Tiki Bros. Tip Talk: Exploring The Cosmic Connection Between Pretzels and Gophers

Green: Tap tap tap… this thing on? This just in… the stories of the Tiki Bros. demise have been greatly exaggerated! We have in fact been helping launch the new Pogo Theme Park!

Red: Green… it is already April 10th, no one believes that April Fool’s joke about the Pogo Theme Park anymore.

Green: What if saying the Theme Park was an April Fool’s joke was a joke in itself and the park is actually real?!

Red: I think telling everyone you got a termite infestation is way more plausible than a theme park with rides that fail every Wednesday.

Green: Red! Don’t say the “T” word! It gives me the willies! *Shudder*

Red: What – “Termites”?

Green: Argggg! Just hearing that word makes me itch! Red, why don’t you read the first question? It will help me get my mind off of these jeebie-heebies! *scratch* *scratch*

Red: Haha! I think you mean the heebie-jeebies.

Green: Yeah that’s what I said!

Red: Er… O.K. enough chit chat, here is today’s first question.

I added Pogo Gems to my account. The page said 100 gems for $5.99 including 10 bonus Gems. I never got the 10 bonus Gems HELP!

-Virg

Green: Oh, yeah I’ve heard this one before. I can see how it could be a little bit confusing, but you already got your Bonus Gems Virg.

Red: Here are the current Gem package offerings:

30 Gems – $1.99
100 Gems – $5.99 – including 10 bonus Gems
170 Gems – $9.99 – including 20 bonus Gems
350 Gems – $19.99 – including 50 bonus Gems
750 Gems – $39.99 – including 150 bonus Gems

The “Bonus” Gems are based on the cost of the least expensive 1.99 Gem package.

Green: Exactly Red. So if you look at the 1.99 Gem package. Let’s call it $2.00 for short. 30 Gems divided by $2 means that you can pick up 15 Gems for $1. You bought the $5.99 package. Let’s just call it $6 ok? So, $6 multiplied by 15 Gems = 90 gems, we add on 10 “bonus Gems” and that makes 100 Gems. Don’t you love word-problem Red?

Red: Actually I prefer word games, not math word problems, but this one is quite easy. So here is the list of Gem package showing the bonus Gem math:

$1.99 * 15 Gems = 30 Gems + 0 bonus Gems = 30 Gems = No discount
$5.99 * 15 Gems = 90 Gems + 10 bonus Gems = 100 Gems = 10% discount
$9.99 * 15 Gems = 150 Gems + 20 bonus Gems = 170 Gems = 12% discount
$19.99 * 15 Gems = 300 Gems + 50 bonus Gems = 350 Gems = 15% discount
$39.99 * 15 Gems = 600 Gems + 150 bonus Gems = 750 Gems = 20% discount

Green: Oh boy, now we’re having fun! Who would have thought you’d be getting a math lesson today? The bottom line is, what you see is what you get. Your Bonus Gems are already included, but as Red Tiki just showed with his math write-up is: If you want to get more Gems for your buck, buy the more expensive Gem packages.

Red: OK so your homework puzzle for tonight is:

If Pogo had an $80 Gem package that gave you 1800 Gems, how many Bonus Gems would it include, and what would the discount on those Gems be?

If you think you can answer the question, email The Tiki Brothers. We will select a random correct answer and mention you in the next Tiki Bros. Tip talk! Good luck!

Green: Haha! Assignments! This reminds me of when we were in grade school and I tricked you into doing most of my homework. Speaking of school, let’s school this next player in how the table game system works.

I love playing Cribbage but I’m about ready to give it up. Why is it every time I join a cribbage table it says ‘leave’? Then it will say something about pop-ups and something about hiding under table. How weird. The only way I can play is with the stupid computer. I need HELP to get rid of that leave by my name.
-chilly

Red: Oh yes, the old Popup blocker issue. I can see how seeing “leave” next to your name would be confusing. This whole confusion comes from the fact that due to a popup blocker, the table itself is being blocked, but the window with the game does not realize that the table was blocked so it thinks you are sitting at the table.

Green: Let me try to put it another way so it makes more sense. There are two different apps you are playing. One app is the “Table Select App” the other app is the “Cribbage Game App”. When you first start Cribbage, you are viewing the Table Select App. Once you click on the table you want to play, a command is sent to launch the Cribbage Game App. A popup blocker is blocking the Cribbage Game App from launching but the Table Select App does not know this, so it now the Table Select App assumes you are sitting in the Cribbage Game App, so it puts a “Leave” by your name.

Red: The reason you can play with a computer is because the first game window rarely ever blocked, but if that game window tries to pop up another window it is likely to be blocked by a popup blocker. This functionality is being somewhat addressed by the new embedded game system. In the meantime, you will need to shut off all your popup blockers. The easiest way to do this is to hold down the CTRL, SHIFT or ALT button on your keyboard while clicking on the “Sit” button. If that does not work you will need to edit your browser settings and turn off all popup blockers or simply set the Pogo.com site to allow all popups, or to set Pogo as a “Trusted” site. Good luck Chilly!

