Horizons oceanfront restaurant menu

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
​

• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might disccover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
​

• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. Then you can pick up assassination contracts from ringing payphones. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of you banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge sash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

This has started happening recently and frequently: I go to the website of a restaurant, usually via a QR code for their menu but sometimes just searching online, and I get the same exact error message that reads, “your browser is no longer supported to view this website and enjoy a better online experience, update your browser for free"
It looks really generic and it ONLY happens on restaurant websites. I checked the app (using safari on my iPhone) and the app is up to date. This feels like a really shitty way to download spyware or adware onto a phone.
Anyone know if it’s legit or a scam?

I saw someone get downvoted for commenting that they test on animals. I was under the impression this was true and now I’m not sure! Does anyone have the facts surrounding this? I’ve been avoiding it because of this but would love to know if that’s entirely necessary.
This is the form of ‘meat’ substitute at Domino’s and Grill’d (a burger shop) for us and we haven’t gone there because a) when it was announced both of these places were using impossible meat, people were up in arms about it not being vegan and b) These locations stopped listing them under ‘vegan’ and started listing them as plant-based which doesn’t always mean the same thing and they still have vegan items on their menu and these aren’t it!
So, what’s your verdict? What do you think of impossible meat? If it is vegan and ethical, why would people not be aware of this and why wouldn’t restaurants make sure to establish that it IS vegan?

I can't count how many times I've been to a highly rated restaurant (on both Yelp/Google), went in knowing what I wanted (from reading reviews), ordered something else that caught my eye.. and ended up feeling disappointed in the restaurant as a whole. Yeah, user error.
People don't usually go to a steakhouse, expecting to get served good fried chicken.. but why even offer those mediocre alternatives in the first place? Lessens the chance of repeat customers IMO.
I've since learned to remind myself: "don't be too adventurous" and stick with the favorites.

Bit of a weird post this is gonna be, but when a Mattenga's pizzeria opened up near me last year, I had a chance to try their calzone and really enjoyed it. I ended up looking for different restaurants that offer calzones in San Antonio and here's a list ranking the ones I've tried, in no particular order.
Pizza Hut's melt: This might not even be a calzone technically but I just wanted to include it since it is calzone like and avaliable pretty much anywhere. The crust has a consistency similar to cardboard lol
Braza Brava: Went here for my Bday, the calzone crust was kind of burnt and dry, but they did include a good amount of toppings inside to counter for that. It wasn't bad by any means, but I feel like if you're gonna go here there's better stuff on the menu.
Guillermo's: Easily the best one in my opinion. Something about the meltiness of the cheese and crust just made this one a pleasure to enjoy. My girlfriend really enjoyed it too, and she really doesn't like calzones all that much. This is the most expensive option, nearing $20 for the one calzone, but it was absolutely worth IMO.
Rome's Pizza: A good amount of meat, cheese and bread. I don't have much to say for this one except that it's good lol.
Zio's: Zios has now closed their locations but I wanted to mention it in case anyone else was interested in how it was. I remember going here as a kid and always getting the calzone and being so full that I had to take some of it home. I remember I tried the calzone because my dad was like "its just like a big hot pocket" in his attempt to get me away from chicken tenders. It worked lol.
Mattenga's: They have been mostly consistent in quality after I've ordered from them 10+ times, which is a lot more than any other on the list. I specifically order it with pepperoni, Italian sausage, and extra cheese, and they do a great job with filling it. The only problem I've had with them is the actual size of the calzone has differed by a considerable about, sometimes making it a meal I can share with my girlfriend to something I will just finish myself. I usually eat it myself though, so that's not a big deal in my eyes.
I know this it's not nearly a comprehensive list of all the calzones in SA but just the ones I've tried. If anyone knows of any better ones let me know! I told my girlfriend I would try each calzone in the city once lol.

Apologies in advance for any typos / formatting - I’m on mobile.
Does anyone have a policy on the company not being held liable for any allergic reactions caused by consuming food provided by the company?
We had a situation where an employee who was allergic to pine nuts ate pesto sauce but never disclosed the allergy to management.
We’re a restaurant and our company places responsibility in the guest to inform their server of any allergies (stated on out menu). We don’t ask. You would think our servers would know this and be aware but alas here I am writing this post.
Does anyone have experience with this or any examples of a similar policy? I’m stuck on not pressing for medical information so please send help

I love just about anything with ginger in it. I had ginger fried rice at a Thai restaurant near St. Louis and it immediately became my fav rice dish. I’ve searched menus of local restaurants here but I haven’t found a restaurant that makes it. Has anyone seen it on a menu around here?

