Sunday Night

Not much, thought there was going to be a SU party with Raki but that fell through. Tried again for Blessed Pants but no sellers. Shouted in Jeuno and WG for a 100k buy. Browsed the Jeuno flea market. Half-heartedly camped VE, then ran a tele and warped home. Went to buy a pair of Bonanza marbles and I guess I missed it…

Also tried to strike up a chat with Feiht, who was flagged up on a 45 job. There was no answer. Also, Feiht has a blog…

Family Matters

(Only 5? This thing doesn’t go any darker…)

Without going into too many details, Sunday morning was a terrible time for April. The frequent arguments with her sister about their mother came to a head during an hour-long phone call while we were getting ready to go see Pixar’s Up with the whole crew.

For those of you who don’t know, Ape and her sis are of a different mind when it comes to parenting and their relationships with their mom, spouses and kids. April and I both agree we are first in each other’s lives, followed very closely by the boys and then the rest of the extended family. Sis however, puts her mother, then kids over her husband. She actually told him so once in a car full of us. Aaawk-waaard~~

Sis is also superhuman – she doesn’t understand people not having the energy to do things: being sick, having physical ailments, a long day at work. She can go and go on about 3-5 hours sleep a day. Good for her, but Ape has some issues that limit her options for getting things done for everyone. Also, Sis doesn’t understand that teaching is more than a full-time job and doesn’t end when the students leave for summer. Sis works at an hourly blue-collar job that stats and ends at the door. She keys and files, basically. She doesn’t have to create lesson plans, student evals, tests and projects, meet with parents, etc., etc.

So, the phone call. April spent most of the hour explaining why she can’t spend every day with her mother, who lives nearby and doesn’t drive. Sis doesn’t like this and after the usual insults says what I think is the most hateful thing I think I’ve ever heard.

Sis only spends time with us so our boys can play with her boys and she wishes Ape wasn’t around so she could take them in. Oh, it’s ON now bitch!

As you can imagine, we changed theater plans on the spot and redirected my parents. The six of us enjoyed a very peaceful movie and meal at Arby’s. Later, Sis left a message that basically *reaffirmed* her position by way of a backhanded apology. The point of the message was to not take this out on the boys and otherwise avoid each other.

Good. I’m tired of how Sis, and her husband, treat April. The insults (more than the above) have been bad enough but now I can stand in and say it’s over for now. I have no intention of going out of my way for her as I have many times in the past. Whether she admits it or not she’s crossed a line and if she ever wants me to associate with her family again, I’m going to need a personal apology and an explanation for the hateful things she said.

Oh yeah, we saw a movie. Up is fantastic. I think it’s the most emotionally-connected Pixar film to date and if you can get through the whole thing without at least a tear in your eye, you aren’t human. I’ll admit it, this Mithra got very weepy. And in large part, it was because the story is a love story at its core, and the bond they share doesn’t end with her death. Remember my post from a few weeks ago, about how I want Ape and I to leave this earth, hand-in-hand? Yeah, it’s like that.

Double Vision

First, a quick movie review. Terminator: Salvation sucked. Connor meets his pimply-faced “father” Reese. Oh, and some robots fight. There, hopefully I just saved you 10 bucks.

Ape said I should accept the time-travel hokum in this installment as I did for #1. But the first Terminator didn’t really rub the future stuff in your face. And IIRC, the link between Reese and Connor isn’t solidified until #2. Even still, the action was quite fresh at the time and Stan Winston’s genius made it all work.

T2 worked because: Great music, great CGI, great action and there’s a Gatling minigun.

T3? I’ve managed to excise that dreck from my brain.

So, basically, no more Terminators for me. Of course, if the T:S DVD cut includes Christian Bale’s little “performance” at the expense of the sound guy, then I’ll buy it. Bonus points if the include the Halo machinima version.

