The Bean

75 job #8

2009-12-21T15:13:51Z

Valkurm is awesome.

Nuff said

Oh, and the 8th 75 is COR, obviously. Hurr

high time for an update

2009-12-16T22:14:08Z

I have about 3 hours to kill between my finals, so why not?

Second goaround at college is going a lot better. I expect to actually pass everything, at least this semester. I'm expecting a more grueling schedule for spring '10, though.

FFXI front...

I have several new 75 jobs, so now I'm up to WHM RDM BLM BRD DRG THF PLD. 447 merit points as of last count.
Next up to 75 is most likely COR, which I've been leveling very cheaply thanks to level sync and has gone from 40 to 70 in about a week. I've been dubbed the "dartcor" because all I do is buff and pull mobs with darts, and since I dual box an outside PL another melee can be crammed into the party, meaning my buff effectiveness increases even further. It's been more effective than it sounds, and since I'm not really dealing any damage myself I can afford to be more aggressive with DD rolls because single busts don't really affect me one bit. Really guys, if you think people care about your damage on COR, especially before Barrage/Slug, you need a reality check along with the melee RDMs. Needless to say, I felt compelled to blab about this on Alla, and it got predictable responses. Never change, COR forum... never change.
NIN, DNC, SCH are all in the 60s, so these are in prime position for 75 as well. Having a job for just about any possible role is a really nice thing to have, and a lot of these jobs can even shine in solo scenarios, which is also nice for me.

Limbus shell crumbled. So much for Homam. I'm not even going to bother with trying for it anymore, because I know if I try joining another shell the exact same shit is going to happen: Everyone that was there before will have priority on loots, once they get it they will suddenly start getting busy with Salvage or Einherjar or some other excuse and stop coming, and the shell will crumble from lack of manpower.

Numerous people have been quitting and rejoining the game. Naturally, feelings are mixed.

Trying to run another group of people through CoP. The scheduling is unpredictable and really sucks, but I'm hoping that at least all the 30 and 40 cap stuff can be churned out before my next semester. Casual observation: the Promyvion-Mea boss is still a complete ass bandit without plenty of anima.

Camped a Virtuoso Belt for one day and went 1/5. Rather pleased.

I could have sworn I had more stuff to mention than this, but it's not coming to me. I think being at school is killing my brain cells.

As a final note, stop trying to get me to use Twitter, people. (This is mainly directed at people who will probably never read this, but oh well.) It's not going to happen. Can't you see how long-winded I am? It's the same reason why I don't care for text messaging either.

la la la

2009-07-21T02:53:40Z

25 piece for Morrigan's Robe: check
The realization that the robe isn't really anything special without the relic hat that you'll never obtain and that the 11-12 million gil can therefore be better spent elsewhere: also check

Meh.

In other news, I'm quitting my job and going back to school. Sorta olde news now to my friends, but whatever. Long story incredibly short, I feel incredibly betrayed by my workplace, and they can all go screw themselves.

In other other news, I'd like to know why the "indifferent" smiley looks like a happy smiley. Not really accurate. Shouldn't the mouth be a straight horizontal line, or something?

Ongoing saga of LBC

2009-05-20T11:40:55Z

So a few days ago I'm bitching once again to Ezzelin about my frustrations with Long-Bowed Chariot, the Salvage mega boss that drops the 25 piece I need for Morrigan's Robe. I'd all but given up on getting this already, due to my utter inability to find groups that can go during available times for me, groups that are actually willing to fight it instead of just farm other crap constantly, groups that are even capable of beating it. All of these problems combined made it a pipe dream for me.

Was totally thrown for a loop when yesterday after logging on, Ezz asked me to come WHM for their LBC attempt. I was uneasy throughout the run, because one of our melees d/c'd at the beginning and never came back, and as a result our progress through the zone was a bit slow and we had minimal time for the LBC fight. We did manage to beat it -- which already made it the best run of LBC I've ever had, considering that every one of my past attempts was a loss -- but our group was half wiped and there were only about 10 seconds left on the clock. I home pointed immediately in the hopes that they might be able to distribute the drops in time (as per standard Nyzul Isle procedure: if time is very short and you're dead after the boss is dead and you don't have time to be Raised, be a man and eat the HP) but no dice. Fortunately, neither of the drops was the 25 piece I was looking for, so I wasn't too peturbed. It it was, I'd probably have shat a brick. Sucks for them to have lost the drops, but I was incredibly happy to actually see LBC die for once. I now knew it wasn't an impossibility.

Ran it again today with a more solid group with more melee power, and we made that zone our bitch. Took out all 10 of LBC's gears (first time I've seen it done, although I have reason to believe the person pulling the gears was using wireframe mode or some equivalent to be able to see through the walls and make the gear pulls easier... oh well. Trying to find a (likely) windower user who isn't making full use of windower is like going to trade Pokemon on the Wifi and NOT ending up with at least one sharked/duped/hacked/illegitmate Pokemon. Just isn't gonna happen anymore. In any event, we dominated the zone, including LBC, without any deaths this time. LBC still did not drop the robe I'm looking for, but by golly, I'm going to hop on as many of these runs as I can and hopefully it will turn up. This is pretty much a dream group for me; nobody else wants this robe, so I have no lot competition.

Once I have this drop, I'll pretty much have all the uncertain stuff done. All that will be left is an easily farmed 15 piece, and a not-so-easily farmed 12 imperial wootz ingots. It'll take a while, but it isn't anything that I will need a good, dedicated group for.

Pray for me. :O

Christmas in April

2009-04-29T10:03:30Z

Way back on March 10, I apparently won some contest on Allakhazam that I didn't even know about.

I was able to pick a prize... free month (or was it 2 months?) of all these other various MMOs that I don't play, or a FFXI Vana'diel Clock.

Needless to say, I went for the clock. And I just got it today :D I'm not sure if I'll ever get my hands on a Goblin plushie, but this clock ought to do a decent job at demonstrating my geekiness.

If I'm ever able to get a picture on the internet, I'll put one up >_>

Also, just yesterday, I got my security token in the mail. Needless to say, I only really got this for the inventory-doubling mog satchel. Since I recently burned a good bit of gil in order to get the maximized 80-slot inventory, having a whopping 160 slots now is really paying off :D

I wonder if I will get anything in the mail tomorrow...?

Other game happenings...
- DRG to 60, THF to 54
- Up to 320 merits, finished BLM potency merits, unlocked Burst/Freeze/Flood II, unlocked Nightingale/Troubadour for BRD, re-unlocked Dia 3 for RDM
- Nabbed a Goliard hat from Nyzul, making me 3/5 on the set
- Flew through the ACP mini-expansion like a bird... that's really fast
- Switched back to Bastok allegiance once again, solely to nab a Saruta OP warp. Yes, I'm a filthy Bastokan again

rollin rollin rollin

2009-02-24T10:15:33Z

BLM is 4th 75. Vidohunir unlocked!

It has the visual appearance of Retribution +1. Considering how Retribution was one of my favorite WSs in the game for appearance (come on, you're spinning a big stick into the enemy's face, what's not to like?), I'm liking this very much.

Yeah, I totally need merits now...
Totally need gil now too...
Still don't have Blizzaga III...
Blah.

One helluva FFXI week

2009-02-17T11:26:45Z

BRD's done, making it my 3rd 75. Also got Mordant Rime for it. Woohoo!

This weekend I played the hell out of BLM and got it to 73 largely with the help of level sync (thanks Soth <3). Spent nearly all of my remaining gil getting spells and gear for it, and just based on the looks of my new macros and gearsets and such, I'm gonna really like playing it now at its real level and making it my 4th 75. :D

But I so need to farm now. D:

I might actually have to start actively hunting merits again now. zomg!

So. How do I get a picture off my cell phone?

2009-01-30T11:08:09Z

Got back from a 5-day trip to Vegas on Monday...

