Sunday, July 31, 2011

Dig and map

I've got a problem. See, I built a lighthouse:



I had to put in cactuses during construction to stop spiders from climbing in over the unfinished walls. Stupid spiders!



Obviously, I want a light on top of the lighthouse; I mean, without a light, it's just a house. That used to be easy, but now that Notch (you know, this guy) fixed fire, it's no longer possible to have a permanent fire using just wood. What I need is netherrack, which will burn infinitely. The problem? You can only get that in hell. And to build a portal to hell, you need either lava or obsidian.

Now, there's lava over at my other tower, but that's far away and besides, the last time I had anything to do with that lava, I died. So I'm sticking to my old digs. And when I say digs, I mean this dig:



My goal is to eventually reach the bottom of the map, for a proper chasm. On the way there, I'll definitely run into some lava, which will let me build a portal to hell. There's all sorts of interesting things you can do with portals, which are intriguing in connection to another project I'm thinking about.

Now, as anyone who's played Minecraft knows, mining ain't easy. Here's what I stumbled across in my big dig:



Yup, that's me looking down into a cave with a Creeper in it. Turns out, not only is there a Creeper, but there are several skeletons as well. Now, am I going to drop down into that death cave of death to be murderlized by skeletons and creepers? Hell no.

Hey creeper! You think you're going to blow me up?



Think again.



It's really hard to explain how satisfying that is. Especially since creepers aren't nearly as big a problem now as they used to be. Way back when, I have "fond" memories of hunkering down in a barely secure dugout or tiny wooden cabin, listening to the zombies zomb and watching the creepers creep, and then running like crazy in the morning to get away from the fucking exploding cacti before they destroy me and everything I've built. Before I tidied it up a little, the ground in front of my door looked like it had been shelled by Schwerer Gustav. But then this came along:


That's right, beds. Now if you mosey on inside around sunset and bed down before it gets dark enough for monsters to spawn, the game skips the night altogether and lands you safely in next morning, with nary a creeper in sight. So now, while all this is going on, you just sleep:



And wake up to a pristine world without creepers hiding behind corners. Blah. It's all so easy for you young 'uns! Why, when I built my first tower...

When Minecraft makes it to the XBox, blowing up a creeper with TNT has to be an achievement.

**

I have to be honest, though: even with all these explosive shenanigans, mining solid rock isn't really all that interesting in itself. I'm in it for the end result, not so much the process, even if there is a certain meditative quality to it. So every now and then, I take a break from the mining to explore side projects. This time, I've been mapping!


The silver arrow is where I'm at, and it's currently at my first ever base. Just to the right of it is my first tower. Here's a more complete view of the area around my spawn point:


You can actually see my tower and the walkway leading away from it. Oddly, on these maps north is left. Notice some ice at the lower right corner! As you can tell from those two maps, the wooded hill to the left of my tower is where my main base is, and the underground passages I'm digging lead east of there. The lighthouse is a little to the north of the hill.

**

All this is well and good, but how about mapping something a little more epic? Like maybe Epic Island?


It's good to be back!

Maps, however, don't make themselves. You need redstone, iron and paper, and while I've got the first two in quantity from my mining operations, paper is a different beast. Through excellent foresight, by which I mean a lucky accident, I took some reeds with me and planted them next to my tower to get that sweet, sweet paper:


And once that's done, here we go!



The way the map works is simple: as you walk around holding it, it fills in. So the way to map Epic Island is to walk around on it, and as I'm doing so, I'm struck again by how freaking big it really is. Here's some sights from along the way, starting with a very unlikely geological formation:



A nice view from the coast, about directly north of Twin Tower:



And this epic snow-covered mountain, a sure site for a construction project:



That shot also gives you a fair idea of how mapping works. The plains in the middle of the main part of the island are full of sinkholes and caves:



The map actually takes up quite a bit of the screen when you're holding it, and you can't see directly below you, making it amazingly easy to walk right into one of those.

