The Drake Jolly Roger

French Toast at Two Bird Cafe Lauren Antone | JR

The quaint Two Bird Café is the epitome of a home-style restaurant. Located in San Geronimo, this cozy eatery adjacent to The Valley Inn offers a wide array of dishes and a comfortable, at-home atmosphere for its guests, many of them locals.

Over the past 15 years, the restaurant has remained popular, keeping its menu fresh and changing. When I sat down for a Sunday morning breakfast, the Café was packed with families, couples and teens as the wait staff moved from one table to the next, presenting the day’s specials on a whiteboard. Unconventional as this method seemed, the guests didn’t seem to mind.

After sitting down in one of the café’s three small dining areas, an attentive and polite waiter was by my side offering me and my companion coffee and juice. The fresh squeezed orange juice (small $3.95, large $5.00) was deliciously sweet and thick with pulp, expensive but a definite for those who have not yet enjoyed it.

Our waiter returned immediately, bringing with him the large breakfast menu and the specials whiteboard. The breakfast prices on the menus ranged from $10.50 to $13.50, but were reasonable in terms of the large portion sizes and high quality of food. One of the waitresses told us much of the restaurant’s produce was grown on the property.

Seasonal dishes like Fresh Trout with a pumpkin seed crust ($12.95) or Miwok Pancakes ($10.50), a dish served with two fluffy pumpkin pancakes and pork-apricot sausage, were made with organic pumpkin and jumped off the specials board. But I was enticed by the French “French” Toast (10.50) with organic, fresh seasonal fruit.

Sitting near the glass doors in the sun-brightened dining room, time seemed to fly. The fireplace crackled and classical music hung in the air, but those sounds were mostly drowned out by the customers’ laughter. The wait staff was impeccable; my glass never went empty and my coffee was refilled twice.

The appeal of the restaurant was undeniable. As one group of customers left, another group filtered in, and everyone seemed to know one another.

Two Bird Café has all the intimate ambiance of an upscale restaurant, but without the longer wait you’d expect. The cook and wait staff had our food to us in less than 15 minutes, as quickly as a diner staff.

My beautiful plate of French toast was topped with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, bananas, powdered sugar and simple syrup. I didn’t add maple syrup because the flavor of the French toast was already so sweet. For those with a sweet-tooth, this is your dish. The French bread was crunchy but warm and had a lasting cinnamon taste.

My companion ordered the Eggs Benedict ($11.95) and claimed it was the best she had ever had. The hollandaise sauce was thick and creamy, draping over two poached eggs, two crunchy English muffins and two slices of Canadian bacon that were layered in between. It was served with scrumptious potatoes, perfectly seasoned, and a fruit salad of organic fruit, mostly melon.

“I love the food here,” said Two Bird Café employee and junior Mika Kakin. “The Eggs Benedict is one of my favorites.”

Two Bird Café is open not only for breakfast, but also for brunch, lunch and dinner. It has an extensive lunch and dinner menu, offering salads, sandwiches, burgers, pasta, chicken, fish-of-the-day and more.

According to Kakin, Two Bird Café is a great place to be Friday and Saturday nights because live musicians perform on the stage, located in the bar.

Even though I only sat down for breakfast, the great flavors of the food, coupled with the friendly staff and bright atmosphere, has convinced me to come back for most likely delicous dinner.

Out of the foggy darkness, a single light illuminates a shining, silver ball of a creature dropping down from the top of the Grand Chapiteau. Amidst the sounds of nature, a curled figure elegantly descends from the scaffolding onto the stage. Upon reaching the ground, movement erupts all around the shimmering being, marking the beginning of life.

This opening scene depicts one of Cirque du Soleil’s newest shows, TOTEM. The show debuted April of 2010 in Montreal, and embarked thereafter on a world tour. As part of its tour, TOTEM will be playing under the Grand Chapiteau at AT&T Park until December 18. However, if you miss the show in San Francisco, TOTEM will play during the month of March in San Jose, after touring London.

