Eeep!  Getting sidetracked is one of those evils that have been hanging around me lately.  Guilty feelings…guilty feelings… go away, guilty feelings!  *cough*

Okay, on to business:  June and July, since being a DM isn’t all that great a story on its own.  It was enlightening, I’ll give it that much.

As y’all know, the first chapter of Brass’ D&D campaign came to a close in May.  While he was taking a breather, he had me step in as DM for a mini campaign since everyone was still super eager to play.  I got one of those pre-made modules with the story, encounters, and maps all together.  Yeah…never again….  Anyone familiar with these things know how much they suck.  This one was based around an evil cleric who was trying to raise a demigod of Death, Orcus, and had a bunch of little goblin minions.  Since I was DMing over experienced players, the life and times of goblins are a giant snoozefest.  I did all I could to keep interest, but when you have a crappy story to begin with…yeah….  Since people were getting bored, and our ranger was rolling like some kind of superhero, killing everything in a couple of hits, I added an extra character.  He was the cleric’s right hand man.  An advisor, and a motivator.  That’s right, he was a bard.  Hey, he hit the Will defense all the time, and that was the ranger’s weak stat!  (Yeah, he pissed me off lol)  Man, that bard almost wiped the party.  That final encounter for me went from maniacal glee to “Oh crap, I’m gonna kill them…I don’t feel so good anymore….”  So yeah, I chickened out.  At least everyone was interested in that last session…. hehehehe…..

July…oof…July…  What happened in July?  Oh yeah, Anime Convention!  I went with Razziel this year, and he proved to be a good ally unlike the party poopers that call themselves Brassmutant and Wheaty.  For the first time, I got to stay the entire day.  Just wish I had thought my costume out a little more.  I cosplayed as Chii from Chobits, and I had the long sleeved brown dress that she wears semi-frequently.  The material that dress was made out of… x.x  It was super heavy and it didn’t breathe.  I’m tempted to say it’s some kind of polyester…I dunno.  All I know is that I was hot all day.  But it was worth it.  There was a guy there who made a perfect Vincent Valentine… <3  I got my picture with him, too!  That was awesome.

*sigh*  August…   That month was great for one reason.  But, you’ll have to wait until I pry myself away from The Beatles RockBand long enough again to write to find out why!  I still get all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it…. *swoons and faints while hitting the Publish button*

Ahh, May.  That was a fun one for 3 major events: End of Chapter One in our 4th Edition D&D campaign that went out with a bang, Balloonfest, and Ayriel’s birthday.  All in one weekend, at that!

Ayriel’s birthday came first.  It was on a Saturday, and we spent the majority of the day out at Chuck-E-Cheese (or however it’s spelled…I don’t really care XD).  It was a small gathering, but very enjoyable.  Afterward, we went to play D&D at her house.

D&D…as you all may or may not know, I have been playing a dragonborn warlord in my husband’s campaign since…last winter.  Our story took us all over the kingdom, and one place of note was the headquarters of a band of brigands led by a dwarven barbarian.  That fight was tough, and we were up until 4 in the morning on it.  Finally, I let loose one of my stronger powers and criticalled with it.  I basically squished that dwarf before he knew what hit him…after he was whittled down by my party, of course.  Warlords are more of a buffing class than a damage dealing one.   But anyhow, I got the killing blow.  At the end of Chapter One of our story, he made a reappearance: as an undead creature that has extreme malice towards the person who killed their previous incarnation.  He was tricked out in all kinds of magical armor and had a stark black, magical Executioner’s Axe…that hit like a semi truck….  Honestly, I should have died that night.  I lived by luck alone, and will never forget it!  Good stuff.

The next day, our entire group went out to Balloonfest.  …crap, I forget no one but us from El Paso and surrounding area know what that is… *ahem*

Our local rock radio station, KLAQ, has a Memorial Day festival for the entire three day weekend out at our local water park.  A bunch of different bands come out and play for the three days, and tickets include music and unlimited rides at the park.  Before they set up there, however, at sunrise every day they rent out a bunch of hot air balloons and set them loose in the sky.  Only super special people who spend thousands of dollars can go up in the air, though.  Although, it is really neat to watch them.  Especially if you haven’t ever seen that before.