Today's games repulse me with their copycat, timid and shallow character. Though it seems like there is a variety of concepts flashing around, in practice games revolve around the same half-dozen tropes. Their hallmark sign is that it is nothing that is not seen on TV. If the game's idea is not a reflection of the modern world from someone who, by all appearances, has never read a real book or has experience to share, then it's Pirates in Some Carribean, or the Victorian Age When Jack the Ripper Roamed in a Black Cab, or the Middle Ages with Standard Treachery, or Abstract Space Exploration. I was sick and tired of this a few years ago, now I have all but given up on this art form. Even when the concept is interesting, it is rarely taken far or with force. Neutered developers are afraid to give offense and as a result make bland, short-breathing stuff, but I think the sharp edges are never there to begin with anymore. I don't know anybody who sets out to defy the world, stand apart from its simulations and blandishments and spit a good gob in its ugly square face.
I have never had an opportunity to make a game of my own (it takes a team besides everything else), but I have made mods for a very old RPG for years - new mechanics, plots, magic, quests, effects, scripts, writing and so on. I have more or less put that old engine on its head, though I know hardly anyone will ever find out about my efforts. This is to say that I am not a pure theorist. Some time in the winter, bored and exasperated, I decided to do a quick marathon of game ideas - for RPG, quests, simulations, something in-between - and see how many I can whip out on the run. I would like something from here picked up by a company, but I am not advertising. I realize that is probably not something that might happen. It was a good exercise for me, however. Here are the results for all to see. I did ten first, then three more occurred to me.
1 ) Circa Caotica
You play the role of Jabsh, a clown of a traveling circus, who suddenly discovers that he is no orphan but the son (Raka, daughter for female players) of the director, Maestro Leotardi. Minutes later after making the sobbing confession the boss is swallowed by the Crocodile Man in a suspicious accident. You have to own up to the unexpected legacy and step into the tight and tall boots of the director. Your responsibility is to keep the circus going by fine-tuning and inventing acts based on ideas solicited over regular all-troupe brainstorming sessions despite little starting respect from the others, who have decided to unionize as well (the mentalist takes notes). You must keep drawing in crowds to avert the bankruptcy, earn respect and manipulation points and find the truth behind Leotardi's death and the disappearance of the Big Green cashbox with everyone's last year salary and the medallion that supposedly bears the face of your mother the same evening. All the while you still have to perform in regular clown acts with your partner. You can play as a red clown or a white clown, and the other type will be your foil.
2) Nachtwaffe
"Ah, count. Decided to join me for a walk?" Vampires steal planes from the Nazi airforce to zoom through the dark skies over the Balkans and turn humans to make more of their own. You start out as a single nosferatu, converted from an arrogant German, and must find and raid small airports and landing strips across the forests and mountains of Roumania, impersonate a living officer to get supplies and fuel, avoid communist guerillas, find and build places to hide during the day and choose which humans to turn to expand your force. Naturally, it is all quite a dead end, as the war is bound to finish sooner or later, which radio broadcasts confirm, and what then will happen to the vampiric empire? But this is something that the gameplay begins to convey to the player gradually. Hopefully the fate of someone who has no future but still does his all will touch some dormant strings in players' hearts.
3) Yuck!
The sleepy Tibetan village of Dongtso is unaware of what lurks in the bushes and the mountains: you, the desperately lonely yak-man. Born with a big head and two horns, you have only one connection to civilization: the gold ring in your nose. Squinting cross-eyed, you can just make out some kind of symbols on it, and a banner over the village shrine features ones like them. This must be the key. You have to lurk about the supersititious hamlet, helping the folk at night and out of sight with small chores and evesdropping on their reactions and conversations until you can pick up a few words, including, at some point, "Hello." Since this is a game about Tibet and shaping up something rebellious, let the tongue be one of Tibet's many and accompanied by Tibetan script. You can train to pronounce the words when you dare show yourself to children, old people and widows, to improve from mooing to legible speech, but until then you have to dodge men's hunting parties and survive. With enough good deeds and a few friends, you might win the folk's confidence and stand before the village council so that someone might teach you to read. The quest becomes complicated, however, by the appearance of the army of People's Republic of China that establishes a base in the village in its push to subdue Tibet. The year is 1952. One of the newcomers is a local - a renegade llama who, the villagers say, has been on many supernatural journeys in the mountains, even to Shangri-La, but is now wearing the uniform of Tibet's conquerors. The writing on the ring, deciphered, identifies him as your father. What will happen next?
4) Footlocker
This is a soccer-themed RPG, but you view the sport from the point of view of a bookie besieged on all sides by mafia. To pay back his debt he resolves on a colossal set-up: first get control of an underdog team, then bring them at least to the regional semi-finals and, with the bets in their favor, make them lose in a big way. The thugs are ready to provide cash handouts, leg-breaking, knuckle sandwiches, addictive opioids and more to get the right people on the team and stubborn elements out, but at the cost of increased control and cut of the profits. You must balance their appetities with placating sports authorities, the press, sponsors and police. In the final match a dilemma presents itself: go through with the plan and ruin the team or defy the gangsters and take your chances on the right side of the tracks?
5) And See It Again For the First Time
Starting out from your homeland on three caravels, you unfurl the sails and set out to circumnavigate the world. The globe is randomly generated every time and rolls away at the horizon, with the map, continents and straits unknown beforehand, in the manner of River Raid. Your characters are the three ships and their crews, condition and supplies are their stats. Dropping anchor at strange shores and dealing with natives will be necessary but dangerous as they fight with each other, shuffle and migrate like microbes. Loss of crew can't be repaired. At least one of the ships must find the passages and make it to the fabulous Gate of Makhamedi, enter it from the far side and begin the journey home.
6) The Person and the Essence
In the beginning chapter you play Sauqin, second-in-command to general Varziranga, head of the army of the Arcolan Empire sent to quash the rebellion of Panlaa, who has tried to bring his province to secede. The imperial army has crushed Panlaa'a troops a fortnight ago and has got him shut in the Ravine of the Gold Specks. Complete victory is near, but the commander has been acting strangely since the battle. On this decisive night his behavior spins out of control just as Panlaa makes a sudden sally from his trap, causing great confusion. As his lieutenant, it falls to you to maintain order in dealing with the various officers as well as the clerics of the One, who insist that Panlaa, a lapsed pagan, be given to them for execution once he is captured. The ending of the chapter will determine whether Panlaa ends in the emperor's prison in the capital, Hotharsoom, alive or dead at the clerics' hands, whether Varziranga will be simply demoted or disgraced.
Chapter two will take place in the capital city. You will have been promoted to a top military command for your performance, only to become embroiled in an intrigue involving the emperor's controlling mother, a consequential schism in the church of the One over whether the head of state is eternally the same person reincarnated or a series of persons, demagogues in the public and lurking pagans with unclear motives. Other chapters will follow, and the endings will determine who sits on the throne and who stands behind it, whether state policy is in principle subject to revision and criticism or not and whether the pagan faiths are crushed without mercy or adopted into the church of the One. The material here is Byzantium, Egypt with the notion of the pharaoh as incarnate Horus and the empires of southeast Asia. Some early Christian heresies also deserve to be revivified.
7) Of Rats and Men
You are a rat trapped in the gears of the Trumpet of Doom, the hugest, heaviest and most advanced steam ship ever to paddle the Grumuous Sea. This basin is famously salty enough to let even an iron float for a time, which, the public money finally gathered, made it the perfect road to carry the 25-inch-gunned ("24 + 1 for Paterland!") Trumpet to the shores of Festaly and at last give those Festalians what for! The citizenry is cheering with patriotic joy, the brass bands are blowing. The ship rats are less happy, especially you, who were captain Reissenpouf's pet before you managed to scramble through a porthole and below the desk as he was buttering a toast. You are nearly panicky with fright. Unlike the locals there, you have spent time locked with the diagrams in the captain's safe and know that the battleship is very weakly armored below the waterline. Someone must have made a good bit of business during the construction selling the metal. When the Trumpet comes up against the Festalians with their triton suicides or their rumored counterpart ship, the Rough Musician, not even the Grumuous Sea will keep it from ending up as a gigantic, barnacled wreck on the ocean floor.
