I Only Kinda Like You, Man

(...)

Friday's date move was "I Love You, Man". Two thoughts: It's streaky-funny, then serious, then funny, then... And, why *does* a grown man *have* to have a best friend if he just wants to be with his fiancee? IMHO, if he married the right woman, he'd already have his best friend.

In Vana'diel, Fhox, Goldenkid, Jago, Eypven, and Stoik were knocking down Prime avatars. I showed up just in time to join them with Ifrit and Shiva. As things got late some dropped off, and then they went to avatars I couldn't do like Ramuh (already had him).

I spent a little time on SMN playing with them and, yeah, maybe I can try it again.

Saturday I was on for over two hours, flagged on BRD13 almost the whole time. No 'vites. I soloed to 14 (better gear at least) and skilled my performing arts.

Reputation

(I'm more popular than I thought!)

I wasn't planning to be on but I had some time to kill. I spent it flagging the other 4 avatars. I actually had the fame in Rabao and Kazham. I'm 8 in Windy and 9 in Jeuno (just for reference).

I logged out in Sandy after flagging Shiva. I want to check Bard songs before leaving.

Giving Thanks and Being Thankful

I was all set to post about how I'm very thankful my life has gone the way it has. Then we had a major medical emergency. I'll cover that in a sec.

My career has taken many turns - good and bad - but when the place I was with before went out of business I wasn't sure what was coming next. I had several months to plan and I went on a few interviews at some great places. I never heard back from one, was turned down by another and rejected one myself. Then the lights went out and I landed where I am now, with only a week between jobs, and I couldn't be happier.

I'm finally doing what I've been training for my whole life, and the people I work with are great too. I'm hopeful that if I'm able to stay here long-term (I'm watching you, Economy!!) that I'll reach my goals as a software developer and make a decent living to boot. This, I am thankful for, especially given that so many can't say the same right now. I hope all of you are OK too ^^

Now, the emergency. Just after a meeting Ape called me in hysterics. Her mom had been rushed to the ER with stroke symptoms. She's in her 70s and has had issues before so, while not totally out of the blue, it sucked nonetheless. I left work and rushed to the hospital. And so far, after two days of tests, it looks like it might not be her heart OR her circulatory system. They're thinking seizure disorder of some kind. Scary, but hopefully not life-threatening!

As for Vana'diel pursuits, Tuesday was fame-building and avatar quest flagging. I'm now Rank 6 or higher in every nation. Wednesday was the scheduled avatar fight night. Fhox, Puma and I ground Titan down, and then went to visit Ramuh. We had to wait for Lightningsday to pass and we used that time to farm and skill. Fhox announced Jago would join us.

We beat up on Moss Eaters looking for a coffer key for Puma. I pulled a few and stupidly forgot casting would drop Sneak. While standing in the water. Near snippers. But the three of them stepped up and I survived - yay!

Ramuh welcomed us with more damage than Titan offered us and his Paralyze AoE almost got Puma killed when I couldn't cast Cure V on him, deep in orange territory. But we pulled through and now I have two of eight avatars.

Avatars For My Avatar

Monday, Fhox was on. And he asked if I wanted to do some Summoner avatar fights. Since I completely misread how these worked, I thought it was pointless being only SMN17. But that's for the Trial Size Trials, not the full Prime avatar fights, as Fhox was planning.

So I made my way to Bastok and tried to flag the quest. I had Fame 5, so I needed more, as the avatars are Fame 6 fights. I'll resort to my tried-and-true millioncorn and see if several stacks'll do it.

We planned to return Wednesday for the fights, so I had my orders - be ready!

Happy Anniversary!

(only 26 years until we get there!)

Right this second, 12:56 in the morning on Sunday the 22nd, I'm sitting in a hotel lobby in Orlando, Florida. We're here to celebrate my mom & dad's 41st anniversary. Seems odd to think they've been together that long but then I have to shake myself and remember I'm 37 and the younger sibling.