Only notable things that I got were a jackpot on a Blazing Sevens slot machine (one of the older, simpler slot machines and, therefore, one of the easier ones to hit a jackpot on) and a royal flush on nickel poker, both of which were worth about 200 dollars and change. The royal flush was what I really wanted to get. For those unaware, it is the most difficult hand to form in 5-card poker (10-J-Q-K-A, all of the same suit) and is the hand that gives the biggest payoff by far, usually inciting jackpot jingles and fanfares if you're lucky enough to get it. It was my first one ever, even counting all the time I spent as a kid playing one of those fandangled handheld money-less poker games. I took a picture of it on a cell phone, which would probably come out totally crappy if I were to get it on a computer somehow, but if I ever bothered to figure out how to do it I might come back and post it here. I wasn't able to get the royal flush like I wanted to two years ago (when I went there for my 21st birthday), most likely due to the fact I was horribly sick and bed/toilet-ridden for nearly a whole week out of that 10~ day trip... blah. Oh well. I redeemed myself here, so I'm happy about that.

According to my mom, this has been the last time her dad (hitting the age of 91 sometime this year) will go to Vegas. It's kinda sad, particularly since we knew him as a pretty hardcore gambler -- although maybe not as bad as my own dad, but we won't go there. He's started to do a few boneheaded moves while gambling, such as hitting when he has 21 or has been dealt a blackjack (we had a nice dealer; she realized his mistakes and decided to give him the wins anyway with the approval of the pit boss, but at that point I made him go back up to the hotel room because he was obviously too tired/deluded to keep playing) and holding weird combinations of cards or forgetting/overlooking cards entirely while playing poker. His overall condition has quickly deteriorated over the past two years or so, what with his dementia/Alzheimer's and incontinence and all... it's actually the reason why our planned trip to Japan this March got canned until further notice; we decided that it would just be too much of a hassle to take him. It's already quite a hassle just to bring him to Vegas, because now someone always has to supervise him when he gambles, which just makes it harder for the rest of us to go nuts and have fun ourselves. I'm not sure if he even really realized that this trip was "it" for him; he just has a blank expression on his face most of the time now... he's changed so much, so quickly.

Not much else to report from the RL front. Oh, I turned 23 years old on this trip, if that wasn't evident. I never got carded once on this entire trip... makes me feel olde already. (I did a couple times when I went two years ago, despite the fact that I spent over a half of the trip cooped up in our hotel room >_<)

Got BRD to 69. One more level before I get to try to slice up Maat with my Joyeuse again, AS A DIFFERENT JOB! \(o.o)/

Did a pickup Nyzul run last night and saw a Goliard Saio drop (!) but I was outlotted by 8 points by the one other guy that was lotting Goliard, booooooo

Got Black Halo for {Bee}. No AF/WSNM slackers are safe from my wrath!

Yatta!

2008-12-25T02:06:20Z

I was supposed to make this update a while ago, wheeeeeee

Anyway, finally done it. All jobs 37+. Technically every sub is finished except for BST. I'll get to BST... eventually.

For now, taking up BRD because

1) I want a support job to use when the healing base is already covered
2) It shouldn't be hard to level
3) Already got some stuff it can use, including HQ staves and Yigit body
4) Have way more than enough points stocked to be able to buy a Storm Fife, in case I ever take it into assaults or lolsalvage

So far, gotten BRD to 52. It seems fast, but that's due in part to level sync and due in part to the fact that I "started" at 37. Being able to have bypassed all the crappy low levels (on all of my jobs!) is quite nice.

BLM or DNC might not be my 3rd 75 after all.

{Welcome back.}!

2008-11-04T11:41:24Z

I don't know what it is about today, but a lot of people who quit playing FFXI at some point due to various RL reasons mysterious came back today. Whatever the reason, I'm very happy to see them back :D

- DRG sub finished. 6 jobs left to 37.
- PUP to 33, finally got to sell off my Baron's Saio, this was the lone job making me keep it. It'll likely be my 15th to 37.
- Up to merit #255. Unlocked Protectra and Shellra V for WHM.
- DNC 58->60. Incredible level: full AF, 7th dagger merit, Aspir Samba II, Wild Flourish, STILL NO FLOWER IN HAIR. Oh well, can't have it all.
- Bought my Sandy aketon, which completes the collection.
- Up to floor 85 on Nyzul Isle. Hope to have the runic key this weekend!

So I still can't do Dynamis

2008-10-13T09:05:42Z

Yeahhhh. So much for thinking I'd be able to with a new comp.

- DRG to 36. Almost at my 14th job to 37
- 4x Nyzul Isle wins after what, 3 weeks of no Nyzul? No drops, unfortunately
- BLM to 66. Tried Maat however, and he brought me back down to 65. Like RDM Maat, he is still quite capable of cheesing you to death

Temenos North, round 2

2008-10-01T10:47:45Z

Had a full party of six this time, plus we remembered to pack the latent effect of Fyn Not Being A (Total) Dumbass. We timed out literally on the last mob; if we had ONE more minute I think we'd have gotten the win. Maybe two, if it got to recover much HP from Blood Weapon.

That hardly bothered me though, because I was amazed we made it as far as we did. Mijin Gakure on the penultimate floor nearly wiped us and ended our run, but somehow we barely survived it just enough to take out the pesky NIN and pop the time chest with nearly 20 seconds left on the clock. The 15 minutes we got there wasn't enough to both recover and clear the final floor in the end, and I had a feeling that would be the case and I was considering just ending the run with another item chest instead, but we had been doing such a kickass job up to that point and we were so close to the end that I wanted to take the gamble. Didn't quite make it, but we did get a few coins from what we did manage to kill on the final floor, so it wasn't a total waste. Hopefully nobody hates me for it!

Walked away with 30~ coins and NIN, WHM, and DRG AF+1 materials, all of which were materials that we were looking for, which I was extremely happy about. I ended up getting the WHM one, which completes my set, and I can now nab a piece of WHM AF+1. Unfortunately, all of it sucks (RDM has this same problem...), and upgrading any one of them means that I'd have to take out my whole AF set from storage and toss it into the safe where it will take up space, until I feel like re-questing the damn stuff again. As if that weren't enough of a punishment, I also need more coins to make the upgrade and I don't really have the spare gil on hand to buy them. Oh well, won't be losing any sleep over that.

I really enjoy Limbus. It doesn't have the randomness of Nyzul Isle, but it still has the charm of being an "endgame" activity that can be done with a mere party of friends (meaning my PS2 can actually run the event without difficulty!) and still be successful.

As far as Temenos North goes, maybe the third time will be the charm.

Weekend Accomplishments 9/26/08 - 9/28/08

2008-09-30T09:58:14Z

- Finally got the PS2 controller converter shipped in... only to find out that it does not work. The cause is unknown, but I'm willing to bet that it has something to do with Windows Vista, which seems to have a history of causing USB port problems (the converter gets classified as an "Unknown Device" and I can't figure out how/where to get drivers for it). Brought it back to the shop, and they're going to try to ship a simpler one that supposedly has Vista compatibility. In the meantime, I'm on the hunt for a copy of XP that I can install on this thing...

- My TV, which had been displaying signs of being on its last legs, finally went kaput when I was messing with the cords on the back. Apparently, I killed it, but in the process I determined that the cord wasn't the problem to begin with, so chances are the TV was going to die soon anyway. We'll just rub this off as a "Snape kills Dumbledore" moment, shall we? In any case, I ended up getting a new one. A bigger, flatscreened, HD compatible TV. It looks weird to play FFXI on this; this TV sorely outdates the PS2 hardware, stuff looks much grainier than before; but several things are MUCH clearer to see than they were before, namely the HP/MP amounts in the lower right corner (these were rather blurry on my old TV)

- Tried Temenos North for the first time with a party of 5. It was going rather well until I screwed up the 2nd floor by 1) not realizing that the gigas bosses were insta-link and 2) not realizing they could be slept. Oh well. Gonna have another go at it in the near future most likely, because there's some people that really want their Temenos AF+1 materials. XD

- Got SAM to 36. One more to go for my 13th job to 37.

- Nyzul Isle disc cleared to floor 30. Hoping for an actual full set of runs next weekend.

- Regained the Campaign medal that I had lost during the nearly two months of inactivity I had when Bastok Markets [S] was under nearly constant attack. They've made ranking up easier to a pathetically large degree, as I regained my medal with a mere one CB that only got me about 540 EXP. I'm glad that the medals are so simple to get now that I'd pretty much be shooting myself in the foot by NOT getting them, but I swear that SE doesn't know any such thing as moderation when it comes to their nerfings. It shouldn't be THIS easy at the rank I'm at. Maybe for the first new medal, sure, but...