Green: OK, let’s move on. I want to go hop in the sauna again. It helps get rid of the itching.

Red: Sauna? We don’t have a sauna.

Green: Sure we do, I took the electric teakettle into the bathroom, and then I shut the door and turned on that thing full blast. It’s quit steamy in there!

Red: Oh brother! Is that what you’ve been doing in the bathroom for hours at a time?! No wonder last month’s power bill was twice as much as the month before! You better shut that thing down!

Green: Fine, but you should try it first! *Sigh*! Oh well, it was fun while it lasted! Let me read this question before Red realizes I’ve been running the hot water full blast too!

I have played all my Pogo games without any problems until you had a Daily Challenge in Puck’s Peak. My browser has a message about a missing plug-in! I have no idea what plug-in is or where to find it and load it. Also, I have no idea what other games are affected. Is there any help out there for me or an easy fix? Thank you in advance for your help. I love reading your column and the archives are great. – Thank you
-Victoria

Red: Dear Victoria, looks like there is a problem with your Flash plug-in. To make a long story short, since we’ve been over this before, a plug-in is a little program that runs on your browser that does something or another, depending on what plug-in it is. The Flash plug-in helps your browser run Flash games and other Flash apps.

Green: Since you are having errors with the Flash plug-in your best bet is to simply download the latest version of Flash. You can get the very latest version of Flash from Adobe. Just follow the on-screen instructions to get the latest version.

Red: Another option is to try the game using a different browser. One browser that is steadily gaining in popularity is the Google Chrome browser. One cool thing about Google Chrome is that it has the Flash plug-in pre-installed. That means you should never have to update the plug-in manually again. You can get Google Chrome here.

Green: Ok now I am about to go “plug-in” this tea kettle and get me some more steam!

Red: No way bub! You better not. Please just read the last question an then we can wrap this up!

Green: Ok fine…

Hello Tiki’s, As I am writing this I am having these problems with Poppit!:
1. The only prizes dropping are gophers & pretzels.
2. I haven’t seen a power up in ages.
Both of these have been going on for a while now. The missing prizes part don’t bother me so much, at least until we get a badge that requires something else. But I would like a power up every so often. Also in Sweet Tooth 2 I’m only getting 3 candies & that is a problem, because you make one match & it don’t stop. I have found that I’m not alone on this issue. So, I thought as a last resort, I’d bother you with my problems. Thank you for your time. -Mouseita7

Red: Oh Mouseita, your problems don’t bother us! Alas! We wanted to address this issue a while ago, and it just kept getting way sided because honestly Green and I of all people had little clue as to why it was happening. We love to make a long story short first so, the short answer is, this issue should be fixed now, or very very soon!

Green: Yeah Red but what was wrong?

Red: Well, in short, there was a major programming error in the two games, but the error only affected a small number of players and Pogo didn’t know how to reproduce the error. Lots of people wrote in complaining of the error, but since we couldn’t copy the error we couldn’t try anything to fix it! And by “lots”, please understand that we mean “relatively few” – it appeared to be happening to fewer than 1% of the Pogo population. It was also highly dependent on what version of Flash they were running.

Green: Can you tell us more about what was wrong with the game?

Red: Well, I don’t know exact technicalities but you know how these two games used to be Java games? Well when the games were turned into Flash games, something didn’t get translated perfectly. Somehow when the game was generating the random puzzles, it was using the wrong kind of randomizer. The puzzles were still random, but entire bits of code got confused, and bingo, only pretzels and gophers! Weird huh!

Green: : What the heck did Bingo have to do with it? Now I’m even more confused, but I guess it makes enough sense. To make a long, long story short, something was messed up and it did a really great job of staying hidden from us until recently so we fixed it! Interesting!

Red: Mouseita, we hope that answers your question! Looks like soon you’ll have more interesting prizes to win Poppit! soon, other than pretzels and gophers.

Green: Ya know Red… there is one thing I still don’t “get”. Why pretzels and gophers? What is the relationship that pretzels and gophers? Are pretzels and gophers somehow cosmically linked? Is there some deeper meaning to this situation? Gophers don’t like pretzels, I checked with Nestor. Maybe they are like arch-enemies or something. Maybe the whole secret to life is pretzels and gophers? What do you think Red?

Red: Dude, Green. I think you’re overanalyzing this whole pretzel and gopher thing.

Green: I don’t think so Red. We’ll get to the bottom of this! What do you think fine readers? If you think you know the cosmic reason for pretzels and gophers, please tell us!

With that, I take my leave. Have a great day everyone! Enjoy Pogo! See you next time.

Red: Oh boy… why am I worried that our inbox is now going to be filled with emails about pretzels and gophers?! Oh well. Have a good one everyone! Take care and see you next time.