Friday ended with not much Vana time, which was spent trying vainly to skill shield. Saturday I spent more time trying to skill up shield. Over an hour and only ONE full point. Clearly I’m doing it wrong. I even plunked down the cash for a Light Buckler (type 1 shield with +5 skill) that will hopefully increase the proc rate. I also bought Blessed Mitts for the Haste and MND boosts. I couldn’t get the pants because the stock was asking more than the 100k recent bids were suggesting.

Late Saturday, after dinner and game night with Ape’s ex, his wife and Ape’s sis’s family, I logged in at about 12:45.

For those of you who were not there, and believe me, almost ALL of GD was there, care to guess when I logged out? Almost 7am. Know why? Because while messing around in Windy, I saw a bunch of GD in the Rancor’s Den. I’ll pass on the obvious Star Wars jokes and move on to the reason. Aleu informed me there was an O-hat run going on. An O-hat (optical hat) is a pretty snazzy pointy hat for level 70s.

I’ve seen plenty of WG shouts for O-hat runs before but having only one 70, and figuring anything requiring 10+ people would be too hard I didn’t bite. And, I’d mistakenly assumed it was more for the meleers out there. Aleu, Yalto and Fal (and possibly others) had been going on for over a week about getting ready, farming triggers, etc. So I never really gave it any thought.

But as is usually the case with me, I’m up for anything that can give me endgame-like battle hardening and the chance for skillups. And hanging out with my friends as a large group is always great too. After the first fight, and seeing the first hat doled out, I realized I’d messed up.

The group, as I recall: Archer, Aleu, Yalto, Falout, Rask, Juilan, Feiht, Siloette, Drakhan, (Elvaan WHM), Tempest/Kadi, and at least three more. There was a Bard with Juilan.

The fight is with Hakutaku, a nasty multi-eyed jelly that loves to paralyze and burn. Aleu put me on Paralyna duty. Only Paralyna. This seemed odd to me and I asked if that was what she really meant. “Watch and see” was the answer. Clearly, casting Paralyna is a full-time job with this guy. I barely had time to do anything else between Haku’s frequent Hex Eye attacks.

The fight lasted close to 20 minutes. Things went pretty well with Juilan orchestrating the party setups and melee positioning. I believe he and his friend got their hats first and left. That took us to 13 (again, IIRC). We weren’t sure if we could handle the fight with just Archer tanking. But 8 fights later we had done it. 8 fights and 5+ hours /yawn

The first few fights went well but towards the end we started dying. Falout fell out at some point and we had to D2 him as he was too close to the roving Millioneyes. And Feiht spaced out for like 2 full fights. There was much talk of D2ing her as well but she returned explaining the baby had woken up.

She stuck it out to the end, and due to some lousy /randoms, she was the last to get a hat. Some in GD were talking about pulling out (it WAS late) after GD was taken care of. Thankfully everybody stayed and Feiht got her hat. And I got a Wooden Eye, one of 5 eyes needed for the Haku trigger.

However, there was a bit of unpleasantness. I don’t recall how it came up exactly but I think it had to do with the weather in some player’s town, which as they described, was “as cold as a witches teat. [sic]” Turns out Feiht is Wiccan and some discussion of that flowed waiting for the last Haku to spawn.

I was disappointed that some of my GD friends chose to make light of Feiht’s beliefs. They aren’t my beliefs either, but there’s nothing wrong with them, especially if they work for Feiht. And for the love of God, one would think a game where people role-play as various races, do fantastical battle against a menagerie of mythical creatures, and use abilities and spells from the standards of fantasy fiction would lead to a little tolerance and open-mindedness.

As I fell to sleep, well after the sun had come up, I felt bad for not providing a counterpoint to the discussion.

Pretty Hate Machine

5/21



Last-gasp leveling prior to our cruise. Got RNG and DRK to 10, finishing off a major goal. Next is 16. I know I said 13 but it looks like my assortment of lowbies may not be able to share linen and scale.