Over the course of its two-and-a-half hour running time, TOTEM takes the audience on a tour of human evolution. This journey begins with man’s earliest beginnings as an amphibian and ends with cosmonauts trying to escape the confines of earth’s gravity. TOTEM includes 12 acts, all of which are uniquely spectacular. In between these awe-inspiring acts, there are short comedic skits performed by clowns and other actors. These often-brief skits serve as a welcome and hilarious break for audience members who may be trying to regain their breath after watching some of the more terrifying acts.

Five women ride unicycles, flipping metal bowls with their feet. CirqueduSoleil.com

Out of the 12 acts performed throughout TOTEM, six can be easily classified as death-defying. One of these acts includes five women riding around on ten-foot tall unicycles flipping metal bowls onto each other’s heads with their feet. Sometimes they even kick the bowls blindly over their shoulders onto the heads of their moving counterparts.

In another act, jumpers launch themselves up in the air off of Russian Bars no more than four inches wide. After flying stories up in the air, the synchronized jumpers come back down to land on the same four-inch landing strip. Then, some of the veteran jumpers transfer bars after doing flips 30 feet up in the air.

Although not all the acts have a major risk for injury, they are just as fantastic as the ones that do. Two women that appear out of the center of the earth twirl and juggle spinning pieces of fabric with their hands and feet, showing the creation of minerals.

A hoop dancer performs on stage. CirqueduSoleil.com

Two times during the show’s duration, the audience witnesses a Native American (called Amerindian) perform an enchanting dance with five hoops. He starts with no hoops and as the music picks up in tempo, he gracefully kicks up the other hoops with his feet. He spins the hoops in impressive patterns before manipulating them to form different animals. At the end of his second appearance, he effortlessly makes a globe out of the five hoops and holds them high above his head.

Along with the breathtaking whirling, swinging, and flipping prevalent throughout the show, TOTEM puts emphasis on humanity’s intimate connection with nature. This motif is portrayed numerous times, one of which is when an inconsiderate tourist has his camera crushed as a punishment for his careless and irresponsible littering.

Under the guidance of director Robert Lepage, the skits and acts all seem to blend together even when there are differences in the themes. The transitions between the acts allow them to merge into one another, even though they are supposed to take place in separate parts of the globe.

No show like TOTEM would be complete without a smooth collaboration of costumes, atmosphere, and music. The elaborate and sometimes wild costumes were designed by Kym Barrett. Before designing the costumes for TOTEM, Barrett had success as the costume designer for all three Matrix movies, as well as the version of Romeo and Juliet that starred Leonardo DiCaprio.

The show’s atmosphere is perfect for its theme. The crickets, and other sounds that one may expect to hear on a “Rainforest at Night” CD set the mood for a mysterious and captivating exploration of the world and human history. The fog and tall grass that line the back of the stage further the sensation of adventure.

The type of music differs greatly for every act, but never seems to be out of place. The music crescendos help jolt the audience when something extraordinary happens, without distracting the audience from the performance.

TOTEM’s intertwining of dramatic physical feats and artistic expression make for a truly special show. Not only do the performers captivate their audience, they also spread a message of peace and gratitude from beginning to end. In the show’s closing scene, the crystal man who descended to earth in the beginning disappears into the lagoon at the back of the stage leaving the audience content to be human.

Cover art for The Family Sign

While many rappers focus on the sex, drugs, and respect they command, hip-hop group Atmosphere leans away from the norm and focuses on more relatable and intimate topics.

A duo of Ant (mixer and producer), and rapper Slug on the microphone, Atmosphere produces songs about the more accessible feelings of lost love, parenting, and reflection on past mistakes.

The Family Sign breaks Atmosphere’s three-year reprieve from full-length albums, not counting the two EP releases in 2009 and 2010.

The Family Sign embellishes on the pattern of painfully detailed alcoholism, domestic abuse, and the general misery that were hallmarks of the group’s previously successful albums, but fails to bring back the mischievous bite that Slug’s lyrics once held.

Previously, Slug accented even his intentionally depressing songs with a line or two of sarcastic wit, but The Family Sign’s more dismaying songs only hold anecdotes of his violent past.

However, that isn’t to say that these indie rappers’ latest endeavor is an unpleasant album. The lyrics still have the same genuine flow, just without the lighthearted undertones. The pace of Slug’s rapping still mostly holds to his rapid and intelligently rhymed quick succession of verses, rhyming one syllable across multiple stanzas, as on “Who I’ll Never Be”: “Familiar with the voice of the lonely / Lost in the noise of the wind blowing / Go ahead, girl, tell your story / but the siren don’t wail for holy.”