Ok, so the night before…we were all up until 1 AM and our plans were to leave for the park at 4:30.  Now, I’m one of those people who cannot be awakened out of deep sleep if it’s been more than one hour and less than five…which is what my sleep would have been.  And, Brass DOESN’T wake up until at least 9.  So it would have been my responsibility to wake him up, and pack our swimsuits, sunscreen, etc.  I thought it would just be better to forego sleep.  Somehow, I made it through…still dunno how. XD  It was a beautiful morning, and a very bright, sunny early afternoon.  I spent the majority of my morning watching my kid splash around in the kiddie p0ol, but then I got dragged by Arshela to ride a couple of rides with him.  Now, I can’t swim.  Plain and simple.  So what does he take me on?  The Amazon.  Sure, the pool at the bottom was only three feet deep…but the slide itself was…I have no idea how long…but the majority of it was a pitch black tube.  Yeah, I discovered I really don’t care for sensory deprivation!  And a mountain slide, I don’t remember the name, but keeping your head up and your behind down was a chore and a half.  I ended up face first in the water, belly flopped.  Not fun.  But if I were to go back…yeah, I would do it again.  I’m just crazy like that. XD  Late afternoon, it started raining.  So, we left before it got bad.  We were all dead tired anyway, so it wasn’t too big of a loss.  We got back to Ayriel and Domanic’s house, and everyone just kind of passed out.  Didn’t wake up until 9 that night, and then we went home.  All in all, that is the kind of weekend I live for…so it was great!  Oh yeah, I don’t remember what bands were playing that day at all…lol….

So, that’s the best of May.  Next time, I will be writing about June!  …wait, what happened in June? o.O  Not much…crap.  Ok, the only good thing I can think of is my adventures in first time being a dungeon master!   Yeah…I’m a geek…so what?  Next post will be a rant of how much Wizards of the Coast overlooks!  Yay!

Oh, and a small note about the video.  I’ve started working on the layouts, but haven’t really gotten much into yet just yet.  However, once it gets rolling I’ll be done before I know it, so keep looking forward to that!  I had two ideas rolling around with it:  either be nice and remember all the friends and good times I had, or be brutally honest and nurture all the hurt that made me leave to begin with.  I decided to take the higher road, despite all my feelings of forced inadequacy, isolation, and general suffering.  So be happy, all my friends!  You will become immortal on the internet, as well as in my heart! :3

Hello friends, I’m sure you’ve been dying to hear how April went.  And here I am to tell you!  Probably would have done this sooner, but I’ve been in bed with an annoying little head cold since Monday.  Hate how stress and stuff lowers the immune system.

Anyhow, time to continue the rl adventures of me!  So, my computer was fried.  After calling Intel and getting no help whatsoever, and buying pretty much an entire new computer, we still had not figured out the problem.  Towards the middle of April, we finally gave in and tried the RAM despite how awesome the stuff we had was.  I mean, the sticks had heat sinks.  How awesome is that?!  Apparently, it was too awesome for my computer to handle.  The RAM had fried, and was causing all that trouble…of course, it was exactly what the computer had been trying to tell us when it was beeping.  XD  But, people aren’t quite as logical as a binary machine…so yeah.  We rebuilt!  With new RAM, a new OS, and one hard drive less.  We had to put the old computer back together, and it needed a HD, so I sacrificed mine.  And my poor little computer…had to get stuck with Vista.  *pets the CPU*  I admit, it’s probably a good idea to learn it…but BLEH!!!  Need I say more? ^_~

Also during mid-April, my husband heard some nasty news.  Let’s give a little backstory on that.  Since about the start of the new year, there had been rumors going around that their help desk contract would not be re-signed.  However, no one said a word to anyone about the status of the contract…until April.  Four days before his last day, my husband got a letter on his desk telling him to speak with human resources.  He called me during his lunch that day, and here’s what he told me: “Hi love, guess what?  I’m getting a raise.  Guess what else?  They’re laying me off anyway!  My last day is Friday.”  This was Monday.  Alright, time to begin the search for jobs.  Yeah, not going so well.  (I’m guessing) Thanks to me being a stay at home mom and going missing on the work front for three years, I’m not as hire-able.  I’m a bit of an unknown quantity, since none of my previous management are there anymore no one can get a reference on me.  Thankfully, we are getting unemployment since zee hubby was outsourced to Mexico City.  And, I hear their helpdesk is going down in a couple of years.  Oh well, not our problem anymore!  So yeah, him getting laid off helped force my hand into my final decision about FFXI.  No money to spare, no addiction.  I officially suspended my account in April and broke my linkshell.  Or did I do that before?  I don’t remember.  It didn’t really matter anyhow, my shell had gone down thanks to the ungrateful little taru Star Onion Brigadier *cough*S.O.B.*cough* Vhailor and his careless attitude towards, well, pretty much everyone.  I take full blame for that, btw.  I should have gotten rid of him when he first started causing problems.  But anyway, yeah, that’s the long and short of April.  Not as much to write about, but far more devastating.

