Aftermath

So, Christmas at least is over, and I guess there might be new years crap coming up for most people, but personally I don't usually do anything unless a friend is having a party (or when I'm not single), but to me the whole new years thing is kinda meaningless.

I didn't get anything of note really for Christmas other than cash, which is what I actually need (FOOD!), and I don't really deserve much so, good stuff, just not horribly exciting. The main thing of note really was that I ate LOTS of really good food over the holidays. Highlight was probably the salmon with three cheese tortellini in a basil sauce. It was kinda mild but the salmon was perfect and I like tortellini a lot, so, good times. Actually back up in Toronto I bought some beef tortellini and it made me sick, so it was nice to get some real stuff. I've also bought myself a fair bit of chocolate, enjoying some now actually. Also ice cream, theres some mint chip in the freezer. So yea, overall great for food.

Theres also been some interesting activity with friends, getting to do a bit of psychology stuff and manipulating things to a degree. I'm in a wonderful position to completely ass rape a friend of mine mentally if I wanted to, but like I said hes a friend (even if hes done some retarded things in the past trying to get into penor fights), so I'm not going to play that game unless I would normally, and its kind of a complicated situation there. Very interesting though, and potential to come back into contact with some old, but crazy friends. Not likely, but possible.

Anyway, back to gnawing away at this chocolate block. Kinda fun, but my teeth fucking hurt.

Crappy Music Day

Yes, its that time of year again. When some twit who no one will stand up to puts on horrible "holiday" music that would never sell at all if not for its "festive" aspects. I mean, come on, seriously everyone agrees here right? The music fucking sucks without exception. Doesn't matter if you normally listen to rap, rock, lolemo music, or whatever. This is the time of year when we can all come together in agreement over how ridiculously horrible Christmas music is.

Anyway, on to FFXI. For a long while I was looking to pick up a scroll of Carnage Elegy, but they cost a ton on the AH and Draco and I have both spent days (almost a month) trying to farm the damn thing. I think. . . night before last or around there, Draco managed to get the drop, and sent it over to me, so I owe him big time. Between the links and the fact that it took FOREVER to just get the damn thing to drop, it was really rough to try and get.

As a result, I'm looking to level bard again, and I do need to get my hands on those last two pieces of AF (body and hands), and work on the Opo-opo Crown and then finally a Minstrel's Coat to finish pimping out my bard, none of it is really necessary and I don't really need to pause my leveling for any of it. They can be taken care of as things go on, and I should be able to manage 75 in no time, which opens up new opportunities for meriting.

I've also been sorta half looking to get my hands on a Soboro and get dancer up to 37 for a very fun combination of SAM/DNC. For me, it would likely be perfect. I'd be able to support the group through healing tons, possibly also tank a little, and to top it off still be capable of doing some considerable damage. The only thing that would suck is that imps would absolutely destroy me even more than they already do, and I think we all know how often parties go after imps. Oh well, at the very least it'd be freaking disgusting for soloing random things and for coffer key raids. Hell I'd probably wind up soloing most of my keys after setting that up.

Anyway, off to get breakfast. At my grandparents house in San Diego, would MUCH rather be at home but it can't be helped.

Ten Year Olds in University

I haven't really hidden the fact that I've had problems with my housemates up in Toronto, but it has gotten way worse. Initially, I didn't have any problems with this one guy, but now he thinks hes the greatest thing ever and doesn't need to pay attention to what anyone else says. . . so basically hes ripped off part of our bathroom door and likely damaged his room (which we all have to pay for unless we burn his ass, which I'm going to do). He has also created numerous issues with noise and just acting like a ten year old in general, even going so far as to try to provoke me while I'm not even in the country via facebook, which was a good laugh but its a clear sign that its high time he gets out of a respectable university and starts begging for change, because quite honestly thats what he deserves. Not sure how the hell he got in.

Chances are when I bring up the problem, I will be the one moved, but if I can essentially prove that he has damaged the house. . . he might get removed from the school entirely. To be honest, I want to burn this guy. It would be so satisfying to see him kicked off campus after all of the shit he has pulled, and maybe I'd be a bad person for genuinely enjoying ruining someone else's life, but hes well on his way to putting a significant dent in mine, so, him or me I guess.

Anyway, I've mostly been playing Guild Wars because its easier to pick up and put down whenever I want to, and with finals and getting back to California its been a little rough finding time to just sit down and play, but I think I'm slowly getting back into an FFXI mood, though some minor drama mongering has put me off a tiny bit. I will likely continue with RDM, I still want it up, but I'm at the stage where I just need to get any motivation at all back, and then move up from there to whatever comes next.

Oh, also: California is colder than Toronto? lolwut? Seriously though, 33 here, 37 there, kind of disturbing. At least theres no snow I suppose, and I've got my cat and a TV and real food (something other than pasta). Parents have done some yelling, and forced me to follow suit, but its MOSTLY been nice, and its certainly better than having some 19 year old who thinks hes 10 slamming his keyboard because he sucks at Half-Life. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he realizes that I wasn't joking about having a chat with some UTSC staff

Why red?

Been leveling Red Mage lately, wondering exactly why its red and not green or something. Someone also asked me why I was leveling RDM, which kinda surprised me. Its a semi-useful situational sub to have for WHM, to be sure, but honestly I just felt like leveling it. Also, Galbatorix's Phalanx II made me a little jealous, it seemed extremely sexy and useful.



Currently sitting at 26, dinged earlier today before I went down for a nap. The party I got was kinda. . . . not so hot, but we powered through it and at that level it doesn't really matter anyway. Just not as smooth as I would have liked.

So far I really like the job but its been rough keeping up with resists. It has felt kind of like BLM, where I was having a lot of trouble having my spells not get resisted even though I had pretty much the most INT gear I could get. Because of that and mostly only really having debuffs that're useful (DNC take care of healing pretty much exclusively in the lower levels now, because theres so many of them and because there are so few WHMs) I've felt like I wasn't really a good use of a party slot most times, but even so things seem to be going ok, and around 33 things will begin to change dramatically.

I've also been really unsure what kind of gear exactly I'm supposed to wear. I feel like a WHM, except everything is the holy breastplate, and by the way if anyone reading this is a WHM who wears that, go kill yourself. I mean I get that RDM is supposed to be a hybrid but gear wise that turns into light DD gear because all the mage stuff thats even vaguely useful is either all jobs or the 'pure' mages only. I mean it doesn't really matter, I just feel weird wearing lizard gear into the late 20s because theres nothing worth upgrading to unless I wanted to look more pretty and go with beetle.

