i've got a slammin' headache. I want to go home. I cant concentrate. All I want to do is sit in front of our new sexy TV.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, Tina and I don't have to worry about money. Our Truck and our Car are both paid for. We dont have any credit Card debt. We have several thousand in reserve, and we make way more money than we need to survive. Yesterday (the day after I paid off the car, imagine that) I get a phone call from Tina. She had JUST gone grocery shopping and had her trunk full of food. The engine wont start.

So I head on out there, try a jump. Nope, not the battery. It feels like all is as it should be, but its not getting combustion. First thing I think of is the fuel pump. If it was a snapped timing belt I'd think it would sound different. (i've had 2 snapped timing belts, you can tell the difference lol). So I called up a shop I do some work for. I had her car towed there, and we went home. The owner of the repair shop gave me a call a couple hours later. He told me its not the Timing belt, or the distributor like he originally guessed (over the phone) But it wasnt getting any preasure on the fuel line. He checked the power to the fuel pump and found none. He then traced the power back to the power relay. So, hopefully she has a blown relay and we can fix the car for about $130.

Tina is going to get contacts next Thursday. She has always wanted them, but could never have them.

It feels good to be able to just take care of the things you want and need, without having to worry about paying your bills vs putting real food on the table. Plus its nice to have some extra scratch to go have some fun with.

Working two jobs is catching up with me. Its not that i'm working all that many more hours. I work 42-46 a week isnt bad from the computer shop, but then i'm doing 6-10 at Drainage works as well, 48-56 a week is a bit taxing.

But the extra money is nice.

I better get back to work.

I'm flip flopping alot. I've got 2 Serrious leveling projects going at the moment. RDM and COR. I'm leveling RDM excluslivly with Bax in a Trio now, which means when he isnt online I need to find something else to do. I'm starting to warm up to COR/WHM a bit more now.

My original problem with COR/WHM is that it cant replace a bard. To Some extent, thats true. To another Extent, if the party is set up for a COR, it can beat the shit out of a BRD. We did some testing.

Cyth was on 75 BRD, Lynk was on 75 DRK, I was on 65 COR.

Minuet IV added 53 atk while fully geared. 51 while nekked.
Now thats a guarantee, and pretty awsome.

If I roll a 4,7,9,10 or 11, I add more atk than a Bard with a DRK in the party. on a perfect roll I think I either added 97 or 104 atk. I've got the notes writen down at home. Without a DRK I cap out around 45 on a perfect roll, about 37 on a lucky roll, and between 20-30 on other rolls. not exactly the boost i'd hope for, but its better than nothing.

Thats pretty insane. Although i'll admit that the odds of me getting a SMN and DRK together in a party to make myself feel usefull is going to suck, I think it could be done. Also, get me a THF :D The Crit roll is insane.

The money problems of leveling COR disapear if you sub WHM. While quickdraw requires a bullet to use, it doesn't consume any ammo. Thats all i'll need.

I think i'm going to farm Tree Cuttings again, turn them into tree Saplings, and sell those. 140k a stack at the moment, and i've still got my gardening mule. Should only take a couple weeks to pump out some decent scratch. Maybe I could even go for making ore again, but I usually fail miserably at that.

Tina also has 120 Beastmen seals, and I think i'm around 50, I could probably farm some up and we could hit up the Shadow BCNM. Drops the Ebow, Cross Counters, and the RSE Boots. I hear its a pretty easy BC, and the loot pool is pretty nice. I'd have a hard time letting go of the E-bow if it dropped...but we need the money more than we need another bow laying around that i'll never use (unless doing a 60 cap battle) I should really Merit up my Bow.

Which brings me to another point. It need to take count of how many merits I need to max my 2 main jobs, so lets do that:
Summoner:
i'm 2 of 8 on MP, so 6 more.
1 of ?? on SMN magic Skill, is 5 cap?
1 of 5 on Phy Atk
2 of 5 in Phy Acc
1 of 0 on magic acc, need to nix this.
I Want to max out on of the 70 pacts, probably Thunderstorm.

