Mom took a small step in the right direction today. Still a long way from getting out of ICU, but her O2 saturation was 96-98 today without a rebreather unit. She only had one dip into the 80's today. If she holds strong through the night tonight, then they're going to try and back off the oxygen a little and see if she can keep the saturation levels up. Every day that goes by, they'll reduce the oxygen flow a little more until she gets to acceptable levels. Currently, she's at max flow, around 15-16 liters. She'll need to get all the way down to 2-3 liter pressure before they let her out of ICU.

But, she was in good spirits today and coherent for most of the day as well, which was good.

Sorry to hear about your mom. All the best wishes to your family.

Thanks everyone.

She's not responding well to the steroids and antibiotics. They are going to try a different type of both and see if it makes any additional improvement. Basically, the pneumonia and COPD are combining to keep her lungs from absorbing enough oxygen. So, with the mask on at full pressure she's getting enough oxygen, but only just.

I guess we'll know if it's working in the next 24-48 hours. If she slips even just a little, she'll have to go on a respirator, which is pretty much the end of the line.

Uncle Tim and Aunt Jan are flying in tomorrow morning to come see their big sister. I hope that it's a boost of morale she needs instead of a last opportunity to speak with one another.

She may be crazy and strange but she's still Mom, afterall. Meh. Sorry to dump here, guys. Everything just seems to be coming to a head.

Thanks again for the well wishes. Appreciate it.

I am very sorry to hear about that Art. Please pass along to Jo that I will be sending my thoughts out to her for a quick return to good health. She is a fighter, I am sure she will fight her way through it.

D>M>

Best wishes -- hope all is well.

Sorry to hear about your mom Art. I'll be sending positive energy your way.

Sorry to hear that Art, I hope your mom gets well soon. Hope you and the family hang in there.

From the files of: Not to be a downer, but...

Haven't really been talking about it much, but I can use well-wishes and positive energy for my Mom. She's been in the hospital for the last week and is currently in the Intensive Care Unit. She's stable, but only with an oxygen mask set on maximum hospital-grade output, which isn't so good. If they can get the pneumonia under control, then there's some hope that she can get downgraded back to a regular hospital room, and if she can remain stable with a lot less pure oxygen than she's on right now, she may be released from hospital care. I've been going down just about every day for several hours, as have some of her friends from up here in Olympia. We want to be there for her but half the problem is that she won't shut up while we're there, lol. And her talking lowers her O2 saturation.

So, anyway, right now things are a little tenuous. She's a stubborn old bird, so hopefully that translates into her fighting and winning this one.

Thanks for the mindless release and distractions here and in Minecraft.

Man, look at this ARG stuff we missed out on :(

http://www.aperturescience.com/glados@home/

I think you needed/need to collect these hidden "potatos" that were added to all these indie games and once x amount are collected they'll release the game early (although I think me and Jon are assed out, damn you amazone! - I can wait a few days myself)!

Thanks for the pro-tip! I scooped it up for PS3. Man the first one was so good, and the stuff I've seen for this one makes it look like it's gonna live up.

Portal 2 peeps (probably just Jon, amirite?) - Are you getting it for the PS3/PC or just PC? Amazon is giving a $20 credit to the ps3 version (which includes the pc version when you tie your ps3 account to your steam, i think?) that would make it come out to like $35.

They've also had a pretty elaborate ARG going on with a bunch of indie games, adding all these weird potato-themed levels and hidden things. I've played the Super Meat Boy potato stuff, but haven't really kept up with the ARG. If you get 100 bandages you can unlock the miner-dude from Minecraft in Super Meat Boy, see how I brought it all back?

Games. Video, games.

Watched a bunch of episodes of Archer last night before work. I'm usually pretty cold on these new-fangled adult cartoons, but that's some funny shit.

That's pretty awesome. I know that there are at least a few starter mines that we had dug out around the castle's location that have since been covered up. Cool that you stumbled onto some! I like how our first tunnels were all confusing and you'd still get lost anyways. I'm trying to remember to bring signs along so I can label my mines - neat to come across other people's locations by accident.

Epic Adventure Log:

So, ventured into the Lava Lake National Monument or whatever I labeled that damned place as, and wound up getting my ass killed dead again by another skele that plunked me into the lava.

FEH!

For a fresh outlook on life, took the last of my iron and diamonds and made new armor, tools, and set off into a new mine tunnel. Found some HUGE caves with what look like some certain dungeons with a lot of bad guys (probably need at least two guys to get through these, I'm thinking). Anyway, do some very light exploring into those caves but stay on the main line. Wind up breaking through into yet another cave, but this one has... torches and cobblestone? Took me a few minutes to figure out where the "way out" was, climbed my way up through a rough natural cave for a while until I got near the surface and could hear cows. Couldn't find the actual exit, and I'm thinking I'm WAY east of the castle out where no one is.. and at this point, I'm pretty lost and my confidence of getting all the way back down again without dying or turned around is next to zero, lol.