5/22 to 5/25 AM



On a boat headed to Nassau in the Bahamas! It rained every day for a week straight prior to setting sail. It rained every day on the ship. But I love rain and it didn’t bother me. Minor highlights:

• Saw a Nissan R34 Skyline in Nassau
• Played blackjack at the Atlantis Casino and walked away 30 bucks ahead!
• Saw some good shows onboard
• The fam ate lots of good food: Chicken Marsala, steaks, seafood. But somehow, a simple grilled cheese is beyond the skill of the four-star culinarians in the back. Seriously. Two pieces of toasted, UNBUTTERED bread and a non-melted slice of cheese… Orly?
• Despite some minor motion sickness, we all survived
• Learned just how compatible Ape and I am – can’t tell the story now. One day, maybe…

5/25 PM



Mega-skillup party with Raki. I logged in and immediately got a request from him for a SU party. I still had some Anni band charge left and told him I’d need to finish it off. He had others coming and I wasn’t sure at the time if my heart was in it.

After trying futilely to solo on RDM, I changed gear and OPed to Zitah. Raki, Cyre and Kerikris were waiting. We made our way upstairs to the waterfall camp. We were at it for over two hours. Midway through, Kaylie joined us.

In that time, I CAPPED enfeeb and added like 14 to Divine. Club made it to 230, 3 shy.

Also, I did the poorest job of rescuing Cyre and Raki during an unfortunate agro situation. Cyre was resting, and eventually, a snipper spawned. It aggroed his resting and I immediately reposed it. I also flashed it. Then I made my way towards the Cloister zoneline for when it came for me. Keri was rescuing Kaylie and unavailable to help.

When the crab awoke it resumed beating on Cyre and after killing him, went for Raki. How Raki had any hate (he stood there the whole time AFK) is beyond me. And how repose and flash weren’t able to outpull rest hate lowered by hits is also beyond my ken.

So while this was happening, I ran back and flashed again, trying to save them. Somehow, I mis-targeted >< I wound up getting a fly on my tail. I zoned it but died when the crab came for me. I reraised and got killed again trying to re-zone it.

The worst part was Keri and Kaylie were under attack and getting low on HP. Raki eventually came back (dead) but thanks to a kind samaritan passing by from the Cloister, the three of us got raises. Raki and I made our way to the girls but by then Keri had taken care of business. Did I mention she’s 75 and has what looks like relic gear? She can use Black Halo too.

Once the lols were done with we resumed our practice. Things went well for everyone I think. There was a little awkwardness having two WHMs. Keri graciously offered to handle healing duties while I skilled, but I can’t sit idle while someone goes low. Ultimately I think we worked it out – I stuck with Cure IIIs between SU casts and when I was late on healing she’d drop C4s. After her fine example, I’m desperate to break 70 – Devotion, Hexa/Halo/Holy skillchains… Man WHM is still awesome!

Oh, that reminds me – I gave myself a new nickname: Pretty Hate Machine. All of us were stealing hate pretty regularly. Made for quite the exciting time!

5/26



RDM party, originally meant to be me PLing Raki’s existing party in Qufim. They broke up and he, the Ninja and I formed a trio and soon had a full group. With Anni assist I streaked to RDM37 quickly. We wound up with two PLs, so things kept moving. I was repped by Ben!

Also, Yalto thinks he may have wedding news but still can’t get into his inbox ^^

5/27



Mostly shopping and trying to start a WHM haste-build for Maat. With Divine so close to capping I’m thinking about giving it a shot. But much of the WHM haste/tank stuff is higher than 70, so I pretty much only have Blessed gear. I think I’ll grab the legs and hands and macro them in.

Also, sense returned to my fuzzy brain – I need to level shield some more since it’s at a lowly 57%. WHM/RDM and a warp scroll should do it. I may also get 3 more in staff at this time so I get the next staff weaponskill.

--

Also, somewhere in the last few nights I think I did a short Besieged, the 1,999th win for Siren.

