Yes, another one.  Skip it if you don’t play Candy Crush.  If you do, you understand the frustration Level 350 and Level 356 bring.  I have a very specific way for winning both of these levels.

Both are awful.  For me, until I figured out how to do it, 356 was actually worse.  Read on if you’re also stuck.

Level 350 of Candy Crush

I had heard awful things about this level.  It seemed a place where everyone got stuck, so I went into it knowing that I would likely be stuck there too for a bit.  It probably helped to anticipate that it was going to be awful.  I liked having the knowledge that it was going to suck, and it was going to suck hard.

This is a board that you will want to play from a device that will allow you to exit without wasting a life because there is only one type of board worth playing, and that is one where an opening move breaks three pieces of whipped cream, like the board above.  I know what you’re thinking: before reading that last sentence, you would have made a striped with those four red in a row, but you’d be wrong.  You actually want to break downward, ignoring all else.

Drill down, drill down through that whipped cream, and only focus on that whipped cream, preferably the middle of it.  If you get too close to the edge, you’ll set off the bombs.  And you’re not ready for that yet.  Don’t set off speckled doughnuts if you can help it.  Only use stripes or bombs if they clear whipped cream and nothing else.  Think of yourself as a worker ant with one task: clear the whipped cream.  Everything else is a distraction meant to mess you up.

The only time you want to use a striped/wrap combo is AFTER you’ve cleared most of the whipped cream and you can use it very low down on the board.  Same with a striped/doughnut combo.  Play it before you’ve cleared that whipped cream, and you’ve created a bomb nightmare.  Play it after you’ve cleared the whipped cream, and you can pop a lot of the jelly at the top of the board.

Get it?  Don’t get distracted.  Just focus on the whipped cream.

The reality is that once you clear the whipped cream, you’ll leave a big chunk of the board open and will likely make a lot of combos.  So break that whipped cream as your sole focus, and you’ll clear the board with combos after most of the whipped cream is gone.

Good luck!

Level 356 of Candy Crush

The first few times I played this board, I only made one striped combo.  Most rounds ended without making any.  Then I was teaching Hour of Code (see, I do erudite things too) and I realized that I was going about this wrong.  I had to think about this board as I would rethreading a drawstring that has gotten pulled out of a sweatshirt hood.  You don’t focus on trying to move the string insomuch as you try to move something else (like a ballpoint pen) through that drawstring area.

So it helps to know how the candies move.  The ones in the top left only fall in the top left.  The ones in the bottom left move the ones in its own quadrant and the one above.  The top right quadrant moves the candies in the two quadrants on the left, and the bottom right quadrant is rock bottom.  That quadrant is the least helpful place to have a striped candy.  I’ll explain that in a moment.  But the board reads like a two-column article.  You get to the bottom of the left column and your eye goes to the top right and starts to read down again.  Same with the candies.

When you make a striped candy, let’s say, in that far right row in the top right quadrant (with the orange ones), you will now want to make your next striped candy in either that row (far right, any quadrant) or the one right next to it (second from right row, any quadrant).  Let’s pretend you made one in the second-from-the-right row in the bottom left quadrant.  What you’d want to do to pull it toward your other striped candy is to make any matches in that SAME ROW (second-from-the-right) in either of the right quadrants.  Because that will gently pull it — like a drawstring — toward the one that is already in the top right quadrant.

Did that make sense?  Essentially every row moves as one with others in the same placement regardless of quadrant.  So if you make a match in the far left row on the bottom right quadrant, it will affect every left row.  But only every left row (unless it inadvertently makes a match along the way).  So, back to that striped orange candy you made in the top right quadrant.  When you did that, you also made a vertical three-way match with the yellow ones in the second-from-the-right row, correct?  That is going to move all the other candies in the second-to-right row that are above it.  So it will move that green one down and it will also move the yellow-blue-green-yellow-yellow-blue-yellow-orange (read that going downward) in the second-from-the-right row in the two left quadrants.

Got it?

Be prepared that striped ones will accidentally be detonated before you can use them.  And that’s okay.  Because you’ll make a bunch of them.  And you’ll work slowly and patiently to slide candies through like you’re rethreading a drawstring.  Don’t stress too much about the bombs; they usually get taken out as they travel down the board.  Only deal with them if they’re about to go off.  And yes, you can also bring down candies that will match that bomb and get rid of it using this same method.

