#Free App Store Optimization

[noircheols]

⸺ NO ORDINARY LOVE. 𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚

an anthology of love stories almost never told.

PREFACE. love has been far from perfect. you thought you would stumble upon prince charming organically. unfortunately, this is a big fat joke in the 21st century. reluctantly, you open the app store and download something you always believed were better off for finding potential enemies or friends with benefits... a dating app. it’s time to give your phone cupid’s bow and see who it hits!

PAIRINGS. svt x reader (seperate)

WARNINGS. suggestive, cursing, varies from fic to fic

SCHEDULE. every monday (i hope.)

TAGLIST. @jjjjeonww @shirebusking @shinwonderful @tokitosun @unlikelysublimekryptonite @wonkierideul @flwrshwa @syluslittlecrows @macapunoz @paradiseoflosers @seokmn @itsclda

open! please feel free to dm/reply/ask

STATUS. ONGOING!

AUTHOR'S NOTE. AAAAA i wanted to write something inspired by hinge's no ordinary love campaign. reading it was so lovely and i wanted to write something alongside the same premises. hinge if ur seeing this please dont sue me </3. THIS IDEA IS NOT MINE AT ALL simply something inspired by it. i hope you all enjoy!! peep the ugly header LMAO graphic design is my least fave thing ever as u can see. happy love month to all the losers (affectionate) who enjoy!! i hope you all find love in the people you adore, the music, food, and most importantly, yourself!!!!

NETWORKS. @kstrucknet

♡ ‎ kisses are always promises ── 𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐈 𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐎𝐋

a love story for people who deserve peace of mind and torment themselves for being unable to give others the same.

LIKES : popping boba, working out, my dog kkuma, giving gifts and making them feel special, confidence

DISLIKES : lack of effort, ghosts, fries (got doxxed for this)

♡ ‎ let your habits control you ── 𝐘𝐎𝐎𝐍 𝐉𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐀𝐍

a love story for people who want somebody they can be themselves without any qualms, flaws and all.

LIKES : somebody who keeps me on my toes, napping, taking photos of my pet rock, cashmere pajamas

DISLIKES : somebody who monitors my every behaviour, judgemental

♡ ‎ heaven knows i'm miserable now ── 𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐉𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐎

a love story for people who are looking for the best in people (and always end up finding the worst).

LIKES : optimism, deer print, sunsets, big smiles, playing guitar, an open heart

DISLIKES : poor manners, gaming, isn't understanding, just don't be a horrible person lol

♡ ‎ swimming fool ── 𝐖𝐄𝐍 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐇𝐔𝐈

a love story for people looking to dive head first beyond the surface of dating to understand themselves and their partner.

LIKES : exploring new possibilities but having somebody to call home, cat cafes, matcha, hmu huzz 👅👅👅

DISLIKES : misunderstands me and my humour (or chooses to), isn't on the same wavelength

♡ ‎ i don't wanna watch tv anymore ── 𝐊𝐖𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐎𝐎𝐍𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐆

a love story for people who are scared to pick up their broken hearts and close themselves off from being hurt again.

LIKES : TIGERS, going to the arcade just for the dance machine, somebody to share fun memories with but also can feel safe with

DISLIKES : spicy food, pent up emotions, lack of ambition

♡ ‎ focus ── 𝐉𝐄𝐎𝐍 𝐖𝐎𝐍𝐖𝐎𝐎

a love story for people who know that seeing is believing, that to be loved is to be seen, and that to believe is to love.

LIKES : hoodies, gaming (league of legends, genshin, valorant), reading, somebody to sit in silence with after a long day

DISLIKES : obnoxious, believes things revolve around them

♡ ‎ chocolate strawberries ── 𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐉𝐈𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍

a love story for people who put up walls and are waiting for the right person to knock them down.

LIKES : anime (jujutsu kaisen, naruto, kimi ni todoke), personal space, my personal space being invaded

DISLIKES : my personal space being invaded, physical touch

♡ ‎ keep you close ── 𝐊𝐈𝐌 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐘𝐔

a love story for people who know what they want, and knowing what you want makes you lonely.

LIKES : cooking, trying new cuisines and restaraunts, unboxing collectibles, being appreciated

DISLIKES : heights, avoidance, mess

♡ ‎ weather forecast ── 𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐊𝐌𝐈𝐍

a love story for people who worry about being too much or too little, but never enough.

LIKES : long walks at public parks, cupcake-scented things, visiting the dog shelter, rock music (fun fact i was in a band!!!)

DISLIKES : nothing!!! everybody is awesome and cool in their own way :D

♡ ‎ cloudburst ── 𝐗𝐔 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐀𝐎

a love story for people who don't appreciate what they have.

LIKES : art history, exhibitions, mala xianguo (or any other spicy food)

DISLIKES : being held back, long-term commitments, being deprived of choice, everything

♡ ‎ ‎stuck by the glue ── 𝐁𝐎𝐎 𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐊𝐖𝐀𝐍

a love story for people who are chronic people pleasers and give to the point of exhaustion.

LIKES : ballads, family, when somebody is caring and affectionate, tangerine flavoured desserts, iced americano

DISLIKES : making somebody upset, being found annoying, chan

‎ ‎♡ ‎ ‎starshy ── 𝐂𝐇𝐖𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐋

a love story for people who deserve to be taken seriously.

LIKES : visiting record stores, charli xcx, cloudy days, making personalized spotify playlists for each other

DISLIKES : dismissive, puts me down

‎ ‎♡ ‎ ‎hot n cold ── 𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍

a love story for people who make up their mind and change it the next minute.

LIKES : somebody who loves having me around, doing everything together, somebody dynamic

DISLIKES : seungkwan (DNI!!!!)

@noircheols do not copy or translate

[brandgurus]

Convert Images Between WebP and PNG Formats for Free

As someone who runs a small business online, I'm always looking for ways to optimize my images without sacrificing quality. That's why I was excited to find webppng.com, a free online image converter that lets you quickly switch between WebP and PNG file formats.

For those not familiar, WebP is an advanced compressed image type created by Google that can drastically reduce file sizes compared to PNGs. The only catch is that some older browsers don't support WebP.

That's where webppng.com comes in! Their free WebP to PNG converter lets me upload my WebP product photos and download optimized PNG versions compatible with more websites and apps. And when I have PNGs, their PNG to WebP converter lets me benefit from the smaller file sizes of the WebP format.

I love that webppng.com offers:

Fast bulk conversion right in your browser

Preserved image quality with customizable compression

An easy drag and drop interface that's simple to use

Unlimited usage with no hidden costs or limits

Being able to seamlessly switch between WebP and PNG has been a huge help for my small online store. I can have smaller WebP files for modern browsers while still supporting PNGs for maximum compatibility across platforms.

If you work with lots of product images like me, I'd definitely recommend checking out webppng.com's free WebP and PNG converter. It's an easy way to optimize your site's images for speed and performance.

[poemsfor-her]

STUDY TECHNIQUES FOR YOU ✧ ⋆ . ˚

I. PARKINSON'S LAW

— Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available for it's completion. In a study context, this principle suggests that setting deadlines and time constraints can help you stay focused and complete tasks efficiently.

II. FEYNMAN TECHNIQUE

— Named after physicist Richard Feyman, this technique involves simplyfying and explaining complex topics as if you were teaching them to someone else. This process helps you identify gaps in your understanding and reinforces your knowledge.

III. BLURTING

— Blurting, or active recall, is a studying techinque where you try to remember key concepts or facts without looking at your notes or textbooks. This helps strengthen your memory and retrieval skills.

IV. ENERGY CYCLES

— Energy cycles refer to understanding your own energy levels and working in alignment with your natural rhytms. Some people are more productive in the morning, while others excel in the evening. By scheduling tasks accordingly, you can optimize your productivity and focus.

V. SECOND BRAIN

— The concept of a "second brain" often refers to using external tools like note-taking apps or digital resources to store and organize information. This frees up your mental capacity and enhaces your ability recall and apply knowledge.

VI. SPACED REPETITION

— Spaced repatition is a learning method that involves reviewing information at increasing intervals over time. It's designed to help you remember and retain information more effectively by revising it just before you're likely to forget it.

i looooove the feynman technique soo much! it makes learning fun :)

with love, t

[bonsaiempire]

This week's popular trees in the Bonsai Care App, the app to keep track and optimize the care for your bonsai! Free download in the app stores so check it out if you haven't yet :-)

[blissfullyunawares]

5 Days of Helping You Outline Your Next Novel

Day 5: Obsidian for Outlining

Find all 5 installments of the mini series: helping you outline your next novel

*I have added a layer of “static” over my screenshots so they are distinctive enough to stand apart from the surrounding text

did you miss this series? here you can find all posts here: [day 1] [day 2] [day 3] [day 4]

Do you use Obsidian?

What is Obsidian?

A note-taking and knowledge management tool that allows you to create and connect notes seamlessly.

Uses a local-first approach, meaning your data is stored on your computer, not the cloud (unless you choose to sync).

Features bidirectional linking, which helps create a non-linear, networked way of organizing ideas—great for brainstorming and outlining.

Why should you use Obsidian?

Flexible & Customizable – Unlike rigid writing apps, you can design your own workflow.

Distraction-Free Writing – Markdown keeps the focus on text without extra formatting distractions.

Ideal for Outlining & Organization – Connect story ideas, characters, and settings effortlessly.

Obsidian for Writing

Outlining

Creating a One Pager

Create a single markdown note for a high-level novel summary.

Use headings and bullet points for clarity.

Link to related notes (e.g., character pages, theme exploration).

Here’s an example of an outline I’m currently using. This is what my website will have on it (and what goals I hope to achieve w my website)

Using the Native Canvas Tool

Use Obsidian’s native Canvas tool to visually outline your novel. (Best on PC)

Create a board with columns for Acts, Chapters, or Story Beats.

Drag and drop cards as the story evolves.

Writing

Why Write Directly in Obsidian?

Minimalist interface reduces distractions.

Markdown-based formatting keeps the focus on words.

No auto-formatting issues (compared to Word or Google Docs).

Why is Obsidian Great for Writing?

Customizable workspace (plugins for word count, timers, and focus mode).

Easy to link notes (e.g., instantly reference past chapters or research).

Dark mode & themes for an optimal writing environment.

Organization in Obsidian

Outlining, Tags, Links

Each chapter, character, important item, and setting can have its own linked note.

Below, for example, you can see the purple text is a linked page directly in my outline.

Use bidirectional linking to create relationships between (story) elements. Clicking these links will automatically open the next page.

Tags can be used for important characters, items, places, or events that happen in your writing. Especially useful for tracking.

Folders for Efficient Storage

Organize notes into folders for Acts, Characters, Worldbuilding, and Drafts.

Use tags and backlinks for quick navigation.

Creating a separate folder for the actual writing and linking next (chapter) and previous (chapter) at the bottom for smooth navigation.

You can also create and reuse your own internal templates!

Spiderweb Map Feature (Graph View)

Visualize connections between characters, plot points, and themes. Below you’ll see the basic mapping of my website development project.

This view can help you spot disconnected (floating) ideas and create bridges to them.

Exporting

Why Export?

Ready to format in another program (Scrivener, Word, Docs, Vellum, etc).

Need a clean version (removing tags, notes, etc) for beta readers or editors.

Creating a backup copy of your work.

When should you export?

Personally, I like to export every 5 chapters or so and update my live version on Google Docs. This allows my family, friends, and beta readers to access my edited work.

After finishing a draft or major revision.

Before sending to an editor or formatting for publication.

Where should you export?

Personally I copy and paste my content from each chapter into a google doc for editing. You may also want to make note of the following export options:

Markdown to Word (.docx) – For editing or submitting.

Markdown to PDF – For quick sharing

Markdown to Scrivener – For those who format in Scrivener.

To Conclude

Obsidian is an invaluable tool for novelists who want a flexible, organized, and distraction-free writing process.

Try setting up your own Obsidian vault for your next novel! Comment below and let me know if this was helpful for you 🫶🏻

your reblogs help me help more ppl 💕

follow along for writing prompts, vocabulary lists, and helpful content like this! <333

✨ #blissfullyunawaresoriginals ✨

[conkreetmonkey]

Oh, no, you see, I'm actually cis, I'm just a boob farmer as like a side hustle.

...

Uhh, well, it's like, so I take estrogen and t-blockers and all that, right? And it makes me grow boobs. And once they're fully matured, I hack 'em off and sell 'em to trans women on that, uhh, eGay app where they swap parts and stuff. Done it like five or six times now, so each time my body gets better at growin' 'em, but it still takes like a year.

...

Uh, depends on the buyer. More specific or rare types of boob sell for more. It's a deceptively complex economy. Of course, though, I don't do it as my main livin', so I try to give 'em a good price.

...

Yeah, it's mainly gonna be breaking even after the startup. Once you have a bunch of different sized bras bought and a stock of cheapo nips stored up-- got mine from an Etsy lot of like 10 pairs-- you can start pullin' a good profit on your second pair. It's just the time investment, you know? First pair takes years. Second takes 'bout a year less I'd say, you really do get diminishing returns on the speed increase after a while... again, though, I'm no pro. There are people who do this as a proper job.

...

Well, the E is free. T blockers are free. It's the over-the-counter meds that getcha, oh but it's really the food that's the main expense. Things're made of fat after all, and you gotta go through the whole puberty to get the results. I've been usin' this shake recipe I found on a forum after my second pair, got all the minerals an' shit you need for 'em at a decent price... but 'til you start minmaxing like that, it's a real problem. Def go generic brand, and, you know, meal prep and supplements and whatnot... just takes a while to figure out how to optimize the process, yannow?

...

Ok, look, I gotta go, I need to pick up my Ma from the scrapyard. Here's my, uh, card. Gimme a call on my cell and I'll text you a list'a resources if ya still interested. 'Ave a good one, ma'am. Merry Chri--happy holidays, sorry.

[thelogicalghost]

pssssssst hey muppets/sesame street

y'all should see if you can make an app that has the two Snowths and when you go manahmanah they go DO DO DODODO

optimally make the background so it can be neutral to use the app as a toy or turn the selfie cam on so people can take a clip of themselves manahmanahing

don't release it for free, put it on the app stores for like $2, I promise it'll go viral and maybe y'all can pay for another season of sesame street!

(the Snowths are these ladies if that wasn't clear from context)

(reblog to get manahmanah stuck in your followers' heads all day, you're welcome)

[17-noodlebird]

World Four = The Craniumville Academical School For The Fairly Gifted But Still Not Good Enough Children

🎓🎒🏫🧑‍🏫🦉🧮👓📏📚

~~~~

Jewel: Turquoise

Power: Gravity

Color: Teal

Theme: Libraries & Educational Universities

~~~~

Objective:

Graduate with honors from the rigorous courses and classes of Professor Barnwell by competing in the Edulympics.

~~~~

Chapter IV: Are You Smarter Than A Sixth Grader?

~~~~

The fourth episode/chapter pays homage to school-based games and school-centric TV shows/episodes, university/college movies, Baldi's Basics In Education & Learning, the Duolingo app, Adam Ruins Everything, educational TV shows, and the PBS Kids shows from the 1990’s and early 2000’s. It also takes inspiration from Monsters University.

The episode begins with Team Circus in the Magical Digital Van, having just left a roadside diner for breakfast that morning after three days of traveling to their next destination. They're still shooketh by the turn of events that happened prior, with the fake mechanic, money laundering rich couple, and an evil racist prince, but they'll admit, they still had fun regardless of the setbacks. Basically, some pluses and minuses. Caine is more shaken, but refuses to let that deter him considering that this was only just the three times and that it can't be anything more than some unfortunate coincidences… at least this is what he tries to convince himself of.

