POG 46: 130,000

My PLOG (Personal Log) continues during this time of pandemic and protests...

More people are getting infected. More people are dying. And Trump continues to lie about it.

How dare he say "totally harmless" when people are infecting other people, leading to health problems and deaths. I can't believe how long Trump has been in office getting away with this nonsense. Over 130,000 people are dead in the US; it should be criminal for Trump to mislead the public like this; it's just insane. This is the reason some people think it'll be safe to re-open schools for in-person learning.

It's not safe. University summer schools, as well as summer sports teams that are practicing, are all finding infections. And then what are they supposed to do? They end up having to stop again. Was the denial really worth getting more people infected, sick, and dying? Sigh. Again, I feel like a broken record.

Time to escape reality for a bit...

We've made great progress in Minecraft. The town is really starting to look like a city... Oh, I can't do this. 130,000 people are dead. The US President is leading a misinformation campaign that allows people to remain in danger and in denial. It's outrageous!

Be safe out there (and I'll be safe at home)!

PLOG 41: Away Mission

My Personal Log (PLOG) continues during this time of pandemic and protests...

Happy Canada Day to those of you celebrating the holiday today. I don't feel like talking about the continuing rising number of infections across the US. I don't want to discuss the couple who pulled guns on the protesters going past their house last week. I don't even want to make fun of Trump and his cronies for their hypocrisy and idiocy. Instead let's escape into Minecraft once again (where I've swapped my "skin" to be me in a Star Trek DS9 uniform)...

Yesterday, I went on an "Away Mission" of sorts - way out to another player's base near the woodland mansion on the server. There were 3 of us, with the goal of taking out all of the villains in the mansion.

It was a lot of fun. The mansions are full of not only baddies, but also interesting structures.

When that was over, and today, I worked on moving my villager breeder at the spawn village "Central City" underground and connected to a building that I decided to call "The Love Shack."

Moving villagers around can be frustrating, but we have a good system down at this point. As per Sprincessa's suggestion, there is a name-tagged zombie in the building to help "cut prices" on the villager trades.

Maybe I should just avoid politics and news and do an entire month of Minecraft updates? LOL.

Be safe out there (and I'll be safe at home, seriously)!

PLOG 19: Purpose

My Personal Log (PLOG) continues during this time of pandemic and protests...

There's so much doom and gloom out there. I realized yesterday's PLOG entry was full of it as well. So today I'm taking a breather from the harsh realities of the real world and making another Minecraft post (though it links up with the real world because it's about PURPOSE).

One of the reasons Minecraft remains in my top 3 favorite video games after all these years is because, as a player, I get to make my own purpose. Some people dislike games like this and only play them for a brief period and then stop, but not me. I'll come up with all kind of roleplay-esque concepts and building ideas and keep going and going. I also credit Minecraft for continuing to give free upgrades to their game, instead of making people pay for "expansions," "DLC," or "sequels."

I designed and made this building. I have a whole city I'm working on with a couple of people on the server. We play in survival mode, which means we have to collect everything we build with - though there are some advantages (like the skeleton spawner, zombie spawner, and spider spawner).

It's fun. It's social. We can have community goals, project goals we work on together, and individual goals. I have my own desert village I'll be working on more later. All of these projects give me purpose in the game, reasons to keep logging on and interacting with the community.

Minecraft is turning out to be a good way to spend some of my vacation time while I am staying indoors avoiding the pandemic. I'm rather proud of my Nether Hub and the community projects.

Be safe out there (and I'll be safe in here)!

PLOG 15: Slaying the Dragon

My Personal Log (PLOG) continued during this time of pandemic and protests...

With the violent threats from society having died down around us, we decided to do something super fun. Today our Minecraft trio (myself, DiceCatt, and Sprincessa) defeated the end dragon!

I wear the pumpkin-head to make sure I don't accidentally anger the Endermen. It was awesome having all of us online, defeating this "boss" in the game. It also means we unlocked our access to the End Islands with more items. I'm sure Sprincessa is out there right now killing Shulkers and collecting End Rods.

I was able to make a chorus fruit (purpur) farm back in the Overworld.

There are so many projects to work on in our Minecraft world. Pre-dragon battle, I spent time making our train tracks and tunnels connecting the Nether Hub. I want to finish several projects in the spawn area (Central City) before focusing on my own stuff out at my own desert village.

