Entertaining Friends

On waking up I found myself near the Nashmau/Caedarva gate. I debated what method I’d use to get back to Naja’s and settled on the boat ride. Maybe there’d be an NM and some help to kill it. I bought a ticket, waited my turn and then prepared to go aboard as the ferry approached.

That’s when an insistent Kushiel wanted to know if I could come to Windy, noooow~ I asked why and he said he wanted to show me something really neat. Having just bought the ticket, and leery of spending 50 FoV tabs, I asked if it was going to be worth porting off the boat that was already under way. He insisted it would be. So I ported and Repatriated.

Whatever the surprise was, I’d have to go to his house to see it. After a spot of confusion on my part, I got Abby Jalunshi to let me in. I was amazed by two things. Up by the waterfall was a model airship, with spinny propellers and everything! And, aside from the ship and two trees, nothing!

I joked that I thought I could see the passenger who dropped this here key item. I also wondered after his storage capacity… In any case, the boat *was* really neat and worth the trip. I got a screenie and then we chatted. In Japanese no less!

I asked about the proper pronunciation of his name – turns out it works well as Japanese syllables (くしえる). As it happens, it does not rhyme with “tushie”, but when I mentioned that I think he chuckled. We complimented each other in Japanese as well – he seemed to really like akai-atama. There may have been some flirty banter too ^^;

After some more chat, he went AFK to run errands IRL, offering to let me stay. I excused myself, wanting to move the ToAU missions forward ASAP. I stayed in party for a bit longer but then got some good tele-shouts and had to disband to take the passengers.

Somewhere in here, Dark and I connected briefly. I wanted to know who to talk to about his Dyna shell’s requirements and rules. Either he didn’t reply or I missed it.

Back in AU, I worked the CSes and they are getting interesting… There’s a few more I can solo until a fight on AU22.

During a taxi run, I saw Dahkota shouting for a WHM to accompany her Nyzul 40 run. By the time I got back I didn’t expect the slot to be open, but, despite warning her about my lack of familiarity with these middle floors, she invited me anyway.

To summarize, we got two runs in, one with tokens and one without. However, we never got close to the boss floor because either kills took too long or there were too many objectives.

Also, I wasn’t on my A-game heal-wise. Some of these mobs are completely new to me and I wasn’t ready for the danger. I was trying to keep up but AoE or specials would sometimes obliterate my allies. Even as I queued up cures, people occasionally took heavy damage. I wonder if I should put the party cure announcement back on?

And in a particularly-embarrassing death on the second run, I cast cures three times, only seeing an error on the final one – the pointer displayed on target every time but only the last one gave me the “Unable to see…” message. So I wasted like a minute for nothing!

I felt really bad about my efforts because, not only was I sloppy on cures and status fixes, I managed to bring a Mousse across most of the level. I lost track of the group as they searched one floor for targets. While reapplying S/I, a Mousse got me and I slept it. But it never gave up on me and like a ditz, forgot to Deodorize after the sleep took.

That thing must’ve woken up 3 times and moved to wherever I was. Thankfully, none of my Reposes failed to stick but it was annoying…

Overall I had fun but perhaps I should stick to lower floors for awhile to get the hang of some of the newer mobs’ abilities. Or get access to higher areas in Vana’Diel like Sky, Salvage and Tavnazia…

Res was on at some point mentioning he can get us Sky access quickly. He has a friend who is expert at running the mission series. I hope so (and begged to come along) as this basically finishes out the RoZ missions. There was also a lot of chat between Derf and Res dealing with military service. I will never look at cherries the same way again!

Pinned Down

I logged in tonight for the first time in awhile, due to my {Bio} condition… I was able to manage well enough…

Anyway, I was bored and didn’t want to party in my enfeebled state. So I checked for the Haty and Vran mobs that drop Rogetsurin (throwing). I can use that on 4 of my melees as an ammo-free pull, and I might finally get my Throwing skill out of the dumpster.

