Cool NPC Creations

In Minecraft, you occasionally encounter some really neat NPC (or non-player character) buildings, which are built by the villagers.  I've found NPC villages (the most common), temples, and one time, a house in the middle of the ocean.  Here are some screenshots.

These are all a sandstone temple in the middle of the desert.  I have found two of these so far.

There are also temples in the jungle, which are very cool because they have redstone tripwires and chests in them, and are very high-tech.

 Finally, I have some shots of this nifty little hut in the sea that I discovered in one of my worlds a while ago.  (In the background of a couple of the pictures, you can see my replica of a modern mansion in Florida.  It will have its own post in the next couple of days.)

House in the Sky

Today is day three of my Minecraft Week, and today I have a few photos of my house in the sky (in my random exploring world.)  Here are some shots of it from various angles.

                                         The first picture is just what it looks like on the inside.

From the air, you can see inside through the glass roof.  This also gives a sense of how high up it is.   (In the bottom left, you can also see the top of my giant Enderman from yesterday.)

                                    This is what you can see from the ground looking up.

Out the window, the view is very impressive, and here's what the sunset looks like from up there.

My Giant Enderman

Hello,
Going along with the Minecraft theme from yesterday, here are some shots of the huge Enderman I built in one of my worlds.  I think that Endermen, despite being monsters, are incredibly cute, and in fact, I am currently working on making a stuffed, fleece Enderman (I'll post photos when I'm done.)  Anyway, so I have this random exploring world that I basically just use for experimenting (in this world I have the Airborne House-On-a-Stick, Giant Enderman, and a huge target I use for archery practice, and there are also some cool NPC structures, like a neat temple I found.  More on those later.)

So here are a few screenshots of my Giant Enderman (and in the background you can see some of the other structures I was talking about above.

Minecraft Creations

     Now, I know I haven't posted in quite a while, but lately I've been playing a lot of Minecraft, and I've made some pretty awesome creations. Each day for the next two weeks or so, I will post screenshots of my latest world, or something neat I made. I will try my best to post daily, but i have a lot of schoolwork and other things to do, so I apologize in advance if I'm not able to post every day. I also understand that not everyone is crazy about Minecraft, but, as I said, my posts will be Minecraft-related for the next couple weeks. If you're not interested, just ignore all posts with the label "Minecraft".
     So, today I have some photos of what I consider to be my crowning Minecraft achievement-- Grace Manor. It's basically this very big, fancy mansion I built for myself. It was completed a few weeks ago, and it took about a week to build. It's my favorite thing I've built so far, so I hope everyone else likes it too.

 
This first shot is just the outside of the manor from the air (yes, it's in creative mode. I'm awful at survival.) You can see the huge cave it was built over, which is filled with torches to avoid becoming monster-infested. At the top, there are two big, flaming lapis lazuli fountain pillar things that I thought looked pretty cool.

The next two photos are of the courtyard just inside the walls you can see from the last photo. There are two birch trees and some fire pits on either side. Above the door, you can see the crest of Grace Manor, twin golden swords.

 Inside the entrance hall, I tried to make it with a balcony overlooking the entrance with a flight of stairs on either side, one of my favorite architectural styles.  On the bottom, you can see the row of doors to the guest bedrooms, and the entire entrance hall has a glass roof.  To the right you can see the flight of stairs leading to the lounge in the South wing.

The South wing has a lounge on the bottom floor and my bedroom on the top floor.  This is the lounge.  There is a hot tub in the corner, a table and chairs, and the ladder up to my bedroom.

 Here's my bedroom.  The carpet is my favorite color, alien green, a nice contrast to the red downstairs.

 Each guest bedroom has a different carpet pattern and they are all connected from the inside. Basically, all of the guest bedrooms look like this one, except the carpet is different colors.  The bottom one has a lava window, which is a nice source of light in addition to looking very cool.

 This is the observatory/sunroom (it's on the balcony over the entrance hall.)   You can see my adorable cat here, which also explains why I am always holding a fish in many of the screenshots.

And that's it! Remember, check back in later, because I'm posting a new creation every day!

Grace's Complete Absolute Favorite Books, Finally

Hello,
I know I haven't posted in a while, but I have finally compiled my list of my absolute favorite books of all time.  They're in no particular order, since I love them all.  Each title and author has a link for more information, so I would suggest clicking on them and reading the premise to see if it sounds good to you.