Finally, here's the more or less finished product:



That giant thing is Epic Island. And no, it won't fit on the map. To give you an idea of the sheer scale involved, my Blood Bowl pitch is in the lowermost part of Epic Island, the bit that's connected to the island proper by a sort of isthmus, at the extreme right. Snow Base, on the other hand, is just beyond the ice at the very top right-hand corner, slightly off the map. Twin Tower is just east of the cursor in the middle of the screen and can actually be seen as a tiny brownish-gray dot on the map. The white area at the eastern edge is the snow-covered mountain in the previous picture.

So yeah, it's huge. No wonder I couldn't circumnavigate the damn thing! Still haven't, by the way. The two maps don't quite fit together, but this is a fair approximation:



That's most of the world I've seen so far. I want to venture out and see a lot more of it, but I'm kind of holding back in anticipation of the great adventure update, which is coming at some point. If they're going to be adding loads of new stuff specifically as incentives to go adventuring, then surely there's no point in not waiting? So for the moment, my exploration of my Minecraft world is on hold. There's a lot to do before the great adventure update, though, so I'll be back soon...

In the meantime, if you want more Minecraft-related entertainment, got take a look at Far Lands or Bust; for background, take a look at the Far Lands page on the Minecraft wiki. It's pretty awesome.

Weak Sunday Television

Sunday television was not all that good this week.  Quick stuff about the three shows I watched.

The Glades
The show is going downhill with the whole Jim and Callie being awkward towards each other.  This episode was about a killer at a Pentecostal church.  They tried very hard to push one character on us and anyone with half a brain knew it was the other person.  The only positive was Jim completely mocking their religious beliefs.
Dear The Glades, please stop making Kiele Sanchez look less hot on the show...THANKS!

True Blood
All sorts of stupid shit in this one.  The witches are everywhere, Lafayette is possessed by Jesus' uncle and Marnie is possessed by that chick the vampires killed.  Tommy becomes a skinwalker and does the only cool thing he will ever do:  turn into Sam, fire Sookie, and have sex with Luna.  Tara and her girlfriend check out the town, then get attacked by Pam.  I hope Pam kills them both.  Terry and Arlene's house burns down, their kid can see some black chick.  Whatever, I wish they would die.  The werewolves are joining a new pack, yay!  Lame.

At least Eric was entertaining.  He bowed down to a super-dickish Bill and then Bill lies to whatshername and says that he needs the true death.  Then frees him to go have sex with Sookie.  The best part of the episode was Jason thinking he was going to turn into a werepanther.  I loved when he and Jessica had their bonding moment.  I cannot wait until they bang and Hoyt becomes angry.

Breaking Bad
I do not want to say this was a bad episode because it was not bad, it was just slow.  I am hoping that Hank snaps out of being an uber-deusche and becomes completely immersed with working on the case (instead of focusing on minerals).

An entire episode about the buying of a car-wash was not the way to follow up last week's beat down of Walt.  I actually felt bad for the car-wash guy.  Just listen to Saul and buy a nail salon.  I also enjoyed Jesse's cool party.  That seems like my kind of crowd.  And by my kind of crowd, I mean, that shit would freak me the fuck out if I walked into that party.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Matrix Video



I was watching The Matrix Revolutions last night and realized that it was not as terrible as most people make it out to be.  Also, I hope the next Superman movie has a great fight scene.  Hopefully they use a villain who has similar powers to Superman, so they can get pretty crazy with the flying & fighting.  Time will tell...

Friday, July 29, 2011

Ancient Aliens Season Three

I just watched the new season of Ancient Aliens, which was about aliens and the old west and was brought to you by Cowboys and Aliens.  There were plenty of clips from the movie, which if you did not know has a pretty entertaining history behind it.

Pretty much everything in the episode was stuff that had been discussed before on UFO Hunters.  Especially the Aurora, Texas incident.  Everything I have read about the incident seems to point to the idea that the whole thing was a hoax by the journalist living in the town. 

