SleepCycle and Sleep as Android: Bio-Alarm Clocks on your Device

So does anyone else out there not have enough time to sleep? Well, that probably isn't the right question. Does anyone else out there not allow themselves enough time to sleep?

How much sleep you decide to deprive yourself of is your prerogative, but there are two apps that seem like they might help people like you and me. SleepCycle is the version for iPhone, and Sleep as Android is the one for the Android. Basically, these apps use your devices' accelerometer to track and measure your sleep cycles.

Not a big deal, right? Except that it knows when you are in your lightest sleep phase, and slowly wakes you up with soothing sounds or tunes during that time so it is easier to wake up. You might ask, "If it is going off of sleep cycles, won't it wake me up too late?" Not so much. You tell the app the absolute latest that you can get up, and it will wake you in your lightest phase as close to that time as possible.

Now, I haven't tried this app myself (as I only have a dumb phone and a Walkman), but I mentioned it to a friend who said it totally worked (and who really enjoys the wake-up sounds). I figure that I'll give it a go once I have a smart device because I wouldn't mind softly drifting into the land of the living instead of being forcefully extracted from my beauty sleep.

Gelatin Printing: Making Some Legit Posters

So I originally found this idea on Pinterest, but it comes from the blog of Cassie Stephens. Long story short, you make a batch of unflavored gelatin, you put ink on the gelatin, put some leaves on top of the ink, and when you put paper on top of that, you get a cool silhouette poster because the leaves don't let the ink get to some parts of the paper.

Originally I was going to do that exact idea, but then I started thinking that the participants might want to create their own silhouettes. So, I gave them some paper, stencils and scissors, and let them create the shapes we applied to the gelatin.

Cassie suggested a printmaking brayer to spread the ink, but we found we could also spread the ink using a ruler. You can obviously buy printing ink at a craft store, but we had library stamp replacement ink available, and that seemed to work.

P.S. When you are planning your shapes, be aware of their orientation. It'll wind up as an inverted image when it is applied to the paper, as our LIZARD poster attests to. The top image is what the poster looked like, and the bottom image is the shape we applied to the gelatin.

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong: Teen Sitcom Motifs

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong 
by Prudence Shen & Faith Erin Hicks

Why did I read it?

Because the synopsis was interesting, and graphic novels are quick reads when you need to read, but don't necessarily have a ton of time. 

What happened?

Charlie may be the captain of the basketball team, but he wasn't planning on running for class president or anything. But his ex-girlfriend has other plans. Charlie's best friend, Nathan, is running for class president to secure funds for his robotics team. But, Holly (Charlie's ex) would rather the money went to the cheerleader's new uniforms.

So, enter the cheerleaders running Charlie's presidential campaign (that he would rather not do), and enter Nathan starting a mud-slinging battle to end all mud-slinging battles. 

All things aside though, Charlie can't decide whether dealing with Nathan and Holly, or his workaholic father and absentee mother is worse. And things will probably get worse before they get better...

What did I like or not like?

This book has the run time and the plot line of an episode of your favorite teen sitcom. There isn't anything too intense going on, it doesn't take too long to read, and the characters don't go through any life-altering revelations or ah-ha moments. But, it was enjoyable to read, and the art was put together nicely and told the story well :)

You've got your classic jock versus geek, class president mud-slinging campaigns, and ditching the parents to boot. But who doesn't need a nice-looking graphic novel version of these motifs every once in a while?