The two of them are still best friends, just as Ape and I are. I think that's the secret to marital bliss.

We should be home around 7:30 tomorrow (today?) and I may be able to get on after Amazing Race. I want to get NIN to 27 and figure out what to do with my two crap-jobs, SMN and BST.

Job Juggling

(Multitalented Mithra!)

Thursday I got to play because of a little scheduling mixup on Ape's part. The fact that Survivor got bumped helped a lot too. I was able to mess around with more Manual pages, taking WAR to 35 and NIN to 26. I ran out of time to do another run on NIN to get it to 27 and the next ninjutsu, so I made a quick pass through VE territory and logged out.

Friday I logged in a little after midnight. We didn't go to the movies (for once), but we did go shopping and to Sonic for some treats. Blecch! Their ice cream is weaksauce compared to Maggie Moos, or even McD's.

I sat about for 10 minutes deciding what to level. I didn't want to touch any of the SIX (I have six of them now!) 35+ jobs, so I debated NIN, BRD or DRG. I finally settled on BRD and went to the Dunes. Almost an hour later I packed it in and switched to RDM of all things. I had resisted before since I'm not very adept at this job's intricacies. I didn't want to short-change anyone I partied with.

And did I party... I got a request to join Jaadin's group in the jungle. It didn't take me too long to reach them and soon we were underway. I mixed in the standard enfeebs and main-heal with the odd nuke. Since we had a BRD/WHM, a pally and a dancer, there was plenty of healing available and things rarely got out of hand. Hate hold was pretty solid too so it was easy work. We eventually had some tap-outs and as reps came in we were soon too high to keep going on mandies.

The decision was made to head to the Citadel and by now Jaadin had passed the reins to Sona (sp), whom I warned about having about an hour in the Citadel. He was fine with it and we got underway. One rep there brtought a bored friend to PL and things got really easy. I think everyone went melee at this point and in fact I helped with a few Liquefactions.

As 4:15 approached I asked about my rep and he said he was having difficulty filling in spots but that he was still working on it. I wound up there until nearly 5, bone-weary but happy about my levels. The PL and friend DCed and the group reformed yet again.

I never fell asleep at the wheel, but I did get a little slow between casts. I was 30+ past my announced exit time and very tired. Nobody died and I don't think anyone even noticed. But if they did, I'm sorry, and please understand it wasn't my choice to play tired. Well, I guess I could have simply bailed at 4:15 as planned but that would be far worse IMHO than being a little sloppy later. Action never stopped and everyone was racking in the XP.

I wanted to go to bed a little earlier because Saturday, instead of racing, we were going to Orlando for my parents' 41st anniversary. Surprised? Me too - the racing was already paid for, and both my dad and I had invested in helmets and tune-ups. The track called to cancel on us, saying there weren't enough entries. Bite me. We're gonna go the SCCA route because we can track-race with them (they're not just gymkhanas any more!) and spend a lot less.

Oh, almost forgot. Friday at the mall, I had a really long chat with a Sears associate. Who has made an award-winning AMV. From Black Cat. To the song "Black Cat". His studio? Kuroneko. I'm detecting a theme here... No, seriously, he and I chatted about cons, cosplay, learning Japanese, and importing anime. He attends a few cons regularly and has cosplayed two different characters. One was L from Death Note. Surprisingly close look even in work gear.

He strongly encouraged me to cosplay when I mentioned trying to get that together for AWA15. It's not like I really need a push - I'd be there tomorrow with bells (and a tail) on if I could afford it. I really suspect my wig alone will be a couple hundred bucks to do right, especially with ears the way they need to be done. I shudder to think what the Noble's is gonna cost me. And I don't have a side job any more to save money from. The one I had ended and those funds are dedicated to motorsports.

/sigh

Valorious Fielding

Tuesday - FoV for DNC to 35, PLed Raki a bit in Qufim, chatted with Phax (he's been busy with work) and Kush

Wed - GD day - quick run to Castle Zvahl for Damu's AF (Dark Spark fight). Ran into Puma who joined us, then 5 of us partied in Qufim on two Field Manual pages. Got WAR halfway to 35.

