I’m in ur blogz wishing you happy bertdays O.O

written by Fusionx

Well, maybe not for making money, but for fishing up Moat Carp, the oasis in Eastern Altepa Desert is awesome! Last night while we were recording the show, I went out to this fishing spot with my level 32 fisher. The only fish I was pulling up were sandfish (which I can get skill-ups from) and Moat Carp. After I got off Skype for the night, I took an amazing 91 Moat Carps to the NPC, bringing my total to 923 (it would have been more, but I ran out of bait). While it’s true that sandfish don’t net me as much gil as Gold Carp, the incredible amount of Moat Carp I’ve been pulling up makes it worth it. However, I am starting to notice that fish are starting to get a bit more active then the ones I’m used to pulling up, meaning that it’s starting to take even more skill to deplete their energy bar. Just a little something to help improve my fishing skill for when I’m pulling up the big fish.

As I mentioned on the show, I’ve been pretty busy in game as of late. I did my first Dynamis-Tavnazia, which was a lot of fun. My LS isn’t trying to clear it yet, we’re just learning the zone, getting our feet wet, and farming a bit of AF—and we got a WHM -1 body (congratulations Sorencia!). Spent a lot of last week farming sky pops and we popped Seiryu, Suzaku and Byakko last weekend. We did get some pants from the kitty (both his signature pants and an abjuration for Shura Haidate). I did a little soloing and duoing (with Oshi’s BLM) on my SMN and got it to 56 and scored a nice pair of Summoner’s Bracers in Dynamis-Bastok.

Oshi and I also spent a huge amount of time camping Centurio X-I, the NM who drops the Shaman’s Cloak. We actually need two—one for Oshi’s BLM and one for my SCH. Oshi has done some camping while I’ve been at work or asleep, but whenever I was awake and at home, I was in Quicksand Caves helping him. He made quite a bit of gil stealing mythril beastcoins off the placeholders :D. Centurio did not want to drop that cloak. Then finally, I got a call when I was at work yesterday from Oshi saying that he finally got the cloak after his 7^th claim. He actually got killed by the NM and had to home point. There was a tarutaru SMN also there camping Centurio, but I guess he was AFK because he got aggro and died. Meanwhile Oshi got back to Quicksand Caves and the NM was still alive. He managed to kill it and get the cloak. One down, one to go! Ugh…

When we weren’t camping Centurio or doing LS events or duoing, we were finishing WoTG quests and missions. We finished the mission storyline first, which if you haven’t done is absolutely awesome. SE is doing an incredible job with this storyline and I really hope they don’t do what they did to the Aht Urghan storyline and rush anything or cut it short. After that, I had already finished the Bastok storyline (soloing everything on BLM XD), but I went ahead and helped Oshi with his instanced fight. Then we finished out the Sandy storyline.

First, let me say that the last NM in the Sandy storyline (at least at the moment) is in the absolute WORST place in the world. To begin with, the ??? is surrounded by gnoles.

About the only way to avoid aggro is to get lucky, wait to pull the mob when the gnoles turn around and try to pull it somewhere safer. Oshi caught aggro from the Orcish Bowshooter that was on top of the tower, then two gnoles saw him 5 seconds later. We tried to fight through and I slept the two gnoles, but we both ended up dying. Since I was on WHM and didn’t have my RR up, I HPed and came back to give Oshi a Raise III. I tractored him to a “safe” spot (nowhere is safe in this area, trust me) and a very nice Sprite Raise IIIed Oshi for me. We waited for his weakness to wear and went under the tower to get our CS. While we knew we were going to get aggro, we said “Screw it!” and fought the NM right there. We had two gnole links, which I slept, then after the NM was dead, we immediately dove into CS again. When I got out of CS, one of the gnoles had despawned. The other one woke up and raped my face. Luckily after it raped my face, it disappeared. I reraised, Oshi got out of CS, then I immediately casted Recall-Jugner and got us the heck out of there! Maybe more death than was necessary, but we still have a fun fight. And damn Fusionx and Steak! I had the Mentos Commercial going through my head the entire time! -.-

After we finished up Sandy, Oshi started the Windy quests. We had already gotten an 108 Knot Quipis, so Oshi was able to get through his quests fairly easily (I was on the last quest, so once again, I had to wait for my slowpoke husband to finish :P) Oshi showed up to the BC on NIN, with Katanas when I specifically told him he needed an AoE WS, so even though it was late and I had to go to work the next day, I waited for him to change. I was on BLM this time and the instance was easy with him on MNK and me aga-ing everything in sight. Very fun, very fast, very easy. In fact, when we killed the NM, we had already killed the other mobs in the fight area, so we were ported out immediately.