After 3 more hours of traveling, they finally arrive at their next destination: the ever prestigious town of Craniumville. Craniumville appears to be just like your standard suburban neighborhood filled with houses, some small schools in certain areas, a gas station (a perfect place for them to recharge themselves and take a break from all this driving), libraries, and even some playgrounds for the kiddos. Team Circus stops by at the gas station, with Caine feeling more chipper this time around, unlike last time, and Pomni and Jax getting into the same gas station shenanigans as last time. Kinger and Zooble just kinda hang around in the parking lot, admiring the autumnal beauty of the whole place, and Gangle and Ragatha help grab some more roadside snacks for the trip at the gas station’s convenience store, while Caine and Bubble stay behind in the van, just talking to each other like they always have since the start of their long-lasting friendship. Plastered on one of the gas station walls is a poster for free admissions to one of Craniumville’s top universities, as well as the hosting of this summer’s Edulympics.

The poster catches Gangle's eye, as she examines it further. It's there that the gas station manager, who takes on the appearance of a sheep wearing sunglasses, introduces himself as Craig Hill to her and Ragatha, explains that this one's extremely hard to pass, if not outright impossible, out of all the universities in Craniumville, a town that's so focused on education, intelligence, and enlightenment more than anything in the whole digital world. Anyone would be even remotely lucky to even try, considering just how damn easy it is to get admitted into their facilities. Funnily enough, it's with this that Gangle and Ragatha are compelled to actually go to the university, despite them already being full-fledged adults in no need for further education. Perhaps this gut feeling could lead to the next jewel they're after…?

It turns out that same poster that caught Gangle's eye was also plastered on just about every surface you could think of, even the smaller scale elementary, middle, high, and community college schools in Craniumville. Now the others are further inclined to go and check this place out, in spite of the skeptical optimism it brings. Once the Magical Digital Van is ready to go, Team Circus heads off to this prestigious and hard-to-pass university that Gangle has been talking about.

Once they get there, they find that it's an incredibly large building (on the same scale as the Empire State Building in New York City, if not tremendously taller), with thousands of people also looking for an available spot in the University. The building is divided into 13 districts, one for each fraternity. And true to Gangle's word, this place is incredibly easy to get into, with just some signatures on some papers and they'll be ready to go.

But why exactly are they here? Is it destiny somehow? No matter! While everyone else is doing whatever, everyone in Team Circus is gonna do some exploring. It looks like one humongous library (as if they already hadn't seen a bunch on their way there lol), with an assortment of tubes and slides to get from one class to another, not to mention the arrangement of dorms and classrooms to boot. Just as everyone is minding their own business, Gangle finds a manga section that she's enamored with, alongside Zooble, who's aimlessly wandering around the place. Meanwhile, Pomni looks for someone to ask for directions to whatever classes they may or may not have, when she bumps into a talking ostrich and his human best friend, who welcome them to — name reveal — The Craniumville Academical School For The Fairly Gifted But Still Not Good Enough Children (the talking ostrich acknowledges the hurtful namesake of the university as they say this). They introduce themselves as Jamey Bourne (the human with the blonde bowl cut and a cow lick) and Ozzi the Ostrich (the large suave-looking flightless bird with a peculiar updo and a pair of glasses). They are both wearing school uniforms, as are the other students that aren't new here.

Of course, Ozzi and Jamey give Team Circus a tour around the campus, starting with the many classes they have to offer, taught by some of the most influential and highly erudite scholars of Craniumville. Next, they introduce them to the thirteen fraternities that are also held in high regard at the school. Shockingly (or rather, unshockingly, depending on who you ask), Caine isn't all that excited like Gangle is — quite the opposite, actually — when the tour gets increasingly expanded, from the building’s many library sections (Craniumville sure does love books; Alexandria, eat your heart out lmao), to its recreational facilities, their custom-made gymnasiums, a basketball, football, soccer, and tennis field respectively, a golf course, an entire freaking food court (like the ones you'd find at your local mall), and an in-school hotel where the most academically advanced students would sleep whenever they got good grades. All the while, Team Circus has to get used to riding escalator-like tubes that go extremely fast in order to climb up floors, and ride down some fun slides with vendors offering slide mats on the side in order to go down some floors. Upon Ragatha asking about the school uniforms, Ozzi answers that their final part of the tour will explain just that.

They all end up at the Dressing Room, where all the students in the Craniumville Academical School must put on a uniform to look presentable for the teachers and staff members. It's from there that the tour officially concludes. As Team Circus gets dressed into their new school uniforms, Jamey complains that Ozzi didn't get to use his “special powers” for the tour, which Pomni begins to overhear upon becoming intrigued. Ozzi explains that the tour wouldn't feel organic if he used them. That's when Pomni interjects and asks what kind of powers does Ozzi possess. The ostrich casually explains that he sometimes teleports to places and even time travels from time to time — not once do any of the members of Team Circus question it, having been through too much to even bother for a further explanation. Despite Jamey’s excited pleas for a demonstration, Ozzi keeps refusing, until the human boy finally gives up. That's when Team Circus finally finishes up and reveal their stunning new school uniforms, with even their accessories having changed to fit their aesthetic — Pomni's jester hat is now teal-and-cream plaid and white striped, with the jingle bells replaced with tiny little books, Ragatha's bow is now also a teal-and-cream plaid, Gangle is adorning teal-and-cream plaid hair bows on each side of her mask face, Zooble's parts are now school-themed, with them having an atom symbol on their chest, and a wooden ruler for a left leg for example, Bubble is wearing a teal-and-cream plaid bowtie on his chest, and Caine's top hat is tied into a teal-and-cream plaid ribbon bow.

In their respective dressing room areas, a card pops up from the mail chute, which reveals their dorm room numbers for where they'll be staying when they're not in class. Jamey explains that once students are finished with the tour, they are assigned to a different dorm room, as the school also acts as a boarding school. He even cheerfully says that they are lucky to have come just in time for the Edulympics, a multi-school event that happens once every 8 years, which only raises more concerns from Team Circus than reassurance.

Soon enough, once they reach the building where their dorms are at, they come to find that Pomni and Kinger both have the same dorm number, which Ozzi explains that sometimes, a student will bunk with a roommate during a semester or two, and that Professor Barnwell, the school’s head principal, says it's a good idea to keep students from getting lonely during their darkest hours. When Kinger asks about Professor Barnwell, a brief moment of awkward silence follows before Ozzi answers that as the school’s leader, it'd be best not to pester her too much, before the two say their farewells for the night to Team Circus and be on their merry way.

Pomni admires the view from the dorm building’s balcony, basking in the vastness of the whole school, with its active tubes and slides, a giant library that could rival even Harvard’s collection of books, and so much to do to keep them stimulated as well as educated. It's there that we see that all eight members of Team Circus are rooming up in pairs in four consecutive rooms: Pomni and Kinger, Jax and Ragatha, Caine and Bubble, Gangle and Zooble. Gangle is excited about the opportunity they'll all have being school students, just like the many anime shows she'd always watch with Zooble, and that her dream of being an anime schoolgirl is finally coming true. Zooble is mostly indifferent to the situation, like they had been for a while now, but is just enjoying Gangle rambling on and on about her indulgences overall. Zooble takes the time to notice a welcome gift basket for the both of them, filled with goodies and school supplies, and an individual class schedule for all of them. It turns out the other six in their other respective dorm rooms also got gift baskets with goodies, school supplies, and an individual class schedule for them to follow. Following this, all eight members of Team Circus receive a notification for their fourth objective on their communicator bracelets, before they promptly get ready for bed for the night and prepare for what's to come.

The next morning — or more precisely at 6:45 AM, — the school bell rings to signify that it's time for everyone to wake up, and everyone does just that. It's the usual “we're late for school” shenanigans for Team Circus, with everyone haphazardly getting dressed into their uniforms and rushing over to their first class of the day, all while completely forgetting that it's extremely early for such. And this is something they all learn the hard way, when they accidentally bump into this snooty schoolgirl named Katie Leone. She, in an annoyed tone of voice, explains to them that their first school bell of the day is just an alarm for everyone to get up and at ‘em and to go get their breakfast at the food court. She's not very nice about it, much to everyone's dismay. But Katie does offer to lead them to the food court as a gesture of sincerity, despite suspicions.

At the food court, Katie talks to Team Circus about what goes on here and the specifics of how things must be run in this school, as Professor Barnwell does not tolerate imperfections of any kind, especially newcomers. She says all of this in a faux compassionate voice, while also being a condescending little asshole; it even unnerves Jax a little, who would know a thing or two about being an asshole himself. Katie even proclaims that if they try anything funny, they won't last much longer, and that it would take a miracle for them to even remotely have a chance at passing their rigorous classes, let alone even try out for the Edulympics.

Eventually, 7 AM rolls around and they all head off to their first class of the day: Jax, Pomni, and Caine all have World History class, Ragatha and Kinger have Science class, Bubble has Art class, and Zooble and Gangle have Algebra class. They evidently have a hard time with their respective classes (except for Gangle for some strange reason), with Caine not really paying attention to the lesson because of the overstimulating environment, Bubble having separation anxiety, Kinger being an easily startled fellow, and Katie Leone herself having followed Zooble and Gangle to Algebra, meaning that these two share the same class as her. Yippee…

During World History, we see Professor Globalle trying to get Caine to engage with the lesson to no avail, despite the latter's best efforts, though from the looks of it, Globalle seems to be much more scared of something rather than be annoyed at Caine, which Jax calls into question. That's when we see the introduction of Professor Barnwell herself, a giant green owl with a graduation cap on her head. Barnwell is just as intimidating as she is a bit condescending about the student’s worth in life and potential to succeed in the real world. In spite of Globalle’s attempts to cool down the situation saying that not everyone is paced the same, Barnwell interjects by forcing everyone to participate in a pop quiz, much to everyone's dismay. As you'd expect, Caine has trouble concentrating, with Barnwell watching over the entire class with what appears to be a sadistic smirk on her face. It's definitely not helping the poor teeth man at all. And sadly, he's barely able to answer two questions out of 56 when time runs out, resulting in not just him failing, but evidently the whole class. And while Professor Barnwell snidely chides that everyone will need to do better if they want to graduate, Globalle reassures them all that he has no control over this and that if it were up to him, he wouldn't have let the rest of his class fail as well. Already, things are off to a really shitty start.

The scene transitions to Kinger and Ragatha not faring much better in Science class, as Dr. Plantair tries to get his class to engage in the lesson about chemical changes, only for everyone else (except Ragatha and Kinger, of course) to be completely apathetic and everyone doing their own thing, including a group of four girls playing with their tech devices, a class clown purposefully making the teacher mad by being annoying, and two older students bullying three younger ones. When one of the nameless bullies tries to get on Kinger's nerves, Ragatha attempts to stand up for her fellow friend, only for Plantair to tell her to sit down and pay attention, much to her annoyance. Eventually, when they do get to the fun part, which is really just mixing one liquid with another in some lab flasks, the class clown teams up with the two bullies to scare-prank Kinger, while one of the tech addict girls records the whole thing. Ragatha is quick to notice this, and tries to tell Dr. Plantair, only for it to quickly turn into a heated argument as the cruel prank takes place before both of their eyes, with the chemicals being spilt, which is actually dangerous, mind you. And rather than take action and punish the mean students, Plantair blames all of his students (including poor Kinger and Ragatha) for wasting today's lesson on “mindless carelessness” and an inability to engage with what was supposed to be a fun lesson. So everyone is forced to clean the classroom up and end class early. Ouch.

We then join Bubble in Art class, who is trying not to explode internally as Mr. Spotlight teaches his students how to make a clay vase. Some rowdy students try to deviate from the lesson, and Bubble tries to ignore them, to almost no avail. It's relatively the calmest this class has to offer considering the only genuine event that happens is the poor soap bubble having a vivid panic attack, which the rough-housers pick fun of for their own amusement. How depressing.

Algebra class is by far the toughest for Gangle and Zooble as they are at first being constantly outmatched by Katie Leone, who's just answering up a storm with what Mr. Emcee perceives her to be “highly superior”, in that he'd prefer all of his students to be just like her. It doesn't help that the other students envy Katie to the point where they're all taking it out on each other. Meanwhile, Gangle is genuinely enjoying herself with the lesson, and when she's eventually called by Emcee after so many turns with Katie, everyone is surprised (and maybe even a little furious) by how calm under pressure she remains. Zooble, although silent, is bearing with it all, despite looking like they could cry at any moment, an ironic turning of the tables for both characters. Emcee, in an attempt to lessen the tension he himself created with his favoritism, challenges all of his students to a Kahoot quiz, and surprise, surprise, it's Gangle who emerges triumphant as she manages to swiftly answer each mathematical equation correctly, faster than Katie Leone, I might add.

Second class of the day for our beloved Team Circus finally arrives; Pomni and Caine are unfortunate enough to endure the torment in Science class, while Gangle just minds her own business, despite Plantair also deciding to take his frustrations out on her, which for once doesn't actually phase her — and she's not even wearing her comedy mask, as Pomni notices. It would appear she forgot to put one on again, possibly due to the rush of this morning. Ragatha, Jax and Bubble also have Algebra, but as the lesson is being taught, Emcee keeps bringing up Katie and how amazing of a student she is, much to everyone's else's annoyance. Kinger and Zooble have Art class, and the presence of Katie just makes the unfortunate mix-and-match being feel like they're walking on eggshells, with them being forced to compete with Katie over building the best clay sculpture, with Katie emerging victorious every time.

Then comes the third class of the day, in which we are introduced to a new classroom with Professor Giz. If any of you have ever been to engineering classes, you could probably imagine how egregiously rigorous and challenging it can be, with all the complicated software and machine crap, as Pomni, Jax, Ragatha, and Gangle can all attest to, to the point where not even Giz himself can figure it out or do it right, rendering his students even more confused. Caine is relentlessly bullied for his appearance and spaciness by the other students in Art class, and so is Kinger in Algebra class, with Bubble faring no better in Science class (with one of the students even making him cry). Katie Leone once again tries to humiliate and outmatch Zooble in World History, and Globalle, being the cowardly doormat he is, does not do jack diddly motherfucking squat about it, leaving Zooble in tears.

Fourth class of the day is a pitiful low for Team Circus, with Pomni absolutely fumbling Art class, not to mention her jester hat being a bit of an eyesore for some of the more cynical students there. Algebra is the absolute worst for Caine, as despite being an AI (a reprogrammed AI who evolved beyond his purpose, but an AI nonetheless), the fast-paced nature of the class and Emcee’s constant storytelling of Katie Leone’s intelligence is worsening his anxiety. Meanwhile in Science, Jax notices Zooble in distress over being overshadowed by Katie, but can't do a damn thing about it after Plantair berates his class for “wasting his time” with their consistent apathy. World History is relatively calmer for Ragatha, Kinger, Gangle, and Bubble, and Gangle is somewhat dominating the class with her enticing knowledge, and essentially saving everyone’s asses from failure.

Lunchtime finally rolls around as Team Circus heads back to the food court, and the crowd is packed. They all look like they've seen better days, save for Gangle, who basically just looks focused right now. Pomni comments to the others how she noticed that Gangle isn't wearing her comedy mask for some reason, causing Jax to make an “I knew it!” face from within the background. When asked further by Ragatha, Jax states that the reason for his reaction is that while stuck at the Circus, he theorized that Gangle's masks weren't what they seemed; he had seen Gangle truly happy without her comedy mask at least three times before, so he attested that the her comedy mask suppressed how she truly felt, while her tragedy mask was her true self.