Annoyed still

2008-09-24T11:51:43Z

God, what a horrid week so far.

I don't really feel like elaborating on it any further at this point in time. I can only take so much of people accusing me of saying things I've never said before it starts making me snap.

Nothing FFXI-related notable to point out. I honestly haven't felt like playing much at all lately.

What a weird day...

2008-09-12T06:27:18Z

Have you ever watched one of those sci-fi shows where it depicts someone that's been abducted by an alien force (usually evil) and placed in a sort of dream state or simulation, where to them it seems like their normal everyday life, but it actually is not... and the protagonist gradually comes to realize it when he starts to notice that the people around him are behaving unusually or erratically?

Today felt just like one of those days for both my mom and I.

Today at work, my mom was stopped by someone in the administrative office (we both work at an elementary school). According to her (I was not there to witness this) she got a lecture from this co-worker about how she needs to stop preparing unhealthy foods for me, and especially harped on the fact that she needs to stop letting me eat rice. The reason this is weird is because not only do I not even LIKE rice, I didn't even have any to eat today. My mom was baffled by this, but it didn't end there.

Later in the day, during lunchtime, one of my co-workers that works at the cashier with me bought me a school lunch, because the lunch today was chicken and she knew that I like chicken in almost any way, shape, or form. I tried to refuse her offer, saying my mom would kill me if she found out that someone else bought a lunch for me and that I let it happen (in addition, I already had eaten a "brunch" earlier in the day, so I was not really hungry), but she would not relent, and she bought it for me. Later on, she found my mom, and according to my mom (again, I wasn't there to witness this exchange), she told my mom that she was the one that had bought a lunch for me, and she exclaimed to my mom (in a much louder tone of voice than what this person usually uses) had better not scold me for it because it was all her idea, and that if my mom wanted to scold anyone, she should scold her. I don't know what happened beyond that, but I guess my mom had a "oooooookay.... *backs away slowly*" reaction, because she was visibly flustered the next time I saw her, and she even seemed a little peturbed about how much attention I was getting from our co-workers (it was at this point that she told me about both of the above two events)

After this, it was apparently my turn for a dose of the unnatural.

Yesterday on FFXI, I had logged Sari on to assist with ZM runs and get a couple friends Sky access, and after that was done, I returned Sari to Jeuno, which was where she was when I logged her on, and planned to log her back off at the same place. Before I did that though, I was trying to return her inventory to the same state that it was when I logged her on (I had taken out her BRD equipment). Trying to move around her gear was very complicated though, because she had extremely little space... 2 open slots at the time. While I was trying to reshuffle the gear back into the state it was at before, I noticed that she still had some beastmen/Kindred seals in her safe. The recent update made it so that the NPC that trades BCNM orbs for these seals will now simply hold onto the seals for you, so that they don't have to take up precious inventory space. The NPC will not give you back the seals once you've traded them, but that shouldn't be any problem, because the seals cannot be sold or traded, and therefore aren't really good for anything by themselves other than taking up space. I figured that maybe Sari simply forgot to dump her seals or wasn't aware that she could, so I did that for her before logging her out (which brought up her 2 available inventory slots up to a whopping 5. orz) and left her a message explaining where her seals went. I honestly felt like I was doing her a favor, because she really needed that inventory space. I went to sleep, feeling content that I had done my little favor for the day to express my gratitude for being allowed to use her account.

Fast forward to today after work. I get a message from Sari, not thanking me as I was (admittedly) expecting to get, but admonishing me for what I did, with a rather mean undertone... saying that she wanted to hang onto the seals herself so that she could keep better track of them, or something. I'm sorry, but I don't really understand why this is a problem at all. The NPC will tell you how many seals he's stored for you simply by talking to him (I even logged her out in Jeuno, she could have easily taken a 30 second run to check with the NPC and written the numbers down herself if she really wanted to track them that badly. Problem solved...) I felt like I was being bitched at simply for the sake of being bitched at, and I really didn't understand why.

But, that's too bad for me, because it's not my account, and therefore, it's not within my rights to complain and I was in the wrong. Therefore, I simply deleted her account information off of my PS2 so that something like this will not happen again. I haven't written down the info anywhere else, so I'm never getting back into her account unless she were to give me the info again. Quite frankly, if she gets upset over something like this, I would never be able to use her account again without worrying about her getting upset over some incredibly minor thing I might have done to her inventory or something without even thinking twice about it... so I may as well cut the problem off at the source before it can escalate.

Urghhh. What a bizarre day. I really don't get it. I'm waiting for this to turn into an episode of Star Trek or something and find out that today was just some big, faulty holographic simulation, because everyone today has just been acting really goddamned weird and it's hurting my brain to try to figure out why.

/sigh...

Weekend Accomplishments 9/5/08 - 9/7/08

2008-09-09T11:49:09Z

- Took out Sari's BRD once again for a little skillup assistance. Got both of our staff skills to 230 (which happens to be the cap for both my 75WHM and her 75BRD), and got both of us a Pole of Trials. I've yet to start working on it, but it will be soon, as I'd like to reclaim my inventory slot as soon as possible.
- Tried a few Nyzul boss runs. Mostly got boned with shitty objectives and too much aggro, but we did manage to get Goliard feets for Sari. I would say that she now never needs to bother with Lil' Apkallu again, but if I remember right, I think I saw a pop item for that ZNM in her inventory still...

- Ran ZM4 and 5 for a few friends.

- Helped another friend get some blue magic spells. Task still ongoing, as per usual with the people that I help with BLU spells for >_>

Anyway, the September version update is here. I'll probably blab about it at some point later this week. For now... sleeeeeeep~

ohai.

2008-09-06T03:18:34Z

God, what a boring week at work...

I've neglected this place for quite a while, it seems. Well, you are all in luck. This week I've gotten SO bored that I feel like finally writing something here again. Huzzah!

- Got final Zilart mission done. Duoed it with Deathbeckons as PLD/NIN. Took us two tries, but still had way less trouble with it than I did with Divine Might. Ugh.

- Got CoP missions done and got sea access and a Rajas Ring. Subsequently farmed up a Relaxing Earring and all 8 obis for the lulz. I dabble every so often in Limbus but I don't see myself joining a full blown Limbus shell anytime soon. Once they stick RDM on the Homam list, look me up.

- Got ToAU missions done and got a Balrahn's Ring.

- Thanks to SE's update that stopped you from losing OP warps upon switching nations, I went ahead and finally got San d'Oria missions done, making me rank 10 in all nations. I have yet to switch back to Windurst though, the one nation where I actually have all the OP warps unlocked. What I end up doing will probably be dependent on how newbie region conquest standings turn out in the next year or so. The upcoming level sync feature might rejuvenate interest in Conquest, but the effect it will have on newbie regions will be limited due to the fact level sync will not function under level 10. Guess we'll see.

- Had a decent run of Nyzul Isle with a great static. I never got to use my own runic disc and I hardly ever lotted any drops (there wasn't really anything that I wanted, but I went anyway because it was fun), but I did do enough runs to score nearly 120k tokens, as well as obtain the legs of the Goliard set as well as score a Peacock Amulet, something that I never thought I would own because I knew I would never camp the real Argus. Most importantly though, I got a considerable amount of experience (and experience points, but that's not the point!) which will help me out when organizing Nyzul runs in the future. And with the upcoming September update and the improvements to Nyzul it will bring, it seems like I will be running Nyzul once more.

- Dabbled with Salvage in the hopes of getting a Morrigan's Coat. In order to get a piece of Salvage armor, you first need to farm three "core" ingredients from the Remnants zones, which are generally labeled as the 15, 25, and 35 pieces (referring to the level they can be worn; they are all pieces of armor themselves, although not really very useful ones). In an unusual display of luck, I managed to get the 35 piece (Macha's Coat) on my very first run of Salvage with this new shell, the piece that's often regarded as the hardest to obtain (drop rate is very low), but that's as far as I got. The 25 piece drops from what's considered to be one of the toughest Salvage bosses (Long-Bowed Chariot) and I was unable to find a shell that I could join that was also capable and willing to fight it. In the end, I gave up and I'm left with a fairly useless level 35 coat. Dunno what will become of it, but for the time being I'm fairly sick of Salvage and I don't mind taking a break.