For once I was actually satisfied about my performance on this job. During a crab battle, we got a little helping of Wight aggro. I popped my 2-hour and with everyone's help we made it. Later, while killing the worm needed for the second Valor run, a banshee decided to kill us. Puma died barely 15 feet from the party. As the banshee worked over the rest of us, Derf tried to sic the Omega Hare on it. I used Smash Axe and actually got a stun to stick. We ran like hell and on the way to the tower, picked up TWO wights (one I aggroed off Derf) a Weapon and...

Well, let's just say I did kinda screw up by running close to a Giant Trapper. Who killed me in two hits. I think LS was still up so, understandable. However, the other three escaped and Puma and I used our FoV reraises.

Giants aside, I feel like I actually played WAR like a true warrior, using the job's abilities as they were intended for hate control and tanking. I did a good job of pulling hate or taking damage when needed to give my mates a fighting chance. I still don't like this job (PLD all the way) but I'll get it to 37 knowing I got the hang of it.

In major good news, Fhox and I chatted a bit! And Yalto's back (but on a schedule)! Aleu's working on it. Fhox has been having some job stress (thank you economy) and Yalto and Aleu seem to have had some job and living quarters dilemmas to deal with. And a dead laptop. But it looks like they're making a recovery.

I don't know if Fhox is in a position to come back regularly but I hope so. And Y&A know how much I've missed them.

In other good news, I was able to get a laptop power adapter for my other laptop. So now Ape can use it and I can use TheImmortal and we won't fight over the computer. And maybe I can avoid further work internet filter warnings on Facebook tabs left open ^^

Checking My Roots

There are days I wonder, I mean *really wonder*, if I'm supposed to be a blonde Mithra. I just realized LAST NIGHT that I can use Field Manuals to really boost solo XP. I took DRG, BRD and THF from 1-12 the hard way, in Saruta. With no free Valor XP. Urk.

Anyway, I soloed last night in Qufim with Sufhi's help and got SCH the few XP needed for 37. So I now have 2 full-sub subjobs. This afternoon, I got PLD to 35 which should make the rest of the levels easier (Cover and Refresh).

I'm tempted to drag MNK out (never leveled it) just to see if using FoV speeds it up a lot. Plus I want every job to at least 12.

Oh, for the interested, my car's gonna cost about $755 to fix. I fortunately have a low deductible, but it sucks I have to pay anything for someone else's trash. Stoik, if you happen to be reading this one, please please please mind your tires ^^

I'll see you tomorrow after the Y. Should be a lot of Irish music for St. Patty's Day. I still can't dance Pot 'O Gold but it's fun watching our teacher.

Aaaaaaaahhhurrgh!

Tonight's forecast is heavy clouds followed by clear bright sunshine


First, the bad part of my night. >< >< ><

We spent most of Saturday cleaning out our garage. As a treat, the whole fam went to Steak & Shake for food and, well, shakes. Then we went to "Race to Witch Mountain" (meh). We left the theatre close to midnight. Just as we got onto the highway, I hit a cursed piece of truck tire retread. Did I mention I drive a Mazda RX-8? Sportscar? Sits low? Not quite Flo Rida low, but low enough...

...to have most of the undertray ripped out. It also damaged the left side fender liner, and the damaged liner messed up my 4-month old tire too. I'm waiting to find out what this disaster is gonna cost me.

I logged in just after 12 and fortunately, both Kushiel and Rhelic were on. And ready to party! I went PLD for this one and we went to the jungles of Elshimo for this one. In addition to us, we had Valryte, Clakouette (great name!) and Gurun, a Japanese monk. Actually, Rhel can speak a bit of Japanese in romaji and we tried a few lines.