1. The Spell Book of Listen Taylor- Jaclyn Moriarty
2. Feeling Sorry for Celia- Jaclyn Moriarty
3. The Year of Secret Assignments- Jaclyn Moriarty
4. The Murder of Bindy MacKenzie- Jaclyn Moriarty
5. The Ghosts of Ashbury High- Jaclyn Moriarty
6. And, when A Corner of White comes out, I'm sure it will be on here too. (also by Jaclyn Moriarty.)
7. Dash & Lily's Book of Dares- Rachel Cohn and David Leviathan
8. The Westing Game- Ellen Raskin
9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower- Stephen Chobsky
10. Alex and the Ironic Gentleman- Adrienne Kress
11.The Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger
12. Nine Stories- J.D. Salinger
13. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- Douglas Adams
14. Paper Towns- John Green
15. An Abundance of Katherines- John Green
16. Looking for Alaska- John Green
17. Will Grayson, Will Grayson- John Green and David Leviathan
18. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie- Alan Bradley
19. The Discworld books- Terry Pratchett
20. The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Gothgirl- Barry Lyga

Band?

Lately, I've been playing a LOT of mandolin--I have been learning around three or four songs a day, and my repertoire is growing as well as my knowledge of chords and playing styles.  I'm thinking about doing mandolin covers of popular songs and putting them on YouTube, but I also think it would be fun to play in a band or something like that.  So if anyone currently has a band and would like a mandolin in it, or is interested in starting one, or plays some sort of band-ish instrument, for example, guitar, drums, keyboard, bass, or anyone that can sing, please let me know if you're interested.

The Bright Light

Hello everyone, today I'm not talking about Toynbee tiles, for once.  That's probably because I haven't really gone on any Toynbee hunts or anything since I last posted, though I did watch Resurrect Dead a second time with friends.  Anyway, I'm posting because I wanted to share the music video for one of my favorite songs of all time with you; "The Bright Light" by Tanya Donelly.  The video is really cool too, which is why I'm posting it below!  Watch it!!!

Crazy Coincidences

Tile in Portland
Tile in Boise
Tile in St. Louis
(top: Portland)
(bottom: Manhattan; I apologize that it's so blurry...)

Okay, I know I've blogged a LOT about Toynbee tiles, but that's because they are really, really fascinating to me (just like the black hole obsession I had a while back.)  Starting today I'm going to begin adding labels to all of my posts, so if you just aren't that interested in resurrecting dead on Jupiter, just look for the Toynbee Tile tag and then don't read those posts! Easy as that!

But I absolutely had to talk about this, because I have found the most bizarre coincidence.
The strange "House of Hades" Toynbee tiles I keep finding downtown have turned up other places as well-- with identical fonts and side images.  When I first discovered an image of a tile (top) that was a twin of one I'd found myself, I nearly started hyperventilating, I was so excited.

At first, I'd thought that since the college was downtown, it was likely that the ones I'd discovered were just an art project done as a tribute by a college student.
But then I found a photo of it's twin in Oregon, which prompted an Internet search that led me to photos of tiles in Missouri, Idaho, and New York.

I have composed a list of places where other tiles that have clearly been done by the same person have been spotted:

Portland, Oregon,
Boise, Idaho,
Albuquerque, New Mexico,
New York City, New York,
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
St. Louis, Missouri, and
Kansas City, Missouri.

I am attaching photos of ones that have identical messages or images to those that I have found, which you can compare to my last post.  Since many of them are on Flickr, they're copyrighted, thus I can't post them here, but I will put links which I strongly encourage you to follow if this interests you.

Keep your eyes peeled for any tiles near you, especially if you live in any of the above places, then post comments or email me photos of them (thetoothpickchick@gmail.com.)  If you have any places to add to my list, PLEASE let me know, and give me any pictures you can find!  Thanks!!

They're Everywhere!!

Yesterday afternoon, at the library booksale downtown, I discovered another 'House of Hades' Toynbee tile in an intersection, only a few blocks away from the other one I talked about earlier.  This led me to thinking that there must be a whole bunch of them scattered around downtown-- so this morning I went on another Toynbee hunt, only to discover FOUR tiles, all of which were in much better shape than the one that was publicized on the internet.  Here are pictures of all of them.  Below are brief descriptions of each tile in case you are unable to read them.