Thankfully school has more or less ended until next semester with the exception of finals, which is mainly why I'm moving significantly on RDM, but it also means that my housemates are around constantly so its been kind of a game of seeing if I can guess when they'll be loud and act like retards so I can fall asleep and then avoid them waking me up 2 hours later. Its also been rough actually trying to keep a reasonable sleep schedule. I'm a pretty light sleeper typically, I mean not that it matters since these idiots literally slam things around at 5 AM (like punching walls slamming) so even if I could sleep through the more minor stuff, that would wake me up pretty quickly, but a lot of the time they either keep me up or wake me up shortly after I fall asleep. . . . . I'm really looking forward to going home for a few weeks. There're a number of things I want to do and people I want to see (like my cat), but at the moment it looks like I might have to go down to southern california for christmas yet again which pretty much assfucks any plans I had to do anything even remotely relaxing over break. At any rate, I gotta get through finals first I guess.

Progress. . . . ?

Managed Rank 8. . . . last night? I don't remember, my asshole housemate in the room next to mine keeps cussing at his computer because he sucks at games and dies a lot so I haven't really been able to get that much sleep despite telling him to shut up on more than one occaison. Anyway, yea. Rank 8, pretty nice, but I've got 10 in my sights.



As mentioned previously, I've been going through the CoP missions. . . ya know the more I see him the more I feel like Bahamut is a little pansy. I mean, if the Mammets were kicking his ass a little, surely he can't be THAT mean.



Beat up the Mammets pretty easily second run we went through on it. Oops, lolNIN is in this picture. Maybe I should have censored the names. . . . nah.



Also kicked Diabolos' ass, wasn't too hard, but it kinda blew that we had to run down there for it twice.



Best cutscene ever. I'm sure there are already MANY rule 34 related images around on the net somewhere.



Also kept leveling BRD though I've stopped recently because farming up the level 59 elegy is a pain in the ass and I don't really feel like spending the money on it yet, but with my source of income going through the roof thanks to the re-nerfing of 2 handers, that might change soon.



Lastly, Imac was around a couple weekends ago and there were a few fun moments, this being the primary highlight.

Miserable Failures

So a while ago I joined up with a group moving through Chains of Promathia missions, and it was going MOSTLY ok, and a few of the people on the runs are actually quite smart, but eventually it got kind of. . . . . .

There is one central character in all of this bullshit, and I'll just call him lolNIN until he pisses me off enough that I feel the need to reveal his name. The short version is he is a complete moron who never prepares for anything at all and needs to have his hand held through every single thing no matter how trivial.

First instance was prep work for Mammets. For those of you who don't know, the prep involves a lot of running around, and if you're a retard (or just lolNIN) it takes FOREVER. Amazingly, I was lucky enough to be paired off to DUO the entire thing with this moron. He is a level 60 NIN. He is rank 4. He needs ports for every step the entire way.

The prep also involves fighting an ant lion that regains all of its HP if it returns to its spawn point, which it attempts to do every time it uses an ability. It took about 5 minutes of saying "MOVE THE FUCK AWAY FROM ITS SPAWN" and it got all of its HP back about 6 times before this retarded lolNIN could figure out that he needed to move. Several call1's were also involved. After that, whenever it moved back and we couldn't turn it, I had to spend about 2-3 minutes again spamming that he needed to get away from the spawn before he moved. After about half an hour he finally figured it out and it only took a couple notices in /p before he moved.

Please note that nothing in this is an exageration. I really did have to spend about 5 minutes getting this jackass to move away from the spawn, and it really did take about half an hour for him to figure out why DESPITE KNOWING THAT IT GOT ALL ITS HP BACK AT THE SPAWN POINT.

Eventually, after being about 2 hours late thanks to this guys inability to do his rank 5 mission, we got to Monarch Linn. We go in for the first run, seems to be going ok, we had three NINs (or two NINs and one lolNIN depending how you count). How I did not see this coming is beyond me, but the lolNIN got the mage mammet, and IMMEDIATELY pulled it right in between the other two NINs so that any AoE would pretty much hit everyone. At this point I figure that maybe hes just trying to fuck this up, but apparently he really is that stupid. After a few pointed comments in his direction we went again, told him to just shut up and go hump a wall with his mammet, and we won.

A few days later, we go to Pso'Xja to farm chips to get the pass for the Diabolos fight, and not 2 minutes after he and I zone in he spawns the two golems from the thing that you get the. . . . blue? bracelet from and is promptly assfucked. Of course, he decided not to follow me, so I can't do anything to make up for his idiocy until I run back and raise his sorry ass.

Now, we're on Ouryu, and while we lost the first fight (and had to warp because everyone was retarded and spammed their mistmelts on the first time he went up until they had none left), lolNIN amazingly managed to not fuck up anything major that I noticed. Course, now that we're on our way back to run it again he and everyone else in our party except me managed to split up into two groups, both aggro hippos, and both die, so, don't give him too much credit.

Gonna write a non-rant bit later probably once I have enough free time to fiddle with pictures.

Not good enough

No one is perfect.

That isn't going to stop me from being incredibly pissed about this idiotic WotG PC delay. Thanks, I have no drive whatsoever to go and play the game so I can watch everyone around me enjoy new content while I have to wait. . . what is it now, 5 days?

Also, people at EB Games are douchebags. Not really news to anyone I'm sure, but its worth pointing out.

For the Lulz

LolRDM. . ?

Alright, I have a question to ask the FFXI community as a whole, or possibly specifically those who play RDM.

Why are half of the RDMs great players who pay attention, while the other half just suck completely beyond belief and cannot be bothered to actually play the game when they get a party?

Heres an example: In my static on Sunday, we initially had a RDM named Skelly. I had a bad feeling about him before the party started because he felt it was neccesary to spam a shout for people to join his linkshell in freaking Bibiki Bay. Shockingly, he sucked ass. I could give you specific examples of how he sucked, but really, I can sum it up by saying he was essentially afk 90% of the time and wasn't saying anything about it, not that it would have been alright if he had. Eventually, a mob pops on us, links, kills half the party, and Draco on WHM is the only one who attempts to sleep it, because guess what? Skelly has porn to watch, why the hell would he try and help the party or even pay attention? What a strange notion, this whole "playing the fucking game" thing.

Skelly the shittacular RDM is by no means an isolated case. I had another that went afk without saying anything in a party I had with Sicfreak on my BRD. The difference here was they went afk. . . and stayed afk for about 12 hours. Sic had a party there later and they were still there /healing in the same damn spot. Maybe they passed out? I don't know, and I don't care. You don't seek when you're really tired.

Yet, on the other side of things, we eventually got a replacement for Skelly, because he was embaressed to be revealed as the gimp moron he was. The replacement was another taru RDM named Tuzabuza, and he brought out the full potential of RDM. While Draco had to leave shortly after, if he had been there, he could have afk'd the whole thing and been gimp like Skelly and the party still would have gone smoothly. Tuzabuza took care of everything and had MP to spare. All in all, an extremely excellent RDM.