I'm feeling a little anxious because I've actually managed to score a bunch of iron and DIAMONS (holy hell, I hit an 8-diamond vein! weeeee!)

So, I break the immutable law of Minecraft. I start digging up without knowing what is above me and hope and pray I don't dig out into the bottom of the ocean, which would just be my luck. Break through and see sunlight... and some cobble and wood planks in some sort of building I'm digging out right at the edge of?

WHAT THE HELL! I dug myself out RIGHT IN THE CASTLE COURTYARD. Lolz.. I must have mined my way into the first Cave system that Eric was exploring when the Action Team server went live. Too effing funny.

Anyway, neat story. Thought I'd share :)

I feel your pain Art. Last night I popped in to do a little mining when Dennis was on and put together I nice little kit with Diamond Pick, tons of wood and coal, armor, backup iron tools, etc. I get down into my cave and immediately fall off a ledge into a lava pit. Dead in seconds. I was so sad. In other news, Dennis's pad is looking pretty sharp.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO


Spawned in and there was a mob right where I despawned, pushed me into the lava and I lost everything. UGH.

=[

I dicked around a little bit and this thing is getting good! A good amount of iron, and some lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli! I first saw that word in Zork I when I was eight, and thought it was just the craziest fucking word ever.

Ok, I'm throwing in the flag on the lava cave until we can organize a posse. Too many monsters for one dude to handle, not enough non-lava geography to run for your life, lol.

I'm betting we have ourselves a dungeon. Anyone want to take a party of adventurers down there?

The mine tunnel I'm talking about goes out a long way North from the pumpkin mine (towards Eric/Rood territory).

I wouldn't be surprised at all if you are on the other end of the same cave system. It's frigging HUGE. I've never seen this much lava in one cave before. It's nuts.

I'm doing everything I can to not kill the lava. The other problem I'm running to is that when I'm digging around the lava lakes, I'm hitting underground rivers that are spilling out and creating obsidian. Thankfully, they haven't pushed me into the lava just yet, but it's been REALLY close a couple of times.

And, using F3, I can see a good dozen-plus baddies in the cave system very close by.

I wonder if the cave I'm in will link up to either of these! The one I'm in is kinda close to the pirate ship. Last night I bricked up the waterflow into a big chasm that had some lava in it. I'll start checking the chasm out tonight or tomorrow.

At one point I found a dead-end hallway with FIVE creepers! I really wish I'd had a bow to kill them with, my plans for the Observation Deck involve TNT.

I'll have to go over and check out the area you're talking about, but I don't think it's the same place. It's probably actually small to you pro-spelunkers, but it's the biggest cave I've found to this point. What was happening is I'd reach the end to what I thought was the area and lo and behold, there's a shaft up that leads to another mess of cave. Also, when I tunneled up I ended up in the middle of Fight Isle, so I think that's north of where yous guys are.

Pretty stoked for the new rail types coming in the next patch. There's powered, non-powered, and then detector rails. The detector rails mean when a car passes over them, they send out a red stone signal. So I guess you can make mechanical shit happen. (Search youtube for videos of the piston mod- people have already made insane-ass Rube Goldberg machines.) The specialty rails are made from gold also, so that's a neat twist.

You should join in, Ryan! Oh, and Mike can do his digs in MC like he did in the quake engine :) What's Johnny been up to? He must think our posts are insane.

Rood -

I wonder if you broke into the back end of the HUGE M-F'ing lava and waterfall cave I've been looking into.

Try going down the pumpkin mine, take the tunnel that is marked with something funny about Lava Lake National Park straight, then up the stairs. Bet it's the same place just the other side.

LOTS of monsters in there. Jon, have at it mang. lol

I already died once, lost a ton of really good shit. Was building a dirt bridge across some lava, thought I was safe but got plugged by an unseen/unexpected skele arrow and dropped to my death in the lava below. (Fuck)

The beds are kinda funky. Try building it without anything 1 square around it, including any dropoffs. Also, it needs to be night time when you set the spawn. If you get the "leave bed" button, you did it right. I went and check out your platforms and yeah, theyre hella dangerous! :)

I found my biggest cave network yet last night and this morning. I've got some tunnels going from my underwater rooms and I broke into a huge cave that basically had every ore all over the place (except diamond which is hopefully just buried nearby.) There's lava and waterfalls down there and a bunch of obsidian. Unfortunately, when I was going around lighting the place up (it just keeps going and going) I got totally LOST and in a panic had to tunnel UP and out - broke into MORE caves (with corresponding monsters) before I finally started hearing chicken sounds and ended up... in the middle of fight island :) That was dramatic. Next time I'm going to clear that place out slowly and methodically.