Amidst the cacophony of chatting friend groups, pranksters, the members of Team Circus talk about their days to each other and how they went, and suffice to say, they were exactly great. In fact, the teachers didn't really help in matters. Not to mention that the visit from Professor Barnwell, the headmistress of the Craniumville Academy, in History class this morning, put a damper on Jax, Caine, and Pomni's spirits. We see the return of Jamey and Ozzi, with the former asking what's wrong upon arrival at their table. At least they haven't forgotten them, so this is a plus for them.

They each individually tell them of their own woes, and they can both sympathize with them as something similar happened to them at the school as well. Ozzi reveals he doesn't trust any of the teachers, but he chooses to lay low so as not to stir a ruckus, since Professor Barnwell has leverage against all of her students. Not even the well-meaning teachers are safe. And as it turns out, Craniumville U isn't the only victim of this. It's everywhere. But they don't have time to get into that as lunchtime has already passed, and all of Team Circus head off to their fifth classes of the day.

If the others’ experiences are anything to go by, Pomni's time in Algebra was kinda mellow thanks to her excellent math skills, except she didn't learn diddly squat with Emcee still rambling on about how Katie Leone is such a great student. Pomni barely even knows Katie. And the irony continues for Caine in Engineering class, where because of his knowledge on technology, there are a lot of things Giz gets wrong — much to everyone's dismay, Caine's frustration, and Giz’s butthurtness.

We finally get to see a new class as we join Ragatha, Jax, Bubble, and Kinger in Music class, and the four of them are just anticipating the worst possible outcome when they are greeted by the seemingly legit presence of Professor Alto. He's eerily relaxed, if not a bit persnickety with how things are run. Everyone is assigned to a different family of music instruments: strings, percussion, brass, woodwind, and choir. Jax is assigned the trombone, Ragatha, the violin, Kinger, the tambourine, and Bubble as one of the sopranos. Things are off to a surprisingly pleasant start, until a few moments later where everything just turns into the movie Whiplash, and everyone is left to suffer for things that weren't even remotely their fault. Alto expects things to be perfect, as in his definition of perfect, and because those standards are impossible to reach, Music class is a nightmare to deal with. But hey, at least you get to play the tambourine!

There is yet another new class we haven't seen before, and it's Home Ec class, taught by Professor Tate. Gangle and Zooble are paired up once more, just like back in 1st period, and once again, Katie Leone rears her stuck-up head by turning a simple meal cooking lesson into an all out competition. And for once, Gangle finally grows a spine and attempts to get Katie to back off from Zooble, only to be stopped by Professor Tate, who is just as apathetic to the relentless bullying as most of the others are here, and just wants to eat food. Anyone seeing a pattern yet?

Zooble is grateful for Gangle standing up for them, and something stirs inside them as a result, but they'll have to set that aside for later.

For their sixth classes of the day, Pomni, Jax, Ragatha, and Kinger find that their Home Ec teacher, Professor Tate, is a lazy glutton who is using his students for free food. Music class is utterly traumatic for Caine. Bubble and Zooble have Engineering class with Professor Giz, and once again, Katie Leone is tormenting the heck out of Zooble, to which Giz merely watches as though it's quality entertainment instead actually stopping it, leaving Bubble perpetually helpless. Gangle excels at Art class, though.

Then for their seventh classes, we head back to Music class, Katie Leone is treated like the golden child by Alto, while everyone else is left with psychological scars, especially Zooble. Pomni and Gangle take Alto’s unpredictable rage much better than Zooble, especially Gangle, considering that she still isn't wearing her comedy mask. In Home Ec class, Bubble and the other students are treated like servants to Tate while Caine wallows in a curled-up position in a corner, still trying to process what happened in Music class. Jax and Ragatha finally get to have a bit of breather in Art class, as they're learning how to make ceramic mugs. And lastly, Kinger teaches Giz a thing or two about technology, which in Craniumville U is a big no-no for Professor Barnwell, but at least Giz is humbled for at least a little bit before ignoring his epiphany back to the status quo.

And finally, we reach their eighth and final class of the day, PE. The gang's all reunited, some looking worse for wear than others. They all have to get into their gym uniforms in order to participate in an obstacle course set up by their coach, Mr. Yew. And wouldn't you freaking know it, Katie Leone is here with them, much to Gangle's irritation and Zooble's dismay. Luckily for them, their buddies, Ozzi and Jamey, are here with them as well, the former noticing the rough shape Team Circus is currently in. Neither of them have time to explain themselves to each other as they all have to line up in order for Yew to give out whatever motivational speech he has in store for them… not that it'll make a difference for any of them. And, as per frickin’ usual, Katie manages to outperform the others in the damn obstacle course in the gymnasium, while the others more or less either manage to trudge their way through a series of tires, ropes, ladders, rock climbing sets, monkey bars, and bridges, and succeed in the end, or fail trying to make it out. Not even the talking ostrich and his human buddy could make it all the way. The only one praised for their efforts is — you guessed it — Katie Leone. But the good news is that school's finally over for the day afterwards, and everyone gets to do whatever until tomorrow. Not that anyone is excited unfortunately.

Everyone is exhausted and distressed. Wasn't school supposed to be a fun experience? What's with all the school staff being so discouraging and the students being such assholes? The only good ones here seem to be Ozzi and Jamey, they've come to realize. After the others go to the ginormous library to cool off, where everyone has begun studying or pulling off all-nighters, Gangle decides to look for some manga to read, when she stumbles upon one of the posters for the Edulympics. Turns out they all forgot about it when they had a rough first day at school today, as it was in their objective on their communicator bracelets to join the Edulympics. So… all hope isn't lost?

Gangle goes to Ozzi and Jamey to ask about the Edulympics in Craniumville U, and his answer is that it's a multi-school competition to see which school reigns supreme in all of Craniumville. Apparently, the talking ostrich finds the whole Edulympics to be extremely pointless, including the way the entire education system in Craniumville is run, but Gangle tells him that they have been thinking about participating in the Edulympics… to maybe help Craniumville U win. Jamey interjects saying that it's still their first day, so they'll have to gain more experience here in the school if they want to join, not to mention the games don't start until later this summer. That means they'll have to do a lot of waiting and endure more of the educational torture that they went through today in order for that to be possible. Although Gangle thanks them anyway, Ozzi insists he and Jamey come join with, noticing the others’ misery from a mile away.

While Jamey is a little more empathetic to Team Circus’s plights, Ozzi looks at them as though he knows something they don't, with an expression of pity and cynicism. Jamey tries to reassure them that it's not all bad if you try to stay vigilant enough, but they're not really in the spirit of things at the moment, especially not Caine, who looks like he had been crying. Jamey boldly suggests he grab one of Craniumville U’s top notch tutors to help them with whatever troubles they're currently going through, despite reassurances that it's not necessary. Ozzi doesn't think it's a good idea, but the wide-eyed optimistic human sidekick continues to insist, lest Ozzi reveal his superpowers to them, which the former vehemently protests yet again. The conversation had long lost its steam, however, so Team Circus and Ozzi and Jamey go back to their respective dorms and part ways.

On their way back, they each tell them about their individual schedules, noticing how they all went to the same specific classes, each having varying degrees of eggshell-walking, uselessness, and apathetic atmosphere. Gangle is the most composed of the bunch for some reason, despite not wearing her comedy mask today, who is pretty much used to daily schtick of being harassed, pushed around, tossed aside, and ignored, to the point that it doesn't faze her when she's thrust into a completely unfamiliar (yet familiar at the same time) environment. Zooble clings on to Gangle for comfort, for the latter has been the only one by her side when Katie tormented the mix-and-match being. For the first time, Zooble feels vulnerable.

Back in the dorm room Gangle and Zooble are staying in, the ribbony girl laments how she had initially been excited to live out her anime fantasy, only to be let down in what had to be the most disappointing and anticlimactic reality check she ever faced. She's not even disappointed by the fact that her fantasies don't match her (digital) reality, but rather, she's disappointed that she was completely fine with it. She's upset that she didn't suffer as much as Zooble did; she had largely zoned out into her studies because it interested her. She had discovered that she’s actually good at math and science, something she hasn't told the others about. Zooble on the other hand is more than happy for their best friend, in that Gangle actually cares about getting a good education, while the others are just focused on finding that next jewel; it's a sign that the road trip is going swimmingly, that at least one of them is completely immersed in this world that was catered specifically for them! Plus, Gangle's expertise in the smartsy stuff might come in handy in the Edulympics someday.

Meanwhile, in Jax and Ragatha’s room, they all talk about the teachers who were either assholes, potentially dangerous people, like Emcee and his apparent obsession with Katie Leone (while Katie may have been a bitchface to Zooble, she could very well be just as much of a victim as the rest of Team Circus), or straight up textbook definitions of mediocrity — at best! Jax had always thought it'd be the school’s gym coach who was icky, like he had been led to believe from watching too much television, but he had never expected it to be their freakin’ math teacher… but neither of them can say for sure because, first off, this was only their first day, and second, it'd be unwise to jump to conclusions now and start a metaphorical fire with such a serious accusation. They'll just have to wait and see for now.

In the third dorm room, Pomni is deciding to pull an all-nighter, despite there being no upcoming exams yet, as Kinger reminds her. Pomni is quick to tell the chess piece that she doesn't want to take any chances and is choosing to be prepared, given what happened in World History. This will more than likely cost whatever sanity she might have left, but I digress. Kinger just goes to sleep for the night — or at least tries to; Pomni's all-nighter isn't making it easy for him.

Lastly, we find Bubble and Caine trying to watch a good movie on TV, but none of them are really in the spirit to. Valerie takes the time to comment to Bethany that they remember how their first day at school didn't go so well for them either, and that they hope things don't get worse for Team Circus from here on out… but if the previous three adventures taught them anything, you'd know by now that it will definitely get worse from here. But for now, they seem to be in the clear.

Early at 5:55 AM the next morning, Jamey enthusiastically knocks on the door of one of four rooms, the one where Caine and Bubble are placed in, which greatly bothers both of them, seeing that it's way too early for this crap. Jamey then drags them out of the room after some pleading, in which they meet a new character in the giant library, where a select few students are also pulling all-nighters of their own, just like Pomni was earlier. She is a young lady who appears to be one of the school's staff members, judging by her appearance in clothing and age. She warmly welcomes them both with a big hug, startling the ringmaster-turned-student with the suddenness of the physical contact. The teacher in question introduces herself as Ms. Jennifer Ahn, and that she'll be Team Circus's official tutor. She can't wait to help out with their studies and get them into the Edulympics, so that Craniumville U can finally snag a win after decades of not being able to do so. Jamey looks so proud of himself for coming up with this oh-so-brilliant idea, while Caine and Bubble are just straight up confused, trying to process what in God's name just happened. Jamey is off to fetch the others, while Ozzi arrives much later to find that he's already too late to stop his buddy. Ozzi does not look optimistic in the slightest about this.

Jamey drags the rest of the six human performers-turned-students, all of whom are tired as hell. Pomni hasn't slept a wink and is back to her old jittery self as she was when she first got trapped in this virtual world a couple of years ago, except now with more cantankerousness; Kinger is not having it at all and just wants to be left the hell alone; Ragatha is frozen in place from anxiety, while Jax drifts in and out of sleep during random intervals; Zooble looks like they just cried themselves to sleep last night and Gangle is more or less stoic. Ms. Ahn takes notes of their conditions and promises that she'll do everything she can to bring out the best in them, showing enthusiasm for her mission to “make them better”. Jamey individually introduces the members of Team Circus and that they're all new students here, having just trudged through their first day. Ms. Ahn sympathizes with them, since no one in Craniumville U ever has a good first day at the school, but she strives to make the rest of their school year better, through her tutoring skills and preparation for the harsh environment they'll have to face for the first four months of this semester. Jamey explains that she's good at basically every school subject there is, she knows the school staff by heart — even Professor Barnwell —, and she knows the basic ins and outs of this facility, even the sororities and fraternities. Jamey even offers to join along with the tutoring sessions to make them feel more comfortable. At first, none of them are too keen on the idea, having been bamboozled three times in the span of almost a week now, but Gangle immediately accepts the offer, if it means they'll be one step closer to joining the Edulympics and finding the next jewel. Begrudgingly, the rest of Team Circus accepts their fate as well, and their first tutoring session begins before the start of their first class of the day. Ozzi notices a shadow in the distance on one of the library balconies, seemingly in the shape of Professor Barnwell herself. Ozzi knows something, but doesn't have the heart to tell them. At least not yet.

Cue the school montage! This includes all the times Team Circus gets tutored by Ms. Ahn on World History, Art, Science, Engineering, Algebra, Music, and even Home Ec, the bad teachers being defied and the relatively decent ones being impressed and even proud of their efforts, Zooble being relentlessly bullied by Katie Leone (ranging from tasteless pranks to actual physical assault), and Gangle saving the day in troubled times, all the while Professor Barnwell looms in the distance as a shadowy figure, as Ozzi and Jamey do their best to support them. They even also study into the night for big tests and exams for their respective classes, not caring about sleep in the slightest while they do so. As the days progress, in spite of the exhaustion, they continue to grow more and more satisfied and even proud of their efforts, with Gangle even being in the top of her classes, outranking the longtime top-of-the-class Katie Leone. Caine finally gets used to the uncaring environment of some of the classes, even though he's a shaking wreck afterwards, but nonetheless considers it worth it for the others. The dimensional diplomats watch and provide witty commentary here and there as the montage progresses. This is all while “Gospel” by MarchForth Marching Band plays, where the four months of the first semester for Team Circus plays out in just six minutes for the audience.

The montage ends with Professor Barnwell onstage in the school’s gymnasium, speaking through the podium stand’s microphone about her students’ job well done throughout the rigorous four months, and congratulating the remaining students who haven't dropped out or gotten expelled for surviving the first half of their school year by rewarding them a winter break party in one of the fraternities’ facilities. They all loudly cheer in victory, except for Ozzi (who distrusts Barnwell with a contemptuous passion), Zooble (who is staring off into the distance with a disturbed look on their face, finally knowing true fear for the first time in their digital life), Caine (who is overstimulated from the cacophony of the crowd), and a worried Gangle, who looks at a visibly shaking Zooble, and then darting a quick glare at Katie Leone, who herself is celebrating another successful semester with the rest of the students.

The scene cuts to a snowy night, where the fraternity building of Tau Iota Kappa, and everyone is heading towards the very large mansion-like house that's 15 stories tall, including Team Circus. Even Jamey and Ozzi have come along. Entire groups of students are talking about how excited they are for the party, while flashing multicolored lights can be seen from the windows, as well as muffled techno music from inside the house. Caine, Pomni, and Kinger are wearing noise-canceling headphones that dimensional diplomat Yolanda gave them via their communicator bracelets, Jax, Ragatha, and Bubble are talking amongst themselves about how they can't believe they just went through four months of hell and how this was definitely worth the party they were going to tonight. Gangle is holding Zooble's hand the whole way there, assuring them that she won't let Katie Leone bother her while they're at the party. Jamey pats himself on the back to Ozzi about how he knew that his plan would work and that they'll be able to survive the rest of the school year with no problems, even though Ozzi has his doubts, as he tells Jamey he's seen firsthand how everything can and will go wrong if he keeps shielding them from the truth. Just because Ozzi and Jamey were the lucky ones like Katie Leone was, that doesn't mean everyone is, the ostrich warns his human compadre. Jamey chooses to see the bright side of things, although now that Ozzi mentions it, he is beginning to feel nervous himself, but he decides to brush it off for now, as it's officially party time.