Ranger:
Need to Cap Crit%, i've got no merits in it.
Need to cap Archery, 0 for 4
Want to Merit Recycle.
There is no point in meriting Sharpshot timer, since i cant merit Barrage timer along with it.
Maybe Scavenge lol.
Want to Merit Snapshot, bring the delay on my weapons down by I think 6%.

i'm 1/3 on STR
and 1/2 on AGI

Since i'm not logged in I dont know the sliding scales for all these tiers, so i'll guess and add them up. I also dont know the cap on some catagories, but who cares, this is a rough draft.

I probably need like 250 more merit points to sink into all this junk.

Anyways! I'm taking COR to Sea tonight. I see tonight as more of a laid back exp party, and mebbies we get lucky and snag us a deed/vice or two. I dont think anyone will mind having my blouse tag along.

Duo'ing Enkidus as yields about 150-220 exp a kill, the chance for Diorite, and a chance of Catching Zip. I think I want to get Istari and Mcgee to go up and trio them bad boys.

I'm glad Kalika got her Kitty Pants! Always good to see more goodies getting passed around. I've only got 3 things left In Sky. 2 of them are reasonable, one is not. I want Suzaku Boots, which wont be too rough. I want Wyrmal Pants, which also shouldnt be too rough. I think Phae is the only one who wants them besides me (that doesnt want something else more.) With all the Kirin sets we will hopefully be getting, I can only hope that i'll get them sooner or later. The last thing I want is Byakko Pants. With the New Ulli Accessability maybe it will happen one day, lol.

I should get back to work.

I worked on some guys computer yesterday, his name is Jack. He didnt need any Major work done, just wanted his Hard-drive wiped out. I did the work and sent him home without charge, it only took me 3 minutes.

He came back a couple hours later, he couldnt get his copy of Windows to go back in. After about 10 minutes of messing around, we find the problem, I send him home without charge. He was a nice guy and I enjoyed talking with him.

Turns out he is a Custom Guitar Maker. He make guitars for Members of Black Sabboth, Heart, and a few other pretty big name bands.

One of my guitars needed some work. The Part at the top of the guitar that holds all the strings in place before they spool onto the tuning pegs is called the "Nut". Decent ones are made out of Bone, which lasts WAY longer than their plastic Bretheren. I swing by with my Guitar, which is woefully out of whack (its in tune, but the action[height of strings from the fretboard] is all f'ed up. Normally its $50 to make a new nut, and $60 to do the setup to get the action right, and the intonation on the strings sounding the way they are suppost to.

Thismorning, he showed up with my guitar, all set up, new nut, and ready to rock.

This is my Old guitar, I dont play it much. But man, it sure is cool to do nice stuff for people. It really comes back to you.

Tina and I put in for the re-fi on our house. Things are looking good. We are going to get the Truck, her Car, all of our credit cards (we dont have much CC debt anyways, but nice to clear the slate) Our wedding expences, the Honeymoon, and the Vegas trip all paid for, with Plenty of money left over for the home improvement projects we will be starting in the Summer. Very Exciting times.

in FFXI news:

This D/C thing really sucks. It hasnt effected me Directly, but indirectly its making Assault and other junk damn near impossible. Shaunts and Cyth were out of the works, Kir was out, and like 1/6th of our LS. The rabid D/C'ing sucks.

Ultima beat our candy asses. This makes me sad. It has become more than "I hope N.Gloves drop tonight" (or boots, or pants >.>) but "Gee I hope we dont loose tonight." I think with some re-tooling, and some of those helpfull strat gems on that journal, we will do much better next time.

Only problem with Limbus is I cant afford it at the moment. I hope I get lucky on my next set of BCNMs. My last 2 orbs i've done, we lost, on my orb only. Times before that, I got skunked. I really cant rely on those for monies, but crafting has taken a dive. I had been getting about 1 stack of HQ pies per stack of matterials. Last time I crafted, I got 1 stack of HQ pies with 3 stacks of Materials. I dont think I broke even. Plus prices have hit the floor.

I've got those AF+1 Bracers I need to upgrade, but I lack the money to buy 30 whiteshells.