Tile #1:
main message:
HOUSE OF HADES
ONE MAN VERSUS
THE MEDIA MACHINE
IN SOCIETY '2010
side image: hourglass
bottom message: To juz czas! (Polish for it's about time)

Tile #2:
main message:
HOUSE OF HADES
THE RESURRECTION OF
TOYNBEE'S IDEAS
IN SOCIETY '2011
side image: none
bottom message: Media brass have signed their own death warrant

Tile #3:
main message:
HOUSE OF HADES
ONE MAN VERSUS
AMERICAN MEDIA
IN SOCIETY '2011
side image: ashtray
bottom message: Time's up!!!

Tile #4:
main message:
HOUSE OF HADES
ONE MAN VERSUS
AMERICAN MEDIA
IN SOCIETY '2011
side image: traffic lights
bottom message: Well it's getting kind of late, but it's been fun!!!

Tile #5:
main message:
HOUSE OF HADES
ONE MAN VERSUS
AMERICAN MEDIA
IN SOCIETY '2011
side image: dots and sexy lady legs
bottom message: illegible, but it looks like the media death warrant one again 

The Local Toynbee Tile

If you found out that there was a mysterious Toynbee tile only a short distance away from your house, what would you do? The answer, I think, is simple: You get up at an ungodly hour of the morning on a Sunday, drive downtown, and photograph it.  Which is what I did, and here is the photo I took [top] (actually, the one I'm posting was taken by my brother, but I took some too.), as well as a tile from Boise, Idaho with the same message, but more legibly [bottom]. If you compare the font on these tiles to the original ones, however, they look quite different, so I think that it is probably not an original tile. Nevertheless, it is still awesome.

In case you can't read it, this one says:

HOUSE OF HADES
ONE MAN VERSUS
AMERICAN MEDIA
IN SOCIETY [date]

(The date has completely worn off so I have no clue when it was from, but it looks rather old.  Also the bottom is illegible on mine, but on the other one it says, "We must work harder to punish them for all they have done." On the top one, it almost looks like the first word is murder, but I'm not certain.)

Toynbee Tiles

Recently I watched the documentary Resurrect Dead, which is a gripping tale of four men's mission to unravel the mystery of the Toynbee Tiles.  So what are the Toynbee tiles, and what makes them so mysterious?

In the mid-eighties, strange tiles started appearing on the ground in and around Philadelphia, Washington DC, and New York, bearing the message:

TOYNBEE IDEA
IN MOVIE '2001'
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPITER.

Many have interpreted this to be referring to an obscure conspiracy theory that it is possible for humanity to be reborn (resurrected), after death, on the planet Jupiter. Confused? Keep reading.

The 'Toynbee idea' most likely refers to the writings of Arnold Toynbee, who wrote that:

"Human nature presents human minds with a puzzle which they have not yet solved and may never succeed in solving, for all that we can tell. The dichotomy of a human being into 'soul' and 'body' is not a datum of experience. No one has ever been, or ever met, a living human soul without a body... Someone who accepts—as I myself do, taking it on trust—the present-day scientific account of the Universe may find it impossible to believe that a living creature, once dead, can come to life again; but, if he did entertain this belief, he would be thinking more 'scientifically' if he thought in the Christian terms of a psychosomatic resurrection than if he thought in the shamanistic terms of a disembodied spirit."

This same principle is discussed in Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the main character dies but then is reborn at the end. The movie also discusses human colonization on Jupiter.

The same idea had been discussed in a play written by David Mamet, called 4 A.M. In the play, a caller calls in to a radio show (supposedly inspired by a real caller on Larry King, but this was never proven.) to try to spread word of his ideas based from Toynbee's idea of resurrection, and the possibility of rebirth and colonization on Jupiter as suggested in 2001. Mamet later claimed that his story was not based on a real caller, but was merely a product of his imagination. We still don't know is this is true, but it seems too large a coincidence to be unrelated to the strange Toynbee tiles. Mamet became convinced that the tiles were created as a tribute to his play, and was very pleased with them.