It's fun relaxing with friends and not constantly worrying about the real world falling apart.

Be safe out there!

PLOG 2: Emerald Empire

Personal Log (PLOG)
Summer Vacation: Day 2
Pandemic Emergency Day: 72 

For day 2 of my summer vacation I was feeling a bit restless (because I've been working at home for a long time). After some reading, napping, and wasting time on YouTube and Reddit, I finally decided to get back to playing Minecraft. I have a Realms server that we call the...

EMERALD EMPIRE!

It's just a few of us, but we are playing on a great seed. We have a main spawn area and then each person also has a HQ out in the world somewhere. I made a "Central Station" underground at the spawn area (aka Central City), but it's the Nether Hub that really connects everything together. We decided to take it slow with this Minecraft build up and thus we haven't even gone to The End and killed the dragon yet, despite the fact that the server has been running for 2 months now.

That's right. It's basically a pandemic server. I made it once I realized that really, truly, we were in lockdown in our homes. I figured it would be a great time to play some Minecraft.

My buddy, username Sprincessa, recently built an iron farm on the server and that thing is pumping out some iron for us. My main project today was figuring out where it was and connecting the Nether tunnels/portals to its collection room without it messing up her Nether portal for her base, which is very close to the iron farm. She also has a great collection of trading villagers hidden underground. That's the best strategy with Illagers in the game, trying to raid places.

I also spent some of the day out at the Mesa mining more terracotta blocks to use for building. For now, I figure it's easier to use those than to bother making concrete. Eventually I will want concrete colors though since they are so bright. I tend to build more modern buildings so those bright colors and glass look really nice together.

Well, I guess that's it for today other than to say I finished off the leftover Cheesy Chicken Helper I had cooked 2 days ago and cooked some new shrimp and chicken gumbo. Great food. I'm proud of my advancements as a chef.

Peace!

Thoughts: Minecraft 1.11

What have I been thinking about?
Minecraft! It's a combination of my 2 favorite hobbies (Dungeons & Dragons and Lego) in the sense that it creates a digital building environment with adventure elements (and monsters). It's a fun game, but players end up having to create their own purpose/goals while in the game. I usually want to setup survival bases, cities, and underground railroads that connect an empire.

In the past I have played games on my computer, played on servers with friends, and even hosted my own Minecraft Realms server for about 2 years (in which we reset after about a year).

On Twitter there was an announcement that Minecraft version 1.12 was being worked on (with parrots and lots of color additions being added). When I saw that, I decided to check out what has changed with the 1.11 release (since I hadn't played Minecraft in a couple of months). I watched this YouTube video and decided to borrow seed #4 that was showcased:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAW5FPXuPQE

Minecraft 1.11 Seed: -4017869926782671687
I made a survival game on my computer. It's a nice seed because it starts in the plains with a Mushroom Island within viewing distance of spawn. Over the course of just 2.5 days I had a nice setup with a self-sustaining base growing wheat, sugarcane, potatoes, carrots, beats, melons, pumpkins, and netherwart. At the base I also had pigs, cows, chicken, and sheep (in all the colors except for brown - since I hadn't found a jungle yet). I had a "Spawn Station" (setup near the spawn point with my storage room, enchanting, and brewing), a "Central City" (at coordinates X=0, Z=0) started up with a desert temple, and I just found another temple with a desert village nearby. I also found both a skeleton spawner and a zombie spawner. In the Nether I found the fortress (with a blaze spawner) and I created a cobblestone road leading to it. I just got a saddle and I want to go capture some wild horses I saw near the spawn area.

Coordinates:
Spawn: -132, 68, 258 (in Plains Biome, with Mushroom Island in visible range)
6 Diamonds Near Spawn (and lava): -47, 13, 204
3 More Diamonds Near Spawn (and lava): -59, 11, 213
Zombie Spawner (near Mushroom Island): -273, 62, 573
Desert Temple 1: 0, 70, 122

Skeleton Spawner (Near Desert Temple 1): -125, 60, 18

Desert Temple 2: -207, 65, 730

Desert Village (no blacksmith): -236, 64, 821

Future goals for this game: find the end, defeat the end dragon, find the end cities (loot them), find some of the new 1.11 mansions (loot them), and find the rest of the biomes (mesa, ice spikes, jungle).