They all at last reach the party, and sure enough, it's extremely crowded with students talking amongst themselves, students on the dance floor having fun to the loud, upbeat, and overly energetic rave music played by the DJ, Professor Alto of all people, (who'da guessed?) snacks and drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) being served, board games and video games being played by the students in one of the rooms, the giant TV screens playing Christmas-themed movies on the second floor of the house, and even the school staff enjoying themselves in a rare moment of humanity coming from them. The only school staff member allegedly not being present is Professor Barnwell herself. They all assume she's much too busy with paperwork for that sort of thing.

Gangle, alongside her companion Zooble, goes over to Jamey and Ozzi to thank them for helping her and her friends through their first semester, to which Ozzi warmly and humbly accepts their gratitude, taking joy in lending a kind hand to those in need. Jamey does the same as well, but is a little more tense about it due to thinking about some things. Gangle wants to bring over Ms. Ahn for helping them out and to thank her as well, so she asks Ozzi to look after Zooble while she goes to do so, to which he accepts the offer. Gangle thanks him again and heads off. Meanwhile, Pomni, Kinger, and Caine are away from the dance floor, sitting on the sofa in one of the rooms where a couple of random students are playing Super Smash Bros., and they cheer those students on. Jax shows off his dance skills to another random group of party-going students, and Ragatha finally lets loose after some persuasion from Bubble, after which they both get absolutely wasted in a drinking contest they won in a tie between three other students.

Katie Leone is just wandering around carrying a red SOLO cup filled with fruit punch when she spots Ozzi, Jamey, and Zooble just having an idle conversation with each other. Katie goes over to them to “make amends” with Zooble, though immediately, the mix-and-match superstar-turned-student is distrustful after all the classroom pranks and hallway altercations they've had to endure for the last four months, but Katie reassures her that it's all in the past and that they should just enjoy themselves while they last. Ozzi and Jamey attempt to stop Katie from whatever mischief they think she's causing, only to falter when she hands them a pair of cups for them both as a token of “no hard feelings”. Still skeptical, they each take a sip of their respective cups and walk alongside them.

At first, it looks like Zooble and Katie have finally become friends, with them playing beer pong at the pool table and the group showing off their dance moves to the others, among other wild party activities in the fraternity house. With each passing minute, Ozzi, Jamey, and Zooble start to feel a little wonky, but are having too much fun to notice or even really care… That is until they meet up with Jax, and right away, the purple bunny takes notice that something is off. Like really off. The only one who doesn't seem to be acting any differently is Katie Leone, who tries to offer Jax a drink as well, but he bluntly refuses. Katie says that it's just some fruit punch and that he shouldn't worry, but he continues to insist on not having one. Meanwhile, Gangle and Ms. Ahn meet up with Ozzi, Jamey, and Zooble, who all look drunk, despite only having fruit punch given by Katie. She and Ms. Ahn try to get them to snap out of it until Gangle asks where they got the punch from, which Jamey answers by slurring that it was Katie. Zooble tells Gangle that she's not such a bad person if you get to know her better (also in a slurred tone of voice). Katie leads the three astray from Gangle and Ms. Ahn, while the two grab the rest of their friend group — Kinger, Pomni and Caine are informed that Zooble could be in danger if they don't hurry, triggering Caine's flight or fight response out of a desire to protect his loved ones; next, they go grab Jax, who is well aware of the situation and doesn't dare refuse; and lastly, they grab a very intoxicated Ragatha and Bubble, who are too out of it to notice the fear and panic in everyone, including, Ms. Ahn.

Unfortunately, by the time they arrive outside, it's too late; Katie Leone and a handful of students and even a couple of teachers who attended the party are pummeling the drugged trio in the middle of a brewing snowstorm with trash, food, and even punching and kicking them, calling them names while they're at it. Ms. Ahn, Gangle, and Jax break up the group and rescue Ozzi, Jamey, and Zooble respectively, as the other members of Team Circus fend off the relentless bullies, including Katie Leone, who brought them all outside for this cruel prank. As Pomni leaves to grab the rest of the staff members, Ms. Ahn breaks up the group by dragging the teachers out of the dogpile and angrily scolds them for “setting a bad example for the students”, only for Professor Barnwell to emerge from within the wintery blizzard shadows, silencing the mayhem going on outside. They all look terrified, except for Katie Leone and the bully students and teachers, who look like they're only sorry they got caught. Professor Barnwell asks calmly but ominously what the hullabaloo is. Ms. Ahn tries to say that she and a few students were trying to save Ozzi, Jamey, and Zooble, but her words only come out in stammers, but no one can be too sure if she really is just that afraid of Barnwell or if the weather is getting cold enough to make her shiver vigorously. Barnwell does not say a word as she approaches Katie Leone and the other students and teachers who joined in on the prank. Katie looks ready to accept her fate for whatever punishment Barnwell has in store. Instead Barnwell just… hugs her, saying that she's… proud of her. No one says anything, despite the horrified looks on their faces. Professor Barnwell delivers a really breaking speech about how some people were never meant to fit in, no matter how successful or influential they are, because if there are others more superior than them going out of their way to show them where their place is in the world, they shouldn't be scolded, but rather praised for reminding those “inferior morsels of society” that they shouldn't be allowed to exist in the first place, but also that they should consider themselves lucky that they're still here anyway because letting them live is a form of mercy that Barnwell herself shows all the time to the students who don't exactly fit the spitting image of Craniumville U's status of superiority and excellence. She then goes on to say that whoever these new students are, they outta reconsider joining the Edulympics if they know what's good for them. She ends the speech by saying that Craniumville deserves better than them, before flying off into the snowstorm. The atmosphere is silent and somber, and the dimensional diplomats from the other side are too stunned to speak, having traces of outrage and horror painted on their expressions.

Pomni manages to arrive late with Professor Globalle by her side, only to realize that the chaos had already ceased, with Ms. Ahn leading the staff away from the drugged up Jamey, Ozzi and Zooble. Globalle, who was informed of the situation on the way out by the jester-turned- student, handles the students, and Pomni opts to join him. Gangle is stuck wearing a thousand yard stare until she sees Katie Leone amongst the group of students being led by Globalle and Pomni, which causes her to instinctively walk towards Katie, and rip her a new one with what she and the others did to Zooble, Jamey, and Ozzi, and that she and the others will not submit to the unfair and unreasonable standards placed on her and her friends. Katie, without a hint of remorse or even any emotion for that matter, says that what Barnwell says is final; all of Craniumville’s schools have to adhere to the same principles, unfair or otherwise. Gangle rebukes this statement, saying that it will never excuse or justify tormenting those who don't meet their definition of “excellence”, no matter what. Katie attempts to slap Gangle in the face, but the latter stops her before she continues her call-out rant, declaring that she is not afraid of her, that they will compete in the Edulympics, and that she will prove all them wrong with the power of persistence and friendship. Katie is still not deterred by what Gangle has to say, asking her coldy what does she know about bullying, but is immediately surprised when she angrily reveals to Katie that she knows what it's like to be bullied and tormented on an almost daily basis, and that she doesn't want anyone to go through what she goes through, especially not Zooble. She ends the tirade by saying that no matter what happens, she will never let Katie, Barnwell, or the others break their spirits and they will never stop them from from competing in the Edulympics, and that someday, they'll look back on their youth, and realize just how empty and miserable they let themselves become by contributing nothing to this place in how they're currently acting towards their peers. No more words are said as everyone is left to process what she said, including Jax, who is straight up shocked (and a little impressed) that Gangle finally grew a spine after all these years. Everyone just stands there, left to process everything that just happened, while Gangle runs back over to the others to comfort them.

The scene transitions back to the dorm building early the next morning, with the snowstorm still raging on, where in Gangle and Zooble's room, Jamey and Ozzi are recovering from having their fruit punch spiked, as is Zooble themself. Jamey feels betrayed for the first time ever, having let his guard down for someone he knew was a bad egg, to which Ozzi reassures him that it was not his fault; it was bound to happen eventually. Ozzi reveals that a lot of Craniumville students in many different schools had to endure all sorts of bullies just like this one. Gangle refuses to let that stop her or her friends, still being determined to finish the school year stronger than ever. Ozzi stumbles upon the luggage Zooble and Gangle brought with them from their road trip, and notices something glossy in one of them. He takes a look and finds that it's one of Gangle's comedy masks peeking in there. Ozzi asks about the comedy mask, and Gangle answers with a story: she used to wear them to make her happier and to hide how she truly feels deep down because she was always being picked on by a peer of hers — that peer being Jax, of course. Ozzi is shocked and horrified that Jax was a bully to Gangle, seeing just how mellow he had been when he first met him and the others. She continues by say that she suppressed her emotions in order to deal with having to endure a really difficult environment around her, even though the comedy masks would always break, whether by accident or by Jax’s doing. Gangle used to be bullied constantly by Jax before she mustered up the courage to tell Caine. She now wonders if she should have said anything at all because even though now Jax has toned down his antics, the relationship between him and Caine soured as a result, and she holds guilt for that as a result.

Jamey is quick to get upset that Jax would even do such a thing, even though Gangle tells him that there's no need to be; he's already learned his lesson as far as she's concerned. Ozzi looks over to Zooble, who is inconsolable from last night's events, curled up and shaking. He laments that he remembers when he had been bullied by his tormentors the same way Zooble was, and no one did a goddamn thing to stop it, so he kinda had to put up with it… until he met Jamey, who was also being bullied by the other students. It would turn out that Jamey and Ozzi weren't the only victims, with hundreds of others being so relentlessly harassed and tormented that they dropped out or took drastic measures to stop the pain from continuing… Jamey and Ozzi found comfort in each other through their shared suffering, and because they were always together, the bullying eventually stopped altogether since that meant they couldn't individually pick on them anymore. Gangle empathizes with them both, as they all take a glance outside their room’s window, wondering to themselves what they're going to do now. As the camera pans outside to the ongoing snowstorm, we see Professor Barnwell talking on the phone with someone, where they discuss the Edulympics and what she expects to happen; Craniumville U is going to snag that win at all costs by breaking her students psychologically into becoming soulless robots that will do their bidding unconditionally, and if it means getting getting rid of those she can't mold into spitting images of herself and allowing those bullies to have free range on those she can “fix”, then so be it. When Barnwell hangs up from the phone call, she flies over back into the building where she meets up with Katie Leone and Mr. Emcee in one of Craniumville U's teacher's lounges and, with an evil smirk on her face, congratulating them for the completion of the first stage of their plan, and that it's time to activate the second stage. Whatever this plan is, it most certainly spells trouble for our fellow members of Team Circus…

Three more months pass and it's finally springtime, and not much has changed at all from when Team Circus first arrived. In the food court, where everyone is eating their respective lunches, Pomni takes notes on how this is the longest adventure they've been on to date. The classes are still just as horrible as they were when they first got here, the bullies and teachers have somehow worsened, and the only thing they look forward to now is Ms. Ahn’s tutoring lessons, which have helped greatly with their education, but have done nothing to mitigate the teachers belittling their effort and hard work. They each talk about what happened in their classes last period, both the good and the bad, including the pop quizzes some of them managed to ace during them. They are interrupted by Ozzi and Jamey checking up on the gang as per usual, and like always, they catch them up on the latest events that happened today. Zooble looks tired, but not defeated, as they, and the rest of Team Circus, are still confident that this will all pay off in the end. We see that Ms. Ahn has decided to join them too, as she wants to know all the details about everyone so she can bond with them and get them one step closer to joining the Edulympics. And so, they do. Though after the events prior, they take notice as to how Ms. Ahn’s dialogue is a bit forced, as though someone is telling her what to say. However, they're all too tired to investigate further.

When eighth period finally rolls around for PE class, the others are immediately greeted by Jamey, Ozzi, and Ms. Ahn, who has opted to take notes of the occurrences going on in that class. As soon as everyone is in their gym uniforms, Mr. Yew does his usual schtick as a PE coach, the importance of fitness, how they all need to train themselves if anyone is considering joining the Edulympics, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda… Ozzi immediately has a bad feeling about this when he catches the shadow of Professor Barnwell looming in the distance yet again, and this time, Jamey and Zooble notice too, still remembering vividly what happened at the party that previous winter. Zooble informs Gangle about Professor Barnwell’s secret presence, and as a result, Gangle tries telling the others to no avail, being put back in place by Yew’s coach whistle as he continues his lecture. Meanwhile, Ms. Ahn doesn't seem too concerned at all, despite having every reason to be as a fellow staff member, much to the anxious skepticism from Gangle and the perpetual heartbreak of what's to inevitably come for Ozzi. Katie Leone is still as smug as ever, looking like she knows something they don't.

We are presented to the same obstacle course from their first day of school and the montage that came after, but this time, longer and coarser than it has been in the first semester. Fortunately for Team Circus, they're not afraid of it, as they've been able to survive much worse back at home. Jamey and Ozzi, on the other hand, feel like they're being stalked, with the Zooble and Katie rivalry continuing forth, and Ms. Ahn is unfathomably confident in her prowess. While “Eye Of The Tiger” by Survivor plays, the members of Team Circus, Jamey, Ozzi, and Katie run through the obstacle course through sheer perseverance and a teaspoon of teamwork, while Ms. Ahn looks like she's barely even breaking a sweat, much to the suspicions of everyone except Katie, who is focused on Zooble the whole way through. We then cut to Jamey climbing on one of the ropes for the last portion of the obstacle course, and he is quick to notice that the rope looks like it's about to snap. However, not wanting to delay, he climbs up one of the ropes anyway and finally reaches the top to ring the bell. However when it's Ozzi’s turn, his weight as an ostrich causes the rope to snap, much to everyone's horror (except for Mr. Yew, Ms. Ahn, who merely fakes surprise, and the looming Professor Barnwell in the distance), as he falls down and breaks his wing on the gym mat below. Before the others could react, the rest of the ropes snap as well, causing everyone else to fall down the gym mats as well. Only Jamey and Katie were able to make it to the top.

Everything comes to a halt when Mr. Yew begrudgingly comes to check on Ozzi, who is absolutely writhing in pain, as well as the members of Team Circus, who — to the surprise of Katie, Ozzi, Jamey, Mr. Yew and Ms. Ahn — don't appear injured from the fall, just traumatized. Katie looks pissed, almost as though she was kinda expecting them to all get injured from the snapped ropes. To further add insult to the very literal injuries sustained by Ozzi, Katie decides to push Jamey off the balcony of the rope bell tower, just for laughs.

And indeed there are laughs coming from Professor Barnwell, who's holding a metallic nail file in her wing, and Mr. Emcee, who is holding a recording video camera. Katie slides down from the bell tower’s slide and gladly skips over to Barnwell and Emcee, seemingly excited to show the others their secret plan. That's when Ms. Ahn stands up and walks over to Barnwell, confusing the members of Team Circus. Jamey looks incredibly guilty over not telling Ozzi something, while Ozzi looks emotionally drained, and disappointed in Jamey in what he has to say. Jamey admits that he went over to talk to Professor Barnwell about giving the new students a helping hand using one of their more experienced staff members as a tutor, to which Barnwell agreed. What Jamey didn't take into account was that Barnwell’s security cameras took notice of Jamey's desires to help others in any way he could, so she exploited that for her grand plan to land Craniumville U in the winning spot for this year's Edulympics, as an attempt to prove to the others that they are not lenient, they are neither kind nor gentle, as Professor Barnwell admits that it was never about getting good grades or being educated; it was about who was worthy of maintaining power over the lesser (the lesser being the less gifted). Jamey had a heart of gold who saw the good in everyone, even Katie Leone, so Barnwell exploited that in order to show that being merciful to those who weren't smart enough was a weakness. Ms. Ahn was a pawn in that scheme who willfully followed their twisted philosophy over intelligence and ignorance because she secretly held the same defeatist beliefs Barnwell held, but maintained the sweet façade to lure people into their dooms. Emcee saw Katie as a pawn for his own scheme to raise his reputation as the most intelligent math teacher in all of Craniumville, even though he was anything but; he needed a means to keep up the charade of being a know-it-all, so he molded Katie into an extension of himself for several years. There were very few people that actually did value education over maintaining power over people, but Barnwell made sure to silence them every time they had to say anything. Ozzi knew the whole damn time, and tried time and time again to warn Jamey, but he never listened to him. The video evidence would be used as a way to convince the other Craniumville schools that they aren't weak-willed like the others (failing to take into account that actually cutting the ropes rather than using rickety old ropes that would have broken from the wear and tear anyway would be cheating in the matter, but more on that later), and that only the best of the best (Katie Leone included) would compete in the Edulympics, and they are not that at all.