I didn’t see any NMs in the indicated areas, so I took a chance on VE in Valkurm. His beach was deserted and all the flies were milling about. I went ahead and cleared all the ones I saw and started on the repops. And, as I headed to the western corner with the rock, there he was! I flashed him, Hexa’d him and owned him. “Empress Hairpin GET!”

I joked in shell about going after LL next but decided against it. Vet was going after Titan again and Ben was soloing in Gustav. So I made my way to Jeuno to sell my Silk Headband +1 and then to AU.

Running downstairs from the warp point, I passed a fiery redhead – Kush and Djehuty were returning from somewhere. We chatted a bit (told him about the WoTG vid with his double in it; he mentioned "Real Men Of Genius”) and then I saw shouts from Peterlee about AU 12-17.

It was pretty late but I’ve been itching (see what I did there?) to progress any of my missions. I joined in, despite already having 12 done. Ricklee was in the group also and as we headed out to find Ameretats, we gained Kyte as well. As luck would have it, Kyte was being tailed by a Marid and an Ameretat. He didn’t realize at first we were after the red octopus-plant but soon all four of us pummeled it and it dropped acid 1/1.

We then boarded the Nashmau boat so Peter could convert the drop into the key item needed to start 13’s fight. We eventually made our way to the cemetery in Caedarva. Kyte opted to stay where he was, soloing for PUP skills. So the three of us took on the Shade. It was a nasty fight – besides frequently eating all our TP with AoE spam, he often hit for 400+ damage. I lost Rick when I was too slow bringing up my Cure macro (but I was bringing it up!) I think there was some concern, partly justified, that I was splitting my attention a little thin between melee and mending.

In any case, I raised him, died myself, then reraised just in time for all three of us to win standing up. However, just before he died, the shade used an AoE Drain that killed both Rick and I (again!) during the CS. Obviously, had I seen the effect land I’d have erased/esuna-ed it. Had I seen… We had to HP from there and I lost nearly 2.5k off my buffer. Glad I still have 15k left!

This next part took an eternity – CS with Naja then off to the Arrapago Reef and the Black Cofffin. This fight was against two waves of Shade crewers, and their Corsair Captain. This time, we recruited Zane, Devilboy and Batsu and dropped Kyte. No, I don’t know if it was THAT Batsu. However, departing for the fight didn’t happen quickly.

I had over an hour to kill and I used it fixing my DS3 with the trigger spring from the original SixAxis crappo controller. Now hopefully I won’t have any more problems with macros acting on their own lol.

We eventually made our way to the reef and the dock where a cutter waited to take us to the Coffin. There was an initial, foreboding cutscene featuring a shade Mithra. Not nearly as cool as the Mithra from the Rank 5 missions… Anyway, after being sufficiently spooked, we waited for Batsu and Dev to arrive as Batsu was out of IS…

And then Zane DCed. With just the three of us (Rick, Peter and me) we killed shades waiting for the other two. They eventually made it and we got ourselves ready, then rode the cutter to the Coffin. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one hoping it wasn’t to be *MY* coffin!

The fight wasn’t too bad overall, as we had support from Gessho, a Yag merc. My job was to keep him alive, buff the fighters and stay out of trouble. Which I did. Then, we lost Batsu to a DC. I think we also lost Dev near the end. And Peter got a scare – he was going deep red and while I was trying to get Curaga 4 on him he called out “Aer!” then “AER!!!!!!”. With only 60-odd HP I stuck the cure and about 5 seconds later the Captain yielded.

We got another CS and then were deposited in Nashmau. I split then as it was now very late. K had even commented on the hour and I told him I was being a bad kitty. When I return I will hopefully be up to AU17.

Under the Weather

In case anyone's wondering, I'm offline temporarily. I have a really bad case of poison oak (or whatever). I'm having a hard time typing and using the controller.

Not sure when I'll be back on.

Also, just checked - I beat Maat on 6/18 and hit 75 on 7/26, just over 6 weeks. I think I was on 70 for close to a year. (searching complete)

I dinged 70 on January 4th. Almost 7 months ago!

Anyway, see ya when I see ya!

...Begins With a Single Step

(The first step's the easy one - thank you everybody!)