- Finally obtained the Ebisu fishing rod to go along with my 100 fishing skill, attaining what is pretty much regarded as the pinnacle of fishing. And... it really doesn't feel all that different from my Lu Shang rod (which WAS a definitive step up from what I had prior to that). Still, I don't regret it; the quest motivated me to get my woodworking up to 80 (for fixing the oft-broken Lu Shang rod), my Lu is now on extended loan to a friend (I will never sell it), and SE promises that upgrades will be made for the Ebisu, so I remain hopeful. Out of all the quests I've done in the game, this one felt more like a quest than anything else, and it was a blast. Thanks to everyone that supported me in one way or another, whether it was with my woodworking or simply to keep me company while fishing up all those Lu breakers XD

- Finally got a second 75 job, white mage. Yeah, about time, I know. I've taken time out to get a couple decent weapons for it, including Morgenstern and Perdu Wand, and now I'm capable of fighting with it about as well as my RDM can, only without Enspells and a double-hitting weapon. Oh well.

- Finally capped the last of my RDM's uncapped skills, which was parrying. God that was a chore, but my Blue Number Syndrome(BNS) won through in the end.

- Taken up Dancer as a sort of 4th job for myself (it is my 4th highest currently, with BLM in 3rd place). It is my first real "melee" job and I find it to be a blast, although right now it is in hiatus due to a member of our DNC static having to take a break from the game. I think what I love about it is how much it feels like RDM. It has incredible stamina thanks to its ability to heal itself using TP (in short, as long as you can keep hitting what you're fighting, you can usually stay alive) and it has decent evasion to boot. Like RDM, it will not win any killing speed contests, but also like RDM, it's as annoying to kill as a swift cockroach. This appeals to me. :)

- I finally got a new computer (which is actually part of the reason why I'm making an attempt to update this again), which means... I'm finally able to play FFXI on PC. I don't know if I'll try to get into certain endgame activities that I couldn't do on PS2. What I am more excited about though is the ability to dual box via my PS2, using a couple of my friends' accounts. My goal of getting all jobs to 37+ is still not accomplished, but with the newfound ability to "PL" myself, my drive to get it done has been rejuvenated. With the upcoming addition of the level sync feature, this will mean that I'll finally get to ditch a lot of lowbie gear once I'm done with this, which will go a long way toward solving my inventory space woes.

That's about all I can think of for now. I have not really bothered to set any more goals for myself (other than the all jobs to 37+ thing) because I don't really have any more goals that I feel can be reasonably accomplished. Now that I can play on PC though, there are some new doors open to me. We'll see what happens, I suppose.

Now, recent specific happenings...

- There is nothing from the new "ZNM" system that strikes me as "gotta have it" but I have been making use of the system, due to the ease at which RDM can weaken and incapacitate mobs for the purpose of acquiring soul plates for zeni. I'm using the zeni to help buy ZNM pop items for friends and I'm using the extra soul plates to sell for some gil, so all in all it's quite a fulfilling venture.

Just recently, I got the oppotunity to fight the tier 3 ZNM, Armed Gears. Despite some initial difficulty, we managed to successfully defeat the NM spawned on my pop item, and as a result, Sothis scored the drop of Aurum Sabatons. Someone else in the alliance offered me 1M gil for it but I turned it down. I could probably get 1M gil in a weekend by farming soul plates nonstop if I wanted to, anyways.

What people really seem to want from Armed Gears is the Tomoe polearm. I don't really know why.

- Came across Roc and managed to kill it a couple of times; dual boxing Sarissa, she finally managed to get a Dryad Staff. On a related note, being able to dual box a BRD with myself as RDM is a great boon. Team us up with a THF and there's a lot of things that we can take down that would have been difficult as just RDM+THF. I hope Sari does not mind. ^____^

- SMN 25->27. Thanks Sari <3

Gotta head home from work now. I typed up too much anyways. >_>

I'll try to update this more often. Rly.

{All right!}

2007-04-12T04:14:09Z

Spring break is over, I can now update again without feeling like I'm wasting valuable spring break time XD

- As far as RL happenings go, I am now "officially" hired at my job. For the past 1.5 years or so I've been on emergency hire, which basically meant that I did not get benefits and I did not get sick leave. Now I'll get those, so... yey. Not like I care much because I probably won't be working here for more than another year or two, and I'm such a computer demon that it's literally impossible for me to get hurt in any such manner where the health coverage would really be useful, but...

- That, and my mom and I went out with some co-workers for dinner on Thursday night. She got drunk and made a fool of herself again, and we had to have someone else drive us home. orz. And as usual, I get the "you should learn how to drive for these times when your mom can't drive herself" speeches from people. Yeah, more like, I should learn how to drive so she can get drunk off her ass and embarrass me more often, right? Fuck that shit. Seriously people, just say what you MEAN and stop trying to sugarcoat it all the damn time; you only end up royally pissing off the people that can see right through the silly veils you try to put up. Namely, myself.

OK well yeah, RL is depressing, what can I say? Back to FFXI stuff:

- Ding, merit #134. 9 points stocked, and I used them to bump up STR MND and INT by one point each. Wasteful? Possibly, but if I spread them out instead of pile them all into one stat, not only does it cost less, but it will mean less of a loss should I decide to move them around later. I'll probably bring STR and MND to level 2 with another 6 merits each.

Besides, Humes are supposed to be balanced and all, right? I went 4/4 on the HP/MP merits as well, so it seems to make sense.

I'm really running out of things to merit. Need moar 75 jobs D:

- I tried once again to take down Fenrir Prime solo, and despite having several improvements on merits and gear compared to the last time I tried, it didn't turn out too differently than before; I still get a bad streak of Binds eventually and he ends up gnawing at me to the point where I either have to eke out Cures from whoever came by to watch/leech, or just get wtfpwned before I can even get said help. However, after agreeing to freely take Refresh/Haste/Cure assistance to help preserve my resources (and my life), I was able to take him out with a RDM/RDM/WHM trio. I will try once again eventually, most likely whenever I get my hands on an Auto Refresh equipment (most likely the Vermy Cloak, seeing as how I have a snowball's chance in hell of getting any other ones)

The funny thing is, when I finally am able to solo Fenrir, I doubt many people will care. It's just a simple BCNM mob that many people have managed to take out with simple parties, and easily BLM or SMN burned, etc. On the other hand, I have gotten quite a bit of public recognition for my Genbu solo, mostly from people I don't even know, and I cannot really understand why. He's cake. Sure, he's a god, but he's quite possibly the easiest HNM level mob a RDM can solo simply due to the fact he moves like molasses. Any 75RDM that is actually capable of playing for more than a couple hours at a time (and if you're 75, you should be able to) should be able to solo Genbu; I've even heard of a 41RDM doing it. Hell, RDM Maat puts up much more of a fight >_>

- Picked up an Ophicantspellthis subligar in the Aqueducts. {Gaudy Harness} {Found it!} New motivation to level up BRD and BST... that is, once I manage to get around to them in like 2 years or so. Also picked up one of the three drops for Tuning In quest in there, which prompted me to go and hunt the other two (which thankfully are not dropped in level capped zones). Tuning Out will be my 350th unique quest completed, if I've counted correctly.

Only JSE that I'd still like from the Aqueducts is the THF one (Rapparee Harness). Glamor Jupon is the only other decent one from there, and I have that already... rest are pretty lackluster.

- Rather old news by now and everyone knows about it, but congrats to Aylah on beating RDM Maat :D :D :D <3

- Also old news, and I might have even mentioned it by now, but my playtime has broken 365 days. It's actually over 370 by now, I'm sure... but yeah. I've had this game for a little over 2.5 years now and I've been online for a little over 1 year of that. Nearly 40% of the time I've had this game, I've been online. Scary, ne?

- I've realized that the second floor of the Temple of Uggalepih (the one with Temple Guardian on it) is a much better place to farm Wespes for the Hornetneedle drop if you're 75 and won't get aggro from the locals. Not only are there a few more spawns on that floor, there is almost consistently less/no competition due to the fact you won't have level pre-70 people trying to compete with you for pops (due to the fact they would be getting constant Tonberry aggro). The drop is still rare as hell, but whachagonnado.

