Happy Birthday Aerin!

December 28, 2007 – January 1, 2008

I don’t have really good notes on what I did over the New Year’s break, so loosely and in no particular order:

• Did a Besieged with Monkeylori with a 45+ minute wait, numerous DCs and no reward. She was afraid I was mad or annoyed with her because I complained about spending 90 minutes for no xp payout. I assured her I was glad to have spent time with her and a few others I’ve partied with before like Rum and Sirjason. Brandonn was there too. This time, I was in her party and allied with two others for a peak total of 17.

• Did two others – one DCed at reward (no cs) the other just before the retreat and I couldn’t get back in before reward. Gotta get better internet ><

• Finally got a party on DCR, in the Dunes, as part of a poorly-constructed pickup group. Too much mana, not enough melee. However, it’s clear that Dancer is not a tank – I rarely pulled DD hate over many pulls. The BLM was getting much more hate than me. Also, we got level-screwed because our WHM9, Vizio, got separated from the rest of the group FOR THE WHOLE PARTY and never leveled when the rest of us did. Our leader bailed on us once two of us hit 14 and Viz was still at 9.

• 2k more on Dancer and I get the Cure Waltz, and hopefully more invites and greater survivability.

• Got to play using my new DualShock3 (Ceramic White) so no more spell interrupts from a wandering joystick. Also, miracle of miracles, rumble works on at least this PS2 title. Will need to check others.

• Much frustration on the LB3 front – only one bite for several shouts for help, and Altrage backed out once he realized it was LB3 I was after. Nobody seems to want to do this one! Never could get Fhox and Mag on board either. Maybe now with holiday break over…

• Also, my solo runs on the Davoi leg ended with me dying twice and losing my buffer on WHM60. So I can’t risk that or the Kuftal Coffer run solo anymore until I party some WHM xp.

• Got a spontaneous PL from Luscious while waiting for a new Dancer party that never happened. She came up to me at the OP, threw full buffs + Haste and then said to get killing. She was bored waiting for her own invite and thus the help. We chatted a bit between long kills (VT and IT don’t work solo; Dancer is *not* a DD) and she’s working on her WHM and MNK AF. We might be able to duo each others’. Last night she was in Dynamis the whole time, so another time.

• The AH is still being kind to me – I’m trying to run Test Answers through three or four times a week in addition to T-T runs whenever I can find business.

• Still no sign of Bigbird or Dijena. I have written them off. If I see them online again and they’re still using the RDB linkpearl I’ll have to quiz them then.

• Saw Sinz last night, and Fhox got an invite from Lust. Told Fhox to tell Lust he’s a slacker for still being DRK62. Fhox lol-ed. Fhox saw Chucho and Puma was on last night or the night before as well.

• Aerin is one year old as of yesterday! Just over 1000 hours logged with virtually no “idle” hours. Honestly I’d say definitely less than 20 and likely less than 10 true “idle/AFK” hours. Average playtime is about 2.75 hours A DAY, and using an 18-hour waking day, I’ve played 55+ such days out of one year! Yikes!

• April still hates FFXI.

• FFXI New Year’s Resolutions ^^ - Get WHM to 75 with at least all of AF set, consider DCR75, remaining active jobs to 37.

• May need to think about changing shells if RDB doesn’t get more task-oriented. Most of us are still R6 and there’s a lot of gear we all need. I don’t mind a social shell and I really like Fhox and the gang, but I need help! And I’d like to give help too. Maybe I can push Fhox now that we’re back.

待った明日ね！