A hint: it is easiest if you can make the striped candies on the left side because then you can gently tug things down on the right side.  They don’t have to travel as far on the left.

Also, look for places where you have two of one colour (let’s say, red), one of another colour (blue), and then another red.  Make a match in another quadrant to gently pull down another red in that blue row.  That will form a stripe for you.  If nothing else, make a match in the bottom right quadrant because it will mix up all the quadrants for you and give you a new chance to create a stripe.

And that’s how it’s done.  I passed it in two tries when I changed the way I was thinking about playing this board to my rethreading method.

Currently: I’m on Level 361, and I’m happy to go backwards and explain how I did any board before that. Sometimes it was stupid luck but other times, there was actual thought involved (here are the other advice posts I’ve written). Let me know the level you’re struggling with.

So I’ve been running Hour of Code in the twins’ school (which, for me, is more like 12 hours of code as each class shuffles through), and on Wednesday, I ate lunch at their table in the cafeteria.  I was already there when their class came in and paused, staring at me.

“Oh hey,” I told a random girl who sat down near me.  “I’m Melissa.  I’m repeating third grade.”

She looked at the twins for explanation, but they just shrugged.  One of their friends squinted at me.  “No, you’re not.  You must be here for something else.”

“Nope,” I told him, cheerfully.  “Here to repeat third grade.  Didn’t do it that well the first time around and only realized that this week.  So, here I am.  Ready to do it all over again.”

And the best part was that for the next twenty minutes, they politely included me as one of their own, explaining what I would be doing now that I was an official third grader.  I will apparently learn all about a bird that can make a sound like a chainsaw, a few useful phrases in Spanish, and how to play the recorder.

Bring it on!

*******

A long time ago, I did a sugar art demonstration in a nursery school.  Years later, I was in the grocery store one morning, and there was a group of kids there on a field trip from a local elementary school, and as I passed them in the produce section, I heard a boy say, “that is the woman with all the sugar!”  It was a kid who had seen my demonstration in nursery school!

Lesson learned: Sugar makes an impression.

So the amusing, parallel part to leading Hour of Code is that as I return to the school day after day and I lead the workshop, I can hear kids talking about me: “that’s the woman who has all the electronics!”  To be fair, I am schleping around a big bag filled with a computer, littleBits, thumb drives, math books, and a tablet with a stylus.

But it made me feel cool, like the Pied Piper of Circuits.

*******

This is it, your last chance.  The 2013 Creme de la Creme closes to submissions on December 15th at night.  Anything that comes is after 11 pm ET will not be on the list… ever.  As in, this is it.  If you want to be part of the Creme de la Creme for 2013, submit now.  On Sunday, the list will be finalized, and it will go up on January 1st.

*******

I always feel like I need to mention that it’s Friday the 13th when the Roundup falls on Friday the 13th.  As I wrote last time this occurred:

Though I’m usually fairly anxious around certain dates, allowing my imagination to run towards grotesquely disturbing scenarios, I’ve never had big feelings concerning Friday the 13th.  Even if I live … like … 2 miles from Camp Crystal Lake and I totally know someone who knows someone who is the cousin of the counselor who decapitated Mrs. Voorhees.

It’s one of those dates that I feel like I should have big feelings about.  If I’m not worried, then I must be a fool.

You know how girls pinched each other’s arms with a Cootie Shot to ward off boy germs?  Mentioning that it’s Friday the 13th feels like a horror Cootie Shot.

Do you care about Friday the 13th or are you not superstitious about the date?

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “The Dread of Advent” (Through the Ardennes)
• “Christmas.  It’s Coming.  Again” (By the Brooke)
• “The Best I Can” (For My Sweet Boy, Jonah)
• “Courage for the Present” (Work is for Suckers)
• “I am not a loosey goosey come-what-may kind of lady” (I’m Polycystic Inside)
• “I Don’t Know Your Story” (A Sky for Blue)
• “20 Ways” (Where the *Bleep* is Our Stork?)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Anabegins has a post about shaking up her life.  Believe me, she could have been describing my life when she writes, “I’m no good at change. I get stuck in a rut and start to really like my rut, and get all cozy and comfortable with my rut, and suddenly its like ‘my beloved rut, don’t leave me!!’ You get the point.”  Oh, yes, I do.  Which is why I’m impressed with all the changes she hopes to make.  As she says, she put it online so she feels accountable.  Seems like a good time of year to do your own post about what you’d like to change in 2014.