Anyways, I need to get my attendance up for Limbus so I dont feel like a prick when something I want drops, and i'm conviently present. I dont want it to happen like that.

In Positive news:

I dont know why I didnt level Redmage Years ago. This is some of the most fun i've ever had through the 40's. I've leveled pretty much every night i've set out to exp, and I didnt have to LFP.

Baxter on Ninjas
Me on Redmage
Random Melee (Anthony SAM, Syphus WAR, Sarise RNG, all different days)

4-5k/hr.

Fun, Consistant Exp. No LFP. No Asshats. This new patch for small party exp is totally awsome.

I still think that when we get into the 60's it will be almost impossible to keep this momentup up. Monsters will just have too much HP to Chain past 3. We are currently fighting T-IT mobs. When Sar came out, it wasnt near as good as when we had Syphus. Having that second voke for if Bax gets slowed by a Pugil or something is invaluable. I cant wait until I have haste. Also its nice to Trio, since in every party i've been in i've had 5 or 6 people to refresh since i've got the spell. Never 4 or below. PLD DRK BRD WHM RDM SAM once time, another PLD DRK RDM WHM WHM BRD (this party blew ass).

Soloing on Redmage is also a Blast. Its kinda fun when you get a link. I get to sleep it, grav it, walk away, focus on debuffs, make sure my SS is fresh, watch the phalanx, the Enspells, the Spikes (if i'm not /nin), Keeping refresh up. Preparing to Convert if I need it. You can do it all! Just sucks that damage output is soo slow. If anything though, its consistant. Killing a mob is just a matter of time. If your MP can last you 10 minutes, then you can kill anything that you can keep whacking at for that long.

I've found it takes me just as long to kill EP as it does EM mobs, so I just stick to EM. well, it might take me a LITTLE longer, but not much.

I cant wait to get to go places on this job. I also cant wait to have the funds and the drive to get back into Cor, I already miss my blouse.

Enkidu! How did you find my intewebz!? lol

My last post I felt like I was ranting, but the stuff I talked about doesnt bother me ALOT, its just one of those things that nags the back of my head. Sorry if I offended anyone or anything. If something bothers me enough, I usually let people know.

And about people getting ahold of you to complain: its funny, because when anyone has a complaint about any of the officers they generally come Talk to me! I guess I should be greatefull that I dont have to worry about alliance slots as much.

I need to make the Dp site update again. Ehran, do the site update for me this month!

I love COR. Its an awsome situational Job. I have 2 Problems.

1) The job is not well understood, therefore a bit of a stigma has been placed upon it. Party invites are dreadfully slow.
2) My Damage has dropped off, and its going to continue to do so. As other jobs get better and better equipment post level 65, I have pretty much topped off the amount of Damage I can do. This, However, I believe is temporary. level 65-70 is going to be very tough for COR as far as damage.

The Alternitave is to sub Whitemage and be a shitty bard. I dont like that idea at all. Bards have way more powerfull attack spells. What COR can do, is offset the comparitavly weak attk buff with DoT from the gun. It evens out. I can pump off a 600 Damage Slug (I Tp just as fast as a THF or DRK, Monks are hard to keep up with though) in addition to 60-110 damage a shot (Depends on mob and if I have a Bard or not with me) Which easily equals the amount of damage a Melee would be doing if they had Minuet vs no Minuet. I think COR can take a bards place in an exp party, situationally.

However, no Haste spell, No Regen Spell, no other stuff. Long story short, a COR can not replace a Bard in exp unless they can put up some numbers, or they have a situational Setup (ie SMN DRK THF in party lol)

So, The Decision:

Right now, The amount of money It takes me to gain a level on COR is far more than I can afford to level it in a timely manner. But, I'm really looking forward to hitting 70-75, getting access to my Crimson gear, Savage Blade and Detonator, Going to big events with the LS for a change of pace of what I can bring to the alliance. Shooting 250,000 Gil at mobs to get a level is just not economical for me at the moment.

