I’ve started using Storybook in Earnest and realized something that I need to do. I’m going to draw the blueprint for every house or location used in the story. I need more visuals to help me with my writing. When I was younger I wrote some fairly silly stories for the Ragnarok Online Universe (well my story with the lore of Ragnarok) and I found that seeing the locations made it so much easier to keep up with continuity.

  Plus I like drawing, I’m absolutely terrible at it but it is something I really enjoy. If I get the inspiration I might look into a cheapish tablet and start drawing straight onto the computer. The only danger there is my evil kittens trying to march across the tablet as I draw. The delight they’d get from the lines moving in tow with their paws would probably be real fun for them though.

  On that train of thought, someone should make a DDR pad for kittens. You place it in front of the television and as they step on the buttons different things happen on screen. I know mine love to step on the keyboard keys and watch text fly across the screen.

  What else…well obviously Mitt Romney has become the poster child for unwarranted wealth in the united states. A man who made millions upon millions of dollars by firing people, that’s remarkably evil. He stands as the purest essence of capitalism. This man has made nothing and in doing so makes as much in 12 hours as I make in a year (probably even faster now). It’s remarkable, I’ll admit that at some level I’m disgusted in his wealth. I don’t know what I’d do with that kind of money, I do know that sitting on it would drive me utterly insane.

  Tens of millions? Good lord, once you have a house and a couple cars what else is there to buy? You could go on a cruise once a year for the rest of your life in the nicest suite they have without putting a dent in it. I could buy a hundred copies of every magic card every printed and not see a dent in my bank account.

  I could pay people to play magic for me. But they’d have to look really intense or they didn’t get their paycheck.

  Seriously, at what point does anyone just look at their bank total and say “Alright. I’ve beaten the game, what else to do?” Because I know when I play city builders it is about the time I have so much wealth I could renovate the entire map without flinching that I completely lose interest.

  Is it even fun anymore? He’s effectively got the money cheat on spam and just resting. Worse he has kept much of his wealth because of painfully low taxes that his own firm (alongside other extremely wealthy firms) viciously lobby to protect. Immense balls, that’s what it takes to say “I only pay what I’m told I owe.” without mentioning that his own fierce fighting is what has kept him paying basically what I do.

  Which is extra upsetting when you realize that he makes almost double what I do in a year, in a day. Not much of a surprise that the US is having funding problems when that kind of money is being removed from the market without it getting pumped back in (unless we count campaigning).

  Plus its upsetting because he’s one of two major choices in the Republican party at this time. You have a twice cheating, thrice married, family values candidate and a tax manipulating multi millionaire who earned his fortune crushing the lives of thousands of people.

  I’m not huge on Obama, while I don’t feel Presidents have an immense amount of power I do think he could have made a pretty big stand in government had he just been serious about it. But look at that competition? (Again Ron Paul is an Independent who runs under the Republican Banner, Democrats have a few Independents who run with them). These are terrible human beings, legitimately terrible people, few things do I dislike more than habitual hypocrites. We all act against our words from time to time, mostly because we are all evolving.

  But when every second sentence out of your mouth is blatant hypocrisy it becomes overwhelming. These men aren’t fit to run an Applebee’s, much less a nation.

  This is beautiful, in terms of timing. We are witnessing some of the worst examples of humanity, ignorance, greed, hypocrisy, and we are seeing them at their purest essences. This is all happening at a time when the government is trying hard here and abroad to cripple the only possible avenue for escaping the cycle (the internet).

  The timing could not be anymore perfect, the candidates couldn’t be anymore perfect, if this were a book I’d call it cliché and unbelievable.

  Now you might be saying to yourself, I thought the title of this was about Minecraft? You’d be correct and the title is about Minecraft. It just so happens that when I stepped into lava in the game and watched all my progress consumed in front of me that it immediately reminded me about Romney. When lava reminds you of somebody it is probably time to banter about it for a bit.

  Here are the images I’ve got for today, unfortunately the snow did not let up through most of the images.
 

My little house on the frozen lake.

Smelting, Crafting, and Cooking. That’s a cauldron beneath the torch.

My rooftop farm, provides my guy with most of his nutrition. Oddly you can find quite a few chickens living in the forests around my house.

The top floor, Bed, and storage for my food, crafts, and other non mining materials.

The view from outside the bedroom floor. Not too shabby. Off on the left is some lava, you don’t want to play around there more than you need to. Skeletons have a tendency of ambushing you and knocking you into it.

  So now that you made the journey through a long tired rant, some story news, and minecraft shots you are still reading? Probably not, but for the few of you that have made the great journey and are looking for something extra. But what?