Not all the songs are depressing, either. While “Became” depicts a girl presumably eaten by wolves on a camping trip with Slug, “Something So” illustrates Slug’s joy of experiencing his son’s birth, and “She’s Enough” shows Slug’s devotion to his significant other.

The guitar and piano parts (played by Nate Collins and Erick Anderson, respectively) punctuate the mood of every song in Sign. While sometimes the melodic parts have an improvised and unpolished feel, the instrumental melodies generally add a skillfully created additional dimension to every song. The melancholic, shifting chords in “The Last to Say” drive the song’s theme of abusive parenting, and the synchronized duo of the guitar and piano’s major chords uplift the hopefulness of “My Notes”. However, the overbearing distortion and volume of the lead guitar in “I Don’t Need Brighter Days” drown out Slug’s vocals more than they should, giving the song an unfinished feel.

The Family Sign isn’t bad, it is just a bit melancholy and lacking the playful feel that Slug’s previous albums held. The flow of the lyrics is still solid and keeps with Slug’s past record of rhyming excellence. This album is most comparable to God Loves Ugly, a previous release of Atmosphere’s, with similar tendencies toward songs about relationships and substance abuse. The Family Sign is a quality album, but comes from a more mature and less flippant Slug, holding it back from the anti-heroic nature that popularized Atmosphere’s previous albums.

It’s safe to say that Atmosphere is continuing their growth, and that should be obvious to real fans. As far as their old style, it’s been almost abandoned, and although this album is quality, it isn’t anything ground breaking.

On an average school morning, it takes about an hour for me to get ready. This is mainly because I press the snooze on my alarm a couple of times and check Facebook; if I weren’t so lazy, I could easily cut that time down to half an hour. All I do in the morning is put on clothes, draw on eyeliner, apply some mascara and voilà!

After taking a peek into The Look Book by Erika Stalder, I’ve found some simple, stylish looks that take about ten minutes tops, giving me plenty of time in the morning to get ready. And it will definitely earn me a spot at the cool kids’ table.

The book includes fifty different signature styles from fifty well-known celebrities. There are five different categories: Lips, Eyes, Brows, Face & Skin, and Hair. Generally, I’m into more natural looks (you know, wearing make up to make it look like you’re not wearing make up) but there were some styles that proved too good to pass up. My personal favorite is one inspired by Joan Jett, of the bands The Runaways and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. It’s a little out there and not something one would wear to school, but it’s stylish nonetheless. On each page there’s a quick bio, a picture of the celebrity sporting the style we’re trying to replicate, and easy to follow, step-by-step instructions.

The directions were simple and so easy that, even though I paraphrased, I couldn’t make them any simpler than they already were.

The look only takes about ten minutes. I admit, the first couple of attempts turned out disastrous and I looked more like a raccoon who got punched in the eyes than Joan Jett. But after a few practice rounds, I started to look more like one of The Runaways.

There are even natural looks in there: glossy lips, perfectly long eyelashes, and braided up-dos. It gives you the most wanted celebrity styles with easy-to-follow instructions. In the beginning, they show you all the different types of brushes so even the most clueless of girls can know what a spoolie brush is.

 The Look Book is great, and I would definitely take a look at it before going to a party, hanging out with a friend, or just going to school.

It verges on unfairness to liken The Strokes to any other band. For every similarity one might draw, there are a handful of comparative characteristics which The Strokes dominate.

Cover art for The Strokes' new album.

The foremost strong-suit of the New York City indie rock band is its digression from formula. Not once on their 2011 LP Angles does a song proceed along the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus drudgery that musical prodigies like Nickelback can’t deviate from to save their dignity.

Instead, nearly every song on the album features some sort of unexpected interlude, solo, or harmony to keep each track from dragging. The solo on the second track, “Under Cover of Darkness,” for instance, features a change in time signature and guitarist Nick Valensi noodling in the minor scales of the progression, a refreshing divergence from the vice grip that most guitarists have around the simpler pentatonic scale.