They pointed to the ground-penetrating radar that seemed to show a missing grave, where the alien is supposedly buried.  I am sure old graveyards around the country have graves that are missing markers.  If people really believed it was an alien, how come no one has broken the law and went out at midnight to dig the damn thing up?  The town should want to dig it up to prove their case.  Instead they are content receiving the camera crews every few years and probably a couple of amateur alien hunters.

Then they go to the Utah petroglyphs and how they show that aliens landed there and the local people were Star People or something.  Again, this was something I have heard before from these kind of shows.  Here is the big one they like to show:

Clearly, those are helmets and that thing in the background is a garbage can.  I am not an expert in Native American glyphs, so I have no clue what they mean.  I can see where people would take what they have seen from movies and apply it to these pictures as well.  This could just be some artists attempt to draw the gods.  Or it could be some shitty artist hot girls.

Then they point to this picture and explain how it must be an alien spacecraft.  It is quite clear if you examine it.

Wanna know what it looks like to me?  The ghosts from Pac-Man.  Remember that game?  Well some of you probably do, but those of you under the age of 25 may be ignorant to Atari games.

There was also some weird stuff about Elizabeth Lake in California and how there was a monster in the lake that used to eat people.  Also, cowboys used to chase down a metallic bird and could not kill it. 

Pretty much every lake has some story about monsters (okay not all of them, but it seems like it) and maybe these cowboys just kept missing whatever they were shooting at, or maybe they were just completely full of crap.  I am going with that option, seems more viable.

They also discussed the Serpent Mound and how it was built by aliens (or for the aliens) so they could find their way back.  I had this argument with someone on twitter:  if the aliens could travel billions of light-years across the universe, why would they need some kind of mound to give them directions?  His answer:  landmarks work best.  Yeah, when I drove to North Carolina, it was easier to look for a big oak tree than a mile marker or say, use my GPS.  Ridiculous.  They can navigate the stars, yet once on a planet, they cannot find the places they have been before?  Idiotic.

Also, there was something about this slabs of dolomite that could conduct electricity and the gods must have used these to power their ships or maybe give the ancient people lights.  Or maybe their fuel source was lightning and this guides the lightning...I had no clue what they were rambling about.  Reminded me of an issue of something you would read in the Flash. 

Most of this stuff seems pretty crazy, but then you add in Joseph Smith.  The founder of the Mormon Church.  If you want your theory of ancient aliens to be taken seriously, I say keep referencing Joseph Smith.  People obviously think the Mormons are sane...

Cowboys & Aliens Mash-up Smash!

The Verdict
GO SEE!

REVIEW:
Yes, cowboys and aliens are in the same movie as well as James Bond and Indiana Jones!

Cowboys and Aliens (based on a graphic novel) is easily the coolest movie of the summer.
Daniel Craig (the newest 007: 2006-present, this is his Steve McQueen cowboy moment (who he eerily resembles). Gone of course is his British accent, replaced with an American one. It's weird to hear but pretty decent sounding.) is meant to play silent but tough cowboy Jake Lonergan who wakes up in an Old West town with no memory and an alien device on his arm that lights up and can blast stuff. Co-star, or maybe the real star, the great Harrison Ford (The Fugitive, Indiana Jones series) is the gruff, no-nonsense Colonel Dolarhyde whose son is abducted by the aliens (referred to as "demons" and "monsters" by the townsfolk) when they take half of the town one night. Longeran and Dolarhyde clash at first but team up together to get their people back from the aliens. 
The aliens (made from great CGI!) are very cool--- they're not the stereotypical "little green men"--- they are slimy, tall, muscular, mean as hell and have two sets of arms! 
There's also a great twist near the ending involving Olivia Wilde's  (Tron: Legacy) mysterious Ella character.
Cowboys & Aliens looks authentically Western with a saloon, Indians, stagecoach robbers and lots of desert and authentically alien with the alien's cool dragonfly-esque looking space ships that zoom down like lightning to take people and the huge mother ship where they house humans to be dissected. 
Cowboys and aliens within the same movie may sound preposterous and silly but it's anything but--- and nothing but fun!
Here's to a Cowboys & Aliens sequel (the ending leaves the perfect set up for one), Craig starring in more cowboy flicks and maybe another cool movie genre mash-up. 
Samurai and Zombies anyone?