When we were working with mandies, I did a great job tanking. Gobs, not so much. On one pull, I blew Shield Bash early trying to pull hate back and of course, the gobbie decides to Bomb Toss right after that. Gurun chastised me in auto-trans ^^ I apologized, but it was a bad-timing thing. Then we tried a wasp and I died. Those things' Final Sting is so much worse than the ones in Saruta - I got flattened by a 400+ hit.

Eventually we decided to relocate to East Ronfaure of the past, and with Val's Retrace, it wound up a short trip. Val bowed out at this point, so Rhel had to find a rep. Blacksoulless (DRG) met us at camp while we gathered together.

Then...things went south again. Turns out I can't tank colibri for crap at 34. Also, between the wasp and the first bird, I lost TWO pumpkins, over 4 grand. >< I now know they can steal food (thanks Blacksoulless lol).

Aaand, Blacksoulless was also part of the stress - she was an overeager puller not often giving us enough time for MP: mine, Clak's or Rhel's. There were more deaths and frustration. I did point out to Kush that sometimes an aggressive puller can test a party's mettle in a satisfying way, but I think we were all in agreement this was not one of those times, and in fact we were no longer having fun.

At 4-ish, we wrapped it up. Rhel and Kush opted to do Qufim's Field of Valor for XP but I had to bail. Sleep - sometimes I need it lol.

The best part of the night is the fun I had in chat. I really really really enjoy a good convo, especially one that gives me a chance to validate my beliefs or learn something about myself. Or just having laughs, because there were plenty of those:

* Rhel and then Black got a great kick out of the fact Clak and I were dressed identically in RSE.
* Many jokes about why the birds seemed to want to make out with me over Clak. My answer? Perhaps my tongue has a latent ^^
* Macro fun: dancing, raises, "solo play" (ahem), and teleports. I especially liked the defibrillator macro complete with appropriate joule settings.
* Rhel hates WHM :p
* I mentioned WHM guilt after Rhel and Kush assured me my mistakes were OK. I know, but I want everyone to have fun. *I* sure don't want to be remembered for being a buzzkill.

At the last, Rhel and I traded links: He has a webcomic at http://crystalsunffxi.comicdish.com/index.php. They tried to pull this one up but I had given them the wrong link, and myself a scare. Easily fixed!

I hope I get to play some tonight. Fhox is MIA but I've been having a lot of fun with non RDB or GD friends!

Time To Waste

(Exceeding safe levels of stupid exposure)

I'm going to try really hard not to make this a personal thing. I promise.

Friday late night after "Last House on the Left" (so-so, a little long but cool vengeance) I logged in. I got an invite in the Citadel pretty quickly, so I made my way there. After about 2 hours I only had a total of 2k XP, give or take. That's because I died no fewer than 3 times. And I was the Scholar. There was a lot of downtime waiting for raises or weakness.

Koyi, our leader claimed to know quite a bit about FFXI but her tactics were...questionable. The first sinking feeling I got was when I saw the party lineup - way too much mana, not enough melee. No, this wasn't a manaburn, it was just broken.

Second, the setup or the tank wasn't working with hate - I pulled hate way to often with just Cure IIs

Third, some of the discussion made me wish I'd brought hip-waders: it was getting a lil' deep there in the Citadel.

Kushiel and Koyi sparred a bit and that at least was entertaining. When Nohohon, our PUP left at his announced time, we basically ended the party naturally. However, Kush invited me to continue on, possibly to East Ronfaure [S]. I was psyched because I was about 250 away from SCH37.

He grabbed his buddy Rhelic and then we couldn't find anyone else suitable. It was already 4-something so I had to go. However, we set Saturday at midnight as a planned time to try again.

I really enjoyed meeting the both of them and already had a great chat or two. I really love meeting people I can talk with!

Stealing XP

(Hi Stoik!)

I haven't done too much lately. Monday and Tuesday were solo-time for THF. Cornette sales are making me some moolah ^^

Wednesday wound up being a LB2 run for Fal, with Stoik and Res. We did well against demon aggro and the three Boreal creatures. Sufhi was killed by the Hound (second one we faced) because of DoT I wasn't paying attention to. Res and Fal pulled enough hate to take some serious spike damage.