Ship to Shore

Can't talk - .55 per minute

Hi all - I'm a happy but soggy Mithra here off the coast of Nassau in the Bahamas. Lots of good food and fun stuff to do, and nobody's fallen off the boat yet!

See you all tomorrow night ^^

Assault on the Senses

5/18



Soloed SAM from 1 to 7 and then headed out to Beseiged. This one was very productive, getting me 3 each in Divine and Enfeebling. Only 7 more to cap Enf, but still 30-odd for Divine. I got to wondering if Scholar’s skill boosting and my AF gear was screwing me out of easier SUs. Couldn’t find any details to sway me either way.

Saw Falout amid the chaos.

5/19



Soloed DRK from 1 to 9.5 and this time I was able to use an Anni Band. I had to play inventory sorter for more than 30 minutes but I was finally able to get into my Locker to toss the old band. Having Jesup in Jeuno is kinda convenient, but paying 13 bucks a month for the privilege bites. Yes, I know this isn’t how standard mules work – I’m getting married remember?

Ape and I talked about Jesup’s fate post-nuptials. Odds are he might stick around a bit for Clone the Younger, then go into mothballs pending an economic recovery. It’d be a pity to lose him but he never gets any playtime any more …

Jesup also helped out with a proper weapon for my DRK – the Chaosbringer isn’t meant to be a real weapon and the only thing in Windy was a crappy dagger. So at 6 I had Jesup send over a Deathbringer from Jeuno, and man, what a difference!

While racing to 10, Aleu started asking in shell if anyone wanted to do an Assault mission. I jumped at the chance and soon found myself in AU next to Aleu and Nava. Nava had been shouting for more help and we decided to head out with 5. Which rapidly became 3 when the two recruits decide to tell us on the platform that they don’t have Halvung’s portal.

Nava got upset and kicked them. Aleu found her frustration interesting, saying that it wasn’t like her. We decided to go with just the three of us. While we knew we probably couldn’t trio it, it would be good experience.

The mission is called Excavation, and apparently the goal is to use bomb-type mobs to blow up rockslides blocking the path out. To do this, the bombs need to be pulled right up to the rocks and then beaten on until they self-destruct. The first bomb we encountered we fought in place, nowhere near the blockage. Its explosion took me to 34 and killed Aleu, on SAM72. I find it hard to believe she, with almost 200 more HP and presumably better armor, could be so damaged. Unless self-destruct is a “shaped charge” explosion, delivering more lethality to the most hated player.

In any case, we chatted and waited for Aleu’s weakness to pass hoping another bomb would spawn. Which did happen. This time, we pulled it to the broken boulders and fought. Again, it exploded, and again (!) Aleu died. Knowing we were toast time-limit wise, Nava began beating on the wall directly. I joined in but damage was almost nonexistent.

I stopped to raise Aleu and then all three of us began smacking the “brittle” wall. And lo and behold – I started getting skillups! I honestly had no idea or expectation this was possible. I said so in party chat and was told that they’d been doing this off and on and gotten quite a few of their own SUs. Geez, nobody tells me anything ^^

As soon as were ejected from the mission, I had to go. They resumed shouts for another run and I wished them well.

In other news, VanaCalc evolves again – all 19 of my current jobs are set up for skills and level tracking. I’ve tweaked the auto-highlighting formats and added a level “indicator” and “TNL” section. The 20 jobs and my current levels in them are in two columns. The third column compares a target level to all the jobs’ current level and returns the number needed to reach the target, or 0 if at or above. The whole thing is summed and so I can say that right now, I need 20 total levels to get all my current jobs to 13 for either brass, linen or doublet armor.

I need 58 more levels to get them all to 20. This excludes PUP at the moment, as it isn’t unlocked yet. On a side note, after reading the PUP guide, I *may* mess with it…

The other thing the level block does is color code the levels: orange for “half-subs”, any job 18 or up that can properly sub a 37; green for “full subs” at 37+; blue for 75s. I may change it so the job name goes blue for 75 and Maat-ready job levels (66+) get another color. I doubt very much I’ll ever get 15 jobs to Maat-mashing range, but what the hey… I said I’d never have more than 6 jobs when I was a younger cub... lol

I’m So Happy Today! ^^

(I'm gonna catch ya, Yalto!)

