Ha! So I love listening to the podcat while I'm playing Minecraft, and when I got to the part where Schuyler was talking about digging at y=11 to avoid most of the lava lakes... I was digging in my mine at y=11.
Also, re: listener question about Starcraft. If your friend is interested in the game itself but deterred because of the skill difference between you two, it might be worth playing a few 1v1 teaching games. It's really prevalent in the go community (and, I'd imagine chess too) and how I got my sister into that game. SC has similar strategic design elements (standard opening, gambits, etc) so it might work for y'all.
Basically the idea is play against each other, and don't hold back or "dumb down" your play, but narrate what you're doing, why you're doing it, and offer suggestions on things your friend can do to counter things you do. It might not work as well because SC is real time and unlike go/chess, part of the game relies on not being able to see your enemy's stuff at all times, but it might work. Once he gets the basics of standard openings and what counters what, maybe try some 2v2s online, coaching him in the same way. Not "build this, then build that" but more like "you could do A if you want to accomplish X goal, or do B to accomplish Y goal." A lot of the initial difficulty of grasping games like go/chess/SC is just not knowing what options are available to you and which situations call for which approaches.
