siniri

Not yet. But as more and more people flee the site, it might reach the tipping point and become unprofitable. There are many avenues left to try to bring those people back, but it's all about whether they're currently making money from the site (or think they can again with a reasonable investment).

I deposited a Food Club win of over 200k since the glitch has been fixed. If you're worried, just deposit it in 3 chunks.

Here are a few suggestions on how to make yourself stand out (in a good way) at the job fair:

1. Look the part. Go with a full suit (I personally prefer a pantsuit so you don't have to worry about skirt length). If you're going into a conservative industry, go for a more traditional look: traditionally cut blouse of a more traditional color, sensible (polished) shoes, minimal accessories, professional hair, more buttons closed, neutral makeup, well-trimmed/manicured nails. If you're going into a more creative industry, you can get away with a more fashionably cut suit (just nothing skin tight and no cleavage), or a brighter color (maybe even a patterned) shirt, maybe 1-2 bold accessories to make a statement -- but remember less is more, and you should only do 1-2 of these things, max. It's better to err on the side of caution for your clothing choices; they'll remember you for your personality, but they often only remember the clothing if it sends the wrong message.
2. Research the companies in advance. Instead of talking to every single company, pick the few that you really want to meet. See what openings/programs they have. Where do you think you'd fit? Why do you want to work there? How can you help them? What do you want to know about them? Find the easy answers for yourself, and hopefully your research will lead you to the "hard" questions that will show you really understand the challenges the company faces. This is what can really make you stand out.
3. Get your resumé ready. If you're looking at several different types of jobs, try to tailor a resumé for each one. Focus on results, not just your duties. For example, maybe while working in a restaurant's kitchen, you developed a way of tracking the ingredients that resulted in 20% less waste of expired ingredients. Use percentages or straight $ amounts, whichever sounds more impressive. If you're not sure, make your best estimate -- but don't overstate anything, in case they contact your old employer and verify. Look for transferable skills. Waitressing requires you to work well with others, handle multiple tasks at the same time, and have great customer interaction skills.
4. Line up a reference from your old job. (I presume your old boss may not be the best, but is there someone else on his/her level that you're 99.99% sure would give you a good recommendation? Or at least a coworker?) And do you have any other prior bosses to use as a reference?
5. Prepare your elevator speech, along with answers to the most likely questions. Your elevator speech is your brief (20-30 second) self-introduction to the recruiter. It should make them think "Aha, this person sounds like a good match for position X," and then they'll ask you some questions, hopefully. There are lots of practice questions (you can find lists easily), but some really common ones are: describe a strength, describe a weakness (you want to describe something you honestly struggle with, but also how you cope with it and have worked to improve it -- e.g., I realized I wasn't very good about recognizing when I need assistance, but I've learned to set a reasonable time limit to try it on my own, and then ask for help if I've made no progress), describe a difficulty you've had with a coworker and how you overcame it (be very careful with this one... never speak negatively of an old job experience; always try to put a positive spin on it).
6. What to bring: a padfolio containing paper, 10-20 copies of your resumé (be stingy with these; you don't want to run out, so only give them to companies you're genuinely interested in), business cards (for the companies not worth a resumé), 2-3 pens (make sure they work and don't smudge). Do not bring a bookbag. Keep your phone off and away.
7. Before going, print out the map of the fair (if available). Circle the locations of your target companies, and plan the order of your visit. I recommend warming up on 2-3 other companies first (ones you might be interested in, but aren't at the top of your list). Then go to your targets. After you've talked to all your targets, then you can wander and see what else is available, but you want to make sure you hit your targets while you're fresh.
8. Ask for business cards of everyone you talk to and want to follow up with (definitely everyone you give a resumé to!). As soon as you've stepped away from their booth (and I mean far enough away they can't see you), write on the back of the card a few facts you remember about them. Include personal as well as professional facts (dog - Millie - chews shoes). When you get home, start writing thank-you cards (or e-mails, if you don't have a street address), being as personal as you can (that's where those notes come in -- e.g., "I just saw that they have product X that is supposed to keep dogs from chewing shoes. I hope you're able to get Millie to leave your shoes alone!"). (Okay, the dog-chewing thing is a horrible example, actually, but you get the general idea...) Thank them for taking the time to talk with you, ask any follow up questions you've come up with, let them know you're applying for a position they mentioned, etc.
9. A little known recruiting fact: timing is everything. If possible, get there when the fair first opens (but don't bug anyone who's still setting things up; come back later). If it's an all-day fair, avoid going right before lunch, or too close to the end of the day (when they just want to get home).
10. Most importantly, relax and try to just be yourself. Let your personality shine through. People want to hire people they think they'd get along with, so the more relaxed, confident, and nice you are, the more they'll want to hire you.

Good luck at the career fair!

Still voting for you, Angeló!

P.S. Mortog, you've got to tuck more when you do a somersault! :D

Fullonparanoid, I've thrown a few votes your way (I'm voting for the person with the current least votes of the 4 I know in the contest this time).