Oddly, Res cured with C3's, usually right before I cast C5's so one of us was wasting MP and time.

In any case, it was fun and didn't take too long.

P.S. Stoik found my blog, and seemed to find "Siren's Healing Touch" amusing. Wonder why...

Khardis! Khardis!

I think I found the leader from yesterday! Khardis, if that was you in East Ronfaure [S] being PLed by a hopelessly tardy Mithra, let me know! Did you say you and your husband were on? Cool beans! If anyone's wondering, I didn't send any messages because you were leading a party in Yuhtunga and didn't want to be a distraction.

All I did was camp VE a bit (invisible adventurer - {Found it!}) and level DRG to 11. I had about an hour before Bran's Tae Kwon Do sparring and Ape was busy looking for something for us to do on Spring Break ^^

See you after the Y!

Huh...

(Change of plans)

How did I get from Wednesday to Sunday? Ummm...

* Wed ?
* Thurs - off
* Fri - after Watchmen (fan-freakin'-tastic - and I never read the original) messed around some but I don't think I accomplished much
* Sat - Shell party in the Dunes with GD - went WAR13 but couldn't stay as long as I'd liked to. Came back and did a little camping and chatting. Got back on after SNL but no invites.
* Sun - Oh boy...

I logged in at about 1:30 with plans to be on for about 3 hours, then off to chore-time and dinner at my folks' for AR. I flagged back up on SCH after the failure of last night. And got an invite to rep someone in East Ronfaure [S], of all places. Seems easy, right? Well, it should have been.

Switch to WHM, Recall-Jugner, warp to Windy-in-the-Past, change back to SCH, "OP" warp to Ronfaure, and party hardy.

The first sign things would go badly for me was not having Ronfaure unlocked. It's the one zone of the 12 I never went to. OK, I can OP to Jugner and ride over. But I wasn't sure which way to go to reach Ronfaure and crossed those damnable Orc barriers and spent thirty minutes trying to figure out how to get back. Both my intended leader and the GD members were trying but they couldn't get me all the way in. To make matters worse my laptop The Immortal decided to lock me out and the old PC was not set up.

I let my leader (I'm so sorry I forgot your name - maybe I can find you through the others in the party!) know and she said I was going to be repped. I understood. I soon died too, once my bird bailed on me, right next to a decrepit gnole.

I HPed, changed to WHM/SCH and found my way back to Jugner. This time, I got the PC up, foud the path to Ronfaure and unlocked the final OP warp. I also found the group I was supposed to be in and apologized profusely to all of them. As someone warped out and all I saw were three. Turns out they were waiting on the RDM and some others were wandering.

So I got to PL after all. I'm going to try to find the leader, K-something (BLM), but the others, as I recall, were Reaunond (PLD), Scoppie (DD), Vane (RDM), Marlborokid (COR) and Avah? (DD).

I hope I did enough to make up for my screwup with the map. If nothing else, they chin-pulled the Colibri here (make note to return with shell) and I never had to rest once. I did have to take a break to unload groceries however.

At the end, the husband and wife duo said many thanks (as did the others individually) and she even said I was very nice. I blushed.

All told, I felt pretty OK with the outcome. And I now have my final past-OP warp and a great campsite for mid-30s jobs.

See you Tuesday!

Underwhelmed

Party in Kazham… Level 28-31, all with subs and two with advanced jobs… All from the same shell.

• one didn’t have a choco licence
• one hadn’t quested RSE and thought they had to buy the gear
• despite a RDM57, too much death and lost members on way to camp
• Stubbornly camped mandies in Yhoator at LS 28 – battles were long, took all MP and weren’t worth the risk IMNSHO
• Curing was spotty while I tanked – RDM, SMN and \WHM and I was still red a LOT

I think I actually LOST XP after over 2 hours with this bunch. Two members D/Ced leaving us stranded. I ran back to Kazham (and didn’t die!) changed to WHM and escorted our non-choco-rider and her friend back.