Trailer:


*Fun Film Facts*

~Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes series) was the original actor wanted for the Jake Lonergan character Daniel Craig plays.





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Deranged Devil's Double

The Verdict:  
GO SEE!

REVIEW: 
Dominic Cooper's (Mamma Mia!, The History Boys) wonderfully deranged performance as Uday Hussein in The Devil's Double has Oscar-worthy written all over it!
Cooper invokes the evil spirit of Saddam Hussein's brutal son who picks up and rapes school girls, rapes brides on their wedding day and kills anyone who disagrees with him.
Cooper's depiction of Uday Hussein is so real, it feels like you are watching the horrors once acted out by the real life Hussein! 
Cooper is so brilliant he is able to to portray another character within the same film--- Latif Yahia--- the man Hussein forces to be his body double. In playing Latif, Cooper invokes a sensitive yet strong and rational character. It's very amazing to watch him switch on the crazy Hussein then switch on the calm Latif. At some points I thought there were two separate actors playing them because it was just too unbelievable to see Cooper's dual role.
This disturbing based-on-a-true-story film and Dominic Cooper's intense, dazzling performance will  stick with you long after you leave the theatre--- whether you like it or not!




 
 
 
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Pictures of Deer

Can't get enough deer?  They're very popular lately and it is one thing the BC-HF team pursue the way some might be interested in furthering their professional careers.  Deer have beautiful structures, an ancient presence in folklore, and big ears to compliment their narrow snouts.
Deer can be given cutesy a persona, but some of the most striking images of deer are creepy ones.

Other creepy animals include bears, horses, and sloths, but horned creatures give off a very imposing vibe.










Often you see illustrations of grown deer with white spots, but only a few breeds retain spots into adulthood, and they are the Fallow Deer, the Axis Deer and the Visayan Spotted Deer.


And if the deer alone aren't doing it for you, here are some images of Audrey Hepburn her pet deer.








Girlfriend of the Week

I am feeling lazy this week, so your GOTW is Eliza Dushku, who is hot and that is the only reason I have.  Sorry...



Thursday, July 28, 2011

Some reading on Norway

I'm working on a longer post on what happened in Norway in Finnish. I'll try to return to the topic in English later. For now, here's some recommended reading:

New York Times: Breivik and His Enablers
What has become clear in Oslo and on Utoya Island is that delusional anti-Muslim rightist hatred aimed at “multiculturalist” liberals can be just as dangerous as Al Qaeda’s anti-infidel poison: Breivik alone killed many more people than the four Islamist suicide bombers in the 7/7 London attack of 2005.


Guardian: Anders Breivik's chilling anti-feminism

Breivik's introduction is entirely given over to a half-baked history of political correctness, "no aspect" of which, he tells us, is "more prominent … than feminist ideology". The PC-project is bent on "transforming a patriarchy into a matriarchy" and "intends to deny the intrinsic worth of native Christian European heterosexual males". But more than that, it has succeeded. The "feminisation of European culture" has been underway since the 1830s, and by now, men have been reduced to an "emasculate[d] … touchy-feely subspecies".


The Nation: Europe's Homegrown Terrorists

Unlike Muslims in the wake of Islamist attacks, Christians weren’t called upon to insist upon their moderation. No one argued that white people had to get with the Enlightenment project. But the bombings—and the presumptions about who was responsible—suggest that the true threat to European democracy is not Islam or Muslims but, once again, fascism and racists.


New York Times: Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them, as well as copying multiple passages from the tract of the Unabomber.


BBC: Norway and the politics of hate

Back in 1985, I was in the US reporting on the emergence of right-wing militias. They were springing up across the Mid-West. Some were little more than gun clubs. Others trained men in uniform.