To avoid this fate you only have so much time to organize the other rats for systematic sabotage. The game's world is the enormous ship below and above the deck. The humans of the crew are, of course, adamant in their resolve to get themselves killed, so they will repair the servos, the cables turning the massive gears, the ball bearings, the hydraulics and the rest almost as quickly as those are destroyed. This effort will be headed by the near-transparent, monochrome spindle of a man, Admiral Hel, the leader of the expedition, always of his private high deck, sipping his black milk and staring through his spectacles ahead to where TOD's fate awaits it. If all of you ratfolk together gnaw through and spoil enough of the ship's devices, however, the captain might just have the authority to radio Kaiser Walzer of the decision to turn back... though you personally may also have to sneak back into his cabin to sit on his pillow and intone suggestions as he sleeps. The fact that you are an albino rat and at first come across as a crazy visionary doesn't help, and neither does being a female rat and having to give birth to a litter every so often. The current mate can be deputied on tasks while lactating. Other ships may sometimes be encountered in the sea, with different results, and you may improve your reputation in the murine community by predicting these encounters, if you check the looking glass often enough. The length of the game, and hence the difficulty, depends on the distance to Festalian waters - from two weeks' journey to three months.
8) Cosmic Choir
You play as one of the planets of the solar system. The other actors and your partners are the thieving and scurrilous Mercury, the lusty and sly Venus, the militant braggart Mars and so on. And you are the meh-in-the-middle Earth, and in this group of strong personalities stand out with your unique ability of Rational Decision (it would be nice to get Woody Allen for the voice acting, were he younger). Other planets have other powers, and all of them certain characteristics and appetites (for tasty meteorites, for more intimate or more standoffish orbits and so on). The plot revolves around the announcement of the Sun that it has had enough of burning hydrogen and wants to retire, going immediately into the red giant phase, which would, of course, burn up all of the inner planets and kick the outer planets way out. For this the star has recruited a planet-sized asteroid, large enough to pull most of the star fuel away so that the moribund transformation may be set in motion. The euthanatic dark planet is whirring ever closer. Before it gets on a near enough orbit to disrupt the Sun the other planets must find out what caused this sudden depression and persuade their ruler and source of life otherwise. (The answer is that the Sun has always dreamt of going nova but lacks substance.) Playing as the only inhabited planet, you must also keep the life forms on you alive through all of the maneuvering. If you can get Mars to cooperate, however, you may shorten the distance enough for humanity and some of the ecosystems to make the leap and found Musk City there, and then you won't have to care about your surface anymore.
9) Paris, 1245 A.D.
A meticulously researched simulation of the criminal underworld of medieval Paris and the worlds that abutted on it: those of the church, guilds, city watch, the university, lepers, the court and so on. No shortcuts and simplifications for babies who can't tell a Benedictine from a Cistercian. A dynamically filled encyclopedia may be included, though, and remain permanently unlocked for later replays. The main character is a vagrant and a thief. This may be a persistent sandbox, possibly a multiplayer RPG, or it may have a plot, but strictly within historical realities.
10) The Last Supper
You play the role of Jesus, son of God, in the company of the twelve disciples. The game should probably be in first person. (The Sermon of the Mount and such may be shown in cutscenes, or they may be challenges in quiz form.) The time period is your wanderings in Judea after the baptism and until the last night before the arrest. The background is the Judaic society at the time and its Roman controllers, somewhat historically accurate. This is a detective story, a wholldoit where you need to figure out who is best suited to betray you in due time so that you may prep him for the job and finally give him the impetus to "do it quicker" at the Last Supper. For Christ certainly needed someone to betray him. It's not always Judas: the identity of the potential traitor, along with his motives, will vary randomly between playthroughs. Incidents and encounters along the road, both recorded in the Bible and invented, will liven up the experience and better inform you about the personalities of the disciples, building on but going beyond what is known (Peter with his short temper, the lofty John an so on).
11) Cuadrophobia
Ships and the sea again. This time you are a typical sailor with an atypically strong survival instinct on one of the vessels in a colossal game of Battleship between Our Guy and the Other Player. Accordingly, there are two grids firing at each other: your side's and the enemy's, though you only get to travel across your own. The ship you begin on is chosen at random: it may be anything in size from a single-squarer to a five-squarer. Smaller ships are less likely to be hit, of course, but when a ship is finished, it sinks, and you with it. The purpose of the game is to survive until Our Guy's victory, which programmatically is likely but not guaranteed and happens about 70% of the time. To do this you must desert on a regular basis, setting out in a dinghy to a ship more favored in the current situation. However, the dinghy only travels three squares per turn, and you can only spend two turns in the open sea before dying. You also need time on board ships to access their radio broadcasts, which, besides playing some inspirational propaganda, update the picture of the grid as the battle rages. Without it you are limited to paddling to vessels that you can directly see. The role-playing element comes from dealing with ship commanders, who all take their duties and titles - captain of Cruiser! captain of Battleship! - very seriously, from picking up supplies in floating debris and from acquiring special abilities that let you, for example, paddle an extra square farther. Is war evil? Is it to be hated, or is our side to be cheered on? After all, if Our Guy loses, this will all have been in vain.
12) Standardom
In this game of life, dedicated to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), you must pass through all of the Gates of Conformity to win your ultimate prize - death from old age, as opposed to suicide. The option to kill yourself is always available in the menu. Being the hero and chickenshit that you are, though, you are determined to submit to every humiliation just so you can press forward. The world of the game is a vertical platform that moves with you along the Y axis, which represents time from some random year forwards: you may begin at 100 B.C., 1824 A.D., 12749 j-Spec and so on. It is really all the same where on the timeline you are dropped off. As with other platformers, once the screen has moved, there is no going back. You can walk freely to the left and right, however, pick up bonuses, disarm threats and converse with characters. Going up, every so often the screen is intersected by a wall with a gate in it. Your character's silhouette must either match the cut of the gate or be smaller to pass through. You start out small as a baby, a little circle, but very soon handicaps such as Discovery of Talent, Unusual Upbringing, Independent Spirit or Love of Sex will begin to rush at you to complicate your silhouette with Г, & and other such protrusions. You will also grow in size until your late 20s. Luckily, opportunities will also present themselves to prune some of this exotica: Family, Steady Job, Political Engagement, Puppy, Human Interest and other bonuses can be found or obtained from conversations to simplify your puzzle to a manageable cut until such time as the years pile on and the worst is behind you. You will become smaller and smaller and able to rush through the checkpoints one after the other to the finish line.
13) Six Handshakes to Liberty
The country is suffering under a cruel dictatorship. Ar-Parason, the president-for-life, has wrung the last of resources from the nation and has now thrown it into a disastrous war. In his palace he is surrounded by guards armed to the teeth and without a shred of conscience to shoot the bastard. What can you, a humble microbiologist living in the suburbs, do about this? Nothing, it seems, until you discover a strain of bacteria that is absolutely deadly within weeks and immune to all known antibiotics except one, still not fully developed. The microbe is passed along by touch. Alas, you discover it when you become infected with it. You still have the resources to finish the research on the antibiotic and save yourself, but now you realize that you possess the perfect secret weapon to rid the country of the tyrant. Although you can't get so close to Ar-Parason in person, someone must enjoy that intimacy...
Every day you do your research at the computer, look through the press, then put on gloves and go out in search of people in contact with other people who will, you hope, ultimately carry the strain to its target. You have to follow news to figure out whose hands to shake and who to sleep with - secretaries, daughters of generals, corrupt officials - and many times the scheme will fall short of success. The chain of handshakes will terminate early somewhere, and these intermediaries will just die. But all those sacrifices are worth it, aren't they? You keep several intrigues going at once, determined to see one of them to the end. Meanwhile an epidemic is beginning in the country, Ar-Parason is starting to take precautions, and your own remaining time that could be spent on finishing the antibiotic is also running short. What is more important: life, revenge, justice, survival, honor? Your actions will be your decisions.