I plan to try to level COR either with Itsy Exclusivly until 68 where we pick up Bax, or Scroll/ENM it to 70.

My new Leveling project will be Redmage. I love the job. I have lots of gear for it. We need more sleepers for Dynamis.

MONEY:
Ok, i'm broke again. So I decide I should farm at 5:30am when Tina goes to work. I start farming Kitties in Zi'Tah. They have a shitttty drop rate for some reason. I usually get a mean every 1-2 mobs. I cleared the entire west side of the zone, and Finally got 1 meat when I saw the entrance to Ro'maeve. I also realized i'm probably going to start HQ'ing the ingredients for Subs. They cant be used if they are HQ. They also take alot of time and mateirals to make. I get about 25k out of them per stack. I make 3-4 stacks per 1 stack of C.Meat. It costs me about 40k to make. quick math, thats 75-100k, subtract 40k, I make about 35-50k for about an hour of work. Then it takes me 3 days to sell, sometimes have to put them up twice.

I pull up FFXIAH and the crafting list on alla, and start looking. I land on "Melon Pie +1" 25k a stack. I spent 10k on matierials from vendors in town (no farming) and made over 3 stacks of +1 pie. I had about a 45% HQ rate. I made 75k worth of pie in 15 minutes without breaking a sweat. The Pies sold while I did ENMs.

The reason I havent been doing limbus lately is becase i'm broke. I dont want to admit it. I've been buying RR Scrolls with CP and IS because I cant afford RR Pins and Gorgets. I have an LS pin, but I only use it for Dynamis/Kirin. I feel bad, and I dont know what I'm going to do when we show up for Ultima, and I dont want to lot on them purdy gloves because I have not been attending lately. Hopefully i'll find more time to craft pies, get them on the AH, maybe get a mule or two to Jeuno and crank out 20 stacks or something. I've lost soo much exp on my jobs...I havent seen a merit in forever.

Enough belly acheing!

The idea of Leveling Redmage feels very good to me. I'm going to have to hunker down and get BLM to 30 one of these weekends so I wont have to worry about it until I've got all my AF. Lately i've been seeing /whm more widely accepted, as in Burn partys WHMs are taboo, someone has to have -na spells while the Bard is pulling. But, i'd like to have /blm as an option, and I really like subbing Blackmage, I just dont like playing it. Maybe its time to give BLM another try and get it to 37 in one shot?

Salvages are 10,000% more fun as a melee job. I've often thought COR would be awsome in Salvage, since I dont need magic or anything. I just need Abilities and I can do my thing, Having Ranged would be cool so I could sleep mobs. I think RDM and WHM would still be fun, but Summoner definatly is not. I cant do a whole lot until I get 3-4 unlocks. I need Magic Abilities Subjob and MP. Without MP I can summon an avatar, do a Bloopact, and then rest for 3 minutes. No fun :( But it is kinda nice that my avatars still do 800 Damage pacts! They dont seem to be effected by the gimping.

Hopefully we are getting our Assaults back up and going. We did good our first night, pretty good our second...but People are flakin' out. We need some good, solid, commited people to do these and move forward in Rank. I Want a shark gun for my cor, so I need 2 more rank levels. and 3208432049832409380324334343N IS points. I also need a bunch of Mamool Ja Points. Apparrently in a couple levels there will be a mission where you just open these boxes w/o getting cought and you get super sexy points. If anything, I want to progress this far in Assaults, then spam that one until I get Poofy Pants. Sar wants this too, so she will definatly spam it with me. +3 STR +4acc +4racc! Heellooooooooo Pants!

Congrats to Kir on re-attaining the Nobles. It sucks that its not Pats, but the thought remains the same.
Congrats to E on Suzaku Boots! You better Survive Citadel Buster now! This also puts you at 5/5 on god gear, you filthy Bastardsword! You beat me to it! I will one day have 5/5 on god equips!

And my final note for the day:

Its starting to irritate me to no end how people will ask a quesion such as: What time is gods tonight? and we will get something from Kalika around these lines, "4:00 for the 500th time jesus christ bananas."

Ok so maybe i'm paraphrasing a bit.