- Spent 8 hours or so up in Upper Delkfutt's Tower and managed to score one set each of Pallas and Alkyoneus bracelets. Alky went to our resident lootwhore BLU (I'm just kidding man) and Pallas went up on the AH.

- Fished a buncha Bhefhel Marlins and managed to score a Pirate's Chart, which is the 3-man 20 cap fight in Valkurm Dunes. Need to be able to take out 3 mobs that all have Hundred Fists. I hear SMNs are best for this, but I'll need to do some research before I want to use this. Success will likely net me an Albatross Ring (one of the two rings that are damned near vital for the Ebisu rod quest) and a Mercurial Kris if we're lucky. I may need to level my own SMN to 20 before attempting this. We shall see...

That's about it for now~

Hey look, a maintenance

2007-03-08T07:57:22Z

Time remaining: 10:20:06

(that's 10 hours)

No better time to finally update this thing, m i rite?

I'm actually rather annoyed with the game right now. Well, more so my mom and the people IN the game, not really the game itself. But nevertheless, I'm quite overdue to put something in here, so here you go.

Nearly 3 weeks ago now, I got the chance to go toe-to-toe with a sky god, Genbu. Solo. I'd had never fought it or even seen it in-game before, but it had always been one of my dreams to take him on alone ever since I saw the infamous Avesta do it. Long story short, I was able to pull it off. Took two and a half hours. I didn't get anything out of it (other than some recognition from people on my server that I mostly don't even know), but since then I have fought it 5 more times with some help to hasten the kills, and I've scored a Genbu's Shield and Zenith hands and crown abjurations. It's the last shield my RDM will ever need, and I am quite pleased with it.

I have some pictures of the fight, but I ran out of room for screenshots mid-fight so I don't have a picture of the kill shot. I have them hosted online for now, but no clue how long that will last, so if you care for em, drop me a line.

http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fyn070216184639aqc8.jpg
http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fyn070216184920avk2.jpg
http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fyn070216185017avd6.jpg
http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fyn070216185823arz4.jpg
http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fyn070216190008abd2.jpg

Other stuff has happened since then, but not only do I not remember it all very well, it's nothing I really care to write about at this time.

Late again, I know

2007-02-23T10:20:00Z

3-day weekend just wasn't long enough!

Lot of stuff has been going on, but for now I'll detail the "main event" of last week.

Shikigami Weapon. This is a unique NM in Ro'Maeve that pops once roughly every 21 hours; it drops the Yinyang Robe which is a rare/ex armor for SMNs that provides an Auto Refresh effect (regenerates 20 MP every minute, in other words). I say unique because of what is involved to find it... the NM starts out completely invisible, it cannot be targetted at all; the only way to find out precisely where it is is to use Wide Scan. At that point, the only way to make it visible is to make it attack you, meaning you have to cast magic near it, or make it link to another weapon mob. In either case, when it appears, it won't be immediately claimed... meaning it's certainly possible to "pop" it while someone else (who may or may not be in your own party) ends up getting the actual claim. Annoying, yes, I know.

Friend of mine that I originally knew from Alla forums, Morwyne, asked me for help with camping this for her SMN, which is like her seventh or eighth job soon to reach 75 if she hasn't gotten there already... and yet my LS calls me the EXP whore. Bah.

Anyways, I got a ToD for Shiki from her, and showed up to help for the next pop, but Ro'Maeve was packed full with campers, about two alliances worth. Didn't get claim, and based on how many people were there (and therefore would likely be there again 21 hours later), Morwyne was getting discouraged. She told me not to bother showing up for the next pop. But come on now, does anyone really think I'd listen to that? I told her that I said I would help, and that I was helping whether she liked it or not, so there. Nyah.

This involved staying awake the next night until around 4 in the morning my time, and she thought I was crazy for this. She's absolutely right, but that had nothing to do with it, I swear!

Next pop comes around, and miraculously... nobody else was there. The two "alliances" or so from yesterday had mysteriously vanished, the only people in the zone besides us was a single EXP party, and they weren't anywhere near the pop area for Shiki. We found it and claimed it easily, although I aggroed about 4 other weapons and a doll in the process. I came /THF to offer my paltry TH1, so it was tricky holding these mobs off, but we still managed to take Shiki down with no deaths and the robe dropped. :D After that we did Teleport-Vahzl and tried peeking for Shadow Dragon, and to our surprise it wasn't there, but Biast was already up and unclaimed, presumably from already eating the poor hapless fellow that had spawned it. We took him down too, but no drop that time.

Fast forward a few days later. Since I was still trying to keep the ToD for Shiki for reasons I have yet to be able to explain (it may have something to do with why I bothered with Kreutzet for as long as I have), Alfrodo in my LS chimes in saying he would like a robe too, so we set up a little group from our LS to go take him out again. We consisted of Alf as WHM, Amy as PLD, Auctioneer as MNK, and myself as RDM. I subbed /RNG this time around so I could Wide Scan for the pop. By this point, the competition had come back to Ro'Maeve, but Shiki popped right next to us away from the other alliances. I quickly popped it and Auctioneer got it with Chi Blast. Again I found myself trying to manage a bunch of aggro (which I caused, but it's all in the name of getting the claim!), including a bomb this time, but again we still prevailed. Auctioneer eventually triggered Hundred Fists and tore the NM apart. No drop this time however.

Next day, we were outclaimed on Shiki, but it was only a lone WHM that got it and he wasn't able to survive until his help arrived, so he splatted and Shiki went unclaimed and invisible again. When this occurs (and every 5-10 minutes or so it remains unclaimed), it warps around the zone, so I temporarily lost track of it, but I quickly found it again and saw that it didn't go far. I had been gathering some aggro trying to reach its new location and make it appear again, and I did eventually accomplish that and Auctioneer grabbed it again with Chi Blast, but this time I had accumulated too much aggro to survive and I ended up splatting myself.

Things were looking grim for a while; I got a Raise right as the PLD happened to drop herself. Auctioneer took up tanking here, so despite being weakened myself, I cast Phalanx on him, enfeebles on the mob, slept the adds we'd managed to get, all in a last ditch effort to keep us afloat. He fired Hundred Fists again which took out a great chunk of the NM's life and essentially sealed in a victory for us. This time, robe dropped, after an incredible fight.

Grats to Morwyne and Alfrodo, both up and coming SMNs, on their robes :D

Not too long after this, another big event occurred, one where I finally got to fulfill one of my own in-game dreams. Anyone reading this probably already knows what it is, but nevertheless, you'll have to wait until I can find myself more time to write about it ;D

Catchup, Part Deux

2007-02-13T10:46:56Z

Alright, I've been home from Vegas for a little more than a week, so what's been going on here?

- Achieved up to merit point #114 thanks to my duos in Caedarva Mire. I've begun getting HP merits to go along with the 4 MP merits I already have. I've decided on 4/4 in HP/MP merits, even split. Most think that I'll be career mage all my life and should have gone all 8 in MP, but I have my reasons for doing what I did:

1) This would provide me the maximum benefit for the most jobs in low level capped events. In 40 cap I would have +40 to HP and MP. If I had all 8 merits in MP, I would still only get +40 MP, for instance, because merit "levels" also get capped just as your job levels do.

2) I already took a balanced approach with my magic skill merits, instead of just getting all 8 in Enfeebling I split them even between Enfeeb and Elemental. Again, same reasoning, it would provide the most benefit to RDM in level capped stuff (even though RDM sucks in 30 cap and is a WHM substitute in 40 cap with Convert), but it would also provide maximum benefit to BLM at lower levels as well for when I decide to level that again. Divine, Enhancing, Healing, and Dark are mostly not worthwhile to merit unless you are career PLD (Divine/Healing), melee RDM (Enhancing), or DRK (Dark) and you know you will never touch any other job or role. Most of the other jobs with magic skills are specific to their job only, meaning I couldn't even merit them until those jobs were at 75 anyway. In short, I'll worry about possibly moving magic skill points around later. Like, way later.