Everyone from Team Circus is betrayed for the fourth time, but this time, Jamey looks just as betrayed as they are, as he was unaware of the extent of their actions, despite the fact that he really should have known they would've pulled a stunt like this. And they all should have known that Ms. Ahn really was just another bad guy acting as another obstacle. They can only look in indignation as Ms. Ahn is paid with a hefty stack of money by Barnwell. Ms. Ahn bid them all one final farewell, gleefully remarking how it was fun to hang out with them while it lasted. Jamey is all but remorseful in his expression, as his willful ignorance to the reality of the situation has cost him greatly. All the while, the dimensional diplomats can only provide banter over the situation, letting the audience know just how badly the situation has gotten from this point onwards.

Two weeks pass, and by then Ozzi's broken wing had already healed. Everyone is noticeably down in the dumps, but this time with more tension in the atmosphere from the anger and disappointment they feel at having fallen for yet another trap in someone's convoluted scheme. Everyone, that is, except Gangle, who tries to cheer up the others by trying to initiate a productive conversation, but none of them are in the mood, with even Caine shutting her down, saying that now's not the time for such matters. That's when Ozzi comes into the picture, who looks just as guilty and remorseful for not telling them all sooner, including Jamey, who also looks ashamed for what happened two weeks prior. Ozzi says that he and Jamey have come to apologize for not explaining further about the Craniumville situation that had been culminating for years now, but the others look like they've stopped caring. They have all been beaten down over and over; what else could possibly tear them to shreds? This is when Jamey shows them all a file folder containing every dirty secret about all of Craniumville’s arsenal of schools, not just Craniumville U. Gangle eagerly opens the contents (much to the unenthusiastic skepticism from Zooble), and the members of Team Circus find that Jamey wasn't lying. Craniumville Elementary School has a problem with understaffing and an overpopulation of students; Craniumville Middle School is rundown and unhygienic, proving fatal for immunocompromised students, as well as structural problems caused by supposed budget cuts that are actually the result of the staff members spending the school's money on luxury items instead of essential supplies that the students need; Craniumville Community College has a bullying and altercation problem that the staff refuses to do anything about since none of the teachers are licensed and are thus unqualified to even be having jobs as teachers in the first place; Craniumville Finishing School is one of the worst out there with its rampant misogyny and objectification and dehumanization of women; Craniumville High School also has an apathetic staff with a disability discrimination problem caused by underfunding of special needs accommodations; Craniumville Preparatory Academy’s strictness and use of outdated disciplinary methods have driven the most fragile students to suicide, causing an influx of wrongful death lawsuits that never went anywhere; Craniumville Engineering School is underfunded to the point where the classes don't have enough supplies to actually teach anyone anything, resulting in mass dropouts; and finally, Craniumville Preschool, which has a moldy building that's extremely unsafe for children 6 and under, neglectful and abusive staff, and non-OHSHA-compliant playground equipment that has resulted in injury lawsuits that have also remained unresolved and have been dismissed with prejudice multiple times over. And that's just from the main Craniumville Public School District; they haven't even gotten to the other school districts (both public and private) in Craniumville, including Cerebellum, Hypothalamus, Cerebrum, Medulla, Thalamus, Pons, Hippocampus, and Fornix. They all have similar problems as these aforementioned schools, with varying degrees of severity, so much so that when compared to all the other schools combined, Craniumville U is the most sophisticated and most clean of them all, but with all the worst aspects combined from every district.

Ozzi and Jamey had gathered all of this information while the former was in recovery from his broken wing, and also found out on their own that the Edulympics was a means to prevent the citizens of Craniumville from leaving because of their bad schools, not just for the prestige and fame of seeing who's the best of the best. This ends up being news for Team Circus, as this was never-before-heard-of in the time they spent; all they knew was that this place was sketchy, but that was about it. They're thankful for the fact that it could have been so much worse, to which Ozzi interjects that it is actually so much worse than either of them could have ever comprehended. Jamey finally beams with excitement for the first time in months over Ozzi finally showing off his powers to Team Circus, something they had all completely forgotten about… except for Gangle, who had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to tell them that she had been working with both Ozzi and Jamey to crack down the mystery of Craniumville U's suckiness, hence her unusually chipper attitude, in spite of her lack of comedy mask. The confusion in the atmosphere turns into intrigue as they all get up from their seats and head over to Ozzi, who attempts to prepare them for what's about to happen. Before anyone can ask what to prepare themselves for exactly, a flash of teal light illuminates them all and they vanish in an instant.

The scene cuts to Team Circus, Ozzi and Jamey having been teleported to an old-timey environment with sepia coloring; the eight members are adjusting to the teleportation side effects, with Pomni holding Caine tightly, both of whom are trembling. Ozzi presents his findings as such:

Craniumville was founded in 1964, not as a bustling village, but as an educational cul-de-sac that acted more like a cult than an actual suburban town. It was designed as a dustbin facility for troublesome kids and teens who have been deemed “lost causes” by society. These students were tossed aside to be “corrected” and “rehabilitated” of their flaws, using a harsh curriculum that was supposed to make them tougher and more capable of doing “normal people” things. However, the people refused to accept that these flaws made them special in their own way, so these attempts to shape them into “functional people”, or what they believed to be the definition of “functional”, were always resounding failures, making them even worse off than they already were before coming to Craniumville. A teacher by the name of Miss Deed saw potential in the flaws of her students, so she attempted to turn Craniumville's schools into actual educational facilities where they could learn the same things the regular folks would, and even integrated them with the other dustbin students. Soon, as more dustbin kids immigrated to the town, more school districts were created, and eventually, with the success of the dustbin kids proving their worth in life, Craniumville became the hotspot place where anyone was welcome to get a good education. The efforts had indeed paid off, with the dustbin kids being much happier and more fulfilled in life, proving to the world that they are just as capable of living amongst them as anyone else. Unfortunately in 1982, when the father of Professor Barnwell, Council Snowfeather, a conservative university professor with a terrible perfectionism problem and a god complex, saw the dustbin kids hanging out with the regular kids, he grew disgusted, demanding to Miss Deed that they be separated immediately. Miss Deed valiantly fought back those remarks, along with a few others on her side, but an entourage of other school teachers holding the same beliefs as Snowfeather outnumbered the vocal minority who didn't want all of their progress to just be erased. As a peaceful compromise, Miss Deed and Professor Snowfeather invented the Edulympics to prove to the others that the dustbin kids were just as worthy of being integrated into society as the rest of the world. It would serve as a test of character for everyone involved. When Miss Deed did eventually win, Professor Snowfeather, butthurt over being proven wrong, demanded a rematch, of which he lost yet again in 1990, after 8 years of procrastination on the next tournament. Snowfeather founded The Craniumville Academical School For The Fairly Gifted But Still Not Good Enough Children, shortened to Craniumville U, in order to train his future students for the next rematch, not to educate them. This legacy would be carried out by his daughter, Professor Barnwell, who was raised her whole life to train her students for the next rematch. The rematches would be held in 1998, 2006, 2014, and 2022. Somehow, the Edulympics lost its original meaning as many other school districts in Craniumville decided to join, thinking it's just a fun game event, not realizing why exactly the Edulympics was forged in the first place. The feud never ended, and despite Craniumville now having the popularity it got from Miss Deed’s… deeds, the place tail-spinned back to square one from its first years in the 60’s, but with the dustbin students and regular students no longer separated. Miss Deed had accomplished her goal of integrating them into society, but at the cost of their safety, and she died in 2008 in guilt and obscurity. Not all of the Craniumville U teachers were on board with the whole Edulympics schtick, but were essentially given no choice to comply, lest they suffer terrible consequences for their insolence. The others reveled in the fame and glory of the potential winnings, despite Craniumville U never having won a single Edulympics tournament. In the end, it all stemmed from a convoluted scheme to play dirty and screw over a bunch of innocent individuals, just for being different.

This is a lot of information to process, and all of it is played out to them in flashback sequences, just like in the original Adam Ruins Everything television show. All of them are horrified that they're actively participating in a horrible attempt to get back at someone for being right. However, Ozzi goes on to say that they don't actually have to snag the trophy for Craniumville U; they're going to reveal to the public about the Edulympics’ true colors, just as the Edulympics themselves are about to happen, and this will put an end to it once and for all, to which Gangle is going to help do for everyone. It's good timing too, because just as they all teleport back to the school, Katie Leone pops up from behind one of the pillars in the shadows, to arrogantly gloat that they may have figured out the whole shebang, but they're still going to defeat them. The ribbony lady retorts to Katie that it soon won't matter in the end because they're not planning on snagging the win anymore; they're going to reveal the truth to the rest of Craniumville. All while using her “assertive voice” for the first time ever, Gangle makes a speech about how fully aware she is about Craniumville U being horrible and what this place was supposed to be in the first place, thanks to Ozzi and Jamey’s divine researching abilities and their whistleblowing tactics to take people like Katie Leone and Professor Barnwell down; she finishes by proudly saying that Barnwell has already lost before it has even begun. This is enough to shake Katie to the core, but she gracefully walks away, despite showing signs that she is now afraid, seemingly aware that she has been caught and backed into an inescapable corner and that it's only a matter of time before everything falls apart. Everyone is shocked and impressed with Gangle, with Jax declaring that he'll never pick on Gangle again as a result. Took the bastard long enough, didn't it?

They all vow to spend the rest of the spring season training themselves for their time to strike, by studying extra hard for the Edulympics, so they can pretend to participate in the games, while they prepare behind the scenes. One final montage of their efforts paying off ensues as we reach the tail end of the spring season and into the start of summer.

And finally, as summer rolls around, the Edulympics occur at last. It's a crowded event, as to be expected with most competitive events. Everyone is in one of the large stadiums of Craniumville U, with the school district teams lined up, starting with Craniumville, Cerebellum, Hypothalamus, Cerebrum, Medulla, Thalamus, Pons, Hippocampus, and lastly, Fornix. Team Circus is a part of Team Craniumville, and they are joined by their newfound allies Ozzi and Jamey, their archenemy Katie Leone, and a few anonymous randos they don't actually recognize, but they all seem to be happy to be here nonetheless, if only blissfully unaware. As Professor Barnwell announces the Edulympics' games and what they consist of (Art, Science, Math, History, Engineering, Home Ec, Music, and PE), Ozzi, Jamey, and Gangle head backstage to prepare themselves for what's to come, while everyone else plays along and looks the part. They're understandably nervous, but are willing to commit nonetheless. Eventually the horn sounds and the games have begun.

The first game is centered around World History & Geography, which is basically a geographical scavenger hunt, where everyone must compete to find the most cultural artifacts in order to unlock the first clue, and the next game category. In last place is Hypothalamus, resulting in their elimination. The next game is themed to Mathematics, in which they all must solve the world's most difficult-to-solve equation on the chalkboard. Once they do just that, they can retrieve the next clue and the third game category. Craniumville barely avoids elimination by taking their sweet old time, with Pons facing elimination instead. Team Circus is truly knocking these games out of the park, but they're not out of the woods quite yet, as there's a third game based around Science, in which they must race against the clock to find a chemical compound that'll help make the plants grow better. Craniumville manages to get third place as Medulla is officially out of the Edulympics. The last game for the first half is a trivia game based on the school subject of Art. For the first time, Craniumville manages to claim first place, and Cerebrum is officially eliminated from the games and can no longer compete.

They've already reached the halfway point and… for some reason there is a halftime show performed by one of the remaining school districts, Fornix. This is convenient enough for Team Circus to meet up with Ozzi, Jamey, and Gangle, who have planned out the entire engineered public confession for when and if Professor Barnwell catches on to what the three have been up to. Speaking of Barnwell, she sneaks up from the shadows for the upteenth time to announce she saw everything within the distance. She monologues about her secret plan that Katie Leone and Mr. Emcee how she won't let her father's legacy be in vain, that once Craniumville scores its first win ever, she'll happily separate the dustbins from her perfect little army and expel Team Circus and Ozzi and Jamey. Ozzi says the famously cliche line “You won't get away with this!”, and Professor Barnwell proudly declares “I think I just did!”, to which Ozzi repeats, “No seriously, you won't get away with this. Look.” Gangle draws back the curtain to reveal a shocked and horrified audience, the Fornix school district performers proudly showcasing the screen, which has security footage of not just what happened when Ms. Ahn betrayed Team Circus, but also the winter break party incident, and a slew of other security footage of Professor Barnwell abusing and bullying her own students into submission, alongside Mr. Emcee’s not-so-great encounters with Katie Leone (if you know, you know; sorry, everyone). Stubborn as ever, Professor Barnwell arrogantly confesses to everything that was shown, believing that she's in the right for doing all of this, and expects a big round of applause from the audience. Instead, she gets booed and jeered at, because let's be honest, no sane person would ever think this is acceptable.

With this, the Craniumville school district is disqualified, Barnwell is pelted with food and garbage, Emcee and Katie attempt to flee, but are immediately apprehended and separated, and Barnwell flies away into the distance, to who-knows-where, swearing that she'll be back and have her vengeance. We never hear from her again in this particular AU, but this line of dialogue does leave room for a potential return, but we'll save that story for another time. Ozzi apologizes to Team Circus that they couldn't win the Edulympics, to which Pomni looks back on her notification from a few months ago and discovers it never actually said anything about winning the games, but that they needed to graduate with honors by competing in them. However, upon seeing how much of a sham the Edulympics actually are, she heads up to the podium with the microphone and with the help from a few inspiring words from Jamey and Ozzi, disestablishes the games permanently, freeing Craniumville U from the tyranny once and for all.

It is officially one week later, and everyone, including Team Circus, Ozzi and Jamey are all doing much better than they were previously. During the typical lunch period, the individual members of Team Circus share their grades for their respective tests from their previous class, and surprise, surprise, Caine manages to get the highest score out of everyone at the table, — a 99%. He's not happy about it, though; he's pent up over that one question he got wrong. Zooble is in much better spirits thanks to Katie Leone being expelled and blacklisted from every Craniumville school district and Mr. Emcee being in prison, alongside Professor Alto. Professor Giz quit after finally being freed from his obligations and is doing well enough as a YouTuber, and Dr. Plantair and Professor Tate are forced to resign and hand over their teacher certificates for good. The only teachers decent enough to stay were Professor Globalle, who got an apology raise in his paycheck and Mr. Spotlight, who is set to direct a play next year. They're all proud of each other for managing to make history and change the lives of everyone for the better, and they can't wait to graduate with honors with a noggin full of knowledge and a lot of laughs and support from their new friends.