I honestly don’t know if I could choose a favorite between the three nations storylines. I love dark, sinister element of Bastok’s storyline, the quirky, funny storyline from San d’Oria (a nation which has never really been all that known for comic relief—refreshing to see SE do it here) and the intrigue laced throughout the Windurst quests. I honestly can’t wait to see what happens next!

This week is a free week for the LS, so I’ll be fishing, meriting, and chillin. We’re adding an Einherjar run to Sundays now, so we’ll be doing it twice a week, which I’m excited about. I’ve finally finished out my axe merits, so now it’s time to move onto something else. I’m either going to finish out Convert recast, enfeebling merits, or finally get around to learning Warrior’s Charge. I haven’t really decided yet.

written by Squigg

I’ve posted a few more recent pics on my Knights page. I’m going to put up a few more in the next few days. Check it out!

Finished my final today, so I’m taking a few weeks off school to get in some major FFXI time

written by Squigg

I’ve been watching Nastia Liukin since 2006 when she was in the movie “Stick It” and I have absolutely loved her gymnastics since then. Watching the all around finals last night was amazing. I had witnessed her struggle in 2007 coming back from injury when people thought that she was done with the sport–but I knew she wasn’t. And she proved everyone wrong, grabbing the gold in the women’s all-around last night! Congratulations Nastia! And congratulations to Shawn Johnson who won the silver, giving the US a 1-2 finish that was the first in the history of the sport.

written by Squigg

First of all, I want to thank the entire community for your support over the past few months. While things have slowed down for me personally, I’m still quite busy and FFXI isn’t my whole life anymore. But I’ve missed PFA and I’m pretty sure I have the time to be around at least 2-3 episodes a month, if not more. Working with Steak, Fusionx and Chinchilla is one of the funnest things in the world. Their personalities shine through, not only during the actual podcast, but also in the hour or two we spend talking beforehand It’s good to be back.

I will be spending some time transferring my LiveJournal blog entries to my current blog, so stay tuned!

Edit:  All LiveJournal entries have been included.  Scroll down to see them!

written by Squigg

This week I increased my gym time from two to five days a week. Gives me three days for cardio and two days for strength/weight training. Today was my last day this week ( I take Fridays and Saturdays off) and I’m tired but not overly sore. If I can keep this up, I’ll have a healthier me in no time flat. Although I’m tired, I’m noticing improvements in the gym and I definitely feel stronger.

This week I did a little of Dynamis and Limbus. We did Dynamis-Sandy the other night and it seemed to go on forever. I went to bed about an hour before the run ended. Last night, we had a not-so-great Ultima experience. Tonight will be my first Einherjar run in months, so it’ll be fun. Also got my fishing up to 30 and turned in Moat Carp number 723 (slow and steady). Helped Sobi out with his BLU AF hat NM (that guy is no joke). Yes, this is the same Sobi who quit a few months ago. For some of us, it’s hard to get this game our of our systems. It’s good to have him back, even part time and I like the opportunities to do things with him in game.

Got the Army Center for Enhanced Performance workshop next week at Walter Reed, so I’ll be out of town for the week. I’m really looking forward to it. I also am having a small housewarming this weekend for the new apartment.

written by Squigg

I just finished watching Nintendo’s media conference at E3. And I am seriously pissed off.

First off, let me say that I enjoyed Microsoft’s media conference yesterday. Fallout 3 looks awesome. Infinite Undiscovery and The Last Remnant look great too. And the final announcement about FFXIII being on Xbox 360…was actually a decent earth-shattering announcement. Great for me because my main system of choice these days is a 360. Not so great for Oshi because he bought his PS3 years ago because he figured that FFXIII would be a PS3 exclusive. But now that this has been proven untrue, at least we still know that Final Fantasy Versus XIII (the game I’m looking more forward) will still be exclusively PS3 (for now). So Oshi can rest easy. But seriously the PS3 has been overall a disappointment. A vast majority of the games we have for it can also be purchased for the 360. I’m hoping more exclusives come out of the Sony conference because, let’s face it, Sony needs a fire lit under their asses and they need to realize that their system is in trouble. Give us good games. But I digress. (Edit: Well, so much for that. God of War 3 and Resistance 2 were cool, but the rest? WTF Sony?)

Anyway, the Nintendo conference happened to fall during my lunch hour, so I was looking forward to watching it live. Nintendo has always been hush, hush, preferring to release their big surprises during events like E3 and TGS. Last year, they released information on the Wii Fit, which I had been looking forward to…until its release. Now, since I didn’t think I’d have to reserve it, I’m having issues even finding it. I would love to have it to help supplement my fitness program and use it to track my progress. But alas, why would I expect Nintendo to make enough Wii Fits? People still have issues trying to find a Wii.