They believed that their idea of America was under threat. Many saw the federal government in Washington as the enemy, staffed with officials who were betraying America's core values.

A strong strain of paranoia ran through their conversation and publications. I recall a man showing me a grainy photograph, claiming it proved there were secret Russian bases in Michigan.

Most of this reflected the margins of a society and could easily be dismissed. But the idea that his government was the real enemy worked away inside the mind of a young man called Timothy McVeigh. Sometime later he packed a van with fertiliser and diesel fuel and blew up the federal building in Oklahoma, killing 168 people.


And, finally, The Colbert Report.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Links and Videos and Stuff

I have nothing to write about...well nothing that has not been said by better folks than me.  So whatever.

The Pirates
As everyone knows by now, the Buccos lost in a crazy game where the umpire blew the call.  If you checked all the blogs in my links section, they all had something to say about it.  None of them say it nearly as well as WHYGAVS.  That is just pure emotion...

Comic-Con
I was pretty uninterested in the happenings of SDCC this year.  It is crazy to think that I used to want to go there so bad, yet now I have no real interest in it.  I still love comics, but the idea of going there and watching movie previews seems a little insane.  I think it used to be about comics, now who knows what it is...anyways, read Filmdrunks last photo diary from SDCC, pretty cool.

Noah's Ark


This video is pretty funny, a little long though.  Brought to you by:  XKV8R.

Miss USA
Over at Sean's site, he posted this video, which is a great parody of the actual Miss USA contestants answering the question about should evolution be taught in schools.





Stupidity amazes me.

New Movies Playing!


Cowboys & Aliens
What's It About?
Cowboys--- led by one who wears a strange device on his arm--- and aliens battling it out.
 

Trailer:

PREDICTION:
"Cowboys + Aliens in the same movie?!? Super cool and fun plot! It looks like non-stop action! Newest Bond Daniel Craig is perfect playing an old school cowboy and the always great Harrison Ford is just as perfect as his co-star. This is the movie of the summer!"



*


The Devil's Double


What's It About?
Based on the true story of the man who was the body double for Hussein Saddam's oldest son.
 

Trailer:

PREDICTION:
"It looks very good--- very reminiscent of Scarface in the money, power and women aspect--- but with terrorism in the mix."






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Good Neighbors

What's It About?
A killer is on the loose in a neighborhood causing suspicions to arise among neighbors who the killer is.
 

Trailer:

PREDICTION:
"Very creepy plot. Even though it looks straight-to-dvd with the B list actors, it looks surprisingly good."




*
 
The Future
What's It About?
When a couple adopts a hurt cat--- who can talk--- their lives are turned upside down.
 

Trailer:

PREDICTION:
"It looks very very very quirky. A talking cat?!? Should be interesting and fun!"








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Crazy, Stupid, Love
What's It About?
A divorced 40 something year old man gets relationship advice from a ladies' man 20 something year old man on how to win his wife back.
 

Trailer:

PREDICTION:
"It looks fun enough. The cast is great! Steve Carell playing a loser is nothing new but it should be very fun to watch Ryan Gosling play a stud."






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The Guard
What's It About?
An unlikely pairing of an Irish police officer and a black FBI agent--- join forces to stop drug smuggling in Ireland.
 

Trailer:

PREDICTION:
"The plot is very uninteresting but it looks pretty funny."






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The Smurfs
What's It About?
Those blue creatures called Smurfs--- come to life on the silver screen.
 

Trailer:

PREDICTION:
"The Smufs CGI-ed are very cute but having them lost in New York City takes away from their story."




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Attack the Block
What's It About?
Hooligan teens in London fight against invading aliens.
 

Trailer:

PREDICTION:
"Super bad plot! And it doesn't even look a little bit fun or funny."







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The Myth of the
American Teenager
What's It About?
Adventures of a group of teens before their new school year begins.
 

Trailer:

PREDICTION:
"It looks sweet but nothing new from this coming-of-age teen movie."










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E N J O Y
*the*
M O V I E S
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