Archive for May, 2014

Guitar Status: May 18, 2014

May 18 2014 Published by under Uncategorized

My guitar practice has gotten into a better rhythm than last time I talked about it. I’m not sure I’m practicing more, but I’m enjoying it more and feeling I’m getting more out of it. Basically, I’ve realized that I wasn’t getting as much as I could have out of the game’s “Recommended” list in Learn a Song mode – I’d been going through the songs there in a relatively superficial fashion, going quickly from one to the next. Which is fine to spend some of my time doing, but that’s what the game’s “Nonstop Mode” is for: a good way to spend 20–30 minutes, but not the best way to spend the majority of my practice time.

So now, when I’m going through the recommended songs, I dig into individual songs more. (At least most of the time.) Instead of playing through a song once, now my most typical experience is to play a song twice, dropping into Riff Repeater mode in some sections the second time, maybe spending 15 minutes on the song? And I’m liking that a lot more: it’s transformed the experience from “play a song badly and feel dissatisfied” to one where I feel like I’m getting better in some small way on each song I try.

I’m also doing one exercise that Joan suggested, though it’s too early to see results for that. And I’m not doing Session Mode as much, which is fine; I’ll come back to that later, but it’s okay for me to take a break now. I’m also not currently focusing too much on my favorite songs, but I imagine I’ll come back to that at some point as well, too.

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VGHVI Minecraft: April 24, 2014

May 03 2014 Published by under Uncategorized

Pictures from the April VGHVI Minecraft session:

I returned to the tunnel that I’d dug last month:

Returning to the tunnel

Returning to the tunnel

Lava in a mine

Lava in a mine

The previous end of the tunnel (I think)

The previous end of the tunnel (I think)

And then I kept on going; after not too long, I hit some water:

Water floods the corridor

Water floods the corridor

Getting a good look at the underground river

Getting a good look at the underground river

Building a glass passage under the river

Building a glass passage under the river

I built a glass passage under that river and kept going. Eventually, I decided to dig up to see where I was; and again I hit water, this time flooding down from the surface. I didn’t take many pictures in the thick of things, unfortunately, but eventually I managed to block that off, I went sideways a bit and then dug up:

Digging up to the surface

Digging up to the surface

My original chimney went into a lake, as it turned out, but fortunately I got lucky and my second one didn’t hit water. With a bit of work, I managed to build a glass enclosure around where my original chimney hit the lake bottom, so then both chimneys worked:

A chimney in the middle of the water

A chimney in the middle of the water

Looking around

Looking around

After that, I went back to the city. We had a new participant, Tom; he was building a colored tower, so I took some pictures of that:

Tom's colored tower

Tom’s colored tower

Working on the tower

Working on the tower

Looking down into the center of the tower

Looking down into the center of the tower

And Miranda was continuing to improve the village that we’d discovered maybe half a year ago:

Returning to the village

Returning to the village

Inside the library, with one of the villagers keeping track of me

Inside the library, with one of the villagers keeping track of me

Out on the dock

Out on the dock

A villager is stuck

A villager is stuck

The building on the other side of the dock

The building on the other side of the dock

A view from the roof

A view from the roof

Starting to extend one of the buildings

Starting to extend one of the buildings

Then I traveled back to the city (encountering one interesting glitch along the way), and took pictures of the tower that Pat had finished:

A cube of lava and tunnels in the water

A cube of lava and tunnels in the water

Pat's finished tower

Pat’s finished tower

The top of the tower

The top of the tower

A view from higher up

A view from higher up

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