But time allotted for creativity on this LP isn’t limited to flashy guitar work; Angles shows a more inventive side of the band as a whole than The Strokes’ previous albums, and those of their contemporaries. Although fans of the band’s other three LPs will recognize Fabrizio Moretti’s characteristic drum style, his versatility is easily heard, and the exactness with which he treats his fills creates an almost drum-machine-like precision.

Similarly, lead singer Julian Casablancas shows an increased degree of maturity and experimentation on this album, as compared to its predecessors. Casablancas makes his vocal and stylistic range much more evident than it has been in years past: the minimalist, dreamy tone of “Call Me Back,” the deep, drawn-out Muse-esque howls on “Metabolism,” and the vocal punctuation on “Taken For a Fool” reminiscent of Cake’s John McCrea speak to Casablancas’ pleasing growth from the admittedly predictable lyricisms of Angles’ antecedents.
Even bass player Nikolai Fraiture is allowed some time in the creativity spotlight on this album. “Games” features a verse backed only by a simple drumbeat and two harmonized bass lines, a musical strategy that few bands are bold enough to use.

Band members’ individual innovation transposes into a tastefully motley array of tones, tempos, and transitions. Around nearly every corner of Angles is an unexpected subtlety, or a flourish or drop-off in sound—a garnish on the musical salad that saturates the album with delightful surprises. Whether it’s the ran-into-a-brick-wall change of pace after the chorus on “Two Kinds of Happiness” or the playful 7th note that the bassist slips in at the end of “Taken For a Fool,” The Strokes’ attention to variation make the predominating descriptor of this LP fresh.

Even though Angles has an undoubted individuality, one of the best things about the album is the concentration of reminders of other bands; whether they show inspiration, tribute, or merely coincidence, I found myself happily searching my memory for “that song that this one reminds me of,” or the band that The Strokes might listen to in their free time.

The progression of the album’s opener, “Machu Piccu,” for example, reminded me of James Mercer’s lyrics on Broken Bells’ 2010 debut. And the vocals of the next track never fail to remind me of Saves The Day and Say Anything, while the synth solo on the album’s closer, “Life Is Simple In The Moonlight,” sounds remarkably like Daft Punk.

This album does, despite its upsides, disappoint in some regards, taking away that coveted last half-hook, in my mind. Primarily, Angles is distractingly experimental at times. The predominant example is the harmony on “You’re So Right,” the weakest song on the album, which is afflicted with a sort of Thom-Yorke-on-his-off-day ambient discordance that drives my uncomfortable fingers to the skip track button.

Although it doesn’t work one hundred percent of the time, the experimentation on this LP is highly successful, more often than not: Casablancas and crew make good use of stereo sound—swinging rhythms and vocals from one speaker to another—and fearlessly use risky harmony intervals. The innovative flare of this album, accompanied by mementos of previous records and artists, is confidently set in front of us for judgment. Fortunately for The Strokes, it all works brilliantly.

Rango’s psychadelic animation and bizzare plot add up for an enjoyable trip. Image courtesy of courtesy of Nickelodeon Movies.

Every movie works hard to find its own niche.

Animated films especially, because of their young target audience, must define themselves with a higher than average level of creativity to have any hope of critical success.

So when a movie comes out that includes a scene in which a massive family of moles flying on bats chase a chicken-drawn carriage through a canyon, while hurling dynamite at the ground and cart-wheeling out of control in huge bursts of fire, it has a pretty good chance of doing well.

Simply watching the trailers before the film was a reminder of how bad kids’ movies are today. Coming soon are the atrocities Rio, which appears to be yet another “let’s make awkward sexual jokes” flick from the makers of Ice Age; Puss in Boots, which I believe is some sort of porno-offspring of Shrek; and Kung Fu Panda 2, a sequel to DreamWorks’ 2008 blockbluster in which Jack Black must fight through a terrible plot using nothing but bad, obesity-related jokes.

Rango soars high above this decrepit pool of animated refuse, fusing the intense, zany energy you would expect from Johnny Depp with an engaging and coherent plot that puts its competitors to shame.