We smash cut to their actual graduation day, and they all have a look of shock and disappointment on their faces, as Caine cries out “WE LEARNED FUCK ALL!!!!” and Ozzi replies “Indeed you did”. Yup. It did not matter in the end. They managed to graduate with honors, and the only knowledge they managed to retain was the mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell. How sad.

We then cut to the graduation party, and we see Gangle and Zooble having a blast with their new buddies Ozzi and Jamey. Pomni, Caine, Bubble, and Kinger are also lounging about, while Jax and Ragatha are playing some party games with the other random students. Professor Globalle, with an envelope in his hand, heads over to apologize to Team Circus for his cowardice from several months prior, and Gangle happily receives it, considering it a diplomatic token of reconciliation, and is kinda just glad this is gonna be over soon. As soon as Gangle opens the envelope, she finds a pleasant little surprise in there, causing all of Team Circus's communicator bracelets to go off with this pop-up notification:

~JEWEL OBTAINED!~

3 out of 26

Only 23 remain

The jewel is a scintillating teal-colored Turquoise that matches the teal-colored plaid portions of their school uniforms.

Also inside the envelope is an acceptance letter for Gangle to attend Craniumville U for next year. She happily accepts the offer, but ponders sadly as with the retrieval of their third jewel, that means they can't stay any longer, and have to go somewhere else now. The members of Team Circus then share a heartfelt and tearful goodbye to Ozzi and Jamey, with Zooble crying the most tears; funnily enough, Pomni thought Gangle was gonna be worked up the most about it. As they leave the party and head back to the Magical Digital Van and wave goodbye to their new friends one last time, they all decide to find a motel for them to stay in before heading back on the road — they all decide to give themselves a week or two as 10 months was enough to conk them out.

After two weeks of adjusting, they all decide they're ready to head off to their next location. The members of Team Circus are happily recharged, refreshed, and ready to face their next adventure, with bad guys to fend off and new friends to make. Caine is the only one still skeptical, but has his worries reassured by the jovial clamoring of his fellow human friends and Bubble's words of comfort. They head off into the cloudy morning, with the sun glowing from behind them.

Meanwhile, Professor Barnwell, now disgraced, lands in front of the entrance to a mansion on the mountains. She heads over to the door and knocks on it, resulting in someone opening it from the inside. Barnwell bitterly says “I'm back, Father…”

The screen goes black as she finishes her sentence, “And I need your help…” The episode ends with an ominous eyecatch of Barnwell and her dad, Snowfeather, working together to create a language learning app that will take over the world, with a select few humans chosen for the cause. Its name is Duolingo. But once again, this is a story for another time.

~~~~

Current Status:

3 Jewels have been collected

23 remain

🎓🎒🏫🧑‍🏫🦉🧮👓📏📚

~~~~

• OG Cast

Lizzie Freeman as Pomni

Amanda Hufford as Ragatha

Michael Kovach as Jax

Sean Chiplock as Kinger

Marissa Lenti as Gangle

Ashley Nichols as Zooble

Gooseworx as Bubble

Alex Rochon as Caine

~~~~

• Audience Surrogate Cast/Diplomats

Hynden Walch as Valerie

Susan Egan as Pamela

Amy Winfrey as Garcia

Mandy Moore as Lulu

Nevaeh Hamilton (me) as Bethany

~~~~

• Background Diplomats

Andrea Libman as Winona

Cristina Vee as Patricia

E.G. Daily as Rionna

Stephanie Sheh as Olivia

Debi Derryberry as Yolanda

Cree Summer as Gemma

Ashleigh Ball as Cécelia

Erica Luttrell as Belle

Ashly Burch as Imera

Kimberly Brooks as Bailey

~~~~

• Episode's Antagonists

Athena Priftakis-Sherman as Professor Barnwell

Kate Micucci as Katie Leone

Jessica DiCicco as Ms. Jennifer Ahn