Keep on reading to hear as the roller coaster continues!  …Next week!  I’ll be  talking about May.  That one is actually pretty fun, a nice change from the dreariness of March and April.

Yeah, it’s been a while, I know.  *slaps own hand*  Rianon started bugging me to write again, and so I will!  It’s been a long few months with a lot of stories to tell.  Let’s see… March!

In March, I started playing a new MMO.  Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.  I mostly started it up because my husband wanted an account.  So, since I set it up for him while he was working he let me make a character.  It’s lots of fun, and not -everything- is party oriented…which is awesome.  Since I had just upgraded my computer, it was running beautifully.  Then, the end of March came.  Which, for me, meant…camping trip!  My family and I went with a couple of my husband’s friends up to Ruidoso in New Mexico.  Beautiful area.  Troublesome trip.

By the time we were all ready to head out, it was late afternoon on a Friday.  It’s a good 2-3 hour trip at best, so by the time we got there it was dark.  We had let someone borrow our tent, as well.  When we got it back, we found out too late that they didn’t give us our rain tarp with it.  And guess what?  As we started setting up our tents, it started raining.  No, not just raining…it was POURING rain.  And it was pitch dark thanks to the clouds.  While getting firewood, one of the guys gave himself a pretty nasty chop to the leg with his axe thanks to the pitch darkness.  Thankfully, it didn’t get infected.  So, now that we’re set up, using the tarp from the back of the truck as a cover for our tent, it stops raining.  And it’s cold.  Very, very cold.  And, our air pump for our matress decided to fizzle on us in the middle of inflating.  So, the first night was cold, wet, and uncomfortable.  Not to mention that one of our buddies was almost invaded by raccoons, and awakened at the crack of dawn by what sounded like a wild turkey.  Fun stuff.  I don’t think any of us got much sleep that night.  Next day, Saturday morning.  It’s a beautiful morning, and we spent the majority of it sitting at our campsite eating campfire breakfast made by me.  Great morning.  Then, afternoon hits.  We needed something to make for dinner that night since someone flaked out on food other than breakfast.  (The breakfast was my responsibility, so I take no blame, hahahahaha!)  So, we go to the truck and try to start it up… battery is dead.  And, we’re on an incline.  So it was almost impossible to push the truck up to where the road was (which, thankfully, wasn’t very far).  Eventually, someone passed down the road and gave us a jump.  Everything was peachy!  …until that night.  It was colder than the previous night, and none of us could get comfortable in our tents.  So, we all ended up piling into the worst tent of them all:  the one with the industrial tarp over it!  Thanks to the extra body heat and warm breath, it was actually somewhat bearable to sleep.  The next morning, there was no sound.  No birds, no bugs, nothing.  Then, the wind started.  Heavy wind, accompanied by some rain.  So, we started packing up and getting ready to go.  All seemed great until…we looked at the truck.  The back left tire was flat.  And I mean, on the rim flat.  Apparently, when we went food shopping the previous day, we had run over a heavy bolt.  Getting the spare tire out was a total fiasco, and we had to use nearby rocks to keep the jack even.  So, by the time that was all taken care of, we were ready to get the heck outta there!  We got home Sunday evening.  I decided it might be a good idea to check my e-mail, see who’d tried to contact me while the wilderness was pummeling me.  …my computer didn’t turn on.  I was dead tired, and I didn’t want to deal with it.  I’ll be honest.  I broke down right there and cried.  I had had enough.  The next day, I tried messing with it again.  Did everything I knew how to do, and nothing worked.  That night when my husband got home, he tried everything he could do…still nothing worked.  Neither one of us had any idea what was wrong with it.  We checked all the peripherals, thinking it might be that.  Nope.  Then, it started giving us the “No RAM” beep.  But, we had just gotten new shiny happy RAM…it didn’t make sense.  We tried (quite literally) everything from a new motherboard to a new processor.  Nothing was working.