My Lady of the Lantern has a post about waiting (or not?) for your period.   It’s clever, but it’s also veeeeeeeeery familiar; those phantom pregnancy signs.  (Is it?  Or isn’t it?) And the fact that your period always seems to show on the least opportune day.

Lastly, From IF to When has a post about understanding someone infertile.  She tackles common misconceptions, addressing both the myth and the reality.  Infertile people don’t hate those who conceive easily, nor do we want to avoid kids at all costs.  It’s a great post that you may want to leave open on someone’s computer screen by “accident.”  Just sayin’…

The roundup to the Roundup: I’m a third grader!  Or the lady who has all the electronics.  The 2013 Creme de la Creme is closing.  It’s Friday the 13th.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between December 6th and December 13th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

This question is part of the GRAB(ook) Club, an online book club open to anyone and everyone.  It contains more than a few spoilers for Catching Fire, so read at your own peril.  No, really, stop reading this post if you plan on reading the Hunger Games trilogy.

So, Catching Fire managed to shock the shit out of me at the end.  I’ll admit that I had Hunger Games ruined for me when the press people started sending me Catching Fire movie images while I was reading the first book.  I inadvertently saw who was still alive, and therefore knew who would be the winner, though not how.  Still, I was a little annoyed that it was inadvertently ruined even though the book was still enjoyable.

On the other hand, I went through Catching Fire wondering how the hell they’d get out a second time, and… wow… that ending.  Blew my little mind.  I don’t know why I didn’t consider it, but I didn’t.

I have a push-me-pull-you relationship with spoilers.  On one hand, I obviously dislike them since they ruin the author’s story telling effect.  Catching Fire wouldn’t have emotionally affected me if I knew what was going to happen at the end.  I was thrilled by the surprise.  And, for me, it was that surprise that made the book.  On the other hand, I have been known to sneak onto spoiler sites or read articles that I know will ruin a movie or book.  I also sometimes flip ahead a page or two in the middle of intense action to get a sense of where things are going.  I can’t help myself.  I’m like someone who breathes too heavily next to someone else’s birthday candles.  On one hand, I don’t want to blow them out, but on the other hand, I’m certainly saying a lot of words with drawn-out, heavily inflected “H”s.

You can’t have it both ways.

Do you like spoilers, or do you like to go into books knowing nothing?

And were you surprised by the ending?

After you answer my question, please click over to read the rest of the book club questions for Catching Fire.  You can get your own copy of Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins at bookstores including Amazon.

This is a post for the GRAB(ook) Club. Like the idea of a book club where you don’t have to leave your living room? Then read more about the GRAB(ook) Club which holds the book discussion on blogs, a Facebook group, and a GoodReads group.

Updated at the Bottom

I woke up this morning to a cold snow and a cold realization: the Candy Crush Prize Wheel is gone.  No more free spins.  No more boosters.  No more collecting of sweet lollipop hammers or striped/wrap combos.

It left in the night without so much as a goodbye.

If I had known that yesterday would be my last spin, I would have spent more time with it.  I would have told the Prize Wheel how much I loved spinning it every morning.  I would have whispered thank you to the screen.

For the love, King.com, you make the levels so difficult, and then you take away our Prize Wheel?  You made me want to weep — WEEP — with level 350.  You can’t give me my one joy?  Don’t you realize that I never even used the boosters?  I just liked collecting them.  I have about 12 speckled doughnuts lying in wait.  Your Prize Wheel was like the free burrito wheel at California Tortilla.  No one goes to the restaurant to spin the Monday Night Mystery Prize Burrito Wheel, but we appreciate the ability to set something spinning while we wait for our meal.

I liked spinning the wheel.

At least the Dreamworld is still there.

Please don’t take away my Dreamworld too, King.com.  Leave me at least that.

Update:

My Prize Wheel is back!  My Prize Wheel is back!  My Prize Wheel is back!

Oh sweet Prize Wheel, I’m sorry that I took you for granted.  Even if you’re only popping in for a visit, I am so glad to see you again.  I will spin you daily.  I will croon sweet words at the screen.

AND…

Even better…

Dreamworld is now on my phone.  It just showed up when I logged in today.  So now I have the Dreamworld on the computer and on my phone.

I love you, Candy Crush.

Even though I sort of hate you for level 356.

But really, even though I curse you for that level, I do love you.