Sunday wouldn’t begin until very late. We saw G-Force (surprisingly good, very entertaining), ate lunch, did some shopping and watched some TV. I was able to log in at 7:30-ish when Ape and the boys took off for a bike ride. And, after a quick invite and back-to-back band charges, I dinged. At about 8:20pm EDT, in the company of…I hit WHM75 – go Mithra, it’s your birthday, go Mithra, it’s your birthday!

We had an interesting close call when two trolls and an automaton linked – we very nearly died but with whiffs of mana, Benediction and a lot of help from both bards, we pulled through without a death or zone. And it was quite fun too!

When Utz needed to return to Al Zahbi for Sanction, I asked permission to go too. I thought I could go to my MH and switch XP modes. I actually had a 5k buffer at this point and wanted to see if I could get my first Merit Point. But alas, I was mistaken. There’s a first-time visit to the Nomad Moogle next to Maat in Jeuno. I wouldn’t be able to change modes. Worse still, I held the party up for about 10 minutes.

When we finally broke up a little after 10, I jetted over to Ru’lude Gardens and then my mog to change modes and review the MP menus. It’s gonna take me another forever to build this out the way I want!

I was going to log out just after 11 but then I offered quick help (as long as we were done before Malcolm ^^). Ben was assisting with LB2 and I was more than capable of helping beat down the Boreal Trio. Ben, Agles, Pak, Doomtriggero (!) and Stankk were in this group. Agles, Pak and I were all 70+. Doom and Stankk were the LB2 candidates and Ben was the coordinator.

I got to see something I’ve only seen once before on the field – a Kraken Club. Pak was on BLU/NIN, dual-wielding a nice sword and the k-club. That thing was totally nuts. It looked like he was on mega-Haste!

The three mobs died easily enough although on the first Doom did something to wind up with only 48 HP. No deaths though - *whew*. Also, I had a 1,295 Hexa, and on another got a 400+ light SC. Cool!

I ended the night just shy of 12 and Malcolm. K got on as I was leaving so we didn’t get to chat too much.


Reflections: Spent x months breaking 70 and then weeks to 75. Major relief having that done although merits will take considerable time. I think I’ll get at least the first tier of Martyr and Devotion, plus Protectra and Shellra V. I then want to focus on DNC, SCH and PLD.

I owe a tremendous debt to RDB and GD and everyone who answered /shouts for help with all the steps leading to this point. And, despite my earliest teasing of Damu, I have no plans to leave GD.

Dark happened to get on, to say he finally got Rank 10 in Bastok. He had been shouting late Saturday and apparently a badass 75 joined him and soloed the fight. He saw my progress and said he could likely get me into his Dynamis shell. I told him I needed to think about it. Maybe I could speak to the leader about time requirements and my schedule, and the points/attendance system.

Long Day, Long Delays

Saturday morning I had a lot of time to myself. Ape went to the beach with her usual crew plus her aunt from out of town. She even left me several sammies to enjoy. I was expecting about 6 hours of me-time, with some chores mixed in.

I awoke in my MH and exited in Al Zahbi. Right at the start of a monster Undead Besieged. I was doing well until Merrow #2 whacked me from afar with four fatal ranged attacks, all within about 10 minutes. On one, I had *just* used the Instant Reraise when I dropped. I honestly wasn’t sure the effect took, but thankfully it did.

I would die at least two more times from the Nemean Lion (more like meanie lion) but not once did I need a raise. In fact, I popped RR about 10 seconds before the retreat, and 1,800 in XP, with a few skillups too.

During battle, I got a blind tell from Poclobian asking for Kazham Airship Pass assistance. I told him I was in besieged (‘What’s that?”) but that I’d see what I could do after. Then, not too long after, Kush’s on and wondering if I can PL him in the Jungle. I told him I’d have to get the business with Poc sorted first (I try verrry hard not to break commitments).

After the undead left the city, I got ahold of Poc again. It took some doing but we got our plan together. I was to meet him in Jeuno to confirm he could get the quest, then depart from there. For some reason, it took him nearly 30 minutes to get from Basty to Jeuno… I used some of that time to take care of chores.