The story begins as our protagonist yearns for the stage: a lonely chameleon in his glass box in the trunk of a car, accompanied by a dismembered Barbie, a dead beetle, and a wind up fish toy, desperately attempts to perform his play.
But when the car he’s in hits an armadillo, the lizard’s simple world explodes around him, and he is left stunned on the side of the road in a land so desperately arid that water boils in seconds.

He has been forgotten in the Mojave Desert, and must use his wits – or lack thereof – to survive.

He soon encounters a lady lizard, Ms. Bean, and is then brought into the town of Dirt. After abandoning his old life, he weaves a tall tale at a bar that turns the hopelessly parched residents of the dry town into disciples. He also makes up his new name – Rango.

From there, the movie delves into a world of imagery and double entendres that make the film potentially more enjoyable to adults than to children. The most surprising part of the film for me was not anything that occurred on screen, but the moment as I walked out of the theater and realized I had been watching a PG rated film which included the line “One time I found a whole human spinal column in my fecal matter.”

Although it’s probably obvious at the moment, I’ll make it abundantly clear: this is not a film for people who want to go to the movies and walk out with a warm and fuzzy inside-out-kitten feeling.

It is an acid trip committed to film stock, an intricate and delusional journey through the old west which achieves a form of Salvador Dali-like abstraction rarely seen in children’s movies. It combines all this with a gritty, Clint Eastwood vibe that leaves you squinting and talking in a low gravely voice long after the credits role.

Rango is to film as fudge is to flavor – a simple list of ingredients remixed so many ways that it becomes more than the sum of its parts, a unique and delectable adventure with twists and turns that would surprise even the most seasoned of reviewers.

Snooki sports her signature poof on the cover of her novel.

Drunken nights on the boardwalk, searching for “gorilla juice-heads” in the club, and hooking up with random guys on a red velvet couch. This isn’t the famed reality show Jersey Shore, but it sure is close.

One of Jersey Shore’s most coveted cast members, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi has written a New York Times best seller, A Shore Thing.

This fictional tale depicts two cousins, Gia Spumanti and Bella Rizzoli, who are spending the summer on the Jersey Shore. The two girls grew up on Brooklyn in the same apartment building and are like sisters to one another. Gia, a five foot, loud mouth, party girl, is obviously based on the book’s author, Snooki. Bella, in contrast, is an athletic, soft spoken girl who just got out of a long relationship. She seems to be based on J-Woww (the three w’s are not a typo; she spells her name like that), a close friend to Snooki and fellow cast member of Jersey Shore.

The book is obviously not a literary masterpiece. The story line is straight from the creative genius that is Snooki’s brain, but she admits to having a ghost writer in the book’s dedication. The antics of the two girls are generally all scenarios that could be taken from the show. The two partners in crime frequent the same clubs as the cast members of Jersey Shore (such as Karma and Bamboo) and usually fall into the same dramatic situations that the characters find themselves in on the show. Gia gets rejected by various guys, a typical night for Snooki, where as Bella is flirty but more conservative, not surprisingly similar to J-Woww.

Although the girls run into trouble with their bosses (Gia and Bella work at a tanning salon and gym respectively) and the police, the central theme of the plot is boys. Gia thinks that every guy who crosses her path is destined to hookup with her, and Bella thinks that every guy who is interested in her is a pig. These contrasting mentalities make for some ridiculous scenes in which the girls end up with no guys at the end of the night.

This book is an extremely quick read. Although it is a whopping 289 pages (a huge accomplishment for someone I assumed could barely spell her own name) events like Gia rescuing an eight foot long shark help move the book along.

Is this book laden with grammatical errors? Yes. Is it filled with unreal happenings that are ridiculous, even for a summer at the Jersey Shore? Yes. Did I laugh my way through the whole book? Yes. This novel is obviously not going to be added to the AP Lit syllabus anytime soon, but it is a hilarious read for those of you that enjoy Jersey Shore.

James Newman portrays anti-hero Tony Snyder (Courtesy of MTV.com)

With a history of incredibly detestable shows (with the only exception of Rob and Big), one would hope that MTV’s remake of the British show Skins would be able to earn back some respect.

After all, the original British version was exceptionally good for a teen drama series, so there isn’t much to botch, right?