~~~~

• Secondary Characters Introduced

Billy Crystal as Craig Hill the Craniumville Gas Station Manager

James Rallison as Jamey Bourne

Adam Conover as Ozzi the Ostrich

Matt Krol as Professor Globalle the World History/Geography Teacher

Bill Nye as Dr. Plantair the Science/Physics Teacher

Sal Khan as Mr. Emcee the Algebra/Calculus Teacher

John Goodman as Mr. Spotlight the Art/Animation Teacher

JSchlatt as Professor Giz the Engineering/Computer Lab Teacher

Chris Hemsworth as Mr. Yew the PE/Health Teacher

Alan Menken as Professor Alto the Music/Band Teacher

Guy Fieri as Professor Tate the Home Ec/Culinary Skills Teacher

~~~~

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

you seem really organized. are you? if yes, have you always been this way? how does one get to this point of discipline?

I'd say I'm pretty organized. I don't know if I've always been this way or if I was forced to be this way. XD Probably both. But organized looks different for everyone. I can share some things I do, though.

Everything has a designated place. I always remember where everything is if it goes back to the same place.

Use any spare time. When I have a free ten minutes (or any amount of downtime), I will use it to clear my surroundings. Even if it's as small as putting my pens in order or putting away a few things, it prevents a big mess from ever happening.

When putting things away, things I use most often are placed in easy reach. If I want to use something more often, I will move it to the front.

I am always altering my organization for optimization rather than aesthetics. I am neat, but it is more important for me to use my things. If I want to use something more often, I will make it more accessible.

Tasks are in order of priority and efficiency. I will do multiple tasks at once if I think it is most efficient - sometimes with my two hands doing two different things. I have mental checkpoints to double check to make sure I didn't miss anything. And, of course, I have priorities of each day and focus on doing those things first.

I use alarms if something is time sensitive. These days you can change alarm sounds on your clock app to customize the type of sound to alert you of different things. Most of the time I don't need it, but it's a good habit to get into. Inevitably, I will get old and will be glad I already thought to do this.

Plan ahead for your future self. I do this a lot. If I purchased a bulk meal, I will separate it to meal-sized portions and store them that way so I only need to reheat a portion instead of having to lug the whole thing out. I will order products from soonest to expire in the front to latest in the back. When I go to my stash for a replacement, I already know the stuff closest to the front needs to be used first. I can also see if I'm running out depending on how empty the space left is.

I have a good memory. I generally don't need to write things down. I will use post-its / memo pads / notes app if I want to make a list (usually for groceries, addresses, etc). I always think in order of priority. If something doesn't need my attention right now, I'll make a mental note or stick a post-it somewhere I remember to remind myself (or set an alarm on my phone) to do it later.

Rely on your strengths and supplement your weaknesses. If you need to write things down to remember them, having list notepads in handy places or purchasing a planner can work for you. Just because I don't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't. I also don't live a very busy life. My current system works for now but might not in the future which is why I'm always thinking of future ways I can adapt. There are lots of planning styles out there you can research and experiment with to make your own perfect one. If your time is very important, try time blocking. If you need to be more flexible, utilize technology (Notion, Google calendar, other pre-installed apps on your phone, etc) to reposition things if needed. Most people carry their phone around all the time; technology might be the way to go nowadays (although for students, maybe keeping a paper copy is needed in case you can't use your phone in class). Set up routines for what is fixed in your life (work, school, etc) and keep it realistic. If you're not a morning person, prep the night before (ex: meals / outfit / things you need and place it all in your leaving path so you can just pick up and go). If you are a morning person, you can batch tasks for the allotted time you have before you start your day (sleep early to prepare well for your morning routine). Keep in mind how long it takes you to do something - not how quickly you wish you could do things XD but the actual realistic time.

If you have a system in place, keep what works and change what doesn't. Don't wait. Just do it. Most of the time you can tweak a little something to make it a teeny bit easier for you. Likewise, don't overhaul things that already work for you simply because it seems inefficient to others. There's the whole "do something for 30 days and it becomes a habit", but, in my experience, things don't become habits unless you make it easy for yourself and it feels easy for you. Think about the life you lead and the life you ant to lead. You don't need to be everyone else. You only need to be you.

Some people don't need to be as organized because they like life's spontaneity. Some people need to be organized despite their nature because they have deadlines (mostly talking about school here) and so they adopt a system but discard it later (when they graduate). In this case, it can be difficult so I recommend both having a useful system that also makes you happy as you use it. Buy stationery that suit your style and make you smile. Using digital planning tools opens up even more options (including free ones) - if you need those BTS meme photos in your daily schedule to keep your spirits up throughout the day, by all means, add 'em in.

Also, if you are interested in living with someone, find someone who has the same definition of "messy" and "clean" as you. Don't police them on how they're doing it, but the end result should be the same. It'll make for a more harmonious environment, fr. Bonus if they like doing the tasks you personally hate and if you like doing the tasks they personally hate.

[downupti]

Boost Shopify Revenue with A/B Testing

Boost your Shopify revenue with A/B testing experiments and data-driven insights to increase conversions and optimize your store.

Source: https://cro.media/insights/ab-tests/boost-shopify-revenue-ab-testing/

A/B testing is a powerful tool to increase your Shopify store's revenue by helping you make data-driven decisions. By running native A/B testing experiments on your Shopify store, you can optimize your customer experience and turn more visitors into paying customers. With easy-to-use features, you can start testing without any hassle.

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Smooth Experiment Operation

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Full Control Over Your Tests

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You have complete control over how much traffic goes to each version of your test. Define the percentage of traffic directed to each variant (A and B), allowing you to balance the experiment and gather precise insights.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to subscribe to any service? No, Instant A/B Testing is completely free, with no subscription required.

How does it integrate with other apps? Instant A/B Testing works well with Instant Page Builder. You can easily create variants of your pages, publish them to your Shopify store, and test which version converts better.

Does A/B Testing affect my SEO? Since experiments run on separate URLs, there’s minimal risk to SEO performance. The app ensures that crawlers do not get redirected and uses Shopify Webpixel for tracking, keeping everything optimized for search engines.

Can I track custom redirects or use existing URLs? Yes, you can use both custom redirects and existing URLs for your A/B tests.

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Start Your A/B Testing Today

Increase your Shopify store's revenue and conversion rates by running native A/B testing experiments. Take advantage of this free Shopify app to optimize your store with precision and ease. For businesses looking to optimize not just their A/B testing but their entire digital presence, consider exploring additional services like Shopify SEO Audit, Shopify CRO Audit, or Custom Shopify Development. These expert services can elevate your online store's performance even further.

If you're looking for more comprehensive solutions for Shopify, Shopify Services offers a range of professional services to boost your store's functionality and success.

[quickpay1]

Benefits of Fast Online Payments — Quick Pay

In today’s digital economy, fast online payments are no longer just a convenience—they are a necessity. From e-commerce stores to freelancers and service providers, everyone is shifting toward quicker, safer, and smarter payment solutions. Among the many options available, Quick Pay has emerged as a leading platform offering seamless online payment experiences for both businesses and customers.

If you're a business owner or entrepreneur looking to scale your operations and improve customer satisfaction, understanding the benefits of fast online payments is crucial. And when it comes to delivering these benefits efficiently, Quick Pay stands out with its cutting-edge features and reliable service.

1. Enhanced Customer Experience

The first and most obvious benefit of fast online payments is an improved customer experience. Today’s consumers expect instant transactions. A slow or complicated checkout process can lead to cart abandonment and loss of revenue.

With Quick Pay, customers can complete payments in just a few clicks. The user-friendly interface, minimal redirects, and fast processing ensure that your clients enjoy a hassle-free payment journey, increasing the chances of repeat business.

Quick Pay Advantage:

One-click checkout

Mobile-optimized experience

Multiple payment options: UPI, cards, wallets, net banking

2. Faster Cash Flow for Businesses

One of the major benefits of fast online payments is accelerated cash flow. Unlike traditional bank transfers that may take days, fast payment systems like Quick Pay ensure that your money reaches you quickly—often on the same day.

For small businesses and startups, this is a game-changer. You no longer have to wait endlessly for payments, allowing better cash management, investment in growth, and operational efficiency.

Quick Pay Benefit:

Same-day settlements (T+0 and T+1 options)

Instant payment notifications

Transparent tracking of incoming funds

3. Higher Conversion Rates

Online businesses thrive on conversion rates. A complicated or slow payment process can discourage potential customers right at the final step. By offering a quick and secure payment gateway like Quick Pay, businesses can increase their checkout success rate dramatically.

Speed combined with security builds trust and reduces the bounce rate.

Quick Pay Features That Help:

Secure payment environment (PCI DSS compliant)

Optimized checkout for mobile and desktop

Auto-fill and tokenized payments for returning users

4. Increased Trust and Credibility

When customers notice that your website or app uses a reputed and fast payment solution like Quick Pay, it instantly boosts your brand’s credibility. Shoppers feel more secure transacting on your platform, knowing that their personal and financial data is in safe hands.

This trust translates into higher engagement, more referrals, and long-term brand loyalty.

Quick Pay Security Standards:

End-to-end encryption

Two-factor authentication

Fraud detection and chargeback control

5. Support for Recurring Payments

Many businesses today rely on subscription models—whether it's digital services, SaaS platforms, or fitness memberships. A major benefit of fast online payments is the ability to automate recurring billing.

Quick Pay makes recurring payments smooth and effortless. Customers don’t need to re-enter their details every time, and businesses enjoy predictable revenue without delays.

With Quick Pay, You Get:

Automated recurring billing setup

Smart invoicing and reminders

Custom billing cycles

6. Lower Operational Costs

Handling cash or bank transfers manually involves time, risk, and additional staff. Online payments automate this entire process, reducing overhead costs. Quick Pay’s all-in-one dashboard helps manage your transactions, analytics, and customer data in one place.

Over time, businesses save money on labor, reconciliation, and administrative tasks.

Quick Pay’s Business Dashboard Offers:

Real-time transaction tracking

Sales reports and analytics

Easy refund and dispute management

7. Wider Customer Reach

Fast online payments open up a global customer base. Whether you're selling in your local city or shipping products across the world, a payment gateway like Quick Pay ensures that you never miss a sale due to geographical or banking limitations.

Quick Pay supports multi-currency payments and international cards, making it easier to scale your business globally.

Quick Pay Global Features:

Support for major global currencies

Acceptance of Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, and more

Integration with international platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and others

8. Seamless Integrations with Online Platforms

The benefits of fast online payments are amplified when your payment gateway easily integrates with your website, mobile app, or POS system. Quick Pay offers ready-made plugins and robust APIs for smooth integration.

This reduces developer time, lowers setup costs, and gets you live faster.

Quick Pay Integration Highlights:

Easy plugins for WordPress, Shopify, Magento

Android/iOS SDKs for mobile apps

API documentation and 24/7 tech support

9. Better Customer Retention

A smooth payment experience not only helps you close a sale but also encourages customers to return. Fast refunds, saved payment options, and friendly interfaces make users feel valued.

Quick Pay includes customer retention features like:

Smart retry on failed transactions

Branded payment pages

Custom thank-you messages and emails

10. Real-Time Analytics and Insights

Understanding how your customers pay can guide better business decisions. Quick Pay’s powerful analytics tools offer deep insights into payment trends, user behavior, and settlement reports—all in real time.

This data can be used to optimize your marketing campaigns, identify high-value customers, and plan inventory.

What Quick Pay Analytics Offers:

Dashboard with payment trends and patterns

Conversion rate tracking

Refund and dispute summary

Why Choose Quick Pay?

When it comes to maximizing the benefits of fast online payments, Quick Pay checks all the boxes:

✅ Fast and secure transactions ✅ Same-day settlements ✅ Easy integrations ✅ Scalable for small to enterprise businesses ✅ Exceptional customer support

Whether you're a growing startup, a large enterprise, or a freelancer, Quick Pay empowers your business to accept payments quickly, securely, and with minimal friction.

Final Thoughts

The world is moving fast, and so should your payments. Embracing the benefits of fast online payments can revolutionize your business operations, boost customer satisfaction, and drive consistent revenue.

With its reliable technology, business-friendly features, and unmatched customer support, Quick Pay is the ideal partner for modern businesses looking to thrive in the digital age.

Ready to Get Started?

Visit www.usequickpay.com to create your free account and start accepting payments within minutes.

[tomblomfield]

Vibecoding a production app

TL;DR I built and launched a recipe app with about 20 hours of work - recipeninja.ai

Background: I'm a startup founder turned investor. I taught myself (bad) PHP in 2000, and picked up Ruby on Rails in 2011. I'd guess 2015 was the last time I wrote a line of Ruby professionally. I've built small side projects over the years, but nothing with any significant usage. So it's fair to say I'm a little rusty, and I never really bothered to learn front end code or design.

In my day job at Y Combinator, I'm around founders who are building amazing stuff with AI every day and I kept hearing about the advances in tools like Lovable, Cursor and Windsurf. I love building stuff and I've always got a list of little apps I want to build if I had more free time.

About a month ago, I started playing with Lovable to build a word game based on Articulate (it's similar to Heads Up or Taboo). I got a working version, but I quickly ran into limitations - I found it very complicated to add a supabase backend, and it kept re-writing large parts of my app logic when I only wanted to make cosmetic changes. It felt like a toy - not ready to build real applications yet.

But I kept hearing great things about tools like Windsurf. A couple of weeks ago, I looked again at my list of app ideas to build and saw "Recipe App". I've wanted to build a hands-free recipe app for years. I love to cook, but the problem with most recipe websites is that they're optimized for SEO, not for humans. So you have pages and pages of descriptive crap to scroll through before you actually get to the recipe. I've used the recipe app Paprika to store my recipes in one place, but honestly it feels like it was built in 2009. The UI isn't great for actually cooking. My hands are covered in food and I don't really want to touch my phone or computer when I'm following a recipe.

So I set out to build what would become RecipeNinja.ai

For this project, I decided to use Windsurf. I wanted a Rails 8 API backend and React front-end app and Windsurf set this up for me in no time. Setting up homebrew on a new laptop, installing npm and making sure I'm on the right version of Ruby is always a pain. Windsurf did this for me step-by-step. I needed to set up SSH keys so I could push to GitHub and Heroku. Windsurf did this for me as well, in about 20% of the time it would have taken me to Google all of the relevant commands.

I was impressed that it started using the Rails conventions straight out of the box. For database migrations, it used the Rails command-line tool, which then generated the correct file names and used all the correct Rails conventions. I didn't prompt this specifically - it just knew how to do it. It one-shotted pretty complex changes across the React front end and Rails backend to work seamlessly together.

To start with, the main piece of functionality was to generate a complete step-by-step recipe from a simple input ("Lasagne"), generate an image of the finished dish, and then allow the user to progress through the recipe step-by-step with voice narration of each step. I used OpenAI for the LLM and ElevenLabs for voice. "Grandpa Spuds Oxley" gave it a friendly southern accent.

Recipe summary:

And the recipe step-by-step view:

I was pretty astonished that Windsurf managed to integrate both the OpenAI and Elevenlabs APIs without me doing very much at all. After we had a couple of problems with the open AI Ruby library, it quickly fell back to a raw ruby HTTP client implementation, but I honestly didn't care. As long as it worked, I didn't really mind if it used 20 lines of code or two lines of code. And Windsurf was pretty good about enforcing reasonable security practices. I wanted to call Elevenlabs directly from the front end while I was still prototyping stuff, and Windsurf objected very strongly, telling me that I was risking exposing my private API credentials to the Internet. I promised I'd fix it before I deployed to production and it finally acquiesced.

I decided I wanted to add "Advanced Import" functionality where you could take a picture of a recipe (this could be a handwritten note or a picture from a favourite a recipe book) and RecipeNinja would import the recipe. This took a handful of minutes.

Pretty quickly, a pattern emerged; I would prompt for a feature. It would read relevant files and make changes for two or three minutes, and then I would test the backend and front end together. I could quickly see from the JavaScript console or the Rails logs if there was an error, and I would just copy paste this error straight back into Windsurf with little or no explanation. 80% of the time, Windsurf would correct the mistake and the site would work. Pretty quickly, I didn't even look at the code it generated at all. I just accepted all changes and then checked if it worked in the front end.

After a couple of hours of work on the recipe generation, I decided to add the concept of "Users" and include Google Auth as a login option. This would require extensive changes across the front end and backend - a database migration, a new model, new controller and entirely new UI. Windsurf one-shotted the code. It didn't actually work straight away because I had to configure Google Auth to add `localhost` as a valid origin domain, but Windsurf talked me through the changes I needed to make on the Google Auth website. I took a screenshot of the Google Auth config page and pasted it back into Windsurf and it caught an error I had made. I could login to my app immediately after I made this config change. Pretty mindblowing. You can now see who's created each recipe, keep a list of your own recipes, and toggle each recipe to public or private visibility. When I needed to set up Heroku to host my app online, Windsurf generated a bunch of terminal commands to configure my Heroku apps correctly. It went slightly off track at one point because it was using old Heroku APIs, so I pointed it to the Heroku docs page and it fixed it up correctly.

I always dreaded adding custom domains to my projects - I hate dealing with Registrars and configuring DNS to point at the right nameservers. But Windsurf told me how to configure my GoDaddy domain name DNS to work with Heroku, telling me exactly what buttons to press and what values to paste into the DNS config page. I pointed it at the Heroku docs again and Windsurf used the Heroku command line tool to add the "Custom Domain" add-ons I needed and fetch the right Heroku nameservers. I took a screenshot of the GoDaddy DNS settings and it confirmed it was right.

I can see very soon that tools like Cursor & Windsurf will integrate something like Browser Use so that an AI agent will do all this browser-based configuration work with zero user input.

I'm also impressed that Windsurf will sometimes start up a Rails server and use curl commands to check that an API is working correctly, or start my React project and load up a web preview and check the front end works. This functionality didn't always seem to work consistently, and so I fell back to testing it manually myself most of the time.

When I was happy with the code, it wrote git commits for me and pushed code to Heroku from the in-built command line terminal. Pretty cool!

I do have a few niggles still. Sometimes it's a little over-eager - it will make more changes than I want, without checking with me that I'm happy or the code works. For example, it might try to commit code and deploy to production, and I need to press "Stop" and actually test the app myself. When I asked it to add analytics, it went overboard and added 100 different analytics events in pretty insignificant places. When it got trigger-happy like this, I reverted the changes and gave it more precise commands to follow one by one.

The one thing I haven't got working yet is automated testing that's executed by the agent before it decides a task is complete; there's probably a way to do it with custom rules (I have spent zero time investigating this). It feels like I should be able to have an integration test suite that is run automatically after every code change, and then any test failures should be rectified automatically by the AI before it says it's finished.

Also, the AI should be able to tail my Rails logs to look for errors. It should spot things like database queries and automatically optimize my Active Record queries to make my app perform better. At the moment I'm copy-pasting in excerpts of the Rails logs, and then Windsurf quickly figures out that I've got an N+1 query problem and fixes it. Pretty cool.

Refactoring is also kind of painful. I've ended up with several files that are 700-900 lines long and contain duplicate functionality. For example, list recipes by tag and list recipes by user are basically the same.

Recipes by user:

This should really be identical to list recipes by tag, but Windsurf has implemented them separately.

Recipes by tag:

If I ask Windsurf to refactor these two pages, it randomly changes stuff like renaming analytics events, rewriting user-facing alerts, and changing random little UX stuff, when I really want to keep the functionality exactly the same and only move duplicate code into shared modules. Instead, to successfully refactor, I had to ask Windsurf to list out ideas for refactoring, then prompt it specifically to refactor these things one by one, touching nothing else. That worked a little better, but it still wasn't perfect

Sometimes, adding minor functionality to the Rails API will often change the entire API response, rather just adding a couple of fields. Eg It will occasionally change Index Recipes to nest responses in an object { "recipes": [ ] }, versus just returning an array, which breaks the frontend. And then another minor change will revert it. This is where adding tests to identify and prevent these kinds of API changes would be really useful. When I ask Windsurf to fix these API changes, it will instead change the front end to accept the new API json format and also leave the old implementation in for "backwards compatibility". This ends up with a tangled mess of code that isn't really necessary. But I'm vibecoding so I didn't bother to fix it.

Then there was some changes that just didn't work at all. Trying to implement Posthog analytics in the front end seemed to break my entire app multiple times. I tried to add user voice commands ("Go to the next step"), but this conflicted with the eleven labs voice recordings. Having really good git discipline makes vibe coding much easier and less stressful. If something doesn't work after 10 minutes, I can just git reset head --hard. I've not lost very much time, and it frees me up to try more ambitious prompts to see what the AI can do. Less technical users who aren't familiar with git have lost months of work when the AI goes off on a vision quest and the inbuilt revert functionality doesn't work properly. It seems like adding more native support for version control could be a massive win for these AI coding tools.