To begin with, Nintendo began their conference with a cheesy opening showing a whole bunch of people with cheesy grins on their faces. Their opening supported their theme for the year—bringing smiles to people’s faces. After that was a demo of a new snowboarding game (using the still hard to find Wii balance board) and a whole bunch of boring statistics about how they’ve had increased sales with the general mainstream, particularly females. Blah, blah, blah. They put out some info on the new Animal Crossing games and Wii Sports Resort, which actually sound decent. Then they put out some information on their upcoming DS library, nothing which sounded particularly impressive. (Sorry, I’m not a big GTA fan)

Oshi left the room about halfway through, shouting over his shoulder to let him know if Nintendo came up with anything interesting. Not long after that, they started hyping up for the big announcement and showed some guy with the Wii mote, nunchuck and the balance board playing air drums. Yes, you heard me right. Then they brought out Miyamoto-san to make the “big announcement” for the year to introduce….Wii Music. A game that doesn’t make you hit specific keys to go along with a musical score or has any type of strategy involved. The premise? You play “air instruments” using the Nintendo peripherals mentioned above. That’s it. To demonstrate, Miyamoto-san brought a few people onstage with him to start a band to play the Mario theme. Unfortunately, when they all got onstage, the only instrument left for Miyamoto-san to play was the cowbell. THE COWBELL??!! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??!! So after they got settled with their “instruments”, the entire group of people onstage began to “play”—while looking like complete idiots in the process.

So this is what I wasted my lunch hour on? Their big announcement was air instruments?! Are you kidding me?! At the launch of the Wii, Nintendo talked about branching out and reaching the mainstream, but they also said that they were not going to abandon their core gamers. They brought out Twilight Princess, Metriod Prime 3: Corruption, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Brothers Brawl. All solid. But apparently, Nintendo thinks that since it made good on its promise that it doesn’t need to continue making the great games and continue the franchises that they are known for. They’re reaching so far to get the mainstream guys, the core gamers (like me) feel let down and pissed off. They couldn’t have announced a new Zelda game in the works? Or perhaps a new iteration of Metroid on the DS? The only franchise they haven’t forgotten about is—Pokemon. Oh yippee.

So apparently Nintendo has abandoned the core gamer to get the mainstreamer and rake in millions of dollars. That makes great business sense. But it leaves me frustrated and sorely disappointed. Years ago, I used to be a hard-core Nintendo die hard. If you even mentioned Sega or Sony to me, I’d fiercely declare my loyalty to Nintendo, saying it was THE only system to play and that the other ones didn’t exist in my mind. That changed when the Final Fantasy series leapt to the Playstation, but I still had a soft spot for the guys who brought me Mario and Link. Not anymore. F**k you Nintendo.

written by Squigg

I’ve gotten to get on the game more in the recent weeks. I’ve been working on merits for my WAR lately and I’m currently 6/8 on axe merits. I’m noticing a HUGE difference in my accuracy, especially on my Rampages. My average WSes went from around 300-700 to around 500-800, with a lot more 1k+s then I ever used to have. The best thing about my axe merits is that they will transfer well to BST if I ever get the time to level it…not to mention I’ll be seeing Rampage a lot sooner on it. After I cap out my axe merits, I’m going to work on my job-specific merits and finally learn Warrior’s Charge. Then I’ll finish out crit hit merits and finish out my enfeebling merits for RDM. I still have to play so much catch up with merits, but I want to make myself better all around so that I can be even more of an asset to my LS. After I merit all my jobs to the point where I’m satisfied, then I’ll bring up either my SMN, SCH or BLU (haven’t completely decided yet. I still have way too many merits to obtain first).

I’m disappointed that I don’t have a lot of time to get to LS events, but I do attend what I can and so far I find that I do have time to at least do Dynamis. Last week I did some tier IV ZNMs with my LS (the Hydra one) and it was a blast (literally. I went BLM XD). Last night in Valkurm, Sorcerer’s Belt dropped and I bid for it, but Vedebibble outbid me and went 6/6 on his BLM. I definitely don’t mind losing to Ved–he may be quiet and our “AFK King” but he’s good at what he does and he is a really cool guy. We also got a RDM -1 hat (congrats Kelia!) and DRK -1. In our last Dynamis Windy, I ended up getting my WHM feet (my last Windy piece, yay!), making me 2/5 on WHM. I missed our Jeuno run, where both WHM and RDM pants dropped (and went for a low amount of points ). Oh well, next time.

I also got the opportunity to help another LS (that is converting from endgame to just a social LS) burn up a few of their Kirin sets. I felt so bad for them…in the two runs, he dropped two poles, 2 shining cloths, a few crystals, and a Quake scroll. But I’ll probably net around 100k for my efforts, which isn’t too bad. I’m trying to save up more money to finally finish out my HQ staff collection (I’m 6/8, missing Terra and Neptune. I really want to complete the set before I pick up SMN again).