I opted to hit up the Orcs first, in Yuhgott Grotto. Once we got to the lower floor, we had plenty of key mobs to choose from. But it took like 20 kills to get the drop and I was getting impatient. K was asking after our progress and I hoped we could wrap up soon. At one point I told Poc I’d have to leave short of all three keys as I had friends waiting on me.

We did finally get the Orc key, and we both got the Orc armor piece needed for the first MK mission too. I tele’d us out and then made my way to the Jungle.

The PL work there was good, except for Lunettie’s death from a gob bomb. That, and two near-DCs from me plus an actual DC at the last boss kinda freaked me out. All in all, it worked very well and K got at least one level out of it. I had to stop for a fam break then.

On my return, I flagged up yet again on WHM and soon had another party. This one would end with me just 5.5k away from my dream. I figured in a good party, maybe 45 minutes.

Then I broke again, returning after Ape and I watched “Role Models” again. But by this time it was after 4 and I knew I couldn’t main-heal like that. I spent the time instead fixing my /SCH macros to accommodate the new WHM spells and abilities I found myself using frequently, especially in the Mire.

A Journey of A Thousand Miles

(begins with a single step)

In about 48 hours, I logged several hours. And made about 60k XP, enough to ding 75 and give me almost 20k in buffer. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Friday night, after Times Grill and “The Ugly Truth” (quite good if you don’t mind crass humor), I started my Vana night at about 1am. I soon got a party…

Oops, I Did It Again

I managed to (very briefly) bring down a live system at work. It was back up within 20 minutes, and it happened early in the day so I don’t think the full workforce was on yet. Anyway, I got another tail-chewing to go with the one from yesterday…

Vana life has been fine. Work has sucked… I guess into every life a little rain must fall. Normally at work I lead a pretty charmed life (lots of CHR I guess) and don’t usually get into much trouble. I’m usually the one doing the impossible as I refuse to take no for an answer so thankfully I have many allies, and a lot of stored good will.

Hopefully my tail is long enough to withstand a few more chewings because I have a bad feeling it’s not over yet ^^

…

Aaand I was right, kinda. I logged in about 8:15 with hopes of getting another job 14-16. I opted to go DRK and flagged up. After about 20 minutes, and a delivery of my Pilgrim’s Tunica to Bee (hopefully temporary because I’ll need it soonish for SMN and SCH) I jumped off, muled with Jesup and came back WITH my level 16 Bone armor.

Got an invite synced to 14 from Demacles, just as they were swapping another member. Pretty sure this was the same party Bee and Fal were in when I brought the tunic to Bee. Thankfully Bee was self-PLing with Nethen which helped later on.

We had a rough start trying to get to the ledge camp moving from the OP as someone and I got drilled by gobs. I opted to HP and avoid the 5-minute Weakness. Dem chided me but quickly realized my way was good when I was back and ready before the other was over weakness.

Eventually we settled on the beach doing the crab/fly page as the Oasis was full. We barely got started when Doomtriggero showed up with every mob in the zone following him. He parked right in the middle of our camp and just stood there. I was terrified some of the mobs would de-aggro him and decide one or more of us would make a fine substitute. That didn’t happen thankfully.

While Dem was calling a GM on Doom’s mob monopolization and harassment, someone said to pull a “yellow” fly off him. I said no, because we likely wouldn’t get XP. And sure enough, I was right ^^ I do wonder how that works – would a straight aggro link count as a claim and erase XP?

Party chatter revealed a suspicion that Doom was really Batsu, a legendary griefer known on multiple servers. Vagu even had a write-up on Batsu some time ago. I tried chatting with Doom to ask if he’d go skill up somewhere else. That’s when I found out, if I could read the IM-speak correctly, he had a beef with Dem. He apparently had a slot in the party earlier but felt Dem was a grief-worthy noob. I think.