Tuzabuza's excellence however is not an isolated case either. There are quite a few excellent RDMs, and while I can't remember his name, I had a japanese RDM in one of my BRD parties that made BRD pulling extremely easy because if ballad wore for a short time while I was off pulling, he always had me covered and we didn't suffer because of it.

So why is it, that half of the players can play this job so well while the other half don't even try and are probably the most depressing samples of FFXI players in the game?

Anyone?

LolEndgame

Easily the best laugh I've had in a very long time. I think Galb meant to say he couldn't figure out what it meant, but either way, it was hilarious.



I trio'd all of my weaponskill points with Draco and Galb a couple nights ago, and then yesterday while I was seeking SAM I saw someone shouting for the WSNM, so I joined up, got the kill, helped someone get Gimpulse Drive, and then enjoyed my final GKT WS until relic, if I ever pursue that.



Draco mentioned it in his blog, and honestly anyone who reads mine probably reads his, but, Draco, Galb and I joined an Einherjar link, and while we haven't won a run yet, the first run was quite promising and I think we'll be good as long as we filter out the retards, like the mob we got on Tuesday in our second run that wound up basically just sort of aggroing everything and then spreading out so the rape would be nice and slow over time.



I also joined Spirit of Evolution, which is kinda snazzy, but mostly only because Draco tanks it usually, so I WHM for him. The first run I went on was Jeuno, which was kind of a trial by fire since it was so nuts in there, but we did Windurst yesterday and that was kinda fun, but sorta meh for two reasons. First, its really hitting me that theres no way in fuck I'm getting any relic for a while. Second is the following and its implications.



This is one of the newer members of the link. Joined when I did, apparently. As you can see, hes a WHM, also a taru. Now, if you know your item icons, you already can kind of tell this guy isn't exactly the top of his class so to speak. Beyond that this guy is just fundamentally gimp, it bugs the shit out of me that no matter how much I try, how well I do, or how awesomely useful I make myself compared to this dink who brings fucking phalanx rings on WHM to dynamis, I will never, ever have priority on relic over this guy as long as we attend the same number of runs.

Yea, yea, equality and all that. Great. But you know what? Its bullshit that someone can bust their ass and be many times more useful to the entire group (see also: lolDracoTank) than most other people attending the run, yet when it comes time to see who gets what, they're just as good as this moron wearing probably the worst WHM setup I've ever seen while still having a Noble's. The guy even tried to act like wearing pseudo-tanking gear as a freaking WHM was justified. FFS you're a taru WHM, 20 defense from rings isn't going to slow your fall as you get assfucked by that NM. Get over it and do your damn job.

Here're the stats on the particularly lulzy pieces of gear he was wearing for those of you who don't memorize the images.









Oh, also we got some jackass RDM in Dynamis-Jeuno who almost never refreshed and lied about his sister's car running out of gas so he could afk for like an hour and watch some movie, and then when he "came back" he kept watching the damn movies. Then, just as icing on the cake, I /sea him after dynamis and the prick is seeking his 75 NIN, and his only search comment is "BRD burn only". Please, just, go kill yourself. Now, if possible. I'll tie the noose for you.

Events, Meripos

I guess I'm 75 for real now.



Got my first merit last night. Came a lot faster than I thought it would. Second one was quick too even.



We broke about 5k off of my third, and once I get that, I'll be getting Devotion pretty much just because Draco wants it. I'm hoping to get that 5k in Besieged before this evening so I can surprise him with it and have it for Einherjar and Dynamis.

Yea, Einherjar and Dynamis. While I only really have one pearl for them so far, I more or less joined three linkshells yesterday. One for Einherjar, one for Dynamis, and a third for Sky when I get access as well as Salvage/Assault + other events when I can get access to them. I'm kind of really excited to be honest, I can't wait to see how it all works, and eventually snag some cursed gear (fucking cursed dalmatica is WAY too expensive). I also 'upgraded' my WHM's gear, which at the moment just amounts to buying an ether ring, but I'm going to snag a pair of blessed trousers as soon as I get the cash as well. After I get that I'll probably just take a week to wrap SAM up.

With SAM out of the way, it really becomes a question of how quickly I can blitz sky access. I'm not concerned with getting anything beyond that just yet, though obviously once its done I wanna work on completely wrapping up that series of missions, I've gotta just get to sky access first. After that, I could go on and on about what I'd like to get done, but if I manage sky access within 2-3 weeks I will be more than happy to sit with just that for a while.

I also need to determine what kind of income I may get from Einherjar and later sky. By the time I have it, it may not be horribly important since I'll have already gotten my Hagun and I already have my Noble's, but I'm certainly interested if it winds up meaning I don't need to spend much time elsewhere.

I'm not sure how I feel about the job at the moment, but depending how things go I may wind up taking BRD up next. It is already at 41, and Ringthree mentioned they were kind of short on BRDs, so I'd certainly get my use out of the job. My only real complaint with it would be having to pull, which kind of bothers me since I still don't understand why the hell BRDs pull. Oh well. I guess it will sort of depend on how much patience I have for the job when the time comes, because my problems with it before have mostly been the monotony of it, and I really don't do the constant manic running around of trying to put 4 songs up and then pulling fast. Ah well. Sure as hell wouldn't hurt to have leveled.

I want to be. . . the very best. . .

Yep, a pokémon reference and its NOT about pankration.



Draco and I duo'd our BSTs a bit and MAN was it fun. Duoing solves everything that is hard about soloing BST pretty much. It was really easy as long as we stuck together and paid attention to what was going on. The only real trouble we ever had was finding another mob to charm, as for some reason things were taking quite a long time to respawn.

The bottom line is, if you can find someone to duo your BST with, and you don't hate the job, try it. Its REALLY fun.



Lastly, Draco failing miserably. To be perfectly fair, this was at around 4 or 5 AM his time, but it was still lulzy.

Operation Hexa Strike. . . . Swarm

So Sundays are normally NIN/WHM/THF static with Galb/Draco/me, but today we wound up not running it, and instead there were a few fun things that were accomplished.

Firstly, and actually about midway through the evening, I got a little weapon skill that I've been wanting for a LONG time now.


Immediately after that, Draco Fmtwo and I ran off to meet up with Galb, and then on to Palborough to make 4 runs at Operation Desert Swarm which was. . . man. . . it was my first experience with it so my view of the drops is a little skewed, but I'll let the screenshots speak for themselves. Oh and we split the loot by the way, but the way it played out we didn't really need to in order to make it even.

