And You Thought I'd Given Up Minecraft

Welcome to Arcadia By The Sea, the terribly named beachside resort where the hard pressed citizens of New Arcadia can escape all their worldly cares - like half finished depressing office towers - and go for a ride on the ferris wheel, eat french fries and drink beer on a charming rooftop terrace. For whatever reasons, there are more monsters in ABTS than there are in New Arcadia, adding that special frisson of danger that might just be lacking in more settled climes. Located just a quarter days run from New Arcadia by the newly installed Meandering Road and Inexplicably Right Angled Bridge, Arcadia By the Sea is where you and your three or four bumbling, hopeless dogs want to be this summer. Visit the historic Dog Graveyard and weep.

The Problem of Dogs

A few minutes ago, my real life dogs heard me exhorting Blocky (this is either Blocky 3 or Blocky 4 or possibly even Blocky 5 - I've lost count. Honestly, I've had Siamese fighting fish with more survival instinct who lasted longer: my last one was only Fang 3.) to please move over and get a pork chop. They came over and poked me with their noses for a bit until I agreed to stop talking to the dog on the computer and start talking to the dogs in the room. That's the thing - Minecraft dogs are as much work as and arguably more than real dogs. Real dogs can be more or less counted on not to fall off cliffs or stairs, for one thing, and they also eat a wide variety of food, not just pork chops. I believe that my dog Pixel starved to death one sad night due to a sudden and mysterious shortage of pigs. A tragic end but spending half or more of every day running around with a sword looking for feral pigs - I ask you, is it any kind of a life? One demands more. Still, I'm used to Blocky now and I'd be sad - will be sad - when he succumbs inevitably and then there will be a Blocky 6.

In other news, I suddenly decided that as the Queen and founder of New Arcadia, I deserved better digs than either the Inn, my funky mountain getaway or the end of group rowhouse that reminds me of Baltimore. Therefore, I built myself a kind of split level mansion in many hideous Lilly Pulitzer type preppy colors. All the doors are double doors, because that's easier for Blocky to manage and all the stairs are double stairs, ditto. We the Queen are nothing if not accommodating to our canine subject. And, because the Queen gets hungry - and bored - there is also now a fine dining establishment in New Arcadia. Les Cochons D'Or is now taking reservations. The kitchen is suitably small, cramped and miserable.

Blocky, We Hardly Knew Ye

Well, I briefly had a companion in my loneliness. I mean, sure, I can go around pretending that New Arcadia is filled with the happy sounds of children playing and bums panhandling for spare change down in the souk but in reality, it's just me, alone, in a world of unfurnished yet charming and extremely affordable bungalows. All that changed though, when I met Blocky. He was hard to tame - I think it took like seven bones - but then, lo, he was mine, following me everywhere, falling off things and generally getting in my way. I worried about his inability to walk through doors - well, I guess you don't need to learn about doors when you can teleport through walls, there is that - and his random, annoying, persistent bark. My daughter remarked that I was being nicer to him than to the three real hairy hounds that are farting gently beneath my desk even now and yeah, I suppose I was. Blocky got taken out to run in the woods, which hardly ever happens in real life, because real life is full of joggers with no sense of humor who mysteriously object to unleashed dogs.

It was one of those runs that proved Blocky's downfall. We were scouting for caves even though I had a feeling that having Blocky in a cave might be a huge mistake, given his total and absolute lack of coordination or common sense - my real life dogs hardly ever fall off cliffs or into lava - but we were going to give it a try anyway. All was going well but I was a little lost and it was getting dark. I would have dug in for the night but I spotted two more dogs and, since I am determined to replicate my world in Minecraft and also am crazy, I want two more dogs. I tamed them quickly . . . and then the creeper came. In every life the sun must set. RIP Blocky. You will be missed.

More Pictures

I actually got a job - yeah, yeah, whatever - and it's been cutting into my Minecraft time. God! The indignity! Still, I am managing to keep up with the ever growing town of New Arcadia - I have added a new house that I like so much I moved in, a classic boring ranch house, a suspension bridge and, um, what else? Not everything is successful - I did try building a multi colored yurt sort of hippie structure which was an abject failure and had to be torn down. There are limits to ugliness. At any rate, here are some more pictures of newish things and some older things.

Tugboat

I made a tugboat. Whoo, go me! In general the docks are getting pretty cool and I'm rebuilding the lighthouse, although it isn't done yet. For the lighthouse I even made a portal - pain in the ass, that - and went to the Nether - also a pain in the ass - and got permanently burning rock.

Mostly Pictures

I am still building away in New Arcadia. Every so often that means I have to go and have a cave adventure but then I come back and work on the village, which is rapidly becoming a town that's soon to be a city. In the interests of industry, I have added a train, which neatly circles around the whole town and a train station because, you know, if you have a train you must have a station. I have also expanded the docks a bit so that ships can come in and unload onto the train. In the interests of, well, not industry I have added Ghidorah, the flying three headed Japanese monster and a replica of the Tbilisi Ministry of Roads building in Georgia (not the Georgia that's only about three hours away and features Stone Mountain and the Peachtree Plaza, the other one.) And here it all is.

All Cities Need Housing

New Arcadia continues to grow. I have built an apartment house now: the Potemkin Arms, luxury dwellings. Well, some are luxury. I got worried partway through about the lack of affordable housing in New Arcadia and made sure that some of the apartments are cheaper than the others. Not that they’re not all very nice! I actually contemplated moving into the penthouse myself but I’m happy at the Inn, where there is cake on the table.

I am a little concerned about the fact that I not only worry about affordable housing in my completely imaginary village but also about the plight of the shop workers in the commercial district. It’s hard when your village is just so attractive and yet, yet, where is its industry? There is money to be made from interstellar visitors from the flying saucer up on the hill but that’s mostly just tourism. Well, tourism and cattle. No, New Arcadia needs a trade and to that end, it now has a port. Next to the port it has, of course, 19^th century slums. You can take me out of Baltimore but not, apparently, all that far.

Life in New Arcadia is good, though. You can sit at the sidewalk café and watch the chickens go by.