If you're in the mood for authentic Indian cuisine, East Windsor, NJ has a number of fantastic restaurants to choose from. Indian Restaurant, known for its delicious curries, indian dishes, and vegetarian options. Another great option is Palace of Asia, which offers a diverse menu featuring traditional Indian dishes as well as fusion cuisine. Whether you're craving spicy indian food, you're sure to find a mouth-watering meal at one of East Windsor's top Indian restaurants. For more information please visit https://vatans.com/

My top 3:
Kong Hans ** : Excellent. Everything tasted amazing. Worth a return visit.
Kadeau ** : Excellent. Great tasting food all around. Worth a return visit.
Jordnaer ** : Excellent tasting menu. The 3 desserts were amazingly tasty. The honey based dessert was one of the best I’ve had anywhere. Worth a second visit for the desserts by themselves.
————
Overall great food:
Geranium *** : Great food all around.
Noma *** : Great food all around. I had the game and forest menu.
Alchemist ** : Great and unique overall experience. Some of the experience was interesting and others a bit pretentious for me.
Alouette * : Great tasting food.
Vollmers ** (In Malmo) : Great
————
Not bad, not great tier:
Sushi Anaba : Good. I think they used to have a star at some point in the past.
Kiin Kiin * : Good.
AOC ** : Food was decent, not great. Expected more from a 2-star restaurant.
Jatak * : Good.
————
Bottom tier:
The Samuel * : Food was okay, but did not like the menu concept, where it’s what the chef himself would eat. The main dish was vegetables.
Søllerød Kro * : Food was okay, but expected better tasting food.
Marchal * : The food was okay, nothing stood out.
Formel B * : Boring and bland tasting food.
Kokkeeriet * : Boring and bland tasting food.

Have you ever stumbled upon a hidden gem (like a secret park or a hidden menu item at a restaurant)?

Have you ever stumbled upon a hidden gem (like a secret park or a hidden menu item at a restaurant)?

Digital technology in the early years: The importance of everyday learning opportunities to build young children’s digital technology skills

This factsheet will support early childhood professionals to:

• broaden their understanding of the inclusion of digital technology in the early years
• explore effective strategies to embed play-based digital practices
• support children’s concept development of digital technologies

As a co-author of the Early Childhood Australia (ECA) Statement on young children and digital technologies, can you explain the rationale for creating this statement? How can it support educator practice with regards to building children’s digital technology skills?

The ECA Statement on young children and digital technologies was created to support adults to make decisions about technology use ‘with, by and for’ young children. Increased recognition in the sector that young children use a range of technologies at home and in their communities, for playing, communicating and accessing online content, suggested that digital learning in early childhood settings was timely. The statement highlights four main areas of children’s learning and development: relationships, health and wellbeing, citizenship, and play and pedagogy. It also invites educators to think about how they understand technologies and the role of technologies in the lives of children and families.
This includes thinking about what is known as ‘philosophy of technology’ (Gibbons 2010). Philosophy of technology is a body of knowledge that proposes different ways of thinking about the relationship between people and technologies. Just as there are theories of play and learning that educators can refer to, there are philosophies of technology educators can draw on to think about using technologies with children. Three of the main philosophies of technology are technological determinism, substantivism and critical constructivism. Technological determinism is the most commonly held view. This view suggests that technologies cause or determine what happens to people. Some people hold a negative view of determinism: for example, thinking that technologies reduce the quality of children’s imaginative play. Other people hold a positive view of determinism, believing that technologies support children to communicate with others. Substantivism considers how technologies shape practices, or what people do in their daily lives over time. Critical constructivism posits that technologies are always designed and used by people according to human values. This view suggests that people can make active choices about how and why they use technologies that are relevant to their lives, such as people using videoconferencing during the pandemic to connect with family and friends.

The Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) refers to five Learning and Development Outcomes for children. Outcomes 4 and 5 explicitly mention the inclusion of digital technologies in children’s learning. What are some effective learning experiences that explore everyday opportunities to build children’s understanding and use of digital technologies?

Technologies are part of children’s lives; however, not all educators are comfortable with using technologies in children’s learning. Rather than focusing only on the technology in digital learning, think instead about the ways in which technology creates opportunities for meaning-making. For example, making meaning using technologies may involve taking photographs, creating videos or slideshows, co-sharing digital content, or coding with robotics. Meaning-making can also be about understanding how we live with and use technologies in our daily lives. Meaning-making for understanding does not have to involve using working technologies. Children can create their own non-working technologies from available materials (such as boxes, blocks or paper) to participate in sociodramatic play that provides opportunities for talking about how and why technologies are used. For example, children might make their own mobile phones and use these in their play to send messages to each other and take calls. Educators can help children in this play by inviting children to use technologies in ways that are respectful of relationships. Are the children having a pretend meal together? Can educators invite children to put their phones away while they eat? Or if children are taking pretend photographs of each other, educators can be sure to model asking for consent. Educators can also create representations of technologies that help children learn about the internet and how information and data are shared over a network: for example, using string to ‘connect’ non-working devices in a home or office corner to help children learn about the internet as a network of connected technologies. Children can ‘send’ messages, emails or content to each other as paper notes attached to the string. Educators can invite children to consider if they know who is sending them messages or where the content has come from. This provides children with an everyday opportunity to learn about the internet and safe online behaviours.

The VEYLDF states ‘Assessment is designed to discover what children know, understand, and can do’. What does this look like in terms of children’s trajectory of learning around digital technology? How might educators connect their observations of children engaging with digital technology to children’s learning and development across other domains?

Children are likely to follow a developmental trajectory when using technologies due to their experiences using technologies at home and in the community, with their family, friends and peers. Children’s experiences with technologies are variable and so they will come to early childhood education and care settings with a range of technological knowledge and skills. This can depend on the access children have to devices, reliable internet and opportunities for adult engagement during technological activity. Educators can observe how children build their capacity to use devices over time. This is important because some basic operational knowledge with technologies is required of children as they enter formal schooling. For example, do children know how to turn technologies on and off? Can children point, touch, swipe and resize using a tablet? Pre-school aged children may also exhibit technological language, such as download, upload, click and save, and will probably know the difference between still and moving images. This language helps children communicate and share information with other people, including family members and peers. When children use technologies, educators can also support connections with digital media or content that supports children’s identity. For example, which programs or games do children enjoy at home and how are these recognised in the classroom? This can be achieved by providing children with access to pretend technologies and apps, such as a cardboard box representing a touchscreen device, with cut-outs of their favourite applications. Other examples include learning about digital media interests alongside children, examining and sharing storylines, or providing opportunities for children to express digital media interests through more traditional play, such as box construction, drawing or painting. Using internet-connected technologies also provides opportunities for children and educators to access information to resource play and learning, such as through video content, or well-curated resources from reputable early learning providers in topic areas including science, mathematical thinking, history, music and visual or performing arts.

The VEYLDF identifies eight Practice Principles that illustrate the most effective ways for all early childhood professionals to support children's learning and development. One of these Practice Principles is ‘Partnerships with Families’. What are some effective strategies to engage families in discussions about digital technologies and young children?

Families are central to children’s learning and development. When educators engage in discussion about technologies with families, they can help adult caregivers facilitate positive digital learning opportunities for children at home. The VEYLDF states ‘Early childhood professionals … actively engage families and children in planning for ongoing learning and development in the service, at home and in the local community’ (VEYLDF, p. 9). Many organisations in Australia are involved in promoting and supporting young children’s safe and productive engagement with technologies, with tip sheets, videos, infographics and games. Educators can invite families to use these materials with children to explore topics such as staying safe online, being active with technologies, using technologies to support social relationships, and fostering children’s digital play.

What would be some final key messages for educators who want to support children’s digital skills and understanding?

Two key messages are important for educators thinking about supporting children’s digital skills and understandings. The first message is to start involving children in digital opportunities that feel achievable within the service. Not all services have access to technologies and not all educators feel comfortable using technologies with children. Programming can involve using non-working technologies in children’s play, such as using a block in pretend play as a mobile phone, or teachers creating representational technologies for children to use in the home corner (for example, printed life-size copies of tablet devices). Working technologies do not need to be complicated. While coding, robotics, digital microscopes and augmented reality provide highly engaging learning opportunities, children can also learn from educators modelling appropriate technology use on more accessible technologies, such as touchscreen: for example, by asking permission to take photographs or fact-checking information online. It may also be helpful for services to complete a technology audit – such as the eSafety checklist for early learning services – to see which technologies are available for children and where these might be integrated with ongoing learning opportunities in the service. For example, digital music can be incorporated into rest times, or children can be provided with opportunities to create digital drawings alongside traditional mark making.
The second message is to understand that young children today are part of a digital world. At any one time there are more than 8000 satellites around the earth that are sending and communicating information and data. It is becoming harder and harder to isolate children from technologies because so much of the world is now digital. It may be more helpful to think intentionally about supporting children to live within a digital world. The VEYLDF states ‘Early childhood professionals … use intentional teaching strategies that are always purposeful and may be pre-planned or spontaneous, to support achievement of well-considered and identified goals’ (VEYLDF, p. 15). This shifts the pedagogical focus from trying to keep children away from technologies to thinking about the purposeful use of technologies with children, allowing children to develop the knowledge and skills they require to participate in a digital world.