^^ Unlike Failful Friday, today has been fantastic! ^^ I am a *happy* Mithra now! ^^

• Unlocked DRK. It was easy, just kept /echo-ing the count every 5 mobs and used /WHM to pull multiple mobs to beat the massive lag between attacks (You must wait longer...).
• Unlocked SAM. Also, easy. The Guardian Treant and the Forger went down like chumps, even soloed on WHM.
• The above were easy but time-consuming!
• Helped Dove with LB2, and very nearly died on the first Boreal mob! Archer, Dove, Yalto, Aleu, Resion and Falout plus me.
• Rotated Shiroma’s tires and patched that stupid slow leak.
• Thanks to being a little nosy and a little bit of a smartypants, I won two demo keys from GameStop. Two of the salesguys were talking about finding someone to spell "facetious". I thought they were trying a trick question out on people when I nosed in, but no, they just wanted someone to sort the Alpha-Bits. Which I did, because, like Murder-Face, I'm an excellent speller.
• For the first time ever, I talked the Subway girl into extra cheese in exchange for no veggies on my cold cut combo.
• Shopped at the mall and found a Fallout 3 Lunchbox for Father’s Day. Will Ape buy it in time?

Postal Service Blues

(Wizard needs garage sale, badly!)

Leveled RNG to 9 and spent TWO HOURS fixing inventory between Jesup and myself. Leveling three jobs all in the same zone for like 30 levels has really overstocked me. Getting some good sales though!

Escorted Reebok to Jeuno from Valkurm.

Have a nagging feeling I did something else but I just can't remember. I was on most of the day...

Failday Addendum

Fell asleep leveling BLU – woke up under attack and managed to pull through.

I have but one life on this planet

And I hate spending it on stupid people

Today has been full of fail. Epic fail. Faild’oria levels of fail ^^ Between surly register-jockeys at fast food joints to people who think changing lanes without signaling when there’s a car within 15 feet (and closing), to problems with Clone the Elder (failing some classes), to more fun at work… Then Race Day May was cancelled.

Also, you may notice (those of you who are still with me) I haven't been updating as regularly or with as much detail as before. My work life has gotten much more hectic (I warned you all this was coming), and family life is getting a little nuts. No, not betwixt my True Love and I - I've been having to do a lot more running around with school stuff, Ape, and general chore stuff.

I've apologized before for not keeping up-to-date but maybe this time I won't. Of course, I mean no offense or inconvenience. But I already have enough WHM guilt. This stuff'll have to slide ^^

Job Evaluations

(Peer-to-peer or 360-degree?)

Had a nice sit-down with K. I mean it – we actually sat down! He was on his WHM31 looking for a party when I bumped into him in Jeuno. I was cycling my d-box (floating 8 items in it ‘cos my MH is full) and dumping farming loot.

Much of our convo was on his dislike of WHM (boring) and our comparisons of other jobs. He clearly is a Mithra of action, preferring high-activity or high-damage jobs. Now see, this is where we had diverging opinions. He was all for RDM at 41+ because of Refresh being added to RDM’s already busy schedule. I agreed but mentioned WHM at those levels is starting to get stretched too. That’s when he mentioned parties with 3 full mages.

Confused, I tried to ask him what the roster looks like but never got an answer. I can only assume RDM, WHM and BLM or SMN. Whaa? Sure, running like that the WHM is going to be bored silly. Outside of the Dunes or Qufim, I can’t remember being WHM with that much support. Sometimes I pair with a RDM but not often.

