More Assorted Minecraft Stuff

I've been very single minded lately.  Minecraft is very absorbing.

1.6 came out recently, bringing with it horses and blocks and scary mob changes.  Horses are fun, but they aren't the thing I was looking forward to.  No, I absolutely love getting new blocks to play with.  After all, the game is half building stuff.

Dyed hardened clay is the prettiest block yet.  I think it's my favorite in terms of appearance, although I do admit that I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet.  Carpet is exciting in terms of usefulness.  Currently, you can place it on just about anything. And it can support you even if you've placed it on something that won't.  Like... signs:

The new hay blocks are texturally interesting and easily renewable.  And I don't consider coal to be a high enough priority to mine a ton of it, but the new coal block ought to be fun.

I did find my first survival horses (as opposed to the ones I spawned in on a creative world) yesterday.  They're actually not an unreasonable distance away from my main area, which is nice.  While I have doubts they'll become my main method of transportation (considering my main house and storage and farms are all really close to default spawn), they have inspired an urge to build a "horse path" between home and my "ranch".  And when I say ranch, I really mean a fenced in area with my horses and a tiny hut to live in.

I've already got the path marked out:

 I apologize if the picture is a bit dark.  I marked the path with little torch towers, and then took a screenshot from a night rendered Overviewer map.

Speaking of which, I've been playing with making Overviewer maps.

It's been fascinating seeing where I've already explored, how insignificant my builds look compared to the landscape, etc.  I think the night renders are the most interesting, though.  I'm not the sort to just fill the landscape with torches to make it perfectly safe.  As much as I hate fighting monsters, I find it more visually appealing to only light up the important stuff.  Seeing that from above is really cool.

 Which is what gave me the idea of checking out my horse trail from above like this.  I knew the path would be windy, because I was avoiding water and tough hills, but it's impossible to tell just how much it winds while standing on it.

Actually building the path is going to be time consuming.  I really want it to be aesthetically pleasing.  Will probably end up making several passes on it - clearing the trees, laying the actual path, decorating, etc.  Make it pretty as well as functional.