Wrong. Even though American Skins is so far a complete copy of the UK show, it’s been mutilated beyond recognition from its charming predecessor. UK Skins had an amateur yet alluring feel to it, from the perky theme song to the less than perfect visages of the actors; the show felt real, like it actually was a documentary of real events in Britain.

American Skins’ actors are all perfect, manicured to look as pretty as possible for the camera. However, the actors are less than perfect in one field:: acting. Parts of the show are painfully ‘read directly from script’ sounding or cliché, even with a use of a despicably over-used phrase fit only for socially starved middle-aged men: “Let’s get this party started.”

In British Skins, there was no distinct line whether a character was a good or evil person. Many of the characters, like real people, made mistakes but ultimately were good-hearted. There were many-layered conflicts that tied to the beginning of the first season and picked up again in later episodes, or woven through every chapter in multiple seasons, (for those who know the show) such as British Tony’s recurring conflicts with every other cast member.

It might be too early to judge, but the – so far – shallow characters of Skins aren’t even likable, when they should be. UK’s shaggy haired, effortlessly handsome protagonist, Tony, for example, has been replaced by America’s adaptation: a creature with spiked hair, open button-down shirts and a spiteful sneer, heinously reminiscent of the cast members from another MTV abomination: Jersey Shore.

It might be too early to judge, but American Skins’ characters aren’t very deep or even likable, in cases where they should be.

The gratuitous sex and drug use streaked throughout British skins was adapted in the American version, but with serious consequences. At writing time, nine major sponsors have pulled out their advertising, including Proactiv, Subway, Taco Bell, and Wrigley Gum. The extensive adult themes also instigated a federal investigation as to whether or not the sex scenes violated child pornography statutes.

With the poor acting, questionable amounts of sex, and generally terrible content, one can only hope this bastardization of British Skins meets an end in the near future.

All graphics courtesy of Mojang.

You wake up alone, on an island.

You have nothing. No weapons, no tools, no food, and no idea what’s happening. All you know is that if you’re outside when the sun goes down ten minutes from now, you’re going to die.The music starts, a somber chord in the distance. You turn away from the ocean, stretching out in front of you as far as the eye can see, and get your first look at the stunningly expansive world of Minecraft.

It’s a game that broke the mold. Unlike the big earners of recent years – God of War, Final Fantasy, and Call of Duty: Black Ops come to mind – Minecraft didn’t come out of a huge studio backed by millions of dollars. Instead, it was almost entirely designed by a single Swedish programmer, Markus Persson, and was released after only about a week of development, relying on a nearly continuous series of updates to keep the game enticing.

Cost, however, does not translate into quality. Lacking the sterile and utterly incomprehensible programming of most video games on the market today, Minecraft retains a very human feel.

The game itself is simple. A sandbox style game, you start with nothing, collecting blocks and using them to make tools and build houses. As night falls, zombies, spiders, and explosive demons called “creepers” show up, offering little more than a signature hiss before detonating and destroying all your work.

But hidden in the simplistic gameplay is an addicting beauty that many recent blockbuster games have lacked.  The more you play, the more you learn about fighting off the enemies and crafting new items. Your once-simple house, which at first served only as a means of protecting your hard earned tools and blocks, quickly grows into a work of art. Your simple pit mines evolve into complex labyrinths of tunnels and caves, weaving through the world and delving deeper and deeper.

The first thing you’re likely to notice are the graphics. Minecraft does not offer state-of-the-art, high quality visuals. Instead, the environment is composed of large blocks with 16 by 16 pixels of detail – just enough to tell the different types of blocks apart.

The reason for this is simple: “8-bit” style graphics are easier to make than HD, and most people don’t seem to care. The textures in Minecraft are so simple you can edit them yourself, without any special software. A lot of people have taken advantage of this and have made their results graphics packs publicly available, so it’s very easy to fine tune the game to your own liking.

For those willing to delve further into the game, an alluring world of simple algorithms and straightforward coding emerges. With some math and drawing, you can start to predict where things will show up, the best layouts for mines, and all manner of devices that take advantage of the simple interactions between different types of blocks.