I try to see this from both sides. People with answers are tired of telling everyone the answers, because even though the answers are made publically available, people dont know where to look, or they were zoning while an answer was being discussed, or they dont want to go to the website to look up the info. It really sucks on both ends. Some people go afk and come back, ask a question that was asked 3 minutes prior. Now they dont know that someone just asked their question, and rather than assume it was already asked and read back, they just say, "Anyone know what time yada yada is?" I guess maybe I feel like not everyone with answers is trying to see things from the view of the person that is asking. And hey, I could be totally off. Maybe the people asking just didnt happen to look up and notice the answer and asked again, and should read more LS chat.

And, I guess the reason I single Kalika out is because she seems to get the most upset about it. I should really talk to her. And Skan. I think some of the jokes are getting old, and over the line. Kalika seems to like to make jokes about sexual orientation, which isnt so bad, sometimes it feels like you try to defend back with a little joke, and it could easily end there, but she always wants to have the final word, and it escelates until finally you just give up and let her belittle you. I try to ignore it.

Lately when I try to talk about Group stuff with everyone that I should just sit back and let it happen. I've given up arguing for my point. I think i'm digressing into a bit of a rant here, but hey its my loggerdoodle so i'll go ahead and finish.

Lately especially I feel like a sack holder in name only. I dont remember the last time I was asked about a new application, a day for an event, what events we should do, which direction we want to take the LS. Yet new people join, new events happen, they get planned for a time and day which I dont find out until its in the /lsmes. I feel too intimidated to speak up and making suggestions to anyone but Godslayer. I feel like when I make a suggestion to the rest of the sack holder community It falls on Def Ears. He seems to genuine in listening to what I have to say, whether he is taking my thoughts into consideration or not. Not that i'm trying to single out "Cliques" or anything, But I feel like Godslayer is the kind of act on impulse to get to where you want to go kind of person, and Ehran/Kali is the opposite side of that spectrum, trying to hold the LS into place. In star trek lingo, Godslayer is trying to Make the Enterprise go to warp 10, but Kali and E down in the Engineering bay say that warp 9.9 is all the ships got, and unless you find a way to bend the rules of space travle, it aint happenin' captain. Perhaps this is just the Ebb and Flow of things here.

None of these things are bothering me enough to bring up to the group; Although I know E will read this, which makes me apprehensive about typing it out. Maybe i've got some crazy suppiriority complex where I want to be in the loop 100% of the time. I'm soo used to running the show, and need to just let go.

anyways, i've gone on too long. I should probably get back to work. Catcha all laters!

Some twisted luck has smiled upon us, giving us a Duelest Chapeu on both of our Xarc runs this month. The second of which dropped off of a normal Mob! Its too bad Aubers wasnt on, I would have liked to have seen her get it. Although Godslayer getting it wasnt bad either.

We had 25 People turn out last night. I was disapointed. The only reason I came out on COR was to help with the Resists on the DL. I figured putting me in the BLM party would free up a Bard for the Melees, and That alone would do more damage than I could do on Ranger. I also baught a stack of sleeping potions and brought all the +HP Gear I could muster. I would have hit a 550 Spirits, which still isnt half bad.

But my hopes and Dreams of a fun Dynamis Lord Smashing run were crushed when I log in to find 25 people in the zone. What happened to our 40 something person turnout!? I feel like I may be looked down upon for showing up on a level 65 job for a "Serrious" Dynamis run. If I would have known only 25 People were showing up, I'd have come on SMN and helped the kiting team. My COR can only take 2 direct hits before it gets nailed by those NMs, I got whored a couple of times. I managed to sleep that BST NM's Wyrven 4 times last night. Only problem is my sleep timer is 60 seconds, and it only lasts about 50 on him. I dont want to get "10 Seconds away" because these mobs tend to loose interest and find other people to gang rape if you get too far off, So I got pretty beat up, and eventually killed.

