gmonkey42

AND I was carrying my diamond sword and pickaxe at the time and I'd just found about four more diamonds and a crap-ton of redstone. Now it's all gone ;___;

On the plus side, I have a new icon. Three Creeper Moon.

MINECRAFT UPDATE

So I started a third world just to get a look at the biomes after the Halloween Update (the worlds that were created before the update don't have biomes) but today I played my main world, the one I posted pictures of before.

I've expanded the mine cart system to actually work for transportation. But I need to get some more iron to make more tracks because I need to place one more booster. It's a subway between my house and the adjacent island, where I'm building a castle. It works OK but it's tricky to time it right, sometimes I push the cart and I don't manage to jump in before it passes the booster and takes off. I think I need more running-up room before the booster. Got to make more tracks for that.

And I'm going to make a depot in the middle so I can have more tracks going to a third island where I'm digging a big pit. I thought it would be cool to dig into a cave from above, so you have the sunlight to kill the monsters. But so far it's just been solid rock. However, one unexpected bonus is some pigs and a cow fell in. Free pork and leather! I put it back on Easy mode, hoping some spiders would spawn on the island and I'd get some more string but then I went over to my main mine and there were two skeletons and I hadn't brought any weapons so I put it back on Peaceful mode in a hurry. I did manage to get to a safe hiding place before they shot me. They actually shot each other a little. I was hoping I could just wait in my hole for them to kill each other but they lost interest. Dang skeletons.

I have also visited THE NETHER, but so far only on Peaceful mode. So I haven't seen a Ghast yet. I don't mind putting that off for a bit. I collected some of that gold dust. But there's nothing you can do with it yet.

Seriously, I'm not going to spend the day in front of the computer again tomorrow because I have to go to the lab for a thesis defense. BUT I did say I was going to post a picture of my house and I can't let you all down, now can I?


I planted some cacti too. And I've devised a system for placing torches to help me find my way back to my base underground. I still get lost though. There have been three times now where I just had to dig my way out and came up under the ocean. I have to plug the hole with a brick so it doesn't start flooding the mine. It won't fill the whole mine like in real life but it'll make a waterfall and make things confusing.

Also I have now mined enough iron ore that I could start making MINE CARTS. I made a video but when I try to upload it to YouTube, it just says it's configuring the video and it never finishes. I'll try again tomorrow.

And then I will go to the lab!

I actually did leave the house today; I was going to meet my classmate from Spanish to practice (and sort of tutor him because let's be honest, I'm the best student in the class apart from the one girl who speaks Spanish as a first language). But he didn't show up! I only waited about 20 minutes - we were going to meet at a cafe so I got a sandwich and tea and sat outside in the little plaza and there was a crazy guy ranting to himself the whole time. So I didn't feel like hanging around for too long.

ETA: OK, the video uploaded! Here it is:

I actually quit playing voluntarily this time. As opposed to quitting when it's midnight and I have to get some sleep because I have class in the morning. I fell in lava twice in a row. And when you fall in lava, all your inventory gets burned up and it's gone forever. I had just mined a bunch of ore and diamonds and about 80 units of red dust! And they're all gone!

The second time, I thought I was doomed after I dug through to an underground waterfall and got swept way down into unexplored caverns. But I dug my way out of that! I even had to kill some zombies and the only weapon I had was a stone sword! I had to use up my good pickaxe getting out, which meant I couldn't dig any ore on the way. So I went back to my house, made another pickaxe and went back in... and fell in lava again. At least I didn't lose as much stuff the second time but I did lose a fair amount of red dust. It only appears near lava, see, so mining it is dangerous. Especially when you're kind of bad at steering with the mouse.

On the plus side, I started a new map (I started it earlier today, I mean; the falling-in-lava occurred in this new map) and this one has islands. I built a sweet house and a dock and I'm working on a wall to keep away the creepers - creepers are vine monsters that explode. They suck. I had to repair my old house twice because creepers exploded parts of it. This one has a stone wall that they can't get over. I also had a boat but I crashed it. It's a known bug that the boat steering is a little wonky. That wasn't really the reason, I just didn't realize it would break if I drove it into a wall. I didn't think I was going that fast! I am better at driving boats in real life. Also at not falling in lava. I have never fallen into lava in real life.

I have got to stop leaning on my desk like that. When I'm just reading/scrolling and not typing, I tend to lean forward on my left arm while I use the mouse with my right hand. I've been using the computer a lot this week and the left side of my back aches. I think it's getting better than it was yesterday but I really have to stop leaning on my left arm.

