head: what if she says no? What if I get nervous and mess up? What if I come across as weird?

Don't be afraid to ask a girl to prom

Having confidence is always the best way to handle any romantic affair — including asking a girl to prom. Being confident not only increases the likelihood of receiving a yes, it also will make it easier if she says no. However, confidence doesn’t come to everybody easily, and sometimes a push in the right direction can make a huge difference.

How are you going to ask?

If you’re trying to come up with a creative and cute idea to ask her to prom, that’s always a good choice, though I would only recommend it if you’re confident she’ll say yes (or don’t care if you get turned down). If you’re looking for cute ideas, I suggest you read my post that has some suggestions. I’m going to be assuming that you’re just going to walk up and ask her, however.

Keep reading »

Finally, time to set the clocks forward!

Although I do dislike losing the hour of sleep, I’m going to be very grateful for the extra hour of daylight. When it gets dark at around 6:30, it makes the day feel incredibly short. I like the sunlight, and am eager for the change.

I just need to remember to change all of my clocks this year. Last year I forgot to change my alarm clock and ended up an hour late for work.

Seeing as March is the month of college admission notices mainly, I figured the new poll should reflect that somewhat. Though most people probably haven’t applied, I think it might be interesting to see how many people have applied this year and are (maybe) waiting on a decision.

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At least once a day, every blogger will check his stats. How many page views have there been? What posts are the most popular? Where is my traffic coming from? How many subscribers do I have? A large amount of traffic is a big contributor to feeling successful as a blogger — you know you’ve done something right if a lot of people are reading what you write.

Does monitoring statistics cause us to blog for the wrong reasons?

The problem is, so many bloggers make traffic their entire focus. All over the Internet, there are tons of posts detailing good techniques to increase the number of people who read your blog. As Ben at Frogstr points out, when bloggers decide to change their style and focus just to receive more page views, a lot of the originality of a blog is lost in the process. Even though the blog will cater more to a general audience, the niche audience the author may have originally started out trying to attract may drift away and lose interest.

After thinking about it for a while, I’ve realized that the secret to maintaining your originality is to simply stop monitoring statistics. Keep reading »

As we come closer and closer to the time when many colleges start to inform applicants of whether or not they were accepted, you’re likely to start stressing more and more over the future.

Sure, you’ve done all you can up to this point, and it’s just a waiting game, but there’s always going to be that nervousness of if you got into your schools or if (God forbid) everything went haywire.

I’ve been looking around online to try to find websites to help answer that very same question for my girlfriend. I’ve found two very helpful sites:

Keep reading »