And you totally stole my caption! :P

I actually did submit a very similar joke (even down to "Extreme Mortog Counter"), but I'm sure that happens to every single joke each week. I guess you got yours in first.

I'm glad I decided to check out the sale. I bought the enchanted boat ride background at half price, and it'll fit well in my beach-themed gallery. I considered buying another faerie dust shower, but I already have one of the original and one of the dyeworks blue ones. Not sure I need any more sparkle!

Congrats on making it into the contest! I'll vote for you as soon as I can vote again (er, actually... when I wake up, since I'll be asleep when I can vote again.)

Congrats on continuing your streak! I've voted for you once already; will continue to vote for whomever is lowest among the 3 I know in the contest.

My pet costs 1M NP to transfer, so this is only a viable option for me if you don't have to pay. I thought you lost the fees if the pet was refused?

TNT has apparently said that they are aware of the issue, have found the root of it, and are working to restore lost NP, but it may take a while.

Deposits/withdrawals around 50k or less seem to be safe (I've made several). I'm holding off on doing anything larger until someone can confirm it's really fixed.

That's just a random event; it has nothing to do with the current bank issues. Congrats, though!

19. Sunday morning it's supposed to be below zero (that's below... -18 in C) wind chill. No one really has clothes for that here. Hopefully it'll warm up before I have to leave the house.

I was just able to deposit ~290k (my gross FC wins from today) in chunks of 45k each (with the first one of 20k). All of them worked, for anyone else wanting to put their NP away for safekeeping.

17. Cold today (44 for the high). Tomorrow will be 55, but that doesn't help me walk around the zoo comfortably today!

Once again, so many great entries! It's really interesting that there was no assigned species, and yet we ended up with 3 Lennies and 2 Rukis (and the odd-man-out Yurble).

It's really interesting to see the various takes on the theme. Even when half the people use the same background, it ends up looking completely different.

Making that call is one of the scariest things in the world. There is so much stigma about seeking therapy, and yet mental health issues are currently the leading cause of disability in the world. No one is going to judge you. No one even has to know besides you and your therapist. And you only have to share that which you're ready and comfortable with sharing. And making that call is the first step to getting better. None of this takes away the fear, I know, but I hope you're able to make the call soon.

That glitch in Godori is caused by your cache, I think -- that card was cleared (it's in your pet's far right stack), but it's still showing up. That can be problematic if you play a card thinking you're matching and give your opponent the match instead (since the card is not really there...). I sometimes try to refresh, but that can cause problems, too... I don't know if you can leave a game and come back.

I agree that the later levels of Spinacles can be stressful; that's why I recommended staying on the earlier levels for a long time. (You can even get up to a gold trophy if you're willing to spend enough time.) That way, when you get to the hard levels, you'll know you have a high enough score for the max NP and don't need to stress about dying.

 

I've BRIEFLY read over most of the "known issues" within the last week or two and I didn't see mention of this so I figured I'd post and ask.

 

GRAVE DANGER: I click on a petpet to send into grave danger. I have two neopets, both have petpets but once I click on my petpet ex: Avatar and I get the pop up "are you sure..." and I click ok, it brings me to a page that says:

instead of telling me what my petpet is doing and how long until it will be done searching.

But both pets have petpets and they are still attached to them? I've been moving for the last couple of days. This is my first time back on the site since Sunday before the site went down, is this possibly a result of that downtime?

I refreshed and it seemed to go away (they appeared and I was able to proceed as usual without that popping up again) which is good but it makes me wonder if I should submit a ticket or if someone already has I do not want to flood them with bug reports since they are probably elbow deep in them anyways.

 

Have you done GD with these petpets before? The only thing I can think of is that they maybe don't have names? I know there were some issues with pets/petpets seeming to disappear from accounts, and maybe if your account was affected, your petpets' names got erased? (I know you can't zap an unnamed petpet, so maybe you can't do GD with one either...) Just something to try while you wait on the bug report (which you should totally send).

Mirandaell, I'm sorry you're hurting on your special day. No matter how many people love us, we always crave love from our family, especially our parents. It sounds like you already know this, but I'll say it anyway: your dad choosing not to be an active part in your and your siblings' lives is 100% a reflection on who he is, not on who you (or your siblings) are. He's the one who's truly missing out. Maybe he'll realize it one day. Maybe he never will. Try to focus on all the people surrounding you with love, and celebrate your relationships with them.

And Happy Birthday! I hope the rest of your birthday celebrations are full of happiness and love.

Is anyone else having language changing issues again? I know there were problems right after the transition, but mine have cropped back up? Does anyone know a work around?

There's a secret magical place that is the only place where language changes will stick. It used to be the NC Mall, but apparently it's changed to... user lookups, maybe? I'm not 100% sure. If you can remember where you were when you first changed the language and started experiencing problems, try to change it back on the same page. Otherwise, send a ticket (or e-mail [email protected] if you can't figure out how, or send them a message on FB).