First up, Fmtwo's orb

Then Draco went

Followed by Galb

And finally, mine

Apparently, thats some insanely good loot, but honestly I really wouldn't know. I've never done these. All I know is I made 330k or so easily and had fun owning with friends while doing it. Quite a nice evening.

Oh, and because I haven't in a long while:

Stupid People, Canadia, Renewed Interest

Been a bit since I last posted (whined), so theres actually something to talk (complain) about. Firstly, my method of making money is currently ~37.5% as effective as it was a couple months ago. Of course, the only reason this has happened is because of undercutters being morons and boning themselves and everyone else up the ass, which in turn leads me to the conclusion that there are very few people out there who are not idiots.

However, beyond all of that (whining), as you may or may not know I'm currently attending university up in Canadia (Toronto specifically). Beyond being significantly less than happy with my social life on many levels, its been pretty nice up here so far, though it would be nicer if it got colder and if I had my desktop, which is theoretically en route, might even get here today for all I know. Due to the fact that the university I'm going to apparently barely even offers computer science, and because of my transfer credits, for the moment I'm taking classes that I couldn't care less about (history, astronomy). On the upside, I have Monday and Friday off, which leads me to my renewed interest in some parts of FFXI.

For the moment it looks like the next job I'm going to level will be PLD, but it'd be static'd so that probably won't be eating up too much time. That being said, it looks like the WHM/NIN/THF static will start moving again as well, so I'm not sure whether I want to just do meripos/capping SAM + money making while neither of those is going or if I want to throw a third job on top of those two. The only real problem I'm facing in game right now is really how I am going to deal with my last few equipment upgrades for SAM, which is mostly just a hagun. NORMALLY that wouldn't be so rough but because of the undercutters I mentioned before, I know make money roughly one third as fast as I used to, and when you need to go well over a million to buy the gear you need. . . its not pretty. Keep in mind this is ignoring the fact that I also need to start looking at some minor upgrades for THF (its pretty decently equipped as it is so I ought to be fine) and then in the future PLD as well.

The bright side is, my money making abilities SHOULD get better as prices rise again, however the fact that prices are hitting this low mid-week is scaring me. Maybe I'll just go buy them all up. . .

Housemates + Roommates

This is probably only going to be relevant to anyone who is in college. However those of you who are, should read this.

It is 4:40 AM right now, on a Sunday morning. I live in a house with 5 other people. Two of them don't seem to understand that other living things exist. They have been loudly partying since 10 PM.

Stop fucking acting like you morons are the only people around. You know who you are. You are the people who don't give a shit about how your actions influence other people, and you force other people to make problems for you before you act like anything above trash.

You are scum. Inability to consider what your actions do to others is the one reason that is good enough to justify removing you from the gene pool for the sole purpose of improving the lives of every other single fucking person on the planet. On any level. Flunking frat boy at college who parties until 5 AM or a criminal who steals because he thinks he is all that matters, you're the same worthless shit.

Go ahead, by all means, enjoy yourself. But as soon as you start doing it at the expense of those around you, you become worthless. If you were the only person on the planet, cool, go do whatever, but guess what. You're fucking not. We're all here, whether we like it or not, and we don't like the smell of your farts as much as you seem to, so shut the fuck up and put down the booze.

lolwiki

http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23599
http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=289981
http://digg.com/gaming_news/Regarding_FFXIClopedia_s_recent_move_to_Wikia

Soooo. That was where I went. y halo thar KI.

Kinda sad that people pull that kind of shit but I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. It just seemed like the wiki community was the one last little bit of sanity left where you could go and almost NEVER get flamed (though I'll readily admit there were some users who were douchebags and never really got banned).

Oh well, on to KI I suppose.

Life > FFXI

So now I'm up in Toronto and I've tied up most of my loose ends, but now there are a few things that I'm looking into that are going to be loads of fun.

I haven't even managed to log on to FFXI over the last week or so, but I've decided that I'm going to develop a little text based game based around a universe I designed a few years ago. This is going to be a lot of fun for me, and probably wind up being an excellent game as far as text-based stuff goes (think Colossal Cave Adventure except more modern, plot driven, and maybe a little more user-friendly as far as interface goes). I'm really excited to get to work on it, and for the moment all I can do is write up the story for the first little bit, but soon I'll be able to start coding. I'm hoping to have the final version of the first game done and out by December, but, no promises. Probably more details later as they're solidified.

Reality and updates

The summer has been a lot of fun, but I'm being slapped around by reality now that school is fast approaching. While the school I'm going to has arguably the most idiotic and poorly designed system for anything and everything that I have ever encountered, its my job to work through it, and it hasn't been going that well. For example, I have to pay for tuition and all that, but, they don't really give me any way of actually paying them. Furthermore I don't even have anywhere to live yet.

The whole thing is shitty and its stressing me out a ton, and I think its making me be even more of a douchebag than usual. The other thing thats getting to me is I don't know how much I'll be able to actually play once I am up there. That specifically isn't what bothers me, its that I don't know if I care. In a lot of ways I need to move on in life. Not neccesarily from FFXI, but I need to get into another relationship, and I need to work, and both are going to happen up in toronto. Realistically, with those two combined, I really don't see myself having the time to play FFXI, especially since in the past, while I have devoted a sufficient amount of time to girlfriends I'd really like to put a lot of effort into my next one, so chances are I will wind up spending any and all excess time I have on the relationship. As a result, I may wind up as one of those people who mostly just crafts and farms, and almost never levels. I'd really rather it didn't come to that because I define progress mostly as job levels, but I'm going to have to face reality pretty soon here.

Anyway, enough life crap. 65 SAM, Gekko, wtfpwn on imps. Really fun to play around out there and make the NINs look like idiots (/gasp, a NIN not tanking well? maybe they shouldn't be considered tanks in most situations). Not much else going on though.

75 Get

Took me something like 5 years, technically. I may not like the job, but, there it is. First 75.

Also, I thought I took screens of the level up but. . . guess what. My computer actually crashed on the second to last mob, and when I restarted I forgot to start up fraps again. . . so I have nothing. Gotta love it.

The Mood

Well, its been a long time since I wrote anything, and not because nothings been happening. Tons of shit has been going and, and thats actually probably more why I haven't been writing. Stuff with Toronto has been a complete bitch lately, EXTREMELY stressful and kind of depressing. Basically housing is full and I have to find my own place, which is going to be a royal bitch, but I have to, and I will.

As far as life goes, I also got a laptop, which is kinda cool but for some reason it lags with FFXI just as much on the highest graphics settings as it does on the lowest. Still trying to figure that part out, but with time it'll work itself out I guess.