Such is life, and it will go on. I plan to hit Cor pretty heavy over the next couple of weeks. Baxter is waiting for Itsy and I to hit 68, then we are going to static up to 75 with his Paladin. Now if we could only find a Redmage...I think Kalu's RDM is 69. Who knows, maybe we can set something up. I Think i've Decided that I need to leave Melee jobs alone for a while, as I think the LS could use some more support options. I'll be leveling Redmage after Cor, and hopefully i'll get BLM to 25-30 and then Scroll it to 37. I've already got the Whitemage sub done, so just have to mess with DRK after that. I could take the easy way out and level WHM to 75, as i've got SMN sub, but we just got Brucy WHM, and Cyth doesnt seem to mind going as WHM to events, and Kalu too when he is on...I'm thinking we could use another dedicated sleeper.

I've got a new side job Editing and building Septic Designs in Autocad for a Local company. I made $105 in about 3 hours while learning how to work the designes. The boss down there says i'm a better draftsman than he is, so i'll catch on really quick. I'm happy to be into a job that not only can I do while I LFP in FFXI, but it makes some decent scratch. This should be more than enough to fund our little vacation to Vegas, and from what it sounds like, this will be a permenant gig, so I will have some more financial freedoms comming up.

He says at the rate that I was working the cad stuff, by the time I get the hang of it i'll be able to pump the designs out about 70% faster than I am now. Although, when i'll be doing these at home i'll be playing other games/watching TV while I do them, but thats sorta the point. I wont see it so much as taking time out of my day to work, but taking some time that I usually waste starting at my moogle spin until I hear the *Chime* /Party? And i'm having fun, so its all good.

I'm going to be pretty busy for the next month or so it seems, which is fine. I'd like some more free time to play COR, cause its fun as hell, but i'm starting to feel the pinch of low damage ammo pretty hard. I should try the ENM that gets me some Corsair bullets, I think they do 2 more damage base, which isnt ground breaking, but would be nice for a little extra push on my slugs.

Looks like its time to get on some house calls, Back to the salt mines.

This is something I have wanted to bring up for a while now.

Melee want a Bard because it makes them way the hell stronger. Mages want a bard for refresh. A bard is not going to be able to offer much more than that to the black mage party.

Why don't we put a red mage in the Blm party and the bard with the melee?

"its easier to 'refreshga' than to single refresh."

My argument would be that 'easier' doesn't win fights. After last night I think we need to find a way to increase our damage output as a team.

"the red mages are busy sleeping/debuffing, they can't refresh"

I think again i'd have to call this one out. I understand red mages have pretty much no "free time" but I think being able to sqeeze off a refresh or two Between sleeps will work.

Giving the melee a Bard is obiously not the key to winning these big fights. I think its going to take a lot of little things to clean us up.

Like what was with having to ask for dispel 3 times on the ice elementals in limbus? There were 2 rdms, some blm/rdm, and 2 summoners if push came to shove.

Maybe people are getting bored. They want something more challenging to make them want to do their job?

Anyways, I think we should start taking steps to increase our efficiency. Start small, and work our way into larger groups. Take no more than 8-9 people in limbus runs, assaults that are well planned, faster pulls in salvage, things like that.

I've been having a lot of fun in ffxi lately, and i'd like to keep up the momentum.


We have got a lot of joyeuse' lately,I can't wait to get COR to 70 and get my toy. I really wish there was more time in the day. GS wants to do salvage on monday I think, assault on tuesday, limbus/sea wednesday, dynamis thursday, and i've been subbing in for ENMs on fridays. Saturdays are spent doing my own thing, sunday is sky.

I think I could go for a 1 week break on events.

Back to the salt mines!
Oh yeah I have a UPS tracking Number on my laptop, it will be back on monday!!

Ok, It has been 2 weeks Since i sent my Laptop out For repair. I'm posting this from my pda. The caps are all f'ed up! It will likely be another week or two before I get it back.

This isn't the first time this laptop has Been sent in for the same reason. When I called the company, I told them, "don't diagnose it. Don't turn it on. Replace the motherboard. Put it in a box. Ship it back to me. Send me a bill."

I've already replaced everything else. It has to be the motherboard.