Questioning and listening

Asking questions and then listening to the answers can propel children’s learning, and it is this approach that is at the heart of an inquiry model. Questioning and listening are essential in any learning relationship, and they are both part of an active process where you do not just listen and question children but also interpret, respond to and make meaning of their thinking and learning processes.
The pedagogical strategy of listening can provide educators with a new framework in which to consider their role in children’s learning and development. When educators look deeply at what holds children’s attention, the result is that children and adults are able to recognise capabilities and qualities in each other.
Do not always rely on asking questions and trying to provoke answers as a way of engaging with children. Educators who give children the time, space and resources to think long and deeply are often rewarded with rich responses.

‘The right question at the right time can move children to peaks in their thinking that result in significant steps forward and real intellectual excitement. Although it is almost impossible for an adult to know exactly the right time to ask a specific question of a specific child – especially for a teacher who is concerned with 30 or more children – children can raise the right question for themselves if the setting is right.’ (Millikan, et al 2014, p. 69)

The value of questioning cannot be overstated, particularly when working with a pedagogy of inquiry. You need to consider what directions you are leading children with your questions, as well as what type of questions you ask children. Are they ‘thick’ questions or ‘thin’ questions? That is, are they questions that are open ended and encourage children to think broadly or do they close off children’s thinking?

Wonder and uncertainty

Wonder and uncertainty are necessary dispositions for learning. Both of these dispositions are considered important when working with a pedagogy of inquiry. As Moss says, ‘Such learning is also more likely to happen and be welcomed when wonder or amazement are valued’ (Moss 2019, p. 74).
Rich learning opportunities can happen when you include these dispositions in your daily practice. This is not a closed-off, linear way of working but rather one that allows you to remain open to the ideas of children, their families and your colleagues.
When you work with dispositions of wonder and uncertainty, it encourages a flexible way of thinking and working in which hypotheses might be made but are also subject to change. This is not an approach that has pre-determined outcomes.

Top tips for working with a pedagogy of inquiry

• Read, listen or watch something that might shift your thinking or that supports you to develop a growth mindset. Learn something new to bring back into your work with children. This does not need to be related to early learning. Learn something that fires up your neural pathways. An educator’s area of interest or enthusiasm can have an inherent trickle-down positive impact on children.
• Adults can often anticipate difficulties and resolve them for children, and this does not give children the opportunity to think for themselves and provide solutions. Educators should aim to create a culture of ideas rather than a culture that provides all of the answers.
• Design your environments carefully, with attention paid to the intentional use of resources, materials and provocations, and provide children with extended periods of time to re-visit these.
• Educators need to follow children’s footprints – that is, the directions of their learning. This is only possible through a process of reviewing and reflecting on your documentation materials. It can be useful to consider what you know, what you don’t yet know and what you would like to find out more about. Gathering clues about children and then asking rich, deep questions adds great value to the development of any inquiry project.
• Give children time to be curious, to wonder, and to discuss and adjust or change their opinions.

This fact sheet was developed by the Early Years Unit at VCAA

This fact sheet was developed by the Early Years Unit at the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) and supports information presented in the VCAA on-demand webinar ‘A pedagogy of inquiry to support integrated teaching and learning approaches’. Watch A pedagogy of inquiry to support integrated teaching and learning approaches webinar video.

References

Duckworth, E 1996, The having of wonderful ideas and other essays on teaching and learning, Teachers College Press, New York
Edwards, C, Gandini, L and Forman, G (eds.) 2012, The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Experience in Transformation, 3rd edn, Praeger, Santa Barbera
Moss, P 2019, Alternative Narratives in Early Childhood, Routledge, Oxfordshire
Touhill, L 2012, ‘Inquiry-based Learning’, NQS PLP e-Newsletter, No. 45

Using the VEYLDF to inform your practice

As part of the Education and Care Services National Law (National Law) and the National Quality Standards, the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) is an approved learning framework. As an approved learning framework, it has the potential to make you a better educator and your practice more contemporary.
The VEYLDF allows us to reflect on learning and development outcomes for children. As educators, we can reflect on our own practice in supporting all children by considering if our work aligns with the Practice Principles. The VEYLDF provides us opportunities to inform our pedagogical decisions and to critique or challenge our existing practices.
The VEYLDF also provides a shared language and understanding for all early childhood professionals and can inform conversations with families, colleagues and other professionals working with young children.

Additional resources that might be useful

Download copies of VCAA early years resources.
Keep up to date with new resources and professional learning opportunities by subscribing to the VCAA Early Years Alert.
A pedagogy of inquiry to support integrated teaching and learning approaches
Download the fact sheet

‘The hands lead us to learning’: Enhancing and extending children’s fine motor development through playful learning experiences

This fact sheet is for educators who want to better understand:

• how educators can think more broadly and deeply about fine motor development in infants and children
• the interplay between fine motor development occurring in play and in relationships with adults, caregivers and peers
• the importance of routines as learning experiences with embedded fine motor learning opportunities.

Introduction

Children’s fine motor skill development – that is, their ability to use their hands – is strongly connected to their play.
Infants’ efforts at motor control commence early. An example of this is the infant who actively reaches towards the face of a person who is physically close to them and engaged in a responsive and attuned relationship with them; the adult, carer or older sibling is perhaps smiling and ‘cooing’ while they are focusing their gaze on the face of the child, who reaches out towards their face.
We understand, in general terms, that the progression of motor development occurs from the centre of the body to the periphery, known as proximodistal progression, or from larger motor control to finer movements. However, over time we have gained a more balanced and nuanced understanding of motor development and we can now see early fine motor development before trunk control is consolidated. Gross motor development leading to core stability and support remains foundational, but earlier attention is now given to fine motor endeavours of infants, with an appreciation that ‘the hands lead us to to learning’.
We understand that gross motor development and fine motor development occur simultaneously and in the context of responsive relationships and purposeful learning spaces. Adults engaging in contingent and attuned interactions with infants provide ‘serve and return’ opportunities and rich responsive learning experiences. Children actively engage, using their growing fine motor dexterity and strength alongside their learning in other developmental domains such as language and cognitive capabilities. It is the interplay between these supportive relationships and children’s growing capabilities that fosters children’s wellbeing. This is now understood to increase the likelihood that infants will confidently explore their world and this exploration is in large part through their hands.

