Indie, Acoustic, and Completely Awesome

Last night I had the last-minute pleasure of seeing three musical artists put on three acoustic shows near downtown Toledo at Mickey Finn's pub. The venue is extremely nice for a bar in such a crappy part of Toledo, the people there were undeniably generous and friendly, and the music rocked.

This needs said first: this was a small show. Mickey Finn's Pub is a good-sized establishment, but even so the turnout for the show was comfortably small: about forty people. This created a friendly, quiet, and intimate show in which everyone's attention hugged the stage all night long and let the entire pub be very close to all three acts.

Over the course of three and a half hours the audience was treated to all-acoustic sets from Patrick Park (website), Sera Cahoone (website), and Alex Brown Church from Sea Wolf (website). All of these artists share a similar musical style, which gave the whole evening a very consistent and welcoming feel.

Patrick played a very energetic set via acoustic guitar and occasional harmonica and was the surprise of the night for me. I genuinely enjoyed his songs, which started with a sound similar to Sea Wolf's gradual intros but filled out with well-timed hooks. If he played an electric guitar and added just the right about of percussion we would have had one hell of a rock concert on our hands - he certainly was not lacking for energy in any of his songs.

Sera Cahoone was next up on stage. Like Patrick, she played for nearly an hour and seemed to put her best foot forward. I was less impressed with her music, especially as she seemed less skilled on the guitar than Patrick, but her songs were no less well written and full of spirit and drive. Sera shines in her voice, however, and belts out strong vocal choruses. Last night she seemed to straddle a line between Alanis Morissette and Tegan & Sara - something I noticed when I woke up today humming "Walking with a Ghost" instead of a Sera Cahoone song. Still, with a solid grasp of her songs, Sera put on a great set.

The highlight of the night was Sea Wolf - or at least one-fifth of the band. Their 2010 "Solo Acoustic Tour" consists of Alex Brown Church, lead guitar and vocals, running though an hour-plus set of Sea Wolf's two-and-a-half album career. The best of their 2007 EP Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low and LP Leaves in the River was on display. Highlights included most of their first album, especially "Middle Distance Runner," "Black Dirt," and "You're a Wolf." Alex put a solid effort into material from the band's second album, White Water, White Bloom, which from my first listen at the show seemed to be unmistakably more Sea Wolf, which is to say an evolutionary album instead of a revolutionary one.

I picked up a copy of White Water, White Bloom on vinyl at the show, so I will be giving it a listen and will get a review up as soon as I can. While I hesitated to go to last night's show thanks to being extremely fatigued, I am definitely glad that I made the trip up there. It was one of 2010's best concerts.

B3 out.

Say Hello to SuperShiggs

I have a new online semi-persona: SuperShiggs.

Evolved from one of my World of Warcraft characters, SuperShiggs is my Xbox Live GamerTag and may very well evolve into many other places online, especially Twitter and Minecraft.

B3 out.

Welcome to Hyrule

I am deep in Minecraft - I mean deep. I love the game. To demonstrate my commitment to the game, check out the area of my world - Hyrule - that I have uncovered so far.

The naming scheme is as follows:

White Text: major geographic regions
Green Text: named geographic features
Yellow Text: my bases

Map of Hyrule

"Boston" is my spawn point.

I will be updating this map as I explore more of my world. This game is definitely going to define the rest of my twenties.

B3 out.

Xbox 360: I Should Have Done This a Long Time Ago

In the gaming world, by most definitions, I am what is called a "Nintendo fanboy." I grew up playing Nintendo's games on most of the major consoles: Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, DS+Lite+DSi, and the Wii. I love Nintendo games: Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and Metroid. I am a Nintendo gamer.

While I love Nintendo games, I am still a diversified gamer at heart, so I do try to game outside of the Nintendo universe once and a while. I did eventually buy a Playstation - in 2004 (released in 1995). I eventually bought a Playstation 2 - in 2008 (released in 2000). I am a PC gamer too - from Warcraft 2 to Far Cry 2, I try to keep up with the latest in PC gaming (I'm a huge fan of Steam, for example).