Thanks for all the votes and support! I managed to get 8th place, good enough for the silver prize (whenever TNT gets around to cleaing the ~7 week backlog...).

If you're looking to make a lot of NP, I recommend Food Club. It can be pretty complicated to make your own bets (at least to win in the long-term), but there are a number of players who win regularly (my long-term average is ~90% net profit, so I nearly double my money each day, on average -- no small change for me since I can bet over 90k per day) and post their bets on their petpages (I don't do this because I'm lazy...). Hugo (petpage = myfoodclubbets) is a popular bettor that many people follow, and he has links to guides and other bettors. It doesn't take much time if you're copying bets, but it's a nice way to make NP, which can make the rest of the site more fun. There is some volatility (you might lose it all 3 days in a row before winning 10x your bets on the 4th day), but you can always start with small bets and increase them as you grow comfortable. (Give it at least 2 weeks...)

You might also like the monthly competition games (Armada, Geos, and Kacheekers), Ultimate Bullseye 2, Chemistry for Beginners, Coal War Tactics (Battleship -- there is a time bonus, but you can ignore it), Dice-a-Roo, Eye of the Storm (I think there are ways to play untimed), faerie bubbles, fashion fever, godori (a bit complicated to learn the scoring, but I do better when I try to get as many cards as possible rather than aim for particular types of cards), Neopian Battlefield legend (you can pause it, which would give you time to stop and think where you want to place things, but it can get a little stressful... just throwing it out there as a possibility), pakiko, spinacles (you can stay on the early rounds for a long time by nearly clearing the sphere, then building it back up again, and then nearly clearing it again; I play it when I'm in the same mood as Spellseeker), wingoball (not too bad with a guide, though there is a time limit -- but you can get set up before the time even starts).

15. We had crazy rain yesterday. I was outside enjoying the sunny sky after the rain -- and then it started pouring on us, and I was soaked by the time I got to my car. The sky went from 90+% sunny to covered in clouds in less than a minute. One of the weirdest things I've seen.

Thanks for all the support, everyone! Today's the last day of voting (probably ~8 hours left). I'm in good contention for silver, but with a big enough surge, I might be able to get into the range for gold. I appreciate any votes you can squeeze in before it closes.

Well, without knowing what weapons you currently have, it's kind of difficult to recommend ones to supplement that.

Good defensive weapons for a lab rat include:

• freezers (block your opponent's entire attack, so the ultimate defense): randomly firing freeze ray (50% - at a more modest cost), magical marbles of mystery (100%), and the 2 faerie abilities
• defensive/healing faerie abilities (for later turns, to minimize damage/heal)
• things that block a certain percentage of your opponent's attack: Downsize! (50% once per battle), downsize power plus/thick smoke bomb (100%, one-use -- useful in plots/wars for those tough opponents you just can't beat -- I like to have a nice stock of these during non-war-time, and if you don't need them, you can make a profit during the war), Thyoras Tear (100% once per battle)
• things that 100% block one icon (especially useful in 1P, when you know someone is heavy in a particular icon), such as the parasol of unfortunate demise, Hanso charisma charm, altadorian swordbreaker, certain shields (I'll leave it to others to list)
• reflectors (these aren't based on your defense, so against certain opponents, these can actually be great, and served me really well when my defense was low and I had to endure long battles during a plot -- I used the breakable ones that were given out during said plot, so they were fairly cheap -- I found the 25% ones fairly useless unless they were multi-icon, but the 50% ones saved me many times)

As you switch opponents, you'll probably need to switch up your set a bit to match your opponent's icons. You'll probably want to just go all-in offensively and end the battle as quickly as possible, but these defensive weapons can help you last another turn, or minimize the damage on your last turn (if you know you can kill them with a single weapon). Note that most healers work before the damage of the last turn, so using some kind of defense on the last turn combined with healing will help you start the next battle closer to full HP (or have you spending less on healing potions).

On the offensive side of things, you'll want to hit heavy and hard (that's why those two freezing faerie abilities are so awesome, so you can spend your turns just whomping on your opponent without worrying about getting hurt) and get the battle over with, so get as much power as you can (g-bomb, best weapon you can afford, etc.). Obviously, you'll want to spend more money here and less on defense.

I made my major upgrades gradually, starting with bag of healing dust, then Kelpbeard's trident (I already had double YB from plot points), then a g-bomb, and most recently MMoM (I already had RFFR); I went for top-tier weapons rather than bothering with intermediate ones. If I were to do it over again, I'd probably swap the order between KT and g-bomb. I have Downsize!, HCC, and altador swordbreaker equipped (but don't really need to use them), and I have some of the 50% fragile reflectors in my SDB (and a parasol) if I ever want them.

Not knowing what weapons you have, my first recommendation would be to train level as aggressively as you can. If you can access Deadly Dice and have good timing, do that every day (it's 3am for me, so not an option). Train as often as you can, even if you have to spend a little NP (but battle for free codestones) -- the faerie abilities are worth it, and in the long run, it'll be much, much cheaper than an equivalent weapon upgrade.