Flowers are rubbish

What's the deal with flowers?  Why do people like them so much?

In my garden there are two types of plants, which are categorised thusly:
a) ones that grow healthily unaided
b) ones that wilt and die despite regular feeding and watering

Guess what? We want the plants in category b, and not the ones in category a.

So we resort to ever more desperately watering the flowers and herbs that we want, giving them a lovely specially lined hanging basket that protects against the wind and fattening them up on Miracle Gro, in a vain attempt to get them to look one tenth as lively as the massive weed growing out of a crack in the patio.

And then, if we're really lucky and we manage to nurture the frail little flower, to give it a real chance of reaching it's full potential...

My son will jump on it.

The little one looking his innocent self whilst murdering a pack of daisies.

But do not fear!  As ever, computers have the solution!

I shall plant flowers around my home in Minecraft!

They don't need watering, they don't die, they don't get eaten by the local animals even, they're just great.

Oh what's this?  Oh... a creeper.  Heading towards my house.  If you're not aware, creepers explode.

 The flowers stood up to the explosion of a creeper about as well as you'd expect.

Sod flowers.  Heavy stone reinforcement is what we need!

Adventures in Mikeland Part 1

Hi!

Apologies for the delay in blogging, it's been a busy week for two reasons:

a) We held our latest G4C Yorkshire & Humber event Thursday night - Addleshaw Goddard's very kindly put on an event for us on the topic of Risk Management and Dispute Avoidance.  The organisation was absolutely top-notch and the folks at Addleshaw Goddard's had gone to a ton of effort to make sure the night went well (which it did).  Many thanks for them for their time and effort.

and b...

MINECRAFT.

Yes, I've got Minecraft and I'm addicted to it.  I've been aware of the game for a while (who hasn't?) and I've been loving the videos Blue Xephos aka the Yogscast make of their guys playing Minecraft, so thought it was about time to try it myself.

Hence "Mikeland".

Mikeland is obviously my land which I am building, it's a bit slow going as I don't really know what I'm doing but it's great fun.  I made a video of my first ever five minutes playing Minecraft (below):

And beyond that, I'm now starting to get the hang of it.  I've got two little caves now that I can sleep in, a chicken and sheep farm, I'm growing sugar canes (not sure why) and wheat, and after defusing a boobytrapped chest I've got some bits of redstone and the like.  I've also got a route down into a deep chasm to do some mining so it's all good.  Here's some pics:

Home sweet home.  The flowers didn't last long - a creeper detonated and took half of them out, which spoilt the view.

A view of my home from above.  You'll see my fenced wheat farm middle-left, my home in the middle (with the flowers), and behind the trees on the right is my chicken farm

The wheat farm.  I built this before discovering that wheat grows quicker if it's planted near water.

My chicken farm, which has recently been complimented with the addition of two sheep.

A rather silly zombie attacking me in daylight and therefore catching fire.

All my chickens hoping that the Ocelot in the back won't kill them.  I didn't kill the Ocelet, just chased it off.  So when I checked the farm later, there was about seven of them eating chicken.

My chicken farm.  With a creeper in with the chicken.  Barbecued chicken anyone?

Polish takeaway is awesome

Polish takeaway is awesome.

That's all I have to say.

Actually it isn't, which is a good job otherwise I'd be a really bad blogger (rather than just a mediocre one).

I had zrazy wolowe with a side order of beetroot soup, while my other half had kotlet devollay.  The beetroot soup was really spicy and tasty, and the zrazy wolowe (rolled pork chop fillet filled with sausage, cucumber and onion) was great, was covered in gravy and came with various shredded vegetables which weren't immediately easy to identify (cabbage and carrot was in there) but all tasted far better than you'd expect.  Cheap too (under £15 for both of us, delivered) and very filling.  It's all good.

I went to a debate held by Platform Expos about what they're doing Thursday night.  Basically they're looking at building a hub for games development in the Humber region, and the debate was about how people can get involved to help support what they're doing - check out the photos from the night here.  They're doing loads of things, from supporting groups of developers to running LAN parties, setting up a sort of games review and news channel called Platform Play, all kinds of great stuff.  Very very interesting and I'll keep posting news from them as it happens.

Have you subscribed to Blue Xephos aka The Yogscast on YouTube?  If not you should, if you like gaming and you like to laugh.  According to their website, "Lewis founded The Yogscast in 2008, with the goal of sharing Simon’s gift for inane banter with the world via YouTube" and I can confirm that the banter is inane and extremely funny.  I first came across them in a series of videos they were doing playing the game Magicka with TotalBiscuit, it's just brilliant how Simon panicks.  Very sorry to Simon if you read this (unlikely though that is!) - but you are ace.  Thanks for making me laugh.  Possibly their most well known work is their various works involving Minecraft, I particularly like the below episode where they build a particle accelerator, and fire an anti-gravity missile - I never expected it to be so funny :)

Anyway - enough from me.  Have fun and next time you have a takeaway - why not try a Polish one?