  I’m thinking a magic card. But lets step it up for today only. I’m going to show you one of my favorite current magic setups. I should put out the list for this sometime for folks who want to build it. This is the ideal hand, but there are dozens of combinations that work just as well. The only essential piece is 1 of the 7-8 mana generating elves, some elves, and Genesis wave. Here is my personal favorite hand. I’m going to use Magic Workstation to run how it goes.

Turn 1:

Turn 2:

Draw Elvish Harbinger. Tap Forest + Arbor Elf for GG.

Turn 3:

Draw Spawnsire of Ulamog (Darn). Tap Forest + Arbor Elf for GG.

Lightning Greaves on Priest of Titania.

Turn 4 (I’m playing against Slivers if you were curious):

Draw ambush Commander. Tap Arbor Elf, Forest, and Priest of Titania for GGGG.

1 G floating. Attach Greaves to Archdruid and tap for GGG+G.

Her ability is used to put a Elvish Visionary on top.

Move Greaves to Visionary. Tap her for G+G (Floating 1).

  Move Greaves to Eladamri, Lord of Leaves. He now has shroud, all other elves have shroud. At this point unless they have a mass removal you are one turn away from extreme pain.

Turn 5:

  On my opponents turn they just hit me for 15 (and once before for 3), I’m now at 2 life. I lost Eladamri blocking their Sliver Legion. But this turn I draw the Visionary and play her. I drew a wirewood lodge. Which, with the loss of Eladamri is some beautiful luck!

  I had to tap my Arbor elf, and my forest to play the Visionary. It was the draw from putting the Visionary into play that netted me my 2nd land (terrible land draw this game).

  So now I’m going to tap the Priest of Titania for 5, Tap the Archdruid for 5, take 1 from the 10 in my pool to use the lodge to untap the druid for another 5. I’m now at 14. I’ll then Genesis Wave for X=11. (This is less than ideal, I prefer to generate 15 Mana so I can Genesis wave for X=10 and have 3 left over to pay for a Mana Leak).

  I now draw the top 11 cards of my deck and put them into play if their casting cost is 11 or less. I drew a Nissa Revane, 2 Nissa’s Chosen, 1 Visionary, Drew an Extra Forest, Put 4 forests into play, 1 wirewood lodge, 1 Heedless One, and 1 Elvish Harbinger.

  I use Nissa Revanes +1 to give me 2 life for every Elf in Play. I’m now at 24 Life. I play the Ambush commander from my hand. With the cards in play I can generate 27 mana (3 shy of my goal) but since I have a heedless one out I’ll just use it on her. She’s currently a 13/13 with Trample. My enemy has 1 Darkheart Sliver and 4 tapped slivers. This means they can generate 15 life. I’m going to take that 27 mana and summon the Spawnsire of Ulamog.

  I’ll then take the remaining 17 and generate 8 Eldrazi Spawn with him (it?). I then equip the greaves to my Heedless One and swing for 13. My enemy takes it bringing them down to 4. I move the greaves over to the Spawnsire just to be safe.

  Turn 6:

  I tried to start my infinite draw chain on the slivers but ended up just getting a bunch of slivers that neither gave me haste nor did I draw an Intruder Alarm. So sadly my last chance for recovering with Slivers is over.

  On Turn 6 I generate 20 mana (easily) and use the second ability of Spawnsire. Normally you want to do this right after the Genesis wave on the same turn Spawnsire comes into play. With it I summon the following 3 cards from my sideboard.

  It That Betrays lands first, then All is Dust is cast causing all colored permanents (everything but lands and my Lightning Greaves at this time) are Sacrificed, all the slivers on my opponents side join my side alongside my Eldrazi. Emrakul then drops and gives me an Extra Turn. On this turn I swing with Emrakul wearing the Greaves for 15. My opponent Sacrifices his 4 lands leaving him with nothing in play and no life remaining.

  I like this deck because the previous turns, even worst case scenario (1 land for 5 turns) turned out pretty good against slivers. Admittedly it came down to luck, had I drawn hearth sliver the match would have ended on Turn 5 for Slivers.

  What makes it extra cool is we just relived the story. Nissa unleashed the Eldrazi and all was sundered in their wake. The only survivors were those that gave themselves body and soul to the Eldrazi lords.

  This is not a deck I can really play in multiplayer . Because everyone starts eying me the second I put down so much as an Arbor Elf.

  Thanks for your time…have an ice night. I’m off to read or draw for a few minutes then bed.