He said he was going to leave shortly, about the same time Dem was having his GM-time. I thought about warning Doom but decided not to. We moved back to the OP and then to the Oasis as it opened up. We changed pages to the gob/leech one (/panic! Bee said not to worry and I told him this was her chance to shine on WHM). As we finished leech #1 and looked to #2, Rukiasan came along and grabbed one.

Normally I wouldn’t have gotten my little nose out of joint, but today was a helluva day. Dem’s response to Rukia? “That hooker stole our leech”. I PMed him: “’Hooker’? Seriously?” He wrote back that it was a joke, as in not serious, as in kidding. Hmmm…

Less than five minutes later he was raving in party chat wanting to know “who told the mithra I called her a hooker?” Wow… I PMed him again reminding him HE was the one who just said it. I also said I wondered if this was how he treated people generally. What I may have missed was that Rukia is also Mithran. But then I wondered if he forgot who I was and thought my original PM was from Rukia.

I started getting fed up and in shell chat the three of us lamented what a poor player Dem had been.

Got a chuckle when Galagor had to run and we repped him with Aleandro, of Fhox friend fame. He asked me what was shakin’, hot stuff? I gave him a straight answer but someone must’ve said something about me IRL, because he said that’s how he talks to all the “secksi mithra”.

We ended with me partway into 16 and with Dem raving about more GM calls. Xbox got shafted 600 shy of his next level but Fal had had enough and Bee was tired. And I was just tired of Dem. Aleandro parted with another flirt-ish comment and I /blushed, which made him laugh. Which made me laugh. Which I really needed after this lovely day ^^

Sincere apologies to all my shellmates – I try not to be so cross (in-game or here) but this week’s testing me.

Coming and Going

Got a Dunes party on RNG14, and this time, I’d get to use my Republic Axe at 15 ^^ The party started off with just 5 but XP was pretty good, even synced to 11. Wiita was in this party, and after checking with Arch, I pearled him. He was on NIN and close to 12 and was ready for blink-tanking.

Then, maybe 40 minutes into the party, the leader bails. I wound up leading and wasn’t able to find a rep. Two of the three remaining members dropped and said to reinvite when I found a 5th and 6th; they were gonna solo on Konschaht. Huh? How on earth is soloing going to be better than staying a party of 4?

Anyhoo, Wiita comes back in PM and says we can duo with a PL (Majic) and get another level, as we were both pretty close. So, that’s what I did. RNG16, and now only 4 jobs left to get to 16.

Kush replied to my mail – he won’t be able to make the 8/29 date as he’ll still be moving into his new house. I may see if Arch or someone else from GD can do it because the next lottery is Friday and we’re really starting to get tight money-wise (new van payment, Matt’s upcoming braces, termite bond renewal…)

Ape bought me Watchmen on Blu-ray and we played Harry Potter Clue. I really liked that too, regular Clue is OK but there’s some extra gameplay mechanics at work in the HP version.

Work-wise, had another fan-freakin’-tastic day – got a tail-chewing from my boss over a minor oversight. No damage, no issues, no outage, but he still blessed me pretty good.

Shaken to the Core

Today at work was a very very bad day. For awhile, I thought I was going to get in some serious trouble. I’m not going to go into details but here’s the skinny. As a programmer, the code I write goes through some processes and checks before the Real World gets to use it. We had such a task Monday evening.

It was supposed to be available for final verification shortly after work and I waited until a little after 9. I looked for a certain log and ran my checks and all seemed fine. Tuesday morning, I see *another* log and realize I had gotten one from a different job altogether – mine hadn’t yet gone live when I tested. Of course, I realize this *after* telling the world we were good to go. Oh crap…

So I check again – errors! I spend an hour hunting through my app logs and checking various settings and files and everything looks good. But because I misread one message, I went down a longer troubleshooting path than necessary. Do you remember when I mentioned my packing skill is capped at 276 with full merits? My troubleshooting skill is like that too. But this week I swear I’ve been suffering from MND- effects. Stacked MND- effects.