3) Experienced endgame RDMs (not saying that I am one), typically ones that got all 8 merits in MP, often encounter the problem of having "too much MP"; that is, having so much MP and MP gear that your MP actually flows over your HP when you use Convert. This is no good; having all that MP doesn't do any good if you don't have enough HP to actually fill the MP bar up. Plus, just recently, I was actually able to push my MP over my HP, utilizing food and my Rep.Gold Medal and every bit of MP gear I had, so I'm gradually getting there. My thinking is that having a few merits in HP will allow me a bit of a threshold to improve my MP gear without having to worry as much about MP overflow. I doubt I'll ever get any Zenith, but who knows? The HP might still be helpful anyway, if I had just like 100 more I'd be able to consistently survive unresisted Astral Flows from avatar primes...

- Helped take down Amikiri for Himoura. We originally tried to fight this blink tank style like the other scorps in the area but that doesn't work too well, it takes very little melee damage making it hard for a THF to hold hate, and it still inflicts too much damage. Instead, we brought in a BLM and BRD and we took it out via Bind/Grav kiting/nuking, which was a far FAR easier way to kill it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I could solo it, given enough time. Still lookin for Ungur...

- Helped Aylah (/poke!) and Eron get rank 10 Windurst. This was the first fight I've done where Ajido-Marujido used Chainspell and actually got to do something worthwhile with it before the fight ended, demonstrating the awesome power of utilizing BLM's spells with a RDM's 2hr ability. I don't really get why NPCs and mobs have Manafont anyway, most of them have obscene amounts of MP to begin with, not like they need any more >_> I guess it does offer them immunity to melee interrupts, but Chainspell does the same thing in addition to negating casting time...

- Took out Savage Blade WSNM for Eron. Our LS's resident PLD got to try out her newly completed /NIN sub in her first real fight with it, and it works pretty damned well, I'd say. I don't really have much experience with partying with PLD/NIN myself, so it was still interesting for me to watch, even though I'm pretty sure I was one of the people bugging her to level /NIN sub in the first place. ^^

- Helped Morwyne nab a Yinyang Robe off Shikigami Weapon. I'd known for a short while that she wanted one of these, and when she recently gave me a ToD I told her that I would come out and help even if it would be at odd hours for me (it's the weekend, why not? I can afford to have my sleeping patterns wrecked a little bit, it shows signs of toughness!) First camp I was there for was packed though, and we didn't get claim. Second camp though... was strangely empty. We were the ONLY people there. Got claim and drop easily. I'm continuing to camp it anyway for as long as I can manage, and for the third pop, it was again packed with people. Didn't get claim, but I didn't have a chance in hell of getting it, and I was alone anyway so I probably would have just died an embarrassing death. We'll see if the appear/disappear pattern continues >_>

- Got BLU to 34. 3 more to go! PLD to 37 is up next~

- Numerous avatar prime fights for various folks, but that's a given. I'm always doing these. >_>

- Another Gration fight as an attempt to make some profit. I ended up paying some EXP for it (I got careless, stupid Thundaga) but at least I took it out. XD

- Helped some BLU friends learn Voracious Trunk and Hysteric Barrage. I got to tank marids, zomg X_X I expended about 250 shihei and got a single .3 parry skillup in the process. Eh, it was worth it. Less than 15 levels away from capped parrying (on my RDM, at least)

- Bought myself a Fencer's Ring, and I'm kinda disappointed... at how I didn't pick one up sooner. What this ring does is add 5 to your Enspell damage whenever your HP is at yellow or below, and when your TP is under 100. It's easy for RDM to acquire and keep yellow HP because we can much more easily control the damage we receive than say, a BLM could... so as long as you're fighting in a place without undeads, this thing basically adds a consistent 5 damage to almost every one of your melee hits. Most melee DDs would kill for something like that. How much did the ring cost me? 10k. Go get one. Like nowz.

That's about all I can recall. Am I missing anything, anyone? XD

Anyway, I'm about all caught up now, at last. From now on you'll be seeing more up-to-date updates, hopefully :P

Big kudos to Vee for showing me the command to make a link. <3 The vast amount this page scrolled before actually frightened even me.

OK, first real update time!

2007-02-13T05:48:08Z

I'm not kidding here. This'll be long. If you don't have a lot of time to kill, TURN BACK NOW.

As most of the people here who know me from FFXI should know (and if you don't know me from FFXI, how the heck did you end up here? o_O), I took a trip to Vegas for my 21st birthday. I was promised by my mom when I was around 4-5 years old that no matter where we were or what we were doing, when I turned 21, we'd be taking a trip there... main reason is because I grew up on the mainland and I'd often see people, particularly my dad, gambling. Of course, I never got to follow suit. I was a wee little budding video gamer back then, so of course the casinos and such were exciting to me. In fact, it might be partly due to their influence that I've become the gamer that I am today, who knows?

Back then, I would always try to get in on the action and watch my folks gamble, and given my miniature appearance and downright cuteness, it's not surprise that I would be escorted right out of the gambling area on a consistent basis, usually to a nearby arcade if I was lucky. (The hawt arcade games of the time? Pole Position, Centipede, Asteroids, Galaga, Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Street Fighter 2, Gradius... list goes on and on, you guys know what I'm talking about. These classics all have a special place in my heart, indeed. It skips a beat whenever I find an arcade nowadays that still has these games there. XD) My folks were usually accomodating to me and tried to find a place that had stuff for the kids to do as well. Still, I always felt left out from what they were doing. This trip was a long time coming, that's for sure.

Anyway, my mom wanted to get (lose?) her money's worth, so we planned our stay there for 11 days. This shocked most of her colleagues at work when she told them about it; most of them were thinking that if we stayed there that long we would "lose our asses off", in mom's words. However, she said that after this trip we might not be able to go back for a long time, so she wanted to make it worth the while. Fair enough. Besides, I'm very conservative when it comes to most things, even gambling with fake money on a video game; gambling with REAL MONEY would surely be no exception.

Somewhat long-winded summary of our trip, as least as well as I can remember all of it... which I've already blabbed about in my linkshell on FFXI:

1/21: Shipped out of here to Vegas at night. Did some Sudoku puzzles to pass the time. I later fell asleep on the plane, despite making a bet with my mom that I wouldn't. Uh oh, I was gambling and losing already, not a good sign. >_>

1/22: Happy Birthday to me! Landed in Vegas in early morning. We were to stay at the California for the first week, and we would spend the remainder at Circus Circus. Reason for that was for nostalgia purposes, my mom thought it would be neat to take me there because it was a place she often took me as a kid (she would often spend more time with me playing the various games there with me than she would spend actually gambling, bless her heart).

While waiting for our room to become available, we hopped on some Wheel of Fortune slot machines, and mum very promptly got a spin of the wheel and landed on 1000, the highest amount available on the wheel. It was a quarter machine, so that translated to 250 bucks. I was amazed at how fast she got that, because in the past we had NEVER seen anyone nail that 1000 on the wheel. My mom just told me, as with most things in life, gambling is all about being at the right place at the right time. Her philosophy was, if you stick a $20 in a machine and you don't hit something good before that $20 runs out, you're likely in the wrong place at the wrong time, and should hop to another machine. Personally I think she just has ants in her pants or something, but I can still sorta understand her train of thought.

Later that day I was on a video poker machine and scored a 4 of a kind. It wasn't just any old 4 of a kind though, it was 4 aces, which paid out a bonus on that particular machine, 400 credits instead of the standard 125. I was pretty happy about that, but then I noticed my credits climbing up past the 400 mark. I took a closer look and noticed that you can get an additional bonus depending on what your 5th card is (it's referred to as the "kicker" card, or whatever card(s) you have that are not part of your main hand). In this case, the 5th card was a 2, and having 4 aces with a deuce kicker pays off double, or 800 credits. Quarter machine also, so 200 bucks. Sweet!

Was a good birthday overall, both me and mum managed to hit something decent. I never got carded ONCE, to both of our surprise.

1/23: Fate was being nice the day prior since it was my birthday. Now that it was over, it said to itself "ok, playtime's over; time to come down there and whup birthday boy's arse!"

