Red Headigan

Was a real toss up last night on what to do, so I put the question to D if she would rather get her hair redyed, hit up Soulfire's Limbus run or go level (insert-job-here). After changing her mind about a half dozen times, she settled on getting her roots redone.

Maybe I'm just a little weird, but I actually kind of enjoy doing things like that. I did it a lot with my female friends in college. I just get a lot out of the social interaction aspect of tending to a person on that kind of level. Same reason I like giving back/neck massages. ^^; Anyway, we were in and out of game all night while I applied 3 boxes of dye to her head. After all was said and done, she was a thorough red head again. :D

What little I did do in game consisted of HQing the desynths on Goblin Masks into Glass Fibers and then making lenses out of the fibers. I am a little over one level left from capping on that recipe. After that, it's time to go hunting lizards and saplings. The recipes from then until 60 become pure profit while skilling up, and I'm looking forward to makin' some monies.

EDIT: I just realized that I posted everyday this week. First time I've done that in weeks. ^_^

It's Magnetic!

Had a really hard time shaking off the sleep today. I just didn't feel like I'd completely left bed all day long. -_- Made for a groggy work day and a somewhat grumpy Jason by the time I made it back home. I burned up some burgers for the family and sat down to game a little bit.

Started by picking up the Magnetic Earring as a reward for Apocalypse Nigh. I was planning on just using it on my BLM, but it's stats are better than the off earring I use for WHM as well, so it might be replacing that on my standard WHM gear. I also desynthed (read: shattered epic fail style) some goblin masks in hopes of getting some more glass fiber for the next leg of alchemy. I need maybe 3-4 more stacks and I should be good to go.

Dynamis - Windurst was tonight as well. To be honest, I was hoping it would get cancelled so we could go level BLM, but as fortune would have it, we actually got the right combination of jobs for a change. So in we went. It was a bit on the crazy side. Looshkin hadn't pulled a dynamis in several years. Yes, years, and I remember the last one he pulled, too. I feel old... Anyway, between the LOL that was his rusty pulling and me going AFK a couple time because I was just not feeling the dynamis love, casualties abounded. Keri got herself a Monster Helm outta the run, though, and all contestants not appearing on stage got a Warrior's Mask for consolation prize... >.>; Many, many of them dropped and no one wanted them. :P

I ended up calling it a night after the win. I was just feeling really run down and needed to go to sleep. I sure hope I'm not getting sick again.

Apocalypse Nigh

Tonight was our little mountain climbing static's night to try to wrap up with Apocalypse Nigh. Not to give spoilers to anyone who may care, but this ties together two gigantic story arcs (easily more than 75% of the game's story content) into one big final showdown, and as such, a lot of characters make a reappearance. We had seven people that wanted to go, and only 6 slots, so we were going to try to make two runs of it.

Besides being a little bit LOL, in all fairness, the first attempt went rather smoothly. Modo, Crunkinator, Trumpy, Kactuar, Michaelino and myself all went in as Keri and Vudian waited for round 2. Modo was SAM/RNG, and never really engaged the enemy, instead opting to rely completely on ranged attacks. -.-; I don't think he even brought a sword. Many deaths were had, but somehow we squeaked out a win.

We replaced Modo with Vudian and Kactuar with Keri for the second run, and it didn't go so well. We just didn't have enough damage and ended up wiping on our first attempt. Vudian tried to restore our 2hrs with his COR's, but didn't get the right roll. Breg ditched what he was doing and came all the way out with his Lv1 COR and was able to get ours back, but we ended up wiping a second time. 1/3 ; ; I think we're gonna bring a different mix of jobs next time: we simply need more damage if we're gonna get the win for Keri and Vudian. I logged off just outside of Norg so I can claim my earring tomorrow evening.

Dynamis - Windurst tomorrow, but if it gets cancelled like last time, we'll likely be manaburning. The urge to finish the big push to 75BLM is calling loud and clear.

Don't startle the monkeys...

Monday's are generally fun enough as they are, and don't need any help being any more LOL, but we had most of the guys out on assignments. Most of the day we only had 2-3 people holding down the fort. As a tribute to LOLMonday, just for grins, I've decided to give a cross-section of the kind of LOL I troubleshoot on Mondays.

-One call involved a user who couldn't log into her laptop. She could use her laptop, it just wasn't asking for her username or password. Which is odd, because all these machines should be asking for that kind of stuff. It also didn't have any of her documents and she couldn't get online at the office. I try to find her machine on my remote, but I can't find it. It's not until I ask her to navigate to the computer name that we find out that it's not her laptop. Apparently she had picked up the wrong one when she was at the security checkpoint at the airport, because it was "acting funny" in the airport terminal. When this revelation hit her, she wanted me to find her laptop for her using the machine's serial number and my IT magic wand. -.-" I explained to her that neither I nor anyone else had any way of finding it, kinda like car keys. I spoke with her about a half dozen times throughout the day trying to get something together for her so she could work, and each time she asked me if I had found her laptop yet...

-Another user called in that her laptop was restarting at random and sometimes entered a rebooting cycle of doom. This was a brand new docking station/laptop combo, so she was understandably upset. After walking her though getting it to make a stable reboot, I remoted in and found things noticeably glitchy. It was like the Matrix had thrown up in her laptop. So I asked her at this point to try this undocked. So she undocked the laptop... without turning it off... Its the way she has always undocked her laptop. I wonder why she's gone through 3 of them this year? >.>; Also found out that she spilled her drink on it one night and didn't turn everything off when she did, so there's likely a short in the docking station as well...