Eventually though, I figured out the issue was external to my code and got independent confirmation of that. So, thankfully, my code and its deploy went correctly. I made mistakes on testing and checkout that I’ll not make again. And I’m trying my best to take a deep breath and relax – this incident really did have me panicked and that is incredibly rare for me IRL. Or in Vana’diel I suppose ^^



As for Vana-time, I logged in after dance class and tried Thief again. I waited ages and in the meantime tried sending K another wedding setup message. I also searched the invite list a few times but didn’t see much in the way of full-party ingredients.

Then I got a “silent” invite meaning the leader didn’t ask first and just invited me. Nigitas, new WHM12, grabbed me and began building out the party. We got to 6 pretty fast and after some hesitation, we headed to a crab camp. The party setup was suboptimal – we had to sync at either 12 or 15, and we didn’t have a proper tank. 2 MNKs (only one with voke), DRG, me on THF for DD and a WHM and BLM for mana support.

Thankfully, Nigitas (syncee) was close to 13. Unfortunately, I was asked to pull something we had no business messing with and we lost Regis and me. As we regrouped, there was an amusing chain of drops and adds, and a 30-minute delay.

Vet happened to log in and he and I both saw the same thing – Besieged in about 2 hours. I asked if he’d mind PLing and he came right away. That, plus the new party setup (twin Ninjas!) meant we could handle our business much much better. Things worked out in the long run, with only a couple more speedbumps along the way.

As we dealt with the initial setback and a couple of subsequent deaths Nigitas kept apologizing and offered lead to me. I politely refused and told him the Dunes was a learning crucible. Overall, there were many dings and I even got some SUs. Near the end that Vet and I had called for (for Besieged) Nigi DCed. He came back, DCed before I could invite, then came back just in time for {Last Boss}.

I was planning to head to Besieged but Ape was feeling bad and I needed sleep more than SUs…

Last note: While all the partying was going on, Ape and I watched “Dateline: Family Secrets”. The focus was a man named Ted that always had transgender feelings and after a minor accident, blood tests revealed a cause: Klinefelter's Syndrome. This is when, instead of XX or XY chromosomes, one gets XXY. Ted was married at the time but chose to undergo gender reassignment surgery, becoming Chloe.

Ted’s children seem to have handled it fairly well. But Rene, Ted’s wife, has been supportive but now holds Chloe at a distance. This is the part that made me sad. You all know by now I consider love to be the most powerful force in the universe. To see two people who love each other have something like this change it, when affections otherwise haven’t changed, is sad. Maybe it’s just me…

Update Day

Only took 90 minutes (to Kush’s 6 hours (yikes!) but his are *normally* less an an hour and mine 3+. So there!) and then I found myself in a Campaign battle. Because I had logged out after one to re-ding 74. And so I gave the new battles a shot.

I didn’t understand how the new Unions system works so I missed out. But it was an amazing battle and I got completely annihilated by a new NM – Eukarytos (sp). Big blue dude.

I wasn’t having much luck elsewhere and when I saw Vet and Ben (confirm) chatting about going for Beast AF hands, another Dark Spark run, I offered to tank. I’m confident at 74 with my melee gear I can handle him but I’d like a little DD and heal support, just in case. Well, we had to wait some since Ben needed the coffer too but they got it pretty quickly.

Also, Res joined in after logging in late so we all gathered in Jeuno for the port out. Aside from a little demon aggro near the castle entrance, we made it to the torches easily enough. And then we found a friend – Marauder was there and asked in. With the 5 of us, the fight was cake and both Ben and Marauder got their key items.

Somewhere along the way, I went into my house and got the first MK cutscene – fetch quest.

P.S. Kush didn’t get the POL mail I sent a few days ago on the wedding…

Any Given Sunday

(Ups and Downs)

Today I had some time during daylight hours, for once. Ape was visiting her mom in the hospital and, aside from some chores I had several hours to myself. To summarize the MIL situation, on Wednesday, she had an arterial bypass done on her right leg. She came home Friday and refused to stay on bedrest. She tore herstitches and wound up back in the hospital Saturday... She's got a good prognosis but she really needs to just rest!