TheAlmightyII

I spent some time Monday loading my replacement PS3 with all the stuff Sony deleted. This was actually a second round of installs. Monday was going to be FFXI night but... I can't remember my POL password...

Test Time

(Helping Helps Me)

I logged in for about 4 hours Sunday after a full week off (see earlier posts). The first hour was all gear-sorting in an attempt to party. I have far too much stuff now that I have 14 active jobs and I don’t want to spend what it’ll cost for Gobbie 7. I may need to expand storage and stop worrying about my Moghancement.

Anyway, Fhox logged on and my plans to party became a 6-person RDB run for Raki’s WAR test. With Fhox leading, we had Raki, Kitty, Puma, and me. I went WHM geared for full-on solo melee.

We spent nearly another hour waiting for everyone to arrive and then we did a short run in the Lab and the rest in Davoi. Despite Kitty’s concern of being an agro magnet (she was 55 to our 70+) we held it together and hopefully she got many SUs. She certainly threw out more than a few weaponskills.

Hexa Strike continues to rock and a few times I managed to hold hate for more than a few seconds. I even dinged SUs in Shield, Divine and Curing.

Also, I reinforced my hatred of the Mutes. I will never again mute myself unless we have imminent combat where my having tiny HP/MP jeopardizes the party.

We slaughtered quads with abandon and had only a few close calls. Raki however wandered away from the group in the “four rooms” area and got killed while the rest of us were in combat. I Benecided but he wasn’t in range and died. After the R3 we continued on safely.

We killed several Ancients and even a pair of Rubys but no test >< I had to leave since our Amazing Race dinner party was starting.

Undelete

(Better late than never)

Last week, I posed the question, “Could I throw it all away?” I don’t think so. There are a few good reasons but the chief one is this: Aerin represents the best in me. She is the embodiment of the selfless, service-oriented, sociable side of me. Through her, I manifest the values I believe in and try to practice in real life: Faithfulness, loyalty, respect, humanity, adventurousness, etc.

It’s not like I’m a total bastard in real life. Actually, living as Aerin a couple hours a day reminds me to watch my P’s and Q’s the other 22-odd. The more I focus on my behaviour in Vana’diel, the more my real-life attitudes improve.

Look back over the last fifty or so blogs – how many are tagged with a “mood” icon of 3 (neutral) to 5 (full-on BLM badness)? Not too many. And that’s reflective of my real life. I’m ordinarily a happy-go-lucky kind of person, and that one attribute eliminates most of my stress and creates most of my wife’s ^^

Without Aerin, I’d still be someone who values love above all, who tries to never worsen someone’s day, and all the rest. But with Aerin, I get to do all that for people I care about WHO AREN”T RELATED TO ME. Most of the people I interact with (not counting work) are family. I have a lot just within 20 miles of my house and so most of my interpersonal interactions are family based. Don’t get me wrong – I love them and don’t feel compelled to be nice to them. But family and friends are different and I like the bonds I’ve made with my Vana friends.

OK, so maybe you’re wondering… Why not more friends IRL? Simple – the family folk eat up most of my time and the few hours I have left I want to control.

On to more important business… My new schedule. Ape and I have been wrangling with this for a few days and here it is. It’s not set in stone but I should be able to count on it most of the time (and anyone planning events should start here at least):

Monday: Off
Tuesday: ~8:30 to bedtime
Wednesday: random, either a couple hours around 7-9 or 9-bedtime
Thursday: Off
Friday: Late night, after date night. 3-4 hours if I can stay awake
Saturday: Late night, 3-4 hours if I can stay awake
Sunday: random, a couple hours in the afternoon or evening

I may work in weekend daylight visits depending on what we’re doing IRL but there are no promises there. Also, Ape said if things are slow at home or she’s tied up with schoolwork I can do non-committed stuff: Farming, soloing, camping, PLing. No parties or group runs where I can’t leave within 10 minutes.