-Finally, one of our clients retained their own IT specialist when they signed on with us. Unfortunately, the guy is just a little bit too much fail, so the decision was made to remove his admin rights. So he has decided to tell all the people that need to talk to him to call our service line and ask to speak with him. We end up just having to transfer the call back out the way it came to that place's receptionist. We are not a switchboard service...

Weekend Intelligence: Green Gift

The title has nothing to do with the post. :D

I had a hard time just putting this post together. It stared out as a Friday post for Thursday, then I added some of Friday into it and then it became the Weekend Intelligence. I'm just having difficulty finding time to write. So, in typical Weekend Intelligence fashion, here are the highlights!

House and Home:

First of all, I really must thank everyone who read last week's Weekend Intelligence and let me know (in some way or another) that they enjoyed my little rant and sympathized with it. I'm so very glad my mental anguish could brighten so many people's days. ^_^/ DeAnn and I had a serious talk about our relationship and issues in it, kind of our own State of the Union staff meeting. We need one of those every so often to come to the same place and put aside issues we may have with each other. Long meeting short, I got out a LOT of frustration about the kids and the state of my house, and we'll be moving some things around soon so that it's a little easier to keep the place clean and my sanity within my grasp.

On Friday, Clara had apparently exploded overnight and had come down with whatever I had on Monday. Cranky and poopy, she just wanted to sleep, so D stayed home with the kids and worked (read: tore through) the housework. Loads and loads of laundry, not to mention bathrooms and trashcans and all sorts of detail work. I met them for lunch at McD's, which was a nice shift from the norm. :) I stayed late on Friday, fielding all the loonies that stayed way past go home time and needed something done NOW. By the time I got home, all I wanted was Chinese, something to drink and some hours in game.

We stayed up waaay too late on Friday, so we ate at Jack in the Box for breakfast to accelerate our morning and launch us into the Walmart run for the weekend. It was tax-free weekend, so naturally Walmart was beyond the typical weekend freakshow. We got some clothing odds and ends, did the run and were on our way home faster than I thought we would be. Which was nice, because one of Noni's daughters was having a b-day party that we were planning on going to. Plans changed on account of rain - none of which we saw on our side of town, but apparently it was really coming down in other parts. The change of plans was actually a good thing for us anyway: DeAnn was starting to come down with the same plague that hit me on Monday...

Sunday was relatively light. We got up at a decent time and made it to service. The message was on messiness, and how God can sometimes be a little 'messy' and allow messes to happen: as in the God of Mystery... -.-\ Alright. I got it. Can I please just make a simple request and ask that my house stay clean enough not to attract outside pests? Please? DeAnn and I have a new plan for the house layout that will put the entertainment center downstairs and all the toys and playthings upstairs - hopefully that will allow me to enjoy things a little more clutter-free and still allow the kids to be kids. We'll likely get working on that as soon as she doesn't feel like she was hit by a truck...

In-Game:

Keri and I have reached the point that most people refer to as the "Big Push": a psychological point that you reach when your job is in the low 70s, where all you want to do in game is level your 70+ job until you finally reach 75. Its kinda involuntary: you feel compelled to spend loads and loads of time and are far more patient with the job than you ever were before, just so you can slog through the 150,000 or so experience points to get the last 5 levels. All of the best gear and spells in the game are equipable in that range as well, so the job gets noticeably more powerful with each passing level.

So woohoo for Friday night! There was no FNLE this week, so I spent it spamming campaign ops and doing campaign battles to get my rank up. The idea was to finally get the lowest rank wings so I could get a pair of Cobra Unit Trews with Allied Notes to hold me over until I can afford Jet Seraweels. On my last ops credit, I finally made rank up, which allowed me to get the Trews, one of the most powerful BLM leg pieces in the game. Finished that night off by leveling BLM late late at night until nearly dawn. x.X

Saturday was a little more relaxed. Since our afternoon plans fell through, we decided on attending the gods run that Soulfire was running. Keri got Zenith Mitts, one of the best BLM hand pieces in the game from Genbu. I just relaxed and soaked up the points. Ran around and did some ZNM stuff with Crunkinator later that evening, but by this time D was starting to come down with what I had on Monday, so I didn't stay long enough to pop all my pop items.

We ended up doing my pop items for ZNM on Sunday with a small group that spammed all the same ones. I have enough Chigre kills to be done with Tyger tier 1. At least until I want a new pop set. I also farmed up some ingredients in Oldton Movalpolos with Keri and Emma for the next leg of my alchemy bug. Einherjar was Sunday as well, but... Linkx (the guy who leads our Einherjar runs) decided to make a post that outlined what people should come as to the run, in case he can't dictate each individual's job to them. Fine, ok, whatever. But, intentional or not, his post sounded an awful lot like he was blaming me for the failed run last time. All the examples he used were me, though he didn't name me by name.

This really angered me. I don't like this event to begin with. I want nothing to do with it to begin with. I'm only helping because my linkshell leader really likes it and needs my help. It bothered Keri so much that she basically told Linkx to screw himself, refused to come and hasn't been on SF since. I came, we won anyway, but I don't know if I'm going to any more. At least not with SF. I want an Omega Ring, but its not worth it for that kind of abuse from the leadership.

The last of the evening was spent as the weekend started: leveling BLM. We're within one ring charge from 72 and a whole battery of new spells and armor. I can't wait until I can start to bring this to events.

Monday is here, so I'll likely not get a chance to blog about this weekend until Monday night or possibly Tuesday. I guess its job security to be so busy, but I wish there was a little more room to breathe in my days sometimes...