I spent my Vana time on WHM, first in an Imp party then in Nyzul having a go at a Goliard piece.
The party was with Lytal and crew, in Caedarva Mire. Oddly enough, we never synced and the roster was 73 and up. Kills were fast and non-stop, but a little light on XP. I had RDM support from Waraji and opted to forgo Sublimation in favor of Refresh. The two of us worked pretty well together.

My only "complaint" about the party, minor though it is, was the fact pulls started the second we entered the zone and only stopped once. Thankfully I was able to squeeze rests in around fly pulls and once when Waraji called a break. I had litlle time to buff or do much else besides cure. At one point I had to burn my 2-hour as several people went red and I only had 70 MP. All in a day's work for this White Mage!

The day started at 17k to 74, and after a couple hours with this crew, I was less than 700 away. This was also when Alv decided to leave and we returned to Whitegate to change camps. I needed to go soon to handle the chores so I asked Lytal what he wanted to do. Thankfully, there was a seeking WHM and Lytal was able to round him up before they left for the bird camps.

I went AFK to clean house and finish watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", which I'd *never* seen. I enjoyed it, and I almost always have fun with a good love story. But this one just wasn't that funny. It had moments, sure, but it wasn't lol-worthy in many places.

On my return, I saw several shouts from Slyver for a healer to accompany his Nyzul run, 16-20. At stake was a piece of Goliard mage-wear. Note to self: apparently, the A:1 D:0 G:2 shouts are showing how many are already called for.

I checked in with Slyver to ensure I was going to make it in and that he understood I haven't done a boss fight. After two runs, I STILL haven't seen a boss! The first run had two floors of "Kill 'em all" and we basically ran out of time. We also had a prob where Gwendalyn died after three attempts to cure never casted. I wasn't silenced and I never saw any errors. I do know that several of them were gear-swapping but I find it hard to believe three casts in a row were cancelled for that. Helpfully, I dinged 74 while we worked.

The second run ended as fast as it started. We entered, buffed, and pulled the first mob, of a "kill kill kill" floor. This one, a Dahak, spammed Body Blow and we got wiped. Kazuna chose to HP at this poinjt and seemed a little annoyed at the early setback. We patched up and wasted Leaping Lizzy for a shot at the boots. Then we exited using our fireflies.

The death put me back to 73, 650 shy of the level. I got some of it through Crystal Fist ops then the rest in a Saruta campaign battle.

Also, RIP Walter Cronkite!

Speed Bump

(Trying to be patient!)

I logged in after we finally finished off "Knowing". Can I have the last two hours of my life back? Pretty cool disaster scenes, but a totally crap story... C'mon, really? Adam & Eve by way of Aliens? Fail.

I flagged on WHM and gave up after awhile. I switched to THF. Again, no takers, but I was able to do pages for the XP I needed to hit 15. Aaaand, once AGAIN,I failed to pay attention to details. The Republic Axe I'd brought doesn't work with THF... But at least 15 means TH1!

Can't remember much else, other than the usual shell chat. Oh, Derf was getting some manthra static from Sbrightblade. What is wrong with people?

Please correct me if I missed anything else.

Oh, one more thing - got to read a lot of the Fallout 3 strat guide during the Saturday Shopathon. And I opened the lunchbox and checked the manual. I definitely want to play this game!

Could Have Known Better

After a long day with the fam (dinner, checking on Meme, trying to watch "Knowing", and transferring the data from my old phone to the new), I didn't get in until about 1:30. I wanted to make a good run at 74 so after fiddling with gear in my house, I flagged up. I made sure to add "meripo:O" to my comment.

Crap... I've been so busy lately (in Vana'diel and out) that I haven't been keeping up like I should. This party got me deep into 73, about 24k in. I don't recall any issues in the party.

And in sadder news, I read Vagu's farewell blog entry. Girl, I'm gonna miss you. I took too long to get my WHM sorted and never got to party with you or take a shot at a slot in RD. You definitely sold it very well! Please take care in your future endeavours and maybe we'll see each other in 14!

Knack Is Coming Back!

(I *am* very flexible, after all!)