In FFXI, a lot has happened. I may forget some stuff, but, I'll try and run through as much of it as I can. One of the biggest ones would be that I finished the promys, however I can't seem to get anything going with hitting the aqueducts for subligar, so for the moment its actually rather pointless. I also got my whole SAM AF set, and am currently SAM62, getting close to 63. My Thief hasn't moved much unfortunately because draco had to move, so he hasn't been online in like maybe 2-3 weeks now, but I'm beginning to feel like everything that I wanted my THF for, SAM can do better. Mostly simply due to the fact that SAM can actually take hits pretty well, and can dish out damage solo WAY easier than THF can. As a result I've been kind of torn about which I want to use for money making because it really is an issue of speed vs. treasure hunter. I've also been screwing around with some lower level jobs, mainly PLD, mostly because I got kinda tired of having 20 or 40k to get one level, and one of my highschool friends started playing, which has been a lot of fun.

Hes surprisingly fast at leveling, just yesterday got him 18 and his subjob. I'm hoping that down the road a little bit we can level together, but pretty soon I'm going to be EST and hes gonna stay PST, so timing may be nasty, and on top of that I plan on working out quite a bit in Toronto and getting an internship or something if I can find one relatively nearby, so I'm really wondering how much time I'll have to actually play.

Anyway, back to trying for 63.

This is why we can't have nice things!

http://www.blacklooks.org/2007/07/resident_evil_5.html

After reading the post in the blog linked above, I have realized something extremely important about my childhood, maybe around when I was 10 or so.

Back then, around 10 years ago, my family had a macintosh with a monitor taller than it was wide, and a reeeeeally old dell, like one of the first ones they made. There were two main games that I played that I can remember, one on each. The first was a racing game that, whenever you crashed the car, also crashed the computer for the macintosh. The other, was SimAnt, for the dell.

Today, I would like to talk about how racist SimAnt is. In the game, you play as a black ant (clearly meant to represent Africans) and you try to conquer a yard and a house and fight against the evil red ants (Native Americans?). This is OBVIOUSLY completely racist and the game should be pulled from shelves. Maxis should also be sued into oblivion. You lead the black ants en masse to invade and destroy the red ant's home, trying to wipe their kind from existence. The game CLEARLY actively encourages genocide against Native Americans. Additionally the AI wasn't all that smart so it also insinuates that Native Americans are less intelligent.

As a result of playing this game as a child, I required 4 years of intense counseling to stop myself from attempting to conquer all of North America. It was extremely dangerous and I am shocked this game has not yet led to any such actions.

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!

RMT vs. WHM AF3 - FIGHT!

I took my SAM (yes wearing a scorpion harness and various bits of AF, I'll go into detail on that next post, TONS has happened) up to Fei'Yin to screw around some since I didn't have anything better to do, and I came across the most awesome thing I have seen in a long while. A massive group of like rank 1/2 level 60-68 BLMs who apparently tried to fight the WHM AF3 NM.





Not shown: yet another corpse and the 2 of them that were alive.

Um. . . . Ok

So, SAM hit 50 a little while ago, I don't remember exactly when, but I did it. Then, invites just flat out stopped. The only thing that changed was a 49 turned into a 50 and it just went dead right then and there.

I have had 2 parties since I hit 50, one I am still in, and both have been absolutely horrible. The first one featured this incredibly retarded BRD who has SAM at 75 and as a result thinks he knows everything. He insisted that soboro was the greatest thing 50-72, which is a load of bullshit since its not even the greatest thing at 50. Sure, its good, but you hit like a pussy with it. Considering 50 is when you fight crabs in kuftal which are a royal BITCH to deal damage to, I'll take my other GKTs thank you. I laugh though cause the moron doesn't even have it yet he spouts this crap. He also claims that Tachi: Enpi is better than Tachi: Jinpu, which is stupid since Jinpu hits for more than double what Enpi can ever reach on a regular basis unless the mob has high defense, like crabs. Then, just to round it out, he thinks Lesser Colibri are a viable camp at level 50. Our tank was 49, and got absolutely fucking mauled by the birds when we went there, so we left for Quicksands, and then the tank hit 50, and the idiot started saying we should do Colibri. I was so very close to just telling him that he was a fucking idiot and that he needed to shut up as soon as possible, but, for some dumb reason I was feeling nice that day. Lastly, he said that RDM was a front line job, which was a mistell, but, further proved how phenomenally idiotic this jackass was.

Right now, I'm in the second party, which is WHM BLM RDM THF NIN SAM in Kuftal fighting crabs. This party set up would be great if more than half the party knew anything at all. At the beginning of the party, the THF would SATAVB ME instead of the NIN despite the fact that I could always get hate off the NIN even if I wasn't trying, so as a result I got nearly destroyed a few times, and finally I just started voking it any time I saw he had TP so the fool couldn't do anything retarded even if he wanted to. Normally I'd yell at him and tell him that SATA'ing me is stupid unless his goal is to deplete the WHM's MP, but he and the NIN are japanese so I can't really communicate well. Additionally, I can't even tell whether or not the NIN is any good because the stupid BLM can't stop nuking. The entire party so far, the BLM has periodically taken hate because they just won't stop casting. Sadly, the BLM is the leader, so I can't really say much to them about it since honestly if I ditched this horrible party I'd have to probably wait another 10ish hours seeking to find another thats pretty much as crappy.

I guess the upside is I got a couple AF pieces. The pants and the gloves for SAM, and I'm halfway through the AF2 quest. I also managed to finally get my THF AF body piece, which is completely useless really but I wanted to get it over with so I could be done with THF AF as soon as I harass people to finally help me with the damn AF3.

/angry (Warning: Extremely explicit)

Today, I tried to exp WHM. I got a party, NIN NIN BRD THF SAM, and they asked if we wanted to do Mamool Ja SP or Caedarva. Considering that my job in this party would be to Haste four (4) people and Silena three (3), I told them I wasn't doing Caedarva, and we headed out to the Mamool Ja SP. When we get there, they start whining like fucking five year olds about how they want to do Caedarva, and I just straight up told them that they could blow me if they actually thought I'd be willing to haste 4 people and silena 3 for the shit exp that you get in Caedarve at the 73-75 range. I left, they went to Caedarva, and now, I am fucking pissed.

Hey melees. Fuck you. Yes, you, FUCK you. The next burn party that invites me to Caedarva with 2-3 NINs and a BRD plus filler DDs and no one else with Silena and Haste is going to get a fucking earful. Just because you have to do something beyond hitting ctrl-a and your utsusemi macro doesn't magically mean that the exp in that place is crappy. Furthermore if you actually expect a WHM to do all the work when their job is already pretty fucking boring in the first place, you can go eat a dick.