So after 11 days of them having the laptop and receiving no notification, I call them.

"hi, I need to check the status of RMA#rxxxxxxxxxx"

"ok one sec dude"

*hold music*
4 minutes

Some other guy answers with a THICK asian accent.
"hello?"

"hi, I need to check the status of RMA#rxxxxxxxxxx"

*long pause*

"ok ot looks like that came off the test bench yesterday."
"...."
"it looks like your hard drive is defective, and some of the plastic around your screen is cracked. Its gonna be $55 for the screen, $55 for the HDD, and $130 for labor."

"...who am I speaking with?"

"uhh this is Westly."

I know this guy. He is the manager. This is who I talked to to get the RMA started. This is the guy I gave my money AND my specific request to.

"All right Westly, here is what i'd like.
Don't turn it on. Replace the motherboard. Put it in a box. Ship it back to me. How long will that take?"

"well 3-6 days to replace the board, then 3 days to ship."

I had taken the original hard drive out before I shipped it. I knew the one I put in it wasn't perfect. They shouldn't have been looking!

In other nerd related news! I'm upgrading my computer again! I'm very excited for a lot of the technology coming out these days. I can hardly wait for some REAL 64bit games and apps to come out. Right now most games just have 64bit compatibility, but the code is not what I would consider "optimized" for a 64bit OS and hardware. Who knows, perhaps i'm mistaken and there is some stuff out there, but I'm Not nerd enough for it. I think some linux guru just heard thousands of voices cry out in horror, and then went silent.

I just remembered a conversation between myself, and the stores book keeper, Paula.

Why does it take 5 days to replace a motherboard that I could replace in an hour? Paula says the answer is probably paperwork plus bs political junks. You know, they need a magic piece of paper signed by Jesus Christ before they can put it on the bench so some guy who makes $8.73 an hour can prod my precious laptop, then he takes it to the QA guy who makes $7.23 an hour before Jesus will approve the telecommunications guy to put my name on the call back list. Which brings me to another point. Why not just pay the tech $17 an hour so he gives a shit about his work and tell the QA guy that he now has jack, and shit, and jack just left town, go get a real job!

FFXI:
I feel like i'm in a rut. I'm enjoying our new assault static, but i'd like to try some more new stuff. I still want to do jormy, get COR leveled, get a non-sloppy salvage run. I think with some practice we could make beautiful slaughter together. Our last few runs seemed sloppy and slow to me. We could work on having those who can not fighg be scouting/pulling ect.

Gods asked me to run a salvage group. I think I should do it. I should check our schedule and do it to it.

Well, i'm tired of pointing away with my tiny pen on this 3 inch screen, so i'll catch ya'll later!

So whats been happening in the Aldinators life!?

Well, over my vacation I managed to:

Get Corsair to level 61.
Run completely out of Gil.
Run a fun BCNM which yielded Items that sell for a decent amount, but like once a month >.>
Attend 3 Salvage Missions
Start Spamming Lamia 13 Again.
Loose some exp on SMN and Ranger
Go in Debt to the tune of 110k(Thanks Syphy! Money is in your dbox)

Playing COR was a ton of fun. Shaunte, Flatliner, Babbs and I (RDM BRD PLD COR) put together some bitchin' partys making 8-12k/hr. We shot to 60 really quick.

I'm looking forward to a long road to 70. Playing for a few days in a row, doing the same thing, got pretty taxing. I'd like to get a Phantom Flourette before I hit 65, and i'm even thinking about getting a Joytoy, because it looks like a fun toy to have. Babbs and Baxter are both camping Charby, Maybe I'll go with them. I could really use some sword and dagger skillups anyways.

This just solidifys my lootwhorieness.

I think i'm going to bring Ranger to our Next Salvage run, just for a change of pace.

Hope everyone had a good holiday season! I've got a lot of work to do today, i'd better get back to it.

I think Salvage might be a great thing. With our dwindling numbers in Dynamis, and low attendance in other events, a Group event that yields *Eventual* Badass Gear, that is on a 24hr timer, seems like it will require alot of strat, will be Awsome.