Can you explain the relationship between gross motor skill development and fine motor skill development? How does one support the other?

When we consider that gross motor skill development and fine motor skill development occur simultaneously, we can see the importance of early childhood professionals providing positive and responsive interactions and relationships throughout the day. The way the early childhood professional engages with the infant or young child provides opportunities to progress development.
The early childhood professional who ensures regular ‘tummy time’ is providing opportunity for infants to strengthen muscles, leading to greater core stability. This core stability is foundational to the later skills of sitting up, crawling and walking. These are important skills indeed, however, there is a need to balance this ‘tummy time’ with opportunities for the infant to be positioned on their back, or in a supported sitting position, where they are freely able to explore with their hands.
Thinking of fine motor development at its beginning stages helps us to actively create opportunities for children to explore with their hands. This in turn promotes children’s sense of agency and wellbeing, which is often associated with using their hands. The more children actively do, the more they feel that they can build, create, explore and express themselves.
We are often quite mindful of assessing children’s physical skills progression. Learning experiences, including playful routine times, provide golden opportunities to assess children’s sequential fine motor development from reaching and releasing, from palmer grasping to pincer gripping and so on. Progression along trajectories of learning (including motor skill learning) becomes apparent and provides the basis for tailored learning experiences.
It is important to consider children who require additional support with gross and fine motor skills. Thoughtful planning ensures we set up environments in which all children can feel confident in developing their gross and fine motor skills and feel a sense of agency and control. As we delight in their endeavours, with thoughtful planning we can build children’s sense of wellbeing, identity and connection to their world. Children become able to confidently explore and engage with social and physical environments through relationships and play.

What kind of playful fine motor learning experiences should educators consider when setting up early learning environments for children three to five years old? What are some effective playful strategies for supporting fine motor development?

Three to five years is a fabulous age for more complex play scenarios, with children using multiple learning domains simultaneously and in increasingly sophisticated ways. Again, ‘the hands lead us to learning’ and this is expressed in so much more than just writing and drawing. Indeed, children are extending and consolidating an increasing range of skills at this age.
The work of researchers Susan Knox (2008), and Karen Stagnitti and Louise Jellie (2006), can be used here to consider planning for play in reference to four elements: Space management, Materials management, Pretend play and Participation. This research, while based in occupational therapy, aligns well with the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) and places children’s wellbeing at the centre of play. Practitioners are encouraged to consider how to promote participation by all children, inclusive of all abilities, through careful consideration of the environment, materials and pretend-play opportunities. This research provides a thorough and holistic view of children’s learning, recognising that children bring increasing cognition, language, social skills, fine motor development, creativity and agency to their play. Child-led play is key, but the educator must also consider how to promote play opportunities that take children beyond their most frequented play spaces. This requires a more creative use of learning environments, inviting children to participate in spaces and skills they may not have previously sought out independently.
One example is to set up a restaurant, where children are invited to navigate the space and engage with a variety of fine motor skills during a complex pretend-play scenario. This embeds learning in meaningful ways, with multiple learning areas at play. Children can take on various characters while engaging, negotiating and problem-solving. Fine motor skills are practised purposefully as children take written orders, write or draw a menu, cut up paper to make money, set up a cash register, dress up as waiters, pour drinks, prepare food and set up tables. The opportunities are endless and can be tailored to children’s interest and skills to provide challenge, practice and delight. For example, bi-manual skills are promoted in this scenario when opening containers and stirring bowls of food, where hands undertake different tasks at once – one hand holding and stabilising while the other hand turns or stirs.
Educators need only a creative mind in planning for all four elements, and the learning opportunities are endless (‘Early childhood professionals … use intentional teaching strategies that are always purposeful and may be pre-planned or spontaneous, to support achievement of well considered and identified goals’ [VEYLDF p. 15]). Inclusive thinking may see this play space provided outdoors, inviting in children who may be less likely to engage indoors (intentional support strategies also promote equitable participation in play for all children and meaningful ways to demonstrate learning [VEYLDF p. 12]).
A creative and inclusive approach asks us to consider the environment in numerous ways, offering a wide variety of materials, setting up play spaces that invite self-management and challenge, and following the increasingly complex play scripts or pretend-play scenarios of young children.

What are some everyday routines for children that might provide opportunities for supporting fine motor development?

Routines and transition times offer a wealth of fine motor experience and abundant opportunities for promoting children’s agency and self-responsibility. Additionally, they are highly repetitive daily experiences – treasures for practising fine motor skills. Encouraging independent skill development during these times, with warmth and high expectations for children, can turn a range of daily tasks into important learning rituals.
These rituals connect children to their peers and to their space, building confidence, connection and wellbeing. Children’s active participation provides many and varied fine motor movements at different times, such as taking care of their belongings at entry and departure times, dressing and undressing, setting up for meals, toileting and setting up play or rest areas.
Regular communication with families allows the progression in children’s skills to be shared between educators and families. This can reveal collaborative opportunities across home and the early years setting, and align our expectations for children. Playful and routine practice opportunities abound, with partnership between educators and families building children’s confidence and capacities (VEYLDF p. 9).

‘To play or not to play’: The role of the adult in understanding and collaborating in children’s play

This fact sheet is for educators who want to better understand:

• the role of the adult in supporting children’s learning and development through play
• how to build reciprocal relationships where children and adults are co-contributors to the creative process.

