Dragon's Aery: Shiva's Premier Friday Night Club

It was one of those days where you feel like you got a lot accomplished. We were missing several key jobs for Oreo last night, so we decided to hit up Fafnir. We had a pretty good turnout, but it wasn't long before every level 75 player on the server was in that tiny little pond waiting for the dragon to arrive. The botters kept killing off the flies so that they would respawn right on top of the window, making it difficult to safely claim. Not that I could have seen it pop anyway. There were way too many people in there for my poor old laptop to handle. He popped 4th or 5th window - I lost count. It was kinda weird: our leader announced he had spawned in the NW corner of the room (where I was) but I couldn't see him. He didn't pop on my screen until I was right under him, and when I backed away, he despawned. Talk about uber lag.

Between windows, I cleaned up a little bit, and fooled around with a model viewer and PSP. The result is the cool blog avatar at the upper right of Shrade's WHM/NIN setup. ^_^ I've been a party tank a few times as WHM: it's a lot of fun. Too bad the pic got a little fuzzy in the resize, it looks cool full-sized though. Eventually I want to make a forum sig with my healing and tanking WHM and MNK setups.

After Fafnir, Demetrion and Rhykar joined Kerith (my wife's character) and I in our hunt for the Ophiuchus Subligar. It's the item needed for the Gaudy Harness reward from the quest Brygid the Stylist Returns. It's a nice body piece that boasts a CHR boost and Refresh MP effect - perfect for BST/WHM. After four kills, one dropped. Keri is such a sweetheart and let me have the first one. We'll have to go back down and get another for her. I ran back to Bastok to find out what gawd-awful combination she wanted me to wear before giving me the choice of rewards. All I have to say is Gambison and Velvet Slops do not go together... Can't wait to hit 50 and wear this!

DeAnn's sister and her husband just started playing a few months back, and were online last night, so we met up with them in San d'Oria and got the Guide Beret for inviting Eldrin (Tristan's character) to Shiva. Also helped with San d'Orian mission 1-3. Keri and I were not allowed in the BC, so not so much helped but plowed the way. I imagine, if we ever can get our schedules to line up, that leveling together would be nice, especially through the dunes... -.-

After that I went back to Jeuno, thinking I would just call it a night. When I warped in there were no less than three people looking for teleports. I did that for a good 10-15mins and made about 30k on that. Yay for more Moat Carp monies!

Desert LOLmels

Apparently the various flora of the Texas Hill Country have formed an unholy alliance against humanity - the pollen index has been through the roof the past couple of days. The result has been a slow descent into allergy hell: sneezing, runny nose, itchy eyes and the kind of headache that inspires Sci-Fi writers. It was almost like someone had stuffed a bowling ball up my left nostril. Seriously, that side of my head felt about 10lbs heavier than the other.

I felt bad, but I had to call off the daily walk around the mall with DeAnn. Took some pain-killers and allergy syrup when I got home, and was decent enough to go out later that night for some provisions from the store.

We decided to level on Beastmaster that night. Desert Dhalmels in the Western Altepa Desert are great experience 42-45, and it wasn't long before we dinged 44. We kept a constant chain 4-5 going for upwards of 240-280 each time. I love leveling on Beastmaster: just enough melee to be fun and just enough thought to be intriguing.

I want to go on a subligar hunt for the Gaudy Harness tonight, but since the Oreo (Ouryu) FNLE in the region was cancelled and Fafnir will be taking its place, it's unlikely I'll get much help. Also seriously need to start farming for the chest/coffer keys we'll need for BST AF. So much to do and so little play time...

Walk it out...

I wasn't online much today. DeAnn has been wanting to take mall-walking back up after the holiday chaos subsided, so we went out for about half an hour and did a mile. After we got back, she wasn't feeling so great, very tired and crashed without eating dinner.

I got the baby to sleep and played some Halo 3 with Colin. I know he's only 8, and that probably isn't the most age appropriate subject matter, but there's something about enjoying watching something blow up with your son that makes you proud to be a dad. We had a good time cutting through alien hordes and blowing things sky high with tanks.

I got online briefly to check my auctions and try to farm Lower Jeuno for teleports. Unfortunately no one needed to go anywhere, so I went to Carpenter's Landing to farm up a stack of fangs. Between skins, flytrap leaves and fangs, I made about 15k in 45 minutes. Rainy weather popped too, so that'll add another 5k once those water crystal stacks clear the auction house. Doesn't sound like much, but it's not bad for only an hour total between fighting and all the running around. It adds up fast.

Happy New Year

Introduction: I'm not normally one to set New Year's resolutions, but I've wanted to start a blog for some time now. And what better time to start something new than New Year's? I have a beautiful, fun-loving (and gamer!) wife DeAnn (Kerith in FFXI), a smart grade-school age son Colin and rambunctious toddler Clara. I'm looking to blog mostly about my adventures in Final Fantasy XI, with accents of real-life added for taste. With my family, you can be sure there will be plenty of real-life taste... >.>"

So right to it. I had the day off yesterday for New Year's, so most of it was spent lazing around the house and sleeping off the night before. I didn't get into game much - only a little to do some teleporting in Lower Jeuno and check my auctions between laundry and kiddos. Got another mission done in Halo 3. No heavy lifting.

Spent the evening fishing up Moat Carp. DeAnn offered to fish Moat Carp with me on her mule Rhylosha a few days back, so I had Insect Ball ingredients left over from that. So I set up shop right next to the pond outside of Port Windurst and spent a few hours raking in the carp. DeAnn and Colin are both into this new reality show called "Twister Sisters," and they were doing a marathon, so I brought my laptop upstairs to do my fishing. I'm at just over 3900/10000 fish for that quest.

While I really want to get that fishing rod, I'd rather tele-whore in Lower Jeuno for cash to buy the fish than spend so much time fishing them up. It takes me 15 minutes to make enough gil to buy what would take me an hour to fish. It's just quicker to make the gil and buy the fish from people who don't mind spending hours to get it.