a figure waits in the shadow, someone drowned in the lake

Miss Inara Pey came up with a brilliant idea that Linden Labs is never, ever going to implement. And let me make this clear, it's not because it wouldn't be effective at keeping them tied in and maintaining the relevance of their virtual world. It would, simply and solely, be due to the Labs not being able to see other virtuals worlds without thinking they have to do better. Same thing with them seeing other virtual shopping spaces for SL, and thinking they had to buy them out and kill them.

It'd be a great thing if they could make it work. They won't, though. More's the pity.

Sadly, this candle is not for sale, but I'm also pondering how hard that would be to script in-world. Melting candles are possible; internal sculpts inside other sculpts are possible; this could be done. But--how difficult would it be?

News from City of Heroes--they're plotting out a steampunk pack for more costume/prop additions. Scroll down in that thread to see some really impressive pictures. Projected release date: June 1st (though it might be delayed if there are implementation problems).

So now--more Minecraft!

(from the Minecrafting album)

On one world, sadly lost to me now, I'd spawned on a beach and then, when wandering, discovered a high bluff overlooking a surface breach of lava. The lava made the trees in the valley burn, and I discovered I was so charmed by the 'eternal forest fire', that I would replant trees just to watch them go up.

The only down side--animals would wander in and burn to death. In this shot, you can just make out a burning sheep on the right-hand side, near the cliff face.

(from the Minecrafting album)

At first, I didn't have that much to work with--I dug a hole in the ground, hid until morning, dug out, and then began to build. The first house was straight earth, then I added windows. I thought it would be a simple architectural detail to add 'stripes' of glass interspersed with stripes of earth, which grassed over, being exposed to the sun.

Something I forgot--any patch of grass, indoors and out, can spawn animals. So suddenly, I had wandering cows, pigs and sheep on my new roof.

(from the Minecrafting album)

One of the things I loved about that world, and that house, was the view. I even built out a little lip of brick for mobs to walk on, in front of the windows.

So I could watch them burrrrn. Vindictive? No. I just enjoy watching things die that want me to die. That's fair, innit?

From Minecrafting

Soon after the introduction of what Notch called biomes for the game, I downloaded a new Painterly pack to update to the new changes. One of the changes that didn't work--and kept failing to work, though never this stunningly, right up until 1.5--was biome grass. In this picture, the tops are tinted to match some variety of grass that I've never seen even in sf shows. The hell.

Even worse? It wasn't even supposed to be grass; it was supposed to be snow!

(from the Minecrafting album)

It really didn't look any better by moonlight than by daylight. It was just slightly less bright.

(from the Minecrafting album)

My first attempt at a tree world was on the same world as Monolithia; but it was also before bone meal could be made from bones, and used as fertilizer for saplings. It never filled in the way I wanted.

(from the Minecrafting album)

This was the interior--wide, arching trees and glass, four stone columns with torches to hold up the roof. The floor was sturdy wooden planks. The center of the room was a raised platform with a white fluffy mattress--my first 'bed' ever in the game. It was pretty.