Other tiles appeared with variations on this message, and one block of four squares in the middle of the road in Philadelphia told about the tiler's conspiracy, stating:

John Knight Ridder is the Philadelphia thug hellion Jew who'd hated this movements guts- for years- takes money from the Mafia to make the Mafia look good in his newspapers so he has the Mafia in his back pocket. John Knight sent the Mafia to murder me in May 1991 [illegible] journalists [illegible] then gloated to my face about death and Knight Ridder great power to destroy. In fact John Knight went into hellion binge of joy over Knight-Ridder's great power to destroy.

I secured house with blast doors and fled the country in June 1991.

NBC attorneys journalists and security officials at Rockefeller Center fraudulently under the "Freedom of Information Act" all [illegible] orders NBC executives got the U.S. federal district attorney's office who got FBI to get Interpol to establish task force that located me in Dover England.

Which back home Inquirer got union goons from their own employees union to [illegible] down a "sports journalist." Who with ease bashed in lights and windows of neighborhood car- as well as men outside my house. They are stationed there still waiting for me.

NBC CBS group "W" Westinghouse, Time, Time Warner, Fox, Universal all of the "Cult of the Hellion" each one were Much worse than Knight-Ridder ever was[,] mostly hellion Jews.

When K.Y.W and NBC executives told John Knight the whole coven gloated in joyous fits on how their Soviet pals found a way to turn it into a...

There the message abruptly ends. 

Another tile stated, "I am only one man," which led investigators of the mystery on a hunt to discover who the one man was.

One tile on the ground in South America had an address in Philadelphia on it, which, some believe, is where the tiler lives. Neighbors have described him as quiet and shy, and that he had a car with a large antenna for jamming nearby televisions (there are several reports of having the same strange Toynbee message come over people's TVs). His car also had the floor taken out on one side, which explains how he could drop his tiles in the middle of crowded streets.  But no one has any concrete proof that this is who the real tiler was, and evidently he no longer lives there. The current residents know nothing about the tiles and are annoyed when people come to their house to ask about them.

I have also heard that there is a Toynbee tile located in the city where I live, which I am going to investigate further.  I don't know if it is an original tile (after they became more well-known, many imitation tiles sprung up, and most of the original tiles have disappeared thanks to repaving and traffic wear.) But i will certainly check it out and post photos of it as soon as possible.

Whatever the real story is, I definitely have a new favorite conspiracy theory.

Photos: Top: The four-panel conspiracy tiles

Bottom: A common Toynbee tile with a small robot that appeared on or near many tiles.

Crossword!

A while ago I posted about a crossword puzzle creator I found online, and today I actually made one that is, of course, Nerdy Babble Today themed.  Enjoy it! Correction: Three across only has four letters, sorry it's so messy.  Also, I really hope it turned out big enough!  Try to do it without actually looking at my blog, as that would be cheating.

Euro Cup 2012

On June eighth, the Euro Cup will start with two Group A games (Poland V. Greece, Russia V. Czech Republic).  The Cup is hosted this year by Poland and Ukraine, and the matches will be played in stadiums in both countries.  The official ball for the 2012 Euro Cup is the Adidas Tango 12, which is similar to the 2012 World Cup Jabulani, but is said to be more reliable.  The team that looks the best coming out of the friendlies is Spain (the winner of the last Euro and World Cup), but if Germany gets their act together for the real tournament games, they also have a chance at the cup.

The Batman Countdown

Since The Dark Knight Rises comes out this summer, I made a cute little GIF animation in Photoshop that's a Batman-themed countdown.  Use it the day before the midnight showing of the movie to count down till the Dark Knight Rises premiers.  (If you want.  You don't have to.)  Anyway, here it is.

Super Moon!

Last night, we witnessed an event that only occurs roughly once every eighteen years-- A super moon!
On the moon's cycle around the earth, sometimes it is closer to the earth than others.  When the moon is at it's closest, when it is rising or setting (whenever it's close to the horizon), it appears to be larger than usual... And coupled with a full moon, it's quite a sight.  Check out these photos that popped up on the internet the next morning:

From top to bottom: The super moon hangs over a ship (image courtesy bladerunnaztv.com)
The super moon rises over a desert (image courtesy news.discovery.com)
A cloud slightly covers the super moon in the Bronx night sky (image courtesy johnellisphotography.com)  
The super moon behind a tower in Glastonbury, England (image courtesy thejournal.ie) 
A cat is bathed in an eerie orange glow from the super moon (image courtesy rashmanly.wordpress.com)