When we think about play within the early learning context, we often think of it as being ‘fun’ and occurring naturally – it is often referred to as being universally understood. Is this the case, or is it more complicated than that?

Children’s play encompasses many ways of being and becoming. Play is linked to fun, but this is just one way of being and does not speak to the complexity of play. Fun is fleeting. Parts of play can be joyful, frustrating, exciting, annoying, challenging, hilarious and, at times, uncomfortable. Play includes many emotions and experiences. Sometimes children are excluded from other children’s play – is this fun? What children are doing in play is complex – navigating limbs, expressing ideas, listening to others, creating novel worlds and negotiating with peers. Therefore, the emotions and feelings that children experience are varied.
Children are experimenting with and expressing their worlds, and the collaborative activity of play requires many skills. Ebbeck and Waniganayake (2016) tell us that in play ‘children are constructing an identity – who they are, what they know and what their joys and fears are, as well as their sense of belonging to a family and a community’ (p. 3). This understanding captures the richness of play, which is not limited to one way of being. Seeing children’s play as multifaceted allows educators to holistically understand children in the early childhood context.
Play is a universal activity that children engage in, as reflected in the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989). But while there are similarities that occur in children’s play across the world, when we look at and hear what children are doing and expressing in their play, we see that it is also informed by their culture. For example, in dramatic play, being ‘Bluey’ or making cakes in the sand pit are activities that are directly taken from the child’s day-to-day culture. The people, places, objects, practices and rituals in the child’s culture fuel their play, and play is thus an expression that reflects the culture the play is taking place within.
Children bring into the early childhood setting individual, family and community experiences that reflect their culture, giving educators a rich tapestry to understand the child’s perspective of their world. Roopnarine’s (2011) quote is helpful to understand the links between play and culture: ‘A fundamental problem with universal claims about play is that they basically ignore contrasting realities of childhood experiences and cultural forces that may help shape caregivers ideas about play and early learning, and children’s role in their own play.’ (p. 20)

Given that there are many different theories that inform our approaches to children’s learning and development, does the role of the adult vary in supporting children’s development in play?

Theories can inform teaching practice, as being able to hold other ideas and perspectives allows us to see things differently. Theory is helpful for understanding the world around us, and in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) context, theories can inform and change our practice.
Developmental theories are varied and vast, and contemporary framings have become quite different from the more foundational knowledge, reflecting the diversity of our societies. The field is not stuck on linear and fixed stages. Practitioners work with the children in their care, taking into consideration their contexts, environments and families, and using various theories and research to inform their practice.
Teaching practice varies, and theory and research can assist educators’ practice. For example, contemporary theories remind us that children’s play is not simply something that happens naturally; these theories consider group dynamics, equity, social justice, advantage and disadvantage, and the way power moves between the players. They also explore the ways that understanding children’s lives outside the early childhood setting can inform teaching and program planning. Contemporary theories can open us up to other views, and while many of these have existed for a very long time, they haven’t always been prioritised to think about children, context, difference and learning.

How can we ensure that the play opportunities we create for children help build collaborative and reciprocal relationships between adult and child?

The following diagram from page 15 of the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) shows the three aspects of integrated teaching and learning, and holds great clues about the educator’s role in children’s play.
📷
This diagram can be used by educators and teams to reflect on their practice. Guided play and learning prioritise the educator responding to spontaneous learning opportunities. Reciprocal two-way exchanges create a balance of children guiding adults, and adults guiding children in dialogue and action. This becomes an improvisation that follows unknown paths, opening up opportunities to collaborate by creating something that did not exist before. When adults are playful with children, multiple perspectives are valued in the collaborative space.
Thinking of educators as co-contributors to the creative process of play speaks to the notion of responding to children’s interests. However, it is useful to adapt this slightly to instead think about responding to the child’s learning. Interests can be transient and surface-level; focusing on children’s learning is more expansive and process-orientated, as learning involves both thinking and enacting through play. This way of working asks educators to respond to spontaneous opportunities that arise, and play affords this responsive practice. Play is a relational activity between children and place, children and objects, children and children, and between children and adults.
Educators are respectfully cognisant of not wanting to take over too much control of children’s play, and when they improvise with children, finding a balance of following and leading, they can incorporate multiple children’s ideas and wonderings in the embodied play narratives. When teachers make use of children’s expertise, it supports children’s agency as their decisions influence the current events within the play. The playful interactions between the educator and children are fluid and unpredictable, mirroring drama pedagogue’s use of an improvised inquiry. Of course, we would not advocate that the educator enters children’s play all the time; this does not align philosophically with play and the ECEC context. However, at times, being a co-player with children speaks to a responsive pedagogy where creative collaborations can occur in play.

What is the relationship between play and learning?

When adults engage in play with children, they can incorporate formative assessment to develop their understandings of the children and inform their planning. Socio-dramatic play is one way children express their imagination. When educators are with children, they are hearing and seeing children’s imaginations enacted, giving rich information about their learning. In play, children are also blocking out other distractions to problem-solve in the moment, and taking on other perspectives, both from other players and in their own role-play. These are all skills that are linked to our executive function, which is the ‘process of how we learn’ (Yogman et al. 2018, p. 6).
When educators are respectfully engaging with children in play, they are part of the collaboration, co-creating something that is novel and only exists between the people in this activity. If educators are only observing from the outside, how can they understand this process? When educators are part of children’s play, they are in the heart of the learning, and it can open up opportunities for understanding children’s working theories and learning processes. What the educator notes when they engage in the play can be documented as part of the planning cycle, and analysed so that understanding the child’s learning within play is extended through planning.

I (M18) went for a movie with friends. After the movie everyone collectively decided to have lunch together and I tagged along with them. They went to a rather expensive restaurant and after seeing the menu I decided I would rather not spend my parents' money on food that I probably won't like. I'm also pretty introverted and my social circle is limited to a few close friends, most of whom didn't come for the movie. I was the only one who left early. Should I have stayed with everyone else? Was I the asshole for leaving early?