As for RL, I’ve finally rediscovered my living room floor and am now working on getting things unpacked in the spare bedroom. When we get enough money, I want to put a daybed in there for guests. But most of our DVDs are unpacked and today I plan to work on getting the rest of our clothes put away and unpacking all of my books. I’m keeping my boxes around because a buddy of mine is moving soon and he might need them. Also I’ve been making progress in the gym. My personal training sessions are over and although I haven’t lost any weight, I’ve lost 7.5% body fat, which in my opinion is far more important. Oshi and I are taking Bodypump classes together. They combine strength training and music and are a lot of fun. My personal trainer made me realize the importance of strength training, but I really don’t like working with weights, so I think these classes will keep me motivated.

I’ve also been doing more surveys at work. Paula took me to Fort Story for a ventilation survey and Chuck took me to a survey with the Reserve Fleet where we got to go on a boat ride and tour some of the ships! Paula decided that I had been working so hard that she gave me half of Friday off, so I spent some time meriting (time well spent IMO lol). I really enjoy expanding my work to more than data entry stuff. It gives me more options if I am forced to change my job. The week after next, I’m going TDY to Walter Reed to participate in the Army Center for Enhanced Performance (ACEP). It has been used by professional athletes to help enhance their performance and it has been adapted to aid the Wounded Warrior in their recovery. I’m excited about this trip.

Next week, I’m hitting school really hard. I want to finish my current course by the end of the month. Hopefully I’ll be able to do more with the LS too.

written by Squigg

I decided to say “screw it” to getting everything done by Friday. I needed a break. So I chilled Friday, but it was major humid and I was having breathing problems, so I decided to stay in and not go to Busch Gardens Saturday I stayed home all day, watching TV, doing my first Dynamis in months (Dynamis Valkrum, which was a nice way to get back in the swing of things…with a shorter Dynamis) and hit 29 on my fishing. Oh, and I also did a little meriting. Concentrating on axe skill atm. One of our WARs accidentally voked a Wivre. We killed it and continued on. After the party I discovered that I had a Wivre Hide in my inventory! Yay, gilz!

So today, I finally got off my lazy ass and finished cleaning the old place. Now, it’s EMPTY (except of course the stuff that came with the apartment. Too bad I couldn’t steal that refrigerator :P). Tomorrow at lunch, me and Oshi are handing in our key and then we’re DONE clearing that apartment! No more drives across town hauling cleaning supplies and cardboard boxes! I can’t hardly walk in my new place, but hey, at least all my stuff is HERE instead of there.

This week I have a three day workweek (yay Fourth of July!) so I plan to do some major relaxing these next few days. Also getting back into the gym. I’ve lost 2 pounds since I started with Crystal and even though I wasn’t able to make it last week, it’s not like I was that lazy (I think moving can definitely count as a workout!). I’m hoping to make it there at least 4 days this week and get a better rhythm going. My goal is not to get skinny or model thin–my goal is to lose a few of these excess pounds I picked up in the WTU and get healthier again. I actually want to take care of myself and do what I can to feel better.

written by Squigg

As far as the old apartment goes, the carpet cleaner guy came today. All I need to do is scrub the bathrooms and the kitchen, and then turn the key into those aggravating slumlords, and I’m free! I absolutely adore my new apartment, but all the boxes of crap…not so much. I will be so happy when I can actually find things in my apartment now.

I had a little time to log into FFXI yesterday. I really do miss everyone. When I got on, Kelia asked me if I would come along for Omega. I was kinda planning on hanging around Jugner Forest to do some fishing, but since Kelz needed an extra body, I didn’t mind doing it. After we crushed Omega (head and hands dropped, just as Clef predicted, lol), I did a bit of fishing. I hit 28, and now I am a novice! Yay! I think I’m going to cash in what few guild points I have for alchemy on HQ crystals and start up a contract with the fishing guild. I don’t really have enough Alchemy guild points to be that disappointed about losing them anyway. Plus, I already have anima synthesis, a Caedueus and an Alchemist’s Apron. Although there are a few more alchemy key items that I want, I’ll wait until my fishing gets up there.

This weekend, I am doing absolutely nothing. I may unpack a few boxes, but after ridding myself of my old apartment, it’ll be time for some serious relaxation. I may head to the comedy club on Saturday to see one of my favorite comedians, J. Medicine Hat. He’s a comedian/comedy hypnotist and his routine is hilarious. And I’ve missed the last two Fridays at Busch Gardens and the park stays open until 10 now. Beer school, here I come!

written by Squigg