Other than Nintendo consoles, however, I have never really tried to stay ahead of the gaming curve. This generation's hi-def consoles - Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 - have generally been too expensive and too unnecessary for me to consider buying. Two weeks ago this changed.

I bought an Xbox 360 S. When the Xbox 360 launched in 2005 I did not have the disposable income, a high-definition television, nor the a decent high-speed internet connection to properly enjoy the 360. As this year plodded on, and as I grew more and more bored with my Wii, I finally realized that I now have all three obstacles cleared: plenty of money, a nice HDTV, and plenty of bandwidth to make the most of a modern, connected, hi-def gaming console.

With the help of a wonderful friend, I bought an Xbox 360 and Red Dead Redemption as my first game. I needed a 360 years ago. Not only am I enjoying Red Dead Redemption, but the media features of the console are perfect for my tiny apartment set up. I have a way to stream all my music, ripped videos, and pictures to my entertainment system, which before required a couple of long cables and plenty of fiddling with Windows.

I am extremely happy with my purchase. While I love my Wii and every Nintendo game I own, it is very nice to have a modern, hi-def console to enjoy that has a great online community, tons of games available, and plenty of media features to make my life around the apartment much more enjoyable.

For now I am "GlossyXyn" on Xbox live, although this temporary name will be changing once I get some MS Points on my account.

B3 out.

Minecraft: Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Minecraft is something different, something fun, and something extremely addicting. I have played very few games in the last ten years that open my imagination quite like Minecraft.

I am a kid again.

I learned about Minecraft thanks to the Reddit community about two months ago. I gave no due to the game's screenshots: rigid graphics and seemingly crude mechanics. What about concept; what was this game about; what does the player do? Despite browsing forum threads and watching YouTube videos that all had very little in common, I caved into the idea of spending twelve American dollars to buy the "Alpha" software and see what it was about. This is so far the best $12 I have spent all year.

Minecraft begins with a simple concept, yet I cannot choose one word describe the game. "Exploration" is certainly a big part of the game, but so is "crafting," "designing," and "fighting." The first task all new players are given is simple: "survive." Survival is important to the first half-hour of Minecraft, as darkness - both in caves and during all of the night hours - bring monsters about the world that all want to attack and kill the player.

By building a shelter - from whatever materials or natural formations are nearby the player’s starting point - the first couple of days in the game are all about surviving long enough to build better tools, which in turn help to mine better materials, which in turn help to build better shelters and yet better tools. This is a form of character progression that is all-too-familiar for players of World of Warcraft. Rather than questing for loot, however, Minecraft rewards risky exploration and long, monotonous stretches of mining. Hard work pays off in Minecraft.

Minecraft present a huge, randomly generated world that has no practical borders. By day I find great excitement in traveling across the land (although without a map of some sorts, I quickly become lost). By night I have to retreat to my shelters since it it very possible to be overwhelmed by monsters in the dark. There is, however, no more thrill more exciting than traveling across the land and stumbling upon a cave that plunges down into the dark earth. I usually venture into these caves for a bit, and if they look big enough, I set up a small, sheltered camp near the entrance and spend all night exploring the cave, mining minerals, following underground streams, and discovering pockets of magma near the lower levels.

During the day - when I am not exploring - I use my mined material (mostly stone and wood) to build additions to my main shelter, which after playing for two weeks is more of a mini-military base. From the side of a hill I have carved a three-story home base: I have plenty of lighting, two glass balconies, an observation tower, a garden (for growing trees to provide wood), and a vertical mineshaft that I dug - quick access to the lowest levels of the game world, deep underground, to collect rare minerals such as redstone and diamonds.

What Minecraft has turned into for me goes beyond an interest or obsession. Minecraft is a new way to express my creativity. I can build limitless structures, highways, railways, towers, tunnels, boats, carts, and much, much more. In many ways Minecraft is limited only by my imagination, and I expect to spend a lot of my free time in the coming months building a world that is always uniquely mine. This is the kind of creativity that I feel I have been lacking since my early college years, and any game that brings that back out in me is easily worth my $12.

B3 out.