We went to a buffet for lunch this day, good stuffs. After that we hopped to another poker machine, and I finally got carded for the first time (YAY!) Few minutes later though I was starting to feel a bit funny in the tummy and the noggin. Went to restroom, yadda yadda, came back out and went back to the poker machine. Few minutes later, it came back, worse this time. Went to restroom again, spent... considerably more time in there this time. When I got out I was dazed and nauseous, and I now knew things were not normal with me, to put it lightly. I went back to our room and retired to bed. Later that afternoon, the nausea picked up and I got out of bed to throw up in the toilet. That confirmed it to me - I was definitely sick with something. Fiddlesticks.

1/24: Got up in the middle of the night at some point, threw up again. I'm actually glad I did though, because after that I felt significantly better (still not completely cured or anything, but still a great sense of relief) and was able to fall back asleep considerably easier.

My mom still went down to gamble but not very often at all, she would come back to the room every 30 minutes or so to check on me, bring back water/juice/Tylenol, etc. She usually played the Wheel of Fortune slot machines because they were right next to the elevators that led back up to the rooms, so that she could be back to the room at a moment's notice.

Originally we had thought I'd gotten food poisoning, because this illness seemed to hit me right after we had had lunch the previous day. My mom did some detective work while she was down playing though, and she found out this was not food poisoning, but that there was a nasty stomach virus going around (I believe it has now been identified as the "Norovirus". Symptoms were diarrhea, vomiting, fever... precisely what I had. Also heard that the virus hits extremely fast when you get it. Presumably, I did catch it at the lunch buffet, because remembering back, I had a bunch of finger foods to eat (stuff like BBQ ribs). I did wash my hands before entering the buffet, but I did not do it after I had gotten my plate/food... BIIIIG mistake. I'm thinking that I got it on my hands at some point while getting my food (mebbe from touching one of the sets of tongs, or something) and I ended up sticking the bug right in my mouth. Blech. In any case, my mom was told that there was nothing that could really be done to treat this virus; I just had to wait it out.

I threw up once more in the afternoon, but it was significantly milder and mostly dry heaving (not much left to throw up, apparently; the illness completely killed my appetite for a couple days and I had nothing to eat but some soda crackers, which my mom forced me to eat because she said I had to eat SOMETHING). Fortunately, that would be the last time I'd do that, after that I started getting better.

1/25: I was feeling well enough now to eat a simple small plate lunch bento thingy, but it still took me a considerably long time to do so XD

When my mom come back up to the room at some point in the afternoon though, she hopped into her bed, saying that now she wasn't feeling so hot. Couple hours or so later she was crouching over the toilet herself. Yes indeedy, she caught the bug now. X_X

From what she heard though, it doesn't hit adults as hard though, and for her that seemed to be the case; that would be the only time she threw up compared to my three. Nevertheless, now the roles were reversed; I went down and braved the casino floor to get stuff for her, while she was staying up in the room. I wasn't 100% better yet but I was better enough. This would go on for the next couple days or so.

1/26: More of the same as yesterday. {Yawn}

We saw a report on the local TV news saying that over 1100 cases of this "Norovirus" had been reported thus far at the very hotel we were staying at (almost certainly the number had gone up by the time we left). This was a freakin epidemic. >_<

We heard that the hotel staff was bringing up these "comfort trays" to the guests that had been inflicted with the virus, so my mom called hotel security to report that we had both caught it. We got two trays brought up to our room. It had crackers, tea, some Gatorade, and I can't really remember what else. Kinda lackluster really in both of our opinions, but the way I see it... free stuff always = win.

Finally, I think this was the day where I was flipping through the TV channels and for some reason started watching the movie Mars Attacks! on TBS, I think it was. God, what an awful idea that was. Remind me never to do that again. Independence Day > that crap.

1/27: Same old. Saw the movie Gone Fishin' at some point, which was considerably more entertaining.

1/28: Last day at California. My mom was getting slightly better but I could tell she wasn't quite there yet. Nevertheless, she was showing all the vim and vigor she could muster, because according to her, she wanted to "get the hell out of Dodge". We both got up early on this day to go down to the casino floor to have breakfast. Despite the fact that I rather liked the breakfast food they had there (and we had a whole bunch of these free/reduced cost meal ticket thingies that we, in the end, mostly didn't get to use), that would be the 2nd and last time we actually had breakfast there. Phooey.

Anyway, fast forward, we got to Circus Circus, unpacked our stuffs. My mom was still upbeat enough to want to check the place around, so check around we did. We were getting lost for the first few moments but I learned the lay of the land quickly. Mum, on the other hand, still managed to get lost there even by the day we were to leave. Did a spot of gambling which I hadn't done at all for nearly 5 days, checked out the Midway (the place with games for kiddos and where they show various circus acts; seemed considerably smaller than the one I remember from the Circus Circus in Reno, but maybe I was just a lot bigger), and had dinner. We would actually go up to the Midway numerous times throughout our stay there; not at my request but at my mom's. She liked it up there. Guess it was bringing out her inner child, if something like that even exists. Perhaps the rumors were true? o_O

1/29: We both now seemed 100% recovered from the dreaded Norovirus; big reason for this was probably that we got the hell out of Dodge, as my mom stated. In any case, we were finally starting to have some fun again; nearly the entire week at the California (other than my actual birthday) was sucked away from us.

I was getting carded multiple times here at this casino, but I wasn't minding it at all, because every time it happened I would always get a "happy belated birthday" comment XD

Today was the first day I tried played a casino game at an actual live table, was giving blackjack a shot. With about 3 hours of playing (again, I play rather conservatively, it's not as fanatical as it might look), I about broke even doing that; was winning lots at first but gradually managed to give it all back. XD According to my mom though that it was still very impressive how long I lasted there. I consider blackjack as one of the "safer" games in the casino as long as you can count your cards carefully and pay some sort of heed to the other cards that have been in play. There are no big "jackpots" or uber high payouts in blackjack; usually you will just end up winning 1:1 if you do win (that is, if you bet 5 bucks and win, you'll get back 10), the only thing that pays off more is getting a blackjack, and that usually pays 3:2 (if you bet 5 bucks and get a blackjack and win, you'll get back 12.50; in other words, not much more). Because of this, the chances of actually winning on any given hand is greater than it is on something like, poker, to make up for the lack of huge payouts... but in blackjack you do have to play smarter. Let the dealer bust whenever possible if he's got a bad up card, try not to hit on 12 or greater unless the dealer has a good up card, etc.

1/30: This will be forever known as the day we absolutely handed the casino its ass.

We hopped on more Wheel of Fortune slots in the morning. Within the first 10 minutes, my mom got a spin of the wheel, and she hit the 1000 *again*. To my surprise, moments later, I got a spin, glanced at my mom's face who was watching my wheel, and I saw her jaw drop; I turned and saw that I had nailed the 1000 as well. 250 bucks for each of us. Neither of us could believe it, especially the other people sitting on the machines next to us, I think they were possibly even a little disgusted XD

I decided that I would take a small amount of that 250 (20 to be exact) and try it in a *dollar* Wheel of Fortune machine, in the hopes that I could get another 1000 spin and turn it into a thousand bucks. (It wouldn't be THAT unheard of; my mom got the 1000 twice on this trip, why couldn't I?) I wasn't quite so lucky, but I did manage to change it into 60 bucks. Profit is still gewd.

I didn't get any thousand bucks, but... on yet another round of poker, again within the first 10 minutes or so (this really does seem to support my mom's idea that if you're going to get something good, it will happen fast) my mom got my attention and indicated her current hand, which showed 4 out of the 5 cards necessary to make a royal flush. For anyone unfamiliar with poker, it's the highest ranking hand you can make; 10-J-Q-K-A all of the same suit, and generally pays off rather high if you're betting the maximum amount of credits on whatever machine you're on, but it damn well better, considering how freakin hard that hand is to make. I've seen this event occur to both my mom and dad in the long past on several occasions but never seen that necessary 5th card come out on the redeal (assuming a standard 52-card deck, this has a 1/46 chance to happen on the redeal if you have 4 of the 5 cards already, because there will be 46 cards left in the deck and only one of those cards will complete your hand). Today though, it happened (cue another jaw drop from mum), and she got her second lifetime royal flush; the first time she got it was when I was still a baby, don't remember it at all and I definitely wasn't even there to see it. 4000 credits; on a quarter machine, that translated to... a thousand bucks. That would be the single biggest win either of us made on this trip. I tried my darndest to get myself a royal flush ever since she got hers, but I would never quite pull it off. Got many 4 out of 5s, but unfortunately that doesn't pay off anything. ; ;

At Circus Circus they hold daily raffle drawings, for which you can earn tickets for by playing the various games there. Every day they draw out 10 unique names, and those people score 100 dollars of free slot play (not exactly 100 bucks; you're forced to play that 100 dollars, but whatever you earn with it is of course yours to keep). In any case, with having only placed 4 tickets in the bin, my mom won that raffle ^_^ She divided it between two slot machines and managed to come out with nearly 150 bucks of actual money. We later found out that it was really incredible that she managed to get her name pulled with so few tickets in the bin; we were told that there was one guy in there that had over a HUNDRED tickets in the bin. I saw this guy win the raffle twice (with his name getting pulled multiple times on each day... note that you can only win once per day), and it is quite possible he had been winning it many times before/after our stay as well. He had to be playing a whole CRAPLOAD every day in order to get that many tickets. X_X

In any case, very good day.