I mentioned that at 50+ things get even more serious since now you’re in the AU areas. If your WHM isn’t curing, status-mending, and occasionally hasting – in between the occasional enfeeb if no RDM, then your party just isn’t trying. Remember Davvve’s imp party in Caedarva? Sure, I screwed up some at the start (missing silenas, not bar-spelling enough, etc.) , but I also had plenty to do. I barely got rest time but thanks to Sanction/Noble’s refreshes, Light Arts and Sub I didn’t need much rest.

He also pegged Dancer as boring. Hmmm? 45+ it seems Dancers never stop dancing. He's looking forward to building out a Haste Ninja - sounds exciting!

But you know what, that’s what’s so great about having 20 jobs. If you personally don’t like one, do another. There’s plenty of fun for everyone. And I hope he knows I didn’t take any of his WHM comments personally. Nobody can diminish my love of the job. (And I hope he didn’t take offense to my SMN putdown)

---

Leveling lowbie jobs is a pain, but at least I make a little money off all the crap I get. And I’m not too far away from my next big gear purchase – Blessed Pants. Grats to Aleu on her Disco Pants but boy do I hate mine!

Also, when I was able to tear myself away from home life interruptions, I got BLU to within a kill or two of 9. And I learned my first spell – Pollen! ^^ Now maybe I can really accelerate the leveling with less downtime.

(Slow slow trolls)

Waiting for what I thought was a soon-to-happen Besieged, I worked on MNK. Y’know, Boost makes that job a LOT more fun! Got it to 10 and only stopped because I thought the stupid trolls were almost in Al Zahbi.

There was lot of LS chat, some of it with Aleu, who just got her WHM AF pants and wants to get the body ASAP. I asked if I could join and between us, Archer, Yalto and possibly others, we’re gonna do it soon.

GD also has new members: Srkon and Reebok. IIRC, Srkon is a transfer and has high-level jobs. Reebok is new.

Placeholder

Wed late night: MNK 1 to 5, RNG and BLU 1 to 7 /phew

Thurs: off and unconscious

Fri: Star *$%#ing Trek. And a great party with Davvve too! (some oopsies on my part)

Sat: Helped Aleu with DS, chat, THF 12 to 14 in slow-starting but eventually solid party. Yalto to chaperone my wedding

Sun: Dunno yet, just logged on!

Also today, I really had way too much grief from a gas station and McDonalds: 30 minutes to get gas because Hess doesn't know how to do a fill up... And 50 minutes to get a snack from Mickey Duhs because they can't run a debit card. It's partly my bank's fault - they disabled the credit part but damn... Debit isn't a newfangled contraption from the future or anything.

Wedding Chaperon Needed

(Since when did "chaperone" lose the e?)

I'm going to have to find a chaperone ASAP, as May is now booked solid and June is filling fast. The lucky person can use this page as a reference for the answers to the Wedding application.

1. Dates
Preferred dates: 6/19 7pm, 6/20 2pm, 6/21 2pm

2. Groom: Jesup, Hume, WAR

3. Bride: Aerinravage, Mithra, WHM70

4. Chaperone: Your Name Here ^^

5. Contact: Your choice
6. World: Siren

7. Guests: 19-36
8. Style: Windurstian

9. Location: East Saruta

10. (n/a)
11. (n/a)
12. Dress ONLY (Can't afford both)
13. Wedding Ring Engraving: Couple's initials (AtoJ, JtoA)

14: (12? huh?) Notes (please copy this verbatim if you can):

This Vana couple are married IRL and are using this opportunity to proclaim their bond in this world as well. Both would like to read short personal vows during the ceremony.

Regarding the guest list, all RDB and GD invited, plus select others TBD

Sorry ^^

Between Wednesday and Sunday, I did stuff...

Wednesday and/or Thursday - may have been Jesup-time, 15.5 to 17 IIRC and failed WHM flagups.

Friday was the seedspall mission for Crystyalline Prophecy and Sat was all Jesup - Ding WAR20! Saturday was definitely 17 to 20. Some PLing was involved...

Off Sunday for Fernandina Shrimp Fest and family time.

Now, to get married... Falout has chaperoned, and Yalto still thinks this is funny.