imagine a city where everything's pretty

Imagine a place you can always escape to
An island off the coast of nowhere
A new destination of your own creation
Just waiting 'til you choose to go there



There is something beneath adminium in Minecraft. I thought--I had been told--that adminium was the lowest level, and absolutely un-mine-able: but I am wrong. Being a game in alpha, not beta, it does have its share of bugs, and this is one. On occasion, blocks in the adminium level will not rez, leaving an empty space reflecting the nothingness of the game beyond.

I wouldn't recommend jumping through to see what happens. I'm fairly sure that would kill you.

Blue tree-tops and velvet skies
Blue, ready to blow your mind
Ooooh...



This is the "missing" adminium seen from the perspective of several glass block floors. The blue is still visible.

This is a place where your mind can escape
All the problems today and go far, far away
This is a time with no history
Welcome to mystery



I built a sky tower in a new world. I'm not sure why, other than to prove it could be done, and I don't have pictures yet. But I do have pictures of the cube sunset, which is--as I've noted previously--not part of "Classic" Minecraft, the current 'free' version of the game.

Imagine a city where everything's pretty
And you sir, you rule the kingdom
You call the shots, you can do what you want to
Oh, just imagine the freedom



And, since I was up there anyway, I waited until moonrise and snapped that, too.

It's very peaceful in the sky tower. No monsters will spawn that high, and no sounds reach me but the occasional music swells. Large slabs of cloud drift through on occasion, rendering everything grey, or pale white, depending on time of day. I have four furnaces, four chests, and a small farm for wheat. I also planted trees, but I haven't cut them down yet. I think I like them better where they are.

Blue tree-tops and velvet skies
Blue, ready to blow your mind
Ooooh...



The same world that has the sky tower has this triple tunnel system. Why three tunnels going in the same direction? It's more to dig out, yes, but it also gives me far more in the way of coal and iron. It used to be iron was rationed because of its inherent scarcity (to me). Now, on that world, I have over 64 pieces. I have two buckets, several hoes for gardening, a few iron shovels, some iron axes for trees, and over thirty iron pickaxes for mining. I feel relatively well-off.

This is a place where your mind can escape
All the problems today and go far, far away
This is a time with no history
Welcome to mystery



An older picture, from before I officially bought the game, but this one still warms my heart: a burning zombie, which means he will soon not be able to leap at my face and kill me. Aww.

Blue tree-tops and velvet skies
Blue, ready to blow your mind
Ooooh...



"This is my...BOOMSTICK!" Actually, no, this is my fishing rod. To make a fishing rod takes three sticks and two pieces of spider string. It lasts for 33 casts--whether you catch a fish or not--though you can "replenish" your rod by building another one and dropping it on top of the first. (The people on Minepedia are fairly sure this is a bug, or an unintentional exploit, that Notch will get around to fixing sooner or later.)

Imagine a room where the flowers, they bloom
Through the cracks in the floor and the ceiling
Just you and the missus, and rose-scented kisses
My, what a wonderful feeling
Ooooh...this...



I don't care what world you're in, fishing takes a while, virtual or not. How to fish in a nutshell: stand in or near water. Right-click to "cast" your bobber and hook out. Wait. Listen for a "splashing" sound. When you hear it, right-click again to "reel in". You'll either get hit in the face with a fish or you'll flip it behind you.

There are those who say this technique can also be used to reel in monsters. Me personally, I don't want any monsters that close, but there you go. Really successful people stand with a basket of rods at the top of a tall pillar and cast and drop, cast and drop, cast and drop. Monsters auto-die when hitting the ground from a great height, and you don't get hurt. I suppose.

This is a place where your mind can escape
All the problems today and go far, far away
This is a time with no history
Welcome to mystery



This is my first sighting of a forest fire, in a new world started last night. It's strangely beautiful, but I'm fairly sure it won't go out until every bit of tree is burnt to nothingness.

This is a place where your mind can escape
All the problems today and go far, far away
This is a time with no history
Feel no misery
Come and visit me.
Welcome to mystery...



And this is the fire by night, seen from a nearby cave (just before I bricked everything up so as not to attract monsters to feast on my tasty brains).

(Lyrics are "Welcome to Mystery", by the Plain White T's, from the Almost Alice soundtrack.)