After no Vana-time for 3 days, our new digs let me in. And after some chat with Rhelic (WHM gear advice - Medicine Ring = underwhelming) and Kushiel (the usual friendly chat about recent events, I decided to flag up on WHM for the first serious attempt at a party in a week. I got two invites within two minutes. One was from someone in Unyay's party trying to find a rep. Ladywinter came in second.

Sometimes I wonder if others ask about the 'vites before choosing one. I think I've always just accepted whoever got me first. There have definitely been times I've rued an invite, and others where I should have really thought about bailing, but that's just not me ^^

Tonight's adventure was in the Mire as well. The crew was waiting near the gate and it didn't take long to come together. For some reason, we synced quite high - 68, then 71. I had a little Anni Ring charge left and then I used my band.

Basically, this party was a dream setup for me - fast DD plus a Dancer and Bard. So I always had MP and plenty of backup cure and status help when I was slow or silenced.

This time, I did much much better dealing with the mobs. Yes, we were higher, but there was no PL. There was also no dying. Or MP breaking. Or too much trouble with status issues. I settled on this routine: Back-line for Imps, using Auspice in between when possible (note - add barfira). On Jnuns, I switched stances to Misery and after a couple of their lovely gas or puke attacks (what are these? Babies?) I'd cast Esuna.

[I have no idea what happened here. Posting for completeness. 2010/02/01]

Vaycay Crazy Days

(When it rains it pours...)

This is gonna be a rough week for this Mithra. Thursday, while prepping for our big 6-day two-city Independence Weekend tour 2009, Ape's van decided to overheat. It's not terminal (yet) but we're looking at about 300 bucks and a few hours to resuscitate a 10-year old van packing 168k miles. It's prolly not worth it. And we decided to go car-shopping.

We can't truly afford it without a lot of sacrifice, and I detest car-shopping more than any other voluntary activity. We're figuring out what she really wants and what we can likely "afford" but we had to make the trip down south in Shiroma. 4 people packed for 6 days. The only thing I couldn't get stuffed into the trunk was a set of boogie boards for the beach. We may just buy some and ditch them or see if we can find another way to get them home.

Friday was actually more car shopping, WITH a packed car. We wanted to leave town at about 1 but didn't leave the last lot until close to 4. But the hotel thing worked out - we got two rooms using credit card points and these are actually quite nice. My only complaint so far? Their wi-fi seems to block ports needed for FFXI. I can get onto the PSN and play GTA or shop the Store. But FFXI refuses to start.

Saturday was supposed to be my game-day while everyone else was at one of the theme parks, but their plans got messed up and I spent a lot of time trying to coordinate alternate tickets. And with no FFXI... /pout

We aren't leaving here until Sunday, so I may not make it back online until then...

P.S. The world's stupid level seems to be increasing. I need to start complaining to fast food store owners where those color drive-through screens show ads instead of my order... And complain about managers who just plain suck at customer service - "I have nothing to do with [your problem]." Ooookay...

Quickies

I woke up in my Mog House Wednesday with hope in my heart. Could I get a party on another lowbie job and hit maybe 15 or 16? I settled on Dragoon since it's the most-neglected of my jobs. I geared up, flagged up, and set out to get a better polearm. I never did get an invite so I wound up soloing to 14. 14 needs to be the goal, not 13. A lot of stuff opens up equipment-wise at 14.

Also, Vet started talking about some high-level SMNs that were going to help him with Titan, the last avatar whisper he needed before going for Fenrir. These two were to meet me in Port Bastok near the drawbridge, where the Titan flagger is. They did, but then they declined my tele. Turns out they had access to mini-tuning forks and could warp directly! Gotta grab those while I'm working on Fenny.

Anyways, we eventually made it to the protocrystal. I buffed us, we entered and before I ever got to Titan, there were avatars all over. I ran straight up and started beating. Vet told me to move back then lol-ed. I think he realized I wasn't gonna pull any kind of hate off three powerful avatars. My Hexas did nice damage but ultimately they did all the work bringing the big guy down.

I now have Titan and Ramuh's whispers for Fenrir and Vet's all done and headed for the glowing wolf's fight.