Bad Robot Interactive's free app for Apple devices lets anyone add Hollywood-like special effects to their real surroundings. First, use your device's camera to record something around you - perhaps a co-worker smiling in the office - then initiate a virtual missile strike, which rains down on their desk. There are dozens of effects, some of which require an in-app purchase for 99 cents apiece. When you like what you've captured, share the humorous video clip with the world - right from your device. Video gamers might also like the explosive Call Of Duty: Black Ops II-themed options found inside this fun app.
While the YouTube app still rocks for its sheer quantity of videos, those looking for user-created "how-to" guides need look no further than the free Snapguide app for iOS. Learn to make beef jerky at home, how to open a beer bottle without an opener to perform a magic trick. A number of holiday-themed Snapguides are also available, such as "How to Make a Wine Cork Wreath" and "How to Make Spiced Chocolate Cupcakes With Eggnog Icing" (yum). Each guide offers a step-by-step lesson with photos or videos, along with written descriptions at the bottom of the screen. Simply swipe to the left to turn to the next page or swipe up for a list of what you need to perform the task. If you sign up for a free account, you can also leave comments, privately message other users, "follow them" to be alerted when there's a new lesson or start your very own Snapguide.
Every corner of this dirty little ball we live on has been mapped and uploaded to the internet. Now it's time to play with it. Life is Magic gives players the chance to team up and take over a fantasy version of the real world, one city at a time.
Once you choose one of the three character classes available in Red Robot Labs' Life is Magic — mage, machinist or monk — the game presents you with a map of your location, only instead of asphalt streets and concrete builds there are trees, dirt paths, inns and shops straight out of a fantasy novel. This is your world transformed.
Depending on where you live, your local map might be peppered with shops and crisscrossed with paths bearing the names of the streets you walk every day. If you live in a more rural area the effect won't be quite as impressive, but that's what zooming out and teleporting is for.
The world map is where the action is. Elemental dungeons dot the landscape, hungry for foolhardy adventurers to brave their depths. Other players appear on the map as well, waiting to be invited into your adventuring party. Up to three players can form an alliance, lending their particular talents in turn-based battles against fierce fantasy foes. Each dungeon level ends with a choice — leave and keep your loot, or delve deeper and chance losing it all to more fearsome beasts?
Players gain levels as they adventure, powering up towards the ultimate goal — conquering the tower that represents a major city. No one in my area has grown powerful enough to take Atlanta yet. I ventured into the tower and was slain in a single round. More grinding is in order. Luckily this is a persistent alternate world, and the tower will still be there when I am ready.
“We weren’t able to come up with a lease with the landowners that would allow us to stay open, and secondly, the particular area in Essexville, the market has softened in the last few years.”
Thompson also is co-owner of the Ponderosa Steakhouse on Wilder Road. He said that location will remain open.
“It is doing very well, so that’s very good news for us. It had a very good year.”
Nearby El Mexicano, at 3593 Center, has experienced a seasonal dip in business, but not a sustained decline, said one of the restaurant’s managers Francisco Mendoza.
“We’re doing OK, but for the past few weeks we’ve been really slow,” he said. “We’re hoping that after the holidays we should get back to normal.”
Thompson said the Center Avenue Ponderosa’s 35 employees were notified two weeks ago. It was at that time that a note was posted on the door to notify customers, as well.
The plan is to transfer as many of them as possible to the Wilder Road location, and possibly to the Saginaw location, which is owned and operated by LaBelle Management of Mount Pleasant, the note explains.
“We are moving them over as many and as fast as we can. We’re not sure how many we can keep,” Thompson said. “We told the people two weeks ago so we gave them an opportunity to not overspend for Christmas and have a little bit of a fair warning.”
Thompson said the employees were saddened by the news but glad to have the advance notice.
“Well, I think anybody that’s going to lose their job, they feel bad,” he said. “They’re happy that they got the warning. They thanked me for that, because most people just close the doors and I don’t believe in that.”
Mary Cornelius works the hot and cold bar at the Center Avenue location.
“I’m upset I’m going to be jobless. I’ve been here almost seven years,” she said. “...It’s like we were one big family.”
Bobbi Ovalle, who has been a shift manager at the Center Avenue location for five years, said customers are saddened by the news as well.
“We’ve had customers cry,” she said. “We have one who comes in every Sunday, he and his wife, and he started crying. He said we are the reason he comes here.”
Ovalle said the restaurant has many regular customers who come frequently, even daily, and some who have come for decades.
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