In fact, by using a few blocks, it’s possible to make a basic computer inside the game. Searching YouTube for “minecraft computer” will yield video after video of full fledged computers capable of doing basic math, made inside a video game. In this respect, Minecraft can be an invaluable educational tool – giving you the power to practice architecture, engineering, and even computer science, all from the comfort of your own home.

But just because Minecraft is open-ended doesn’t mean it’s easy.

“It’s very addictive,” said sophomore Drew Wilson, who started playing the game last August. “If you don’t enjoy it at first, you’ll get addicted when you get frustrated.”

Drew knows a bit about Minecraft. Since he got into the game, he’s become a moderator on a server – a place where people can come and play the game together – with hundreds of players from all over the world.

The social aspect is a big draw for Minecraft. Drew estimates at least 30 other Drake students are regular players, with more joining in all the time. Grey Stockton, another sophomore who started playing in September, agrees. He runs a server that used to cater to only students here, but now has players from all over the world.

“It brings a lot of creativity into a simple and social environment,” he said while showing me some of the larger buildings players had constructed on his server. “It develops teamwork.”
That teamwork spans both social and political borders. “USA, Canada, Denmark, Nederlands, South Korea, Sweden, UK, Australia…” Gray said, reading off a list of users on his server. “We used to have a guy from Vietnam.”

Minecraft offers something unique – a type of simple, multi- or single-player game that the world hasn’t really seen before. It’s changing the entire industry while staying cheap and small. If there ever were a game to which you’d want to get addicted, Minecraft fits the bill.

Back again with the storytelling power of no other, The Decemberists masterfully craft one florid, articulate, bittersweet tale of lust and loss after another. The King is Dead, a mosaic of clever harmonies and wavering emotions, exhibits this Portland folk band’s musical quirks and strengths while adhering most sincerely to its defining quality: eighteenth century-style narratives of war and sentimentality.

The first things with which this LP might impress a Decemberists noob are its range in subject matter, the tone of each track’s speaker, and its lyrical fluency. As if born in 1700, Colin Meloy, lead singer and lyricist, expresses a rhetorical facility matched by few contemporary songwriters. Six albums worth of impassioned ballads and epics, rife with such vocabulary as “avarice,” “vixen” and “gabardine,” have established The Decemberists as one of the most lyrically animated groups around. The second verse of “June Hymn” is a prime example of the band’s eloquence: “Pegging clothing on the line / Training jasmine how to vine / Up the arbor to your door / And more. / Standing on the landing with the war / You shouldered all the night before.”

As the curtain is drawn and the album commences, the hard-hitting snare of “Don’t Carry It All” is somehow reminiscent of Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up.” These similarities are quickly shattered, however, as the true, guileless Decemberist style rears its familiar head and blares harmonica and string harmonies with the effortless perfection of dedicated, skilled musicians. For the duration of the album, loyal Decemberists fans will be pleased with the characteristic snare, harmonized melodies and amp settings that have kept us coming back since their 2001 debut.

Unfortunately for those fans with a thirst for experimentation and change—its quality notwithstanding—The King is Dead is, at times, rather evocative of a handful of pre-existing tracks. “Calamity Song,” for instance, features a guitar riff nearly identical to that of The Crane Wife classic, “O Valencia!” Additionally, “January Hymn,” coupled with “June Hymn,” is suggestive of the “Crane Wife” song trilogy, in both sorrowful plot and segmented story.

Another phraseological bone that listeners may have to pick with this LP is the sometimes excessively country twang. “All Arise,” particularly, brings back memories of restless early 2000s road trips filled with the agitating sound of Shania Twain’s pop-country mediocrity.

But The Decemberists achieved what they wanted with this album: a divergence from the rock-opera-type concept album that listeners found with their last LP, The Hazards of Love, released in March of 2009. Although The King is Dead takes only the bronze medal in my mind, behind The Hazards of Love and The Crane Wife, faithful Decemberists fans will be tickled by Meloy and contingents’ surviving creativity. With the sweet taste of unity on “This Is Why We Fight,” the lively chorus of “Calamity Song,” and the polished perfection of “June Hymn,” The King is Dead delivers a musical wallop rarely matched, and the linguistic power of Whitman or Yeats.

The Decemberists will be playing at the Fox Theater in Oakland on Feb. 14. You have just over two weeks, so go get your tickets now!