Hell, even just give me someone else with Haste and I'll go. When I went with linkshell friends it was fine because we had a RDM who helped me haste and the exp was slightly better because we were lower. But now? No. Fuck you all. I'm not busting my ass so you can hit ctrl-a for 150 exp. Especially not when said melees are ungrateful fucks who bitch and moan the second they have to do anything.

That is all.

Rise from the Ashes

Well, I pretty much stopped trying to do promys, cause they're too damn annoying, and I'm just going to try and go with a group when I find someone shouting. It is REALLY painful to try and lead runs for them, so, meh. I also just finished partying thief today, which was a lot of fun.

We started out going to Quicksand Caves from Western Altepa, and had WHM (Draco) NIN (Galb) THF (me) RDM SAM DRG. The SAM was supposed to first voke, skillchain with me (enpi > viper) and with the DRG (double thrust > enpi or jinpu). Generally speaking, the SAM got about one of those right each fight. I cheered when they said they had to go soon. After that we picked up a BLM, and moved to a better camp in the same zone that was netting us somewhere in the 5k-6k exp/hour range, which was pretty nice, but pretty quickly we got over the level we should be for those mobs, so we moved to Kuftal Tunnel, and did ok for a little bit, nothing spectacular. Then, the DRG disconnected and never came back. I invited a SAM, and figured he'd be the jp onry type, however, he seemed happy to be invited, and came over.

This guy was a freaking monster. He was a tarutaru SAM, and he did pretty much anything and everything that any SAM could. He was the first voker, and was SCing with both me and Galb every single time he could, PLUS one or two solo WSs randomly each fight. I do not know how the hell he did that, but he did, and it was freaking awesome. With him, we got into a groove and burned up to where Galb just barely got 54, while Draco and I got a decent ways into 53, so it was a very productive day, and we had an awesome party.

I am now also wearing my first piece of THF AF, the gloves, which're nice cause they replaced level 14 Battle Gloves, which I was very much sick of, but also I'm starting to look more and more like a THF now, which I'm really happy about. I hate the mage armor (doublet basically) stuff on thieves, but a lot of it you have to wear, so I can't wait for AF pants and Jaridah Peti, both coming up fairly soon (56 and 55 respectively).

Oh. I also got donuts.

Massive Fail

• Promys still not done (about the only highlight: they MIGHT get done tomorrow)


• 3ish hours in Fei'Yin without even SEEING a chest


• An hour in Zvahl trying to get THF AF body, and only a mimic and a death to show for it


• SAM stuck at 47 because I want the JSE for it before I push past 50


• THF still at 50


• Blessed Briault continues to be undercut and mine won't sell (which is freaking retarded cause its already not profitable as a synth)


• While I did get a Mary's Horn randomly, it, along with everything else I've put up, isn't selling

Yea, I'm not having a very good week.

Best NM claim ever

So yesterday, and a little bit the day before (sorta, it was early morning for most of us) some of us were camping Kreutzet for Supergirl's Sirocco Kukri, which we eventually got last night after seeing 3 pops. Draco naturally got both the claim and the kill.

So then I went to do prep work on THF AF3 cause everyone said they were really awake and wanted something to do, and Super got a little bored and went to check Ose in Onzozo. It was up, and some RMTs were fighting it. They wiped, and around then Draco and Super were there so they claimed it but both died, then I went in, Raise III'd them both, and then noticed that Galb was en route. . . .on his RDM. Freaking. Genius. I IMMEDIATELY used my Elemental Seal + Sleep macro on Ose, and then Galb got there right as Ose woke up, and he slept it until we were ready to totally wtfpwn it while the RMTs watched and spammed /tells to Draco. We didn't get the drop, but jacking it from RMTs like that was fucking awesome.

Anyways, thats about it, not much else has gone on yet.

Almost there. . .

Today is the last day that I really have finals. I have a CSS project due tonight that I'll be starting soonish, and then a little essay that is due for my Speech class, which is a self assesment, and I think I will do extremely well with that. I'm not really stressed, or worried really. The main thing is. . . once this is over, thats it. I'm done. I just have to wait until I fly up to Toronto. Its like I've been running laps around a track for 20 years and now the finish line is only 5 or 10 feet in front of me, and in clear view.

At any rate, beyond that, the San Jose Sharks, who I've been a fan of since I could understand what hockey was, traded one of their goalies, Vesa Toskala (who kicks ass) to the Toronto Maple Leafs, so now I have a reason to vaguely be interested in the Leafs up in Toronto, even though I'm a habs fan as well (I can't wait to get shit for that in Toronto).

Lastly, for FFXI, I managed to get 72 WHM, and 45 SAM, so I'm trying to sell my Blessed Briault and wearing the errant full time. I think the main thing I really need for WHM at this point is Blessed Trousers and then I'm set until I want to pimp WHM out more. On SAM I am now wearing Brigandine, which is my least favorite armor in the entire game due to the fact that from 45-59 on Sorako's THF I had to wear it, and that was about. . . damn, it was at least like 3 months, maybe up to 6. That being said, it actually looks pretty good with okotes, and I only have to wear it until 50 probably, and I don't run around on SAM usually (yet) so I think it won't drive me insane just yet.

I almost forgot, but I will be picking up a Wii pretty soon probably. Perhaps there is a chance that it is a fad and won't be very popular after a little while longer, however, as a business Nintendo convinced me of its intelligence with the DS. To have something (dual screens) that I was so convinced was completely stupid sell extremely well convinced me that while Nintendo's ideas may not seem to be smart choices, once you try out what they do yourself, it becomes clear that they only seem stupid at first, but in actuality are brilliant and well executed ideas. Not sure if that made much sense, but yea, buying a Wii I believe, though I'm kinda tossing around the idea of passing up a Wii for a 360 or even a laptop if I save up, but both of them, particularly the laptop, are a little major for the budget I'm working on with college. We'll see, anyways. If I somehow manage a job in Toronto I'll likely wind up with 2 of the 3.

At any rate, I should get to work on that CSS project so I can be done with it.

Irritation

Promys didn't happen. Again. I'm about ready to just start shouting in whitegate. I'm not going to blame anyone specifically for that, but I'm also not going to deny that its really frustrating me to the point where I'm questioning how much I should be helping out. Maybe I'm getting kinda angry about it a bit too early, and I should be more patient, but I feel like thats been the main thing I'd like to get done that I needed help with for a long time now.

Whatever. I'll get it done one way or another and if I can't get over that then I'll help less and show that it pissed me off.

Aside from trying to get that done, I've got finals the next three days (one a day) and then I'm free until I fly off to Canada to go to Toronto in. . . September? Dunno exactly when and I'm not worrying about it much because I'll be flying up with a highschool friend who also goes there anyways.