I think we need to do one of these runs, just to see what the hell its like.

While I do understand that this gear will take alot of time to get, I do think that it is more attainable for me than say, a Dalmatica or Annihilator. If I read all this junks correctly, I'll need 3 Base armor Pieces, and some coin to do upgrades. I could really go for those Boots that add movement speed!

Oh, looks like while I have been typing this Godslayer made a post about Salvage. If we go as an LS i'll have to declare a set. I'm going BST/RNG/COR/THF set, Focusing on Boots then Body. That body for COR would be so god damn sexy!

COR AF is 5/5, and stored. Hopefully after Dynamis tonight, I can re-gear up and hit LFG Land tomorrow and all weekend until i'm 60.

weeeeeellls I need to go patch FFXI on my laptop before dynamis, better get a head start.

Grats to Kir on 75 Blmagery!

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I threw a shoe at my dog today. Twice. While I was in the shower, she ate my copy of "The Da Vinci Code" and Tina's Shoes. I got out of the shower, got dressed, realized that I didnt see the dog. I wandered out back, looked out the window, and there she was eatting my book.

I was pretty pissed. She KNOWS better. I tapped on the glass, and she looked up at me with this "Oh Shit" look in her face. She knew she was doing bad. She quickly laid on top of the pile of tattered pages as I opened the back door. As I arrived at the scene of the crime, she grabbed the biggest remaining chunk of the book and ran off. I ignored her. She wants to play cat and mouse games. I cleaned up the mess, grabbed Tina's Shoes. As I went for the house, she kept running around near me. I chucked a shoe at her, (not too hard), struck her on the hind leg, and dropped her chunk of book. I grabbed it and walked into the house. She then ran and jumped in a mud puddle, and came running in behind me. I told her to go outside, she was filthy, she ran up to me more. I screamed at her, told her she was a bad dog. Then I tossed another shoe at her as she was facing the opposite direction. She turned around as the shoe flung, and it hit her in the head.

I felt like a total ass hole.

She yellped, and ran out the door. I've only yelled at her in this fashion one other time, and when I did, she peed where she stood.

After taking a couple minutes to cool off, I went outside looking for her. I find her in the rain, hiding from me on the back side of the house. She wouldnt come near me. I got close to her, and started petting her, she calmed down. I was afraid she was going to try to run away. I don't think throwing shoes at her was a wise choice, But, I didnt throw them hard, and she has been hurt worse. I think she was more upset about how I was yelling at her. She knows when she has gone over the top, and she definatly went over the top that time. It was more dramatic when it happend.

I managed to coax her back into the house with some doggie treats. I wish she understood "I'm Sorry." I dont see myself as an Abusive "Owner", I dont beat my dog to the point it hurts her, but I do swat her on the butt when she doesnt listen.

My problem is I have zero tollerance for people/animals/objects that constantly make the same mistakes and dont do anything about it. If the dog steals a book, My bad. She didnt know better, and she needs to understand that its not ok to get up on the kitchen table and jack stuff. So you train her, tell her "Bad Dog" (Which I know she understands by now) give her a little swat on the butt and ignore her for a while (Vets instructions). She understands its bad. I know she understands its bad because of the look she gives me when I catch her in the act.

Its just that i've never had the dog to the point where she wouldnt come near me. She was afraid of me, and thats something she should NEVER be. Ashamed, yes. Never Afraid.

I cant wait to get home so I can see my puppy, and hopefully she will be full of spunk and love, as she is every day that i've come home for the last 7 months. If she isnt, i'm going to be devistated.

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I think my mom might be in another one of those controll freak relationships. She really needs to get away from Arizona and her whole life there. She is one of those people that needs chaos and drama in their lives, but its doing soo much damage to her. My Sister and I keep telling her to go to the airport, we will buy her a ticket, and she will fly up here. We both have spare bedrooms, and my mom is the kind of person who could have a job in a day. She was once in an abusive relationship (not with my dad, they split for different reasons) and I do not want to see it happen again.

Back to work I suppose.

P.S. Cor AF 4/5, doing 5th tonight.