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.