I'm more looking for dungeons to poke around in, Art -- but I found one! Of course you guys will probably have it strip mined and flooded by the time I log back in, but that's the price I pay for spending time away from the game!

jr0n: Already trashing my shit eh? Sigh.... With regards to the spawn point. That is an annoyance bug that was supposed to be quashed in 1.4_01, but hasn't completely gone away:

Bug fixes:
- Beds now act as a respawn point as intended.

New bugs:
- In certain cases, the bed may still fail to save the default spawn point. Although, this has been fixed for most players.
- On some Macs when you use a pickaxe it will cause the game to crash.

D>M>

Jon, just keep running in a straight line until you hit the end, and then start diggin!!

=)

Alternatively, you can go up 4 blocks and start a new set of 3 x 2 tunnels. There's a good chunk of minerals in the entire 5-18 range. Most of our tunnels so far are right at bedrock.. so around 5-8. Probably enough room to go two whole floors higher and still mine it out like this:

The slight offset allows for visibility on the bottom wall blocks.

edit: blogger deletes spaces at the front of lines? Anyway, the dots are there only to move the X's over. Should only be ONE block shifted.

XX XX XX
XX XX XX
XX XX XX
.. XX XX XX
.. XX XX XX
.. XX XX XX
.... XX XX XX
.... XX XX XX
.... XX XX XX

Holy crap! I spent an HOUR looking for a mine that Enron hadn't dug out. Didn't find much except for a couple of alcoves. Finally found something a little deeper... broke through some stone... found myself looking at one of Enron's torches. /sob

Also, the bed hasn't been resetting my spawn point. Anyone know why? So, every time I fall off the Observation Deck, which is frequently... I respawn halfway across the map, on the other side of Fight Island.

| Richard III

I watched Richard III starring Magneato on Netflix last night and it was really good, in a weird alt-universe-Shakespeare kinda way! This is the 1995 version of Richard III and it's set in a fascist WW2-era England. I had no idea that it was a funky alternative history setting, so my sci-fi heart was pleasantly surprised. Ian McKellen is fucking awesome and there's even a young Dominic West (McNutty from the Wire) as Henry Tudor. If can stomach some Shakespeare (albeit, slightly modernized), I'd highly recommend it.

| Humbur, your cock is hurge

There's supposed to be another Humble Indie Bundle coming out tomorrow at: humblebundle

You decide what you want to pay for 5 indie games. The last two were great and I think I chose to pay $1 for the first one then maybe $10 for the second one. You decide which charity it goes to. Nice stuff.

Also, I was just informed that Nether / Hell is now implemented in Minecraft Multiplayer!?

That's gunna be a whole new level of whoa.

Ah, ok. That makes sense. I guess the addition of powered rail is going to do away with the booster concept anyway.

That 2nd post is for people who make texture packs. It's saying what new objects will be in the next patch and where to put them in your package, I guess. So something about minecar stuff, that's appropriate for Eric's Great Space Coaster.

Tell you how burned my brain is.. it took me a good 2 seconds to stop thinking.. WHOA THAT'S AN AWESOME TEXTURE PACK. haha.

Also, some updates from Notch regarding the next release:

MUOAHAHA! Thunder Storms lower the brightness. That means daytime monsters during storms. This is freakily atmospheric.

Next tex pack update: (3, 10) is powerrail unpowered and (3, 12) is powered. Again, coords are from 0 (how hard is that to understand? :P)

I don't understand the second one, hopefully it will make sense later.




Jon, personally, I find ladders difficult and fall off all the time (unless you build guide walls on either side so you can't slide off. When you're building, just make sure you hold down the shift key while working and you won't fall off your current block-level. Unless you get tagged by a skele arrow, anyway. :D

I'm feeling a little lost in MC right now. More or less finished with the castle and creeper tower. Farms are more or less done. What now!? Thinking of getting back to basics, doing some mining and prepping for the next project (whenever inspiration decides to hit me).

That's a rad looking house! Quick tip, build a bed (3 wood planks on bottom 3 wool above) and click it at night. That will now be your spawn when you die. Good if you keep falling or whatever happens to you. Also, if you're the only one on the server, sleeping in bed at night will advance time to day.

Finally crash-free! And my framerate was fine too once Aeryk helpfully reminded me to turn down my settings. I'm building the Observation Deck on the mountain -- you should be able to see it from the cake shop. Right now it looks terrible, but now that I've got ladders built and so hopefully shouldn't fall off it every two seconds, work should come along a little better.

Spent the weekend in Mendocino. I saw this and decided, hey, I should build that in Minecraft:

| Sweet (tits)

Finished the creeper monument in the Castle Slaytanic courtyard. It is.. large. Many hundred cactus gave their lives in the creation process, lol.

More cakes have been made the bakery and are ready for pickup! Thanks to all who donated for the cause. =]

Rood, love the diagonal-build you did on that pirate ship. Way cool.

Aaron. Dood. That tunnel is crazy. I almost got completely lost, lol.

Eric. Fight Island! Finally walked over the bridge .. when are we starting the tournaments?