1/31: Our last full day in Vegas. Casino wasn't quite as good today, but not bad enough to negate the wtfpwnness of the previous day. I still did get a couple of goodies today; I hit another 1000 on quarter WoF, which would be the last time that happened for either of us (meaning that my mom and I each hit the 1000 twice, zomg) and we each had 15 tickets to stick into the bin for the raffle. I won this time, strangely my mom did not ; ; I got about 80 bucks out of my 100 dollar of free play, not as good as how my mom did, but you can't really complain about free money XD Other than that, nothing real special.

So instead, I'll talk about something that happened on the Midway.

Early in the stay here on the Midway, we saw one of those grab-the-prize-with-the-flimsy-claw machines that had these weird Koosh ball like things in them. Not exactly Koosh balls, they looked like rubbery urchins with a rubbery string attached to them, and there's a light inside the ball that flashes when the ball makes impact with something (like when you bounce it on the ground like a yo-yo). I wish I could describe it better, but that was the first time I'd seen one of those things. We had seen many people around the Midway with those balls, and my mom wanted one of them BAD, claiming that it would be a toy for her pet cats and "it would drive them insane". Weirdo.

Anyways, I'd say she dumped at least 15 bucks total into that machine over all our visits trying to get one of those balls (50 cents for one attempt) but we were never able to get one of them. By this day, she was starting to feel really dejected over not having one of those balls. Being a FFXI junkie, I've come to recognize that sometimes there are things you just can't seem to pull off yourself, and that you just might be able to get help for it if you ask. I chimed in and said "well, it seems like everyone else has at least one of these things, so why don't you just pay one of them and ask them to get one for you?" She didn't respond to me, she hates asking for help; but I know her well enough by now. The fact she didn't answer was a good thing, it means she was taking my suggestion seriously. XD

Sure enough, later this night, around right before we were about to head back up to the room to retire, we saw a family walk by whose kids had a couple of those balls. My mom stopped the person who I would presume was the father, and asked him how he got those balls. Instead of some sort of big secret explanation as to how to defeat "The Claw", he simply pointed to the Midway's arcade, and said that you can get those balls by spending tickets there, which you can earn at some of the arcade games similar to something like a Chuck E. Cheese's or whatever sort of equivalent you have near where you live. We strolled over to the arcade and found those balls, and saw that they cost a paltry 50 tickets each. I simply said to my mom, "get me some quarters, this will be EASY."

Taking a quick look around, I saw one of those spinning light games... hell if I remember what it was called (Cyclone, I think?), where you press a button to stop a light and whatever number is next to it, that's how many tickets you get... there is also a "jackpot" you can hit if you can land the light inbetween these two arches. A few years ago, I managed to do that on this very same game in an entirely different arcade and scored myself a 1200~ something ticket jackpot. Here it wasn't quite so big, but being familiar with the game and not really knowing the other stuff there, I figured it was the best choice for quick tickets.

In about 5 minutes of work and about 5 bucks of quarters spent, we walked out of there with 5 of those balls. Easier? I'd say so. My mom, despite being slightly disgusted at how much money she lost to The Claw trying to get these very balls, was an extremely happy camper for finally having them. She didn't care about how much we lost in the casino that day, she said she still felt like a winner. XD

2/1: Last day in Vegas. My mom said something about wanting more of those balls so that she could give some to family/friends (we had already won a whole crapload of stuffed animals and whatnot from the Midway from our numerous visits there, our suitcases were literally crammed full with them, it's a good thing we didn't have THAT much stuff in them to begin with) but to our dismay we found out the Midway arcade wasn't even open until 11:00am, which happens to be the same time they start doing circus acts. Check out time happened to be 11:00am as well. Boo-urns.

However, after checking out and while waiting in the lobby, I found out that the bus to take us to the airport would not get there until 11:30. I told my mom that I could go rush over to the Midway alone (so that we wouldn't have to take our luggage with us) and try to get a couple more balls before we had to go, because now it should be open. She was reluctant to send me to do it because I would have to rush because it was now 11:10 at this point, but hell, I love a challenge! I told her I'd go do it anyway. Nyah.

Rushed up there, yup, arcade was open... found those balls again and to my dismay I saw they were now worth 100 tickets (apparently, we helped put a dent in their stock XD) Quickly grabbed a buncha quarters, piled them into that spinny light machine like a madman while carefully counting the tickets I was getting in my head. When I was somewhere around the 200 mark though, I managed to hit that jackpot. It was at some lame amount, 100 something (I'm thinking that it just got reset because the arcade had just opened), but was enough to push me to around 350 tickets. I went until I broke 400 tickets then stopped, set the mess of tickets on the counter, and with what must have been an exasperated/psychotic look on my face, I pointed at the balls and simply said "I'd like 4 of those, please." The lady brought out 5 balls from a drawer (I'm guessing that they are a set of 5, with varying colors), I picked 4 of them out and she let me have the 5th one for free. To put it using Vee's new term, swoot!

My mom was expecting a couple more balls at most, she was shocked to see me come back with 5 more. Got back there about 5 minutes before our bus showed up to shuttle us off.

So, despite the first week there being overall yuck, we still had a blast in the end. It's a good thing we did stay for as long as we did, despite people telling us it was a bad idea. It would have sucked to go there for a week and be sick for nearly the entire time, don't you think? X_X

Well, that's about more than enough from me! It scares even me how long this got, but hell, this was my 21st birthday, born from a promise over 15 or so years ago (or exactly 21 years ago, if you want to get literal). If there's anything from this journal that I'd like to look back to and remember, it's right here. ^_^

I'll catch up with FFXI and other RL happenings here in another post when I manage to construct it, which might be very soon considering the fact that right now I'm at work and can't do anything worthwhile except type the stuff you're reading right now because our internet servers have either been whack or completely down since last Thursday. To my dismay, I can't make posts here from work anyway (stupid DoE sticking Websense on all our computers), so about the best I can do is write this stuff up in Notepad and forward it over to home for me to post there. There's got to be some way around this censor crap... it doesn't even censor everything that it should (as can be evidenced by my crazy high post count on the Allakhazam forums, which is mostly where it is as a result of posting from work... but I digress)

If you read all that, you deserve a medal or something. I mean, da-yum. (As long as I get two medals for writing it.)

In A.D. 2101

2007-02-07T11:05:25Z

War will begin, apparently. But fortunately for you that's still a good ways off. (It's not looking so good for your grandchildren.)

Here in A.D. 2007 this journal was beginning!

I don't have too much time to write much at these wee hours of the morning, sadly enough. I'm mostly just breaking this journal in here. I would expect an actual update sometime this weekend, or sometime before it if you're lucky... wherein I'll be talking about what's been going on ever since January 22, the day I turned 21 years of age. ^_^

Yep, that's my birthday. Surely, some of you tried to look for it in my profile and didn't see it there. See what secrets you can find in these silly journals? I bet you're just itching for me to spill my guts some more. (You sick freaks.)

... I guess you'll just have to keep reading to find out, huh?

(Oh yes, I've totally sucked them in with that. Time to just sit back and watch the hits climb and climb...!)

Aaaaaaanyway! A /wave and a /poke to Vee ^_^ And howdy to any of my other friends from FFXI that are bored enough to be poking around here.