I'm planning on getting WHM to 75 before I make any more major runs with SAM unless I seriously get sick of WHM, which is absolutely possible. This'll not only help me make money for funding SAM when I do blitz it again but it'll give me time to do promys and get the neccesary subligar to get THF and SAM JSE. Also at the moment it'll help me make a little bit of money since I'm switching out my Blessed Briault for an Errant Houppelande, the former costing about 20-30k more than the latter.

(|Hmm.|)

Well, I managed to get my SAM up to 42. . . pretty fun, snagged a tilt belt and then a walkure mask in anticipation of 43, but I couldn't get a party so I just played some Battlefield 2 while I downloaded a free MMO called Space Cowboy thats pretty cool. You fly a jet, sci-fi type thing, really fun to me. So tomorrow I'm theoretically doing Promys, which'll be a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to it, particularly looking forward to running around in the Tavnazia areas afterwards, I really want to see those areas as its something I've never done before in my FFXI career. Though, I have a hockey game tomorrow at 4 PM also, and while thats pretty early for a hockey game I'm a little worried about timing with the promys, though nothings been said so far.

Oh well. Either way, life'll go on, so whatever. The main reason I even want it right now is I'm getting close to being able to use the SAM JSE which is freaking awesome, has Store TP + 9 on the body and then the pants which drop off an NM in Oldton throw on another 6, and the best part is they look cool. I'm really looking forward to that, but I fear that I might not be able to snag them before I hit 50.

Also there, hopefully I'll manage to get the THF JSE as well, which would be quite sexy as I'd be using it pretty much forever, and it too has a cool graphic. That and I'm tired of being jealous of THFs that I see running around in it.

Lastly, I got my Tactics Pearl FINALLY. Now, this is actually making me kinda want to solo with my NPC, and I've been doing quite a bit while I seek on SAM. Luckily my NPC is only 35 so I still get reasonable exp for her off of junk that my SAM can easily slap around. What I really can't wait for is being able to solo in Xarcabard or Castle Zvahl, against Demons, who'll drop horns for me, and be intimidated by me. That being said, I'm looking forward to just soloing with SAM in general, or even with THF. One thing in particular I kind of want to be able to do is easily solo in Zi'Tah, because, like everyone else, I really like the zone and I spent some of my time prior to the first time I quit there, trying to get tree cuttings, so theres a fair bit of nostalgia involved.

Goals:
60-70 THF and SAM in early August
75 WHM by mid-July (earlier = better)
37 RDM by late July (not sure how much I care about this, but its useful for raids)

I am my fucking Okotes

Yea, polearm, good on bats. Great Katana is a tiny bit under leveled now but I couldn't care less.

Lame

Today has kind of sucked.

The weekend started off well enough, on Friday we did 2 WHM AF3s, both RDM AF3 NMs, Crawler's Nest key + coffer, THF AF2 NM in Sauromugue Champaign (only really me and galb on that one), and two Garlaige Citadel coffers. We also tried for a long time to get a Beadeaux coffer key but it wouldn't drop for us.

Today however, I basically just got up at 2 PM (stayed up until 5 AM helping draco with his computer, or trying to help anyways) and waited to see whether or not staticing THF would happen, and I was hoping it would, but at 9 PM I just said fuck it and started seeking SAM. Very stupid to have waited that long but I did. At any rate, now I've been waiting for an invite for like an hour and a half or something, with no luck. Not a good day.

Oh, also I might not even manage finishing promys tomorrow because its father's day I think. Admittedly getting a little jaded, similar to how I felt when I was trying to pull off Genkai 2 and my WHM AF3.

Work is done, time to play

I've finally managed to get past the last major spike in work for the school year, all thats left are a few minor assignments, and then finals. That also means that I can finally really play, though, not really since all of my highschool friends are back in town, so I need/want to spend time with them frequently.

Either way, theoretically getting promys done this weekend, and if I'm lucky I'll manage to bring SAM up to 40+ as well (yay for Sandy CP armor, can't wait to pop that gear on, none of my characters have EVER been able to wear any form of 'heavy' armor).

Basic goals for weekend
- Level SAM significantly, ideally to or past 40
- Get a variety of raids done for linkshell, including two runs at the WHM AF3 NM and one (two?) at Miser Murphy for RDM
- Have Polearm leveled up to cap or near cap for when SAM hits Garlaige against bats (I'm happy to say I'm mostly done with this already, and I pull off a lot of damage with it)

It's hot!

Really hot over here in northern California, but I've got a fan so its all good.

Anyways. SAM just dinged 31 a couple minutes ago, using a polearm thats mostly done being skilled for owning bats ing garbage (Garlaige Citadel), 3 levels off of my okotes, 9 off of my 2 woodsman rings. Yes. Two.



So next up is either Haubergeon or Chivalrous Chain, depending on how quickly THF approaches 60. I also gotta wrap up on promys and then get my SAM JSE body, and hopefully the THF one too, though I hear its tough. At 50 SAM I also need to get the JSE legs that drop off some bugbear NM in Oldton, which draco has been helping with a lot. Between the JSE body, legs, and job traits, I will have +35 Store TP at 50.

Lastly, and most importantly, I got into the college that I really wanted to transfer to: University of Toronto at Scarborough. I already have 3 friends that I know who go there, one of which I went to highschool with, so it will be a lot of fun. Plus. . . Canadian girls rock. . .

Productivity

First of all, and probably most importantly, I static'd with Galb, DW, and Draco a couple days back, and we all got 50, so we can now work on AFs. It actually was a pretty bad day as far as our statics go, usually do much better, but I'm just happy we got 50. I also really wasn't in the mood with THF that much, so I don't feel like I ever actually hit my rythym in the party, and Draco wasn't feeling too great about it either. Who knows why it worked out like that, just an off day I guess. Either way, as a result of that we can all start on AFs, which is a lot of fun, especially for me since theres no key farming involved. That of course immediately led to me picking up my gloves (haven't actually gone and killed dark spark yet, so no picture), and my pants, which I love a lot. . . .they look awesome. I really can't wait until we get 56 or so, the true THF look will finally show on Soda, and I'll really enjoy running around with it. Also I'm approaching the THF level where I left Sorako, and I'm fairly certain everything else that Sorako had Sodako now has better. Bounding Boots, Empress Pin, subs leveled, WHM way up, rank 6, and some nice crafting levels (53.9 cooking right now, would easily be a LOT higher but I just haven't gotten around to it).

I've also been making quite a bit of money, and as a result have managed to pick up a Blessed Briault, along with the boots, both of which aren't that expensive, but I also have enough money to snag the pants once things sell, and the gloves of course will quickly follow. After that WHM is pretty much set for a while, or at least its as good as I care to make it right now, since I also have another Woodsman Ring, a Haubergeon, and a Scorpion Harness on my mind. Not to mention just random crap needed for THF and SAM.