Another complaint I've heard is that the AI coding tools don't write "production" code that can scale. So I decided to put this to the test by asking Windsurf for some tips on how to make the application more performant. It identified I was downloading 3 MB image files for each recipe, and suggested a Rails feature for adding lower resolution image variants automatically. Two minutes later, I had thumbnail and midsize variants that decrease the loading time of each page by 80%. Similarly, it identified inefficient N+1 active record queries and rewrote them to be more efficient. There are a ton more performance features that come built into Rails - caching would be the next thing I'd probably add if usage really ballooned.

Before going to production, I kept my promise to move my Elevenlabs API keys to the backend. Almost as an afterthought, I asked asked Windsurf to cache the voice responses so that I'd only make an Elevenlabs API call once for each recipe step; after that, the audio file was stored in S3 using Rails ActiveStorage and served without costing me more credits. Two minutes later, it was done. Awesome.

At the end of a vibecoding session, I'd write a list of 10 or 15 new ideas for functionality that I wanted to add the next time I came back to the project. In the past, these lists would've built up over time and never gotten done. Each task might've taken me five minutes to an hour to complete manually. With Windsurf, I was astonished how quickly I could work through these lists. Changes took one or two minutes each, and within 30 minutes I'd completed my entire to do list from the day before. It was astonishing how productive I felt. I can create the features faster than I can come up with ideas.

Before launching, I wanted to improve the design, so I took a quick look at a couple of recipe sites. They were much more visual than my site, and so I simply told Windsurf to make my design more visual, emphasizing photos of food. Its first try was great. I showed it to a couple of friends and they suggested I should add recipe categories - "Thai" or "Mexican" or "Pizza" for example. They showed me the DoorDash app, so I took a screenshot of it and pasted it into Windsurf. My prompt was "Give me a carousel of food icons that look like this". Again, this worked in one shot. I think my version actually looks better than Doordash 🤷‍♂️

Doordash:

My carousel:

I also saw I was getting a console error from missing Favicon. I always struggle to make Favicon for previous sites because I could never figure out where they were supposed to go or what file format they needed. I got OpenAI to generate me a little recipe ninja icon with a transparent background and I saved it into my project directory. I asked Windsurf what file format I need and it listed out nine different sizes and file formats. Seems annoying. I wondered if Windsurf could just do it all for me. It quickly wrote a series of Bash commands to create a temporary folder, resize the image and create the nine variants I needed. It put them into the right directory and then cleaned up the temporary directory. I laughed in amazement. I've never been good at bash scripting and I didn't know if it was even possible to do what I was asking via the command line. I guess it is possible.

After launching and posting on Twitter, a few hundred users visited the site and generated about 1000 recipes. I was pretty happy! Unfortunately, the next day I woke up and saw that I had a $700 OpenAI bill. Someone had been abusing the site and costing me a lot of OpenAI credits by creating a single recipe over and over again - "Pasta with Shallots and Pineapple". They did this 12,000 times. Obviously, I had not put any rate limiting in.

Still, I was determined not to write any code. I explained the problem and asked Windsurf to come up with solutions. Seconds later, I had 15 pretty good suggestions. I implemented several (but not all) of the ideas in about 10 minutes and the abuse stopped dead in its tracks. I won't tell you which ones I chose in case Mr Shallots and Pineapple is reading. The app's security is not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with it for the scale I'm at. If I continue to grow and get more abuse, I'll implement more robust measures.

Overall, I am astonished how productive Windsurf has made me in the last two weeks. I'm not a good designer or frontend developer, and I'm a very rusty rails dev. I got this project into production 5 to 10 times faster than it would've taken me manually, and the level of polish on the front end is much higher than I could've achieved on my own.  Over and over again, I would ask for a change and be astonished at the speed and quality with which Windsurf implemented it. I just sat laughing as the computer wrote code.

The next thing I want to change is making the recipe generation process much more immediate and responsive. Right now, it takes about 20 seconds to generate a recipe and for a new user it feels like maybe the app just isn't doing anything.

Instead, I'm experimenting with using Websockets to show a streaming response as the recipe is created. This gives the user immediate feedback that something is happening. It would also make editing the recipe really fun - you could ask it to "add nuts" to the recipe, and see as the recipe dynamically updates 2-3 seconds later. You could also say "Increase the quantities to cook for 8 people" or "Change from imperial to metric measurements".

I have a basic implementation working, but there are still some rough edges. I might actually go and read the code this time to figure out what it's doing!

I also want to add a full voice agent interface so that you don't have to touch the screen at all. Halfway through cooking a recipe, you might ask "I don't have cilantro - what could I use instead?" or say "Set a timer for 30 minutes". That would be my dream recipe app!

Tools like Windsurf or Cursor aren't yet as useful for non-technical users - they're extremely powerful and there are still too many ways to blow your own face off. I have a fairly good idea of the architecture that I want Windsurf to implement, and I could quickly spot when it was going off track or choosing a solution that was inappropriately complicated for the feature I was building. At the moment, a technical background is a massive advantage for using Windsurf. As a rusty developer, it made me feel like I had superpowers.

But I believe within a couple of months, when things like log tailing and automated testing and native version control get implemented, it will be an extremely powerful tool for even non-technical people to write production-quality apps. The AI will be able to make complex changes and then verify those changes are actually working. At the moment, it feels like it's making a best guess at what will work and then leaving the user to test it. Implementing better feedback loops will enable a truly agentic, recursive, self-healing development flow. It doesn't feel like it needs any breakthrough in technology to enable this. It's just about adding a few tool calls to the existing LLMs. My mind races as I try to think through the implications for professional software developers.

Meanwhile, the LLMs aren't going to sit still. They're getting better at a frightening rate. I spoke to several very capable software engineers who are Y Combinator founders in the last week. About a quarter of them told me that 95% of their code is written by AI. In six or twelve months, I just don't think software engineering is going exist in the same way as it does today. The cost of creating high-quality, custom software is quickly trending towards zero.

You can try the site yourself at recipeninja.ai

Here's a complete list of functionality. Of course, Windsurf just generated this list for me 🫠

RecipeNinja: Comprehensive Functionality Overview

Core Concept: the app appears to be a cooking assistant application that provides voice-guided recipe instructions, allowing users to cook hands-free while following step-by-step recipe guidance.

Backend (Rails API) Functionality

User Authentication & Authorization

Google OAuth integration for user authentication

User account management with secure authentication flows

Authorization system ensuring users can only access their own private recipes or public recipes

Recipe Management

Recipe Model Features:

Unique public IDs (format: "r_" + 14 random alphanumeric characters) for security

User ownership (user_id field with NOT NULL constraint)

Public/private visibility toggle (default: private)

Comprehensive recipe data storage (title, ingredients, steps, cooking time, etc.)

Image attachment capability using Active Storage with S3 storage in production

Recipe Tagging System:

Many-to-many relationship between recipes and tags

Tag model with unique name attribute

RecipeTag join model for the relationship

Helper methods for adding/removing tags from recipes

Recipe API Endpoints:

CRUD operations for recipes

Pagination support with metadata (current_page, per_page, total_pages, total_count)

Default sorting by newest first (created_at DESC)

Filtering recipes by tags

Different serializers for list view (RecipeSummarySerializer) and detail view (RecipeSerializer)

Voice Generation

Voice Recording System:

VoiceRecording model linked to recipes

Integration with Eleven Labs API for text-to-speech conversion

Caching of voice recordings in S3 to reduce API calls

Unique identifiers combining recipe_id, step_id, and voice_id

Force regeneration option for refreshing recordings

Audio Processing:

Using streamio-ffmpeg gem for audio file analysis

Active Storage integration for audio file management

S3 storage for audio files in production

Recipe Import & Generation

RecipeImporter Service:

OpenAI integration for recipe generation

Conversion of text recipes into structured format

Parsing and normalization of recipe data

Import from photos functionality

Frontend (React) Functionality

User Interface Components

Recipe Selection & Browsing:

Recipe listing with pagination

Real-time updates with 10-second polling mechanism

Tag filtering functionality

Recipe cards showing summary information (without images)

"View Details" and "Start Cooking" buttons for each recipe

Recipe Detail View:

Complete recipe information display

Recipe image display

Tag display with clickable tags

Option to start cooking from this view

Cooking Experience:

Step-by-step recipe navigation

Voice guidance for each step

Keyboard shortcuts for hands-free control:

Arrow keys for step navigation

Space for play/pause audio

Escape to return to recipe selection

URL-based step tracking (e.g., /recipe/r_xlxG4bcTLs9jbM/classic-lasagna/steps/1)

State Management & Data Flow

Recipe Service:

API integration for fetching recipes

Support for pagination parameters

Tag-based filtering

Caching mechanisms for recipe data

Image URL handling for detailed views

Authentication Flow:

Google OAuth integration using environment variables

User session management

Authorization header management for API requests

Progressive Web App Features

PWA capabilities for installation on devices

Responsive design for various screen sizes

Favicon and app icon support

Deployment Architecture

Two-App Structure:

cook-voice-api: Rails backend on Heroku

cook-voice-wizard: React frontend/PWA on Heroku

Backend Infrastructure:

Ruby 3.2.2

PostgreSQL database (Heroku PostgreSQL addon)

Amazon S3 for file storage

Environment variables for configuration

Frontend Infrastructure:

React application

Environment variable configuration

Static buildpack on Heroku

SPA routing configuration

Security Measures:

HTTPS enforcement

Rails credentials system

Environment variables for sensitive information

Public ID system to mask database IDs

This comprehensive overview covers the major functionality of the Cook Voice application based on the available information. The application appears to be a sophisticated cooking assistant that combines recipe management with voice guidance to create a hands-free cooking experience.

[realinspirations]

Busy but Balanced: My Top Life Hacks for a Smoother Day

 Life may be irritating, and finding ways to keep time and energy is critical for staying effective and pressure-unfastened. Over the years, I even have determined some simple yet effective existence hacks that help me control my time higher, stay organized, and improve my average efficiency. Whether you are juggling work, circle of relatives, or personal tasks, those hacks can make your existence easier. Here are my favourite existence hacks for busy human beings.

Best time-saving life hacks for busy professionals

1. Plan Your Day the Night Before

One of the only approaches to stay in advance of your time table is with the aid of planning your day the night time earlier than. Take five to 10 minutes before mattress to write your obligations for the next day. This allows you wake up with a clean route and gets rid of the strain of figuring out what to do first. A easy to-do listing or a digital planner can maintain you on the right track and make certain that not anything vital receives forgotten.

2. Use the two-Minute Rule

If a project takes much less than two minutes to finish, do it immediately. This simple rule prevents small duties from piling up and developing pointless pressure. Whether it is replying to an email, placing away dishes, or making a quick telephone name, getting these minor duties out of the way right away frees up intellectual space and keeps your to-do listing potential.

3. Automate Repetitive Tasks

Automation is a sport-changer for busy people. Set up computerized bill bills, email filters, and reminders for recurring duties. Use apps like IFTTT (If This Then That) or Zapier to automate duties across one-of-a-kind apps and gadgets. Even setting up automobile-replies for common emails can save you considerable time in the end.

4. Batch Similar Tasks Together

Switching between different kinds of obligations can be mentally exhausting. To enhance efficiency, batch comparable duties collectively. For example, set aside specific blocks of time to answer emails, return phone calls, or do family chores. This minimizes context-switching and facilitates you stay focused and productive.

Five. Embrace the Power of “No”

One of the most underrated productiveness hacks is studying to say no. Avoid overcommitting yourself to matters that don’t align along with your priorities. Politely declining invitations, useless conferences, or extra responsibilities can provide you with more time for the things that simply rely.

6. Meal Prep for the Week

Eating healthy can be difficult when you're constantly at the cross, but meal prepping can save time and assist you avoid dangerous speedy-meals alternatives. Set aside a few hours on the weekend to prepare dinner meals for the week, element them into packing containers, and store them within the fridge or freezer. This ensures you always have a wholesome meal equipped to move, reducing strain and choice fatigue.

7. Use the Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique includes running in targeted durations (typically 25 mins) accompanied by way of brief breaks (five minutes). After four intervals, take an extended damage. This approach boosts concentration and facilitates save you burnout. Apps like Focus Booster or Pomodone allow you to implement this technique efficaciously.

8. Keep Essentials in One Place

Misplacing keys, wallets, or chargers can waste precious time. Designate a particular spot in your home for frequently used items so you constantly understand wherein to locate them. This easy habit can save you final-minute scrambling and reduce stress.

Nine. Optimize Your Morning Routine

Mornings set the tone for the relaxation of the day. Streamline your morning habitual with the aid of laying out your clothes the night time earlier than, preparing breakfast ahead of time, and preserving necessities geared up. If viable, comprise a short morning ritual like stretching or meditation to start your day with a clear thoughts.

10. Learn to Delegate

You don’t must do everything your self. Delegate responsibilities at paintings, outsource family chores, or use offerings like grocery delivery and residence cleansing to free up time for extra essential things. If you have got youngsters, assign them age-appropriate chores to lighten your load.

11. Keep a Digital Notebook

Instead of writing notes on random portions of paper, use a digital pocket book like Evernote, OneNote, or Google Keep. These gear help you prepare thoughts, shop critical records, and get right of entry to everything from any tool, reducing litter and enhancing efficiency.

12. Set Time Limits for Tasks

It’s smooth to spend too much time on a unmarried task, in particular in case you're a perfectionist. Set unique closing dates for every venture and undertaking yourself to complete it inside that time-frame. This method, known as timeboxing, facilitates prevent procrastination and improves productivity.

13. Reduce Decision Fatigue

Making too many decisions for the duration of the day can be mentally hard. Simplify your selections by developing workouts, carrying a capsule wardrobe, or consuming the equal breakfast every day. This minimizes selection fatigue and conserves intellectual electricity for extra vital duties.

14. Unsubscribe and Declutter Your Inbox

An overflowing inbox can be overwhelming. Unsubscribe from useless emails, use filters to prioritize messages, and set unique times to check your e-mail rather than constantly fresh your inbox. Tools like Unroll.Me will let you control email subscriptions efficiently.

15. Keep a “Done” List

Instead of simply specializing in what needs to be carried out, hold a list of things you’ve completed. This facilitates you track progress, live influenced, and have fun small wins along the way.

16. Take Advantage of Audiobooks and Podcasts

If you struggle to locate time to study, audiobooks and podcasts are a amazing alternative. Listen to academic content material in the course of your shuttle, even as exercising, or while doing family chores to make the most of some time.

17. Use a Smart Assistant

Virtual assistants like Google Assistant, Alexa, or Siri allow you to set reminders, create purchasing lists, and manage your time table hands-loose. Integrate clever home gadgets to further automate your daily responsibilities.

18. Keep a Water Bottle with You

Staying hydrated improves cognizance, strength, and overall fitness. Keep a reusable water bottle with you for the duration of the day as a reminder to drink greater water.

19. Take Short Walks to Boost Productivity

Sitting for long durations can reduce productivity and effect your health. Take quick strolling breaks to clear your thoughts and improve creativity. Even a 5-minute walk can make a huge distinction in your recognition and electricity levels.

20. Wind Down Before Bed

A desirable night time’s sleep is vital for productivity. Avoid screens an hour earlier than mattress, examine a e book, or practice deep respiratory to loosen up. A steady bedtime routine enables improve sleep high-quality and ensures you wake up refreshed.

[estherclassic]

The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Shopify Store in 2025

Running a Shopify store in 2025 is more competitive than ever, but with the right strategies, you can stand out and build a thriving eCommerce business. Whether you're just starting or looking to scale, here’s a complete guide to optimizing your Shopify store for success.

1. Perfect Your Store’s Design & User Experience

Your store’s design plays a huge role in conversions. Here’s how to make it visually appealing and user-friendly:

✔ Choose a Clean, Mobile-Optimized Theme – 70%+ of online shopping happens on mobile devices, so a responsive theme is a must.

✔ Simplify Navigation – Make it easy for visitors to find what they need with clear menus and search functionality.

✔ Use High-Quality Images & Videos – Professional product photography builds trust and increases conversions.

✔ Speed Up Your Site – Slow-loading pages lead to lost sales. Use compressed images and Shopify speed optimization apps.

2. SEO: Get Found on Google

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps your store rank higher on Google, bringing in free organic traffic.

✔ Keyword Optimization – Use relevant keywords in product titles, descriptions, and blog posts.

✔ Meta Descriptions & Alt Text – Write compelling meta descriptions and add alt text to images for better indexing.

✔ Content Marketing – Start a blog to share product guides, tips, and industry insights.

3. Use Email Marketing & Automation

Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to drive sales. Here’s how to make it work for your Shopify store:

✔ Set Up Abandoned Cart Emails – Recover lost sales with automated reminders.

✔ Welcome Sequences – Engage new subscribers with exclusive discounts and brand stories.

✔ Segmentation & Personalization – Send tailored product recommendations based on customer preferences.

4. Leverage Social Media & Paid Ads

Social media can drive massive traffic and sales when used correctly.

✔ Instagram & TikTok Shopping – Link your Shopify store directly to these platforms for seamless shopping.

✔ Facebook & Google Ads – Run retargeting ads to bring back visitors who didn’t purchase.

✔ Influencer Marketing – Partner with influencers in your niche for increased credibility and reach.

5. Optimize for Conversions

Driving traffic is great, but converting visitors into customers is the real game-changer.

✔ Offer Discounts & Free Shipping – Create urgency with time-limited offers.

✔ Use Trust Badges & Reviews – Social proof increases customer confidence.

✔ Simplify Checkout – A one-page checkout process reduces cart abandonment.

6. Upselling & Cross-Selling Strategies

Maximize each sale by offering related products or premium versions.

✔ Bundle Deals – Encourage customers to buy more with discounted product bundles.

✔ Post-Purchase Upsells – Suggest add-ons after checkout for an easy extra sale.

7. Leverage Shopify Apps

Shopify’s app ecosystem allows you to add powerful features to your store. Some must-have apps include:

✔ Klaviyo – For advanced email marketing automation.

✔ ReConvert – For upselling and post-purchase funnels.

✔ PageFly – To design custom landing pages that convert.

Final Thoughts

Success in Shopify isn’t just about launching a store—it’s about continuously optimizing, learning, and evolving. By focusing on design, SEO, marketing, and conversions, you’ll be on your way to building a profitable online store.

Want expert help setting up or scaling your Shopify store? As a Shopify expert, I offer professional store design, SEO, and marketing services. Feel free to reach out and let’s take your store to the next level!

[sazm-web]

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[januaryisbrittishbeermonth]

That Sinking Feeling

Did you ever have that sinking feeling that things weren’t going to turn out as planned?  The proof of the pudding is under the crust, and retirement 2024 was a bit crusty.  

The only goal I nearly achieved was clearing the cattails from my shoreline.  After many hours over the summer – I’m estimating somewhere between 60 and 100 – of wading into the muck and pulling the little bastards one-by-one, I managed to clear about 90%.  I would need a drone to get a picture with a good perspective (perhaps a 2025 hobby?) but this is the best picture I currently have.

As usual, I digress.  Today in the Total Wine and More app I stumbled across Wrexham Lager.  The Wrexham brewery in Wales was built by German immigrants in 1882.   Fortunately, they were not deported with the rest of the German criminals, rapists and I assume other fine Germans before they began to brew a lager that is described as subtly hopped with a clean aroma - light, refreshing and easy to drink. 

Before purchasing said beer I decided to check out the reviews.  A couple stood out:

A 5-star review submitted by Wrexham Lager said “Amazing beer.  I bought it today and it’s great.”   Biased?  Perhaps.  Four people found this helpful.

Another 5-star review, this time by Jason Wrexham:

Obviously totally unbiased. 

Eight people, including me, found this helpful. 

The beer served aboard the Titanic!  OMG!!!!!!!!

The can says, “Store in a cool dry place, away from icebergs”  Maybe.  I might need new bifocals. 

I recall that the beer being consumed in the steerage scene in the movie Titanic looked more like a stout than a beer with “a light amber color”.  Maybe it was brought aboard by the Irish rogues in steerage, or maybe James Cameron just thought it worked better.  Chalk it up to Hollywood magic.

Speaking of Hollywood magic, current co-owners of Wrexham Brewing are Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds.  Yes, the same Ryan Reynolds who does the Mint Mobile commercials, and I guess a movie called Deadpool (haven’t seen it). 

As with all things JiBBM, this just keeps getting weirder and weirder.  These guys bought into the Welsh  brewery to help promote the local football team that they purchased, Wrexham AFC.  Apparently there is even a docuseries about it on FX called Welcome to Wrexham.  I guess I’ll have to check it out.

Okay, I’m back.  I just dropped $2.99 on episode 1 of season 1 (on Hulu) and I must say that I was entertained.   The town and the football club are down in the dumps.  The team has already been demoted to the lowest level league and COVID has emptied the stands, but there is optimism because of the new ownership.  I just might watch episode 2 or jump ahead to “free to me” season 3.

The brewery has a similar rocky past.  Although the website bills it as the UK’s oldest lager brewery, it omits the phrase “in continuous operation”.

According to their website:

“Wrexham Lager became overshadowed by other brands. Sadly, commercial production at its Wrexham birthplace stopped in 2000 and total production in the UK ceased in 2002.

The brewery was demolished and a retail park was built in its place, the only vestige of Wrexham Lager being the original Brewhouse, now a Grade II listed building. All documents and brewery artefacts were razed to the ground save but a few treasured items from fans and collectors alike.”

Does this mean that the recipe was lost?  It doesn’t really matter because it’s a decent beer with a timeless taste.  The brewery reboot by Martin Jones and the Roberts family revived the brand in 2011 and subsequent investment by the Hollywood boys is keeping a good thing going.

Will McElhenny and Reynolds do more than just rearrange the deck chairs in their ownership of the football club and the brewery?  Previewing season 3 of the series and the fact that I can now buy this beer in Minnesota hint that the answer is probably yes.

Perhaps the team should consider getting a sponsorship from Adidas.  Afterall, a logo that resembles a ship’s smokestacks slipping beneath the waves would be fitting for this Titanic team.