In other news, if you have Facebook check out this Sims3 app: http://apps.facebook.com/simsocial. I'm not usually into apps but I like this one. I resisted buying Sims2 for a while, and the graphics in Sims3 don't look that much better (which is to be expected). Plus I would need a new computer and there are some major purchases I need to save up for. My car is 13 years old, for example (oh crap, that reminds me, it's overdue for an oil change). Anyway, this and Sims2 will suffice for now.


You know, "app" could also be short for "appetizer." I am definitely into those apps. Mmm, fried things in batter.

As my ridiculously unproductive weekend draws to a close, I'm up to the fan-boat level. So I haven't gotten all that far yet. I actually resorted to looking in a walkthrough because I couldn't figure out how to get past the fire barricade. Turns out there's just a ramp off to one side. Which is good because driving the boat full speed into the fire didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I'll bet I would've found the ramp by myself eventually if those guys didn't keep shooting rockets at me all the time >:(

On the plus side, I killed my first headcrab zombies!

Gordon is not very good at swimming. Maybe his super suit is heavy or something. I'd just like him to be able to tread water, so I can stay on the surface and look around for a minute, without having to steer upwards continuously or keep pressing A to stop him from sinking. I mean, Mario can do it. He can't hold his breath for very long either. Then again, he can take a lot more machine gun fire than I probably could, so I ought to cut him some slack.

I like the controls. Except I always have to switch it to inverted mode for the steering stick. I don't know why. I think old school games where you had to steer with the d-pad like that were inverted. That's just what I'm used to. I don't know if I'm just more into FPSes now but the controls seem a lot more intuitive than in Halo. Then again, whenever I play Halo, I'm like "wait, which button is 'jump'?" and my brother deliberately tells me the wrong one and then kills me. And we share a laugh. I've never played Halo by myself (i.e. without my brother killing me a lot); in Half Life, I can actually switch guns and shoot from cover and stuff!

Or is that like asking "cake: is it delicious?"

I think I want Orange Box - it's only $40 at Target now - but what I really need to know is, is it hard? Because I'm not very good at FPSes. It's hard to tell because my brother plays Halo all the damn time and is really good at multiplayer; he always kills me but I do kill him sometimes. So I'm probably not horrible at FPSes but I know I'm not great at them. If it were just puzzles but with an FPS interface, that would be cool, but I think I'd get frustrated and quit if I kept getting assaulted by headcrabs. Yahtzee liked Portal, and he doesn't like anything. On the other hand, he's probably better at shooting stuff than I am. It took me forever to beat the teddy bear World War II level in Conker's (yes there is a teddy bear WWII level in Conker's Bad Fur Day. The teddy bears are the Nazis. It's a good game but the ending is a little disappointing). So, gamer-friends, is Portal the game for me?

I just think this song is awesome END CREDITS SPOILERS

Check out Cracked.com's "The 10 Most Irritatingly Impossible Old-School Video Games"

That probe droid was hard to kill!

ZOMG! BATTLETOADS! Man, I don't think I ever got past that hoverbike level. In my defense, we didn't own the game, we just rented it occasionally from whatever was the game-renting equivalent of Blockbuster at the time (or was Blockbuster renting out games by then? I don't remember). So I didn't get a lot of time to practice.

You know what else was hard (at least for the 7-year-old I was at the time)? Dragon Warrior. Don't get me wrong, I liked it, I just didn't really get the concept of RPGs. If the slimes didn't get me, a wyvern would. It's not that I didn't get the turn-based combat, it was the upgrading my weapons and armor sufficiently that I had trouble with. I could make it to the first town, where you go up and left a bit, and I bought the leather armor but beyond that I always got killed. And I didn't know what to do with the pond that cured rheumatism. What was that for anyway? I got some cheat codes eventually and wandered around - the Swamp Cave definitely rings a bell - but that wasn't very satisfying.

As with Battletoads, this one wasn't mine, it belonged to a friend so again I didn't get a lot of chances to play it. I did have some games, although I vaguely remember the NES technically belonged to my younger brother. I don't know why. Because girls don't play video games, I guess. I was damn good at Mario 3.

My new outfit:

I'm rich! I have two ships! And a third on the way. All sloops. Another player was quitting and he gave me his sloop, money and potions! AND I found gold ore on an uninhabited island while foraging. I couldn't believe my luck.

I ordered some blue paint to paint the Cowardly Anchovy. It should be ready by now. I had two cans of paint but I lost a pillage and the other ship took some :( Good thing they didn't take my gold!