Morning
Where’s my water? Again there’s no water pressure. First thing after getting the coffee started was looking into Google Ads. The strategy has finished learning and again, so few impressions and clicks due to budget. Turning down the max CPC for all my keywords to $.25 and one to first page CPC. I think in the long run we might be better off with the long tail keywords anyway.
Other than the work on Google Ads, there isn’t a whole lot to report on the company. Nothing special from Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. I want to find more things to pin on Pinterest, but I just have no ideas. Eventually I’ll need to get back into customizing the test site, however my trip to Atlanta is less than a week away and I’m not feeling like working much.
I made a quick run up to one of our villas to open it up for cleaning. The owner is coming in today so we need to service it now that the previous guests checked out. Left the housekeeper some cleaning supplies and dropped off a package for the owner.
Facebook Poll
I decided that one good way I want to engage my audience on Facebook is the use of polls. However, even though timeline posts have the option to post a Facebook poll to my page, it only allows for two options! Listen Facebook, two options is not a poll! It seems the only way to build a better poll is to use an app. This really sucks because I don’t want people to have to go through authorizing an app to answer a damned poll on Facebook.
I’ve done some looking into Facebook poll apps, but so far all the app pages for the polls don’t have any examples I can test. I want to see if they work worth a damn. The only real options I found are for polls hosted outside of Facebook’s normal timeline.
After doing some Googling about Facebook polls, I found all kinds of information, but it’s all so outdated. You used to be able to create polls without a problem. I figured that since Hootsuite is all about social engagement they might have some option, but nothing native. So I looked into the available apps and there’s only a single one available for polls, Interact. But unfortunately when posting to Facebook it looks like garbage.
SurveyMonkey looks like it might be viable option. However it’s more for surveys (duh) rather than polls. I could work on throwing together a full survey with all my poll options. Obviously this isn’t what I want now, but in time that could work out as something else to do to engage the audience. This could actually be a good thing, do a “Best of Virgin Gorda” and ask all the questions in one survey. But this doesn’t help me find a good way to create a Facebook poll . . . 🙁
Eventually I can add some kind of poll plugin to our website and send traffic there. Maybe once I get the new site up and running I’ll look into that. That may be the best option, it will allow for engaging the audience directly on our site and get them used to going there. The current site just isn’t up to snuff for that though.
Down by the Shore
I made a quick run down to the shore at low tide to see what kind of pictures I could get. There wasn’t much there in the way of wildlife, tide just isn’t low enough at this time. It looks like this weekend tides will be at their best for good access to wildlife, although I might wait until after I get back with my tripod to try again. Unfortunately, that means waiting until at least October since all the good low tides in September will either be early morning or late evening.
More Minecraft
The skeleton grinder room is complete! The walls and ceiling are all perfect. Afterwards, I decided to mine a bit for redstone since I will need a bit for the rest of the setup. Before I got deep enough for redstone I found a zombie spawner. Then, when I finally got down to the right depth, I ran into my branch mine from spawn. Needless to say I ran by home to pick up some more resources. Unfortunately I don’t have everything I need, I’m missing slime balls. Even though I’m working around a swamp I have yet to see a slime anywhere.
I did dig a tunnel out from where the skeleton grinder is to where the witch hut will drop, with a ladder going to the surface at my base of operations nearby. Once that was done, I setup nether travel from my home base at spawn to the skeleton/witch outpost. What I’d like to do is add a piston door that hides the tunnel out of the skeleton grinder, but to do that I will need those blasted slimes!
Afternoon
Cultist Simulator
Once again, the roommate needed privacy to sun so I headed up to my room to check out Cultist Simulator. The game is very complex. The game is also very unforgiving. There is no tutorial, which makes it extremely hard to understand at first. I did start getting the hang of it eventually, but even so it’s not exactly clear what’s going on.
The most confusing thing I found were actions I just couldn’t do. I was allowed to put certain cards into certain activities, but I just couldn’t start them. No explanation as to why. Specifically I could put Skill cards into the Dream action and it would accept them, ask for no other cards, and still not let me start.
Overall I do like the game, and I feel that once I play it more and understand it better I will really enjoy it. This (of about 2 hours) ended in failure due to despair. I look forward to playing more so I can increase my understanding of the game.
Interestingly, Cultist Simulator isn’t listed on Steam as early access. The developer’s announcements make it sound like it is. Either way, there are many planned updates in the future, both free and paid.
Evening
Went back into Cultist Simulator with a passion. I have a much better understanding now after doing some reading and research. Maybe I should write up a guide on the game. . . After playing a bit more I think I might do that. Of course, the game is REALLY deep, like I still don’t even know what I’m doing beyond staying alive, somewhat.
Once I gave up on that for the evening I retreated to my room for television and YouTube. First up is the latest episode of Elementary. Entertaining as always! Afterwards, I rounded out the evening with a few YouTube videos.