Facebook + RMT

I am actually the founder of an FFXI group on facebook, the largest one incidently (1110 or so members today), and an RMT group just tried to advertise on it. I was kind of amused, obviously deleted the message and banned the person, but I was somewhat impressed that the group is big enough to attract that kind of attention.

Oh well. As far as FFXI goes, working on getting money for Blessed gear, already bought the boots but that is absolutely nothing impressive. Need sleep.

DRK/RMT + Noobles

Look very closely at that picture. The belt is a tilt belt, and the rings are empress and anniversary. The scythe is some random level 65 scythe, didn't pay attention to what it was. We D2'd the gimp after a few fights and invited a SAM.

Partying with my WHM static now, that bit was about 10 minutes ago. Fun times. Also, gonna get 70 tonight, so I may update with some ding screenies, since its something to be proud of now, kinda.



Just a random picture from when we got Nood's MNK AF something or other, probably 3. He got owned by some yagudo by the switch door, so he had to deal with me, sitting on his head for a while until Sorj was lame and raised him.

Lastly, a couple days back I saw Laqa, one of the few people retarded enough to make it onto my shitlist (list of people I keep who've earned some degree of hate, but are too funny (stupid) to make it to the blacklist), who I wrote a bit about a long time ago, when I encountered the moron in valkurm. (S)he was shouting in whitegate, effectively offering 1k to anyone who praised him/her for reaching 75 NIN. Previously I admittedly wasn't sure how much of a douche Laqa was, but they've clearly proven that they are among the best. They deserve an award for this degree of douchebaggery, perhaps a swift kick between the legs would lower their ego sufficiently.

Diamond in a pile of crap

I still fucking hate leveling SMN though.

At least they LOOK pretty. . . .

I've been leveling summoner just kinda randomly, so I can use it for promys and have it maybe at 37 for subbing on WHM if I ever feel like it.

Summoner SUCKS. At least in the dunes. What the frick am I supposed to do? I can't heal well with only Cure I, and I don't want to either. I can't do damage, using an offensive (note: carby is the only summon I have that has a defensive BP right now, and I have 'em all except Fenrir and Diabolos) blood pact once a battle doesn't do jack. It doesn't even do good damage. The summons suck at meleeing, if they ever hit its a pitiful amount of damage more fitting for a dagger, except they swing as fast as like a great axe. Should I be meleeing? Really? Cause its looking realistic. Its frustrating as hell to be aware of the fact that if I went afk for about an hour we'd lose maybe 10-20 exp/hour out of maybe 3000/hour.

I guess the upside is so far I haven't been in a single party without a WHM, so I've never had to main heal (not that I can but retards in the dunes would ask me to anyways).

I guess on the one hand its going to feel good when I finish leveling it, but for crying out loud I'm only 14 now, theres going to be a LOT of pain before I get it up to the point where I can even do useful things for the party, let alone enjoy it. After this I need to get RDM up for mage subs as well, then as SAM moves up I'll have pretty much all significant subs leveled for just about anything, or at least the basic exp ones. . . oh well.

UPDATE: Banish (from SUBJOB) does roughly the same thing as any of the offensive blood pacts (from MAIN JOB) and Cure (from SUBJOB) does more than healing ruby (from MAIN JOB), which is my only defensive blood pact. I might as well just de-level my WHM to 7 and party with that, it'd be the same freaking thing.

Music

Alright, I'm kinda bored, so I'm just gonna run through some music I like in no particular order.

I like this one a lot, but as far as Ok Go goes I prefer Get Over It, which you can also find on youtube.

This next one is probably the best song ever to wake up to because of its intro in my opinion.

I love that song a lot, I grew up listening to Green Day, the Offspring, Nirvana, the Smashing Pumpkins, and stuff like that. As far as the Smashing Pumpkins go, I've just recently been able to get back into listening to them, as my dumb sister has all but lost the family's CDs, so I can't get at them.

The music that Frank Klepacki has done for various games, particularly the Command and Conquer series, is also extremely excellent, I tend to listen to that a lot.

Theres also Party Ben (http://partyben.com/), hes a mashup artist that does some really cool stuff, and honestly I enjoy his mashups more than a lot of the songs that he mixes together. Very good artist, and also a cool guy, he used to do radio stuff for a station here around San Francisco, is/was always fun to listen to.

Lastly for now, some Weezer. One of the best songs ever, from one of the best bands ever.

Anyways, thats it for now. Helping a friend to the MNK AF pants quest, and then staticing with my THF, so a fun day.

Clear road, new paths

Well, firstly, probably the most important thing.


And of course. . .



Very VERY easy fight. As long as you're smart, and read up/prepare for the fight, this is a complete and utter joke. He never even came close to killing me. So, as the title indicated, I have a clear path to 75.

Also though, some new paths for me to travel down.


I can now finally start on ZM, and do Dynamis (waiting for Draco to pick a shell for Dynamis before I choose my own). For anyone that cares, Draco and I were talking about the band Bush right there.

I've also been doing some assault, which is really fun. I didn't really know much about it before but now that I've tried it, its awesome. This was a BRILLIANT idea on Square's part. One thing the game lacked was specific objectives and triggers beyond "go make this thing die and don't get killed". Very nicely done Square, another quality piece of work. I'm hoping to work towards eventually picking up a full set of the stuff for THF, or possibly SAM, or both, but hopefully one or the other. Can't recall which I found sexier stat wise and looks wise, and I'm unsure currently whether I'd rather run around on SAM or THF primarily down the road, but either way, theres a fun bit to look forward to.

Speaking of SAM and THF, I've been hoarding cash and abusing a select few synths in an attempt to raise money for two Woodsman Rings, (maybe) one Corsair's Knife, (maybe) a Scorpion Harness, a Haubergeon, and (maybe) a Byrnie. This is primarily because SAM and THF are the two jobs I believe I'm going to be taking up after WHM.

I've also been sort of toying with the idea of running BLM or RDM up to 75 for soloing reasons, though I need to take SMN to 37 as well so I have all my mage subjobs in order. Either way, for the moment I'm simply going to deal with getting WHM to 75 (most likely with the static its in, almost 70 now even), and then taking SAM up hopefully to 75 as well, probably with THF capping out somewhere in the middle with a little linkshell static we've set up.

Thats about it for now, I'll probably post some once I've picked up those few items I'm looking to get, though I fear it'll be quite some time before I get my hands on anything beyond the woodsmans and the corsair's, if even those 3.


Oh yea, and new template obviously. Sexy, I'd say.