In the interest of keeping up the suspense, I’ll cut it short here.  April will be the next month I write about, and that will come some time next week.  Keep your eyes peeled for some hot rl mithra action!  >.>;  Not like that…promise…get your minds outta the gutter!

Oh!  And here’s a couple of videos from that camping trip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjpKi5Pf3Tk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmFx_UHixko

*Tracy Chapman – Give Me One Reason playing in the background*

Lately I’ve been doing lots of thinking about Vanad’iel, and all my conclusions end up the same.  It just doesn’t hold the same zeal it once did.  Everyone who really mattered is gone, and the people I’ve been doing things with are just another random group of faceless personalities that don’t know me and don’t really want to.

It hasn’t been all bad, I really have enjoyed my two and a half years.  But the more I think back, the more I realize that all the people who really made a difference in the life of this kitty have moved on…and I think it might be time for me to do the same.  Perhaps it’ll just be a long break, perhaps indefinite, I’m not sure yet.  All I know is that…well…there’s no more joy, no more sense of accomplishment, and most importantly no more time to spend all day with a flag up, camping monsters, doing ungodly long missions, heck..even just getting anywhere.  My little girl is such a handful, I’ve got my own health and fitness program, and all the duties of a stay at home mom to deal with.  Not to mention an overly stressed husband to keep happy.

Another thing I’ve been thinking on is this:  When all is over, said and done, what does anything in-game really mean?  When I die and go up to the pearly gates and am asked what good I did in my life, what am I gonna say?  “Well, I had a level 75 white mage” and shrug my shoulders?  It’s all stopped making sense to me.

So, it’s time to part ways from the world for now.  If I know myself, I’ll end up back in Windurst in time.  Not to mention everything and everywhere else I call my home in Vanad’iel.  /farewell!

I’m now a very happy kitty. My computer is now a new creature, with a namebrand motherboard, a real Intel dual core processor *tears of joy from ditching an AMD Athlon*, and 4 GB of shiny new RAM. It wasn’t easy to get, and there was a fight every step of the way. It would seem that my computer didn’t want to be better…no, it definetly wanted to stay the way it was.

First, Brass and I tried to take out the old motherboard to put the new one in. That’s where the trouble began. All the screws came out just fine…except for one, right in the corner. We tried and tried and tried to get it to budge, but it just wouldn’t. So, what we had to do was drill a hole in the chassis to dislodge the screw. Thankfully, no one and nothing was harmed. Well, except for the thing we were harming. With a long fight, we got it out and put the new one in. That went relatively smoothly, everything fit where it was supposed to. When it came time to put the processor fan in however…. Only two of the four fasteners clicked into place. It took a great deal of effort, begging, and pleading to get them in. But finally, they behaved. Plugging everything in wasn’t so bad, since there was a key for which wires went where. And so the time came to put the case back on, plug it into the wall, and start it up. Second batch of trouble.

When it was plugged in, Windows had a fit. It didn’t know what anything was, and refused to make an effort to recognize it. And so it was that the dreaded words came out of my husband’s mouth: “You’re going to have to reinstall Windows.” *ominous music* Now, I really wouldn’t have had a problem with this if I had done the smart thing and backed up all my files on my secondary hard drive. But did I do something smart? Nooooo! So, we had a spare hard drive laying around, and installed windows onto it. We booted the system up from the other hard drive, and put all my pictures, documents, etc. on it and reformatted my hard drive, since the Windows install would have done that anyway. Or, at least that was the plan. Apparently, our CD ROM drive wasn’t quite connected so it was having its own little fit and wouldn’t be recognized by the system. Neither myself or my husband realized this, so we spent the day thinking about what we would do. That night, the drive was actually responding and being read. So we went forward with our plan and it worked out nicely. Ahh, now to install Windows on my main hard drive….

The disk drive wouldn’t be recognized again. After about an hour or two of fussing and fighting with this infernal contraption of a machine, I had a lucent thought: What if the drive wire is loose? Bingo. So, Windows was successfully installed on my hard drive. And now, the final and possibly most earth shattering part of all of this.

A while back, a friend of my husband’s came around and hung out with us. He used to play FFXI, but lost interest for whatever reason. He had wanted to go back, but had lost his discs. So, I did the nice thing and let him borrow mine so he could install it onto his computer. Now, I have yet to see the discs return to me. So here’s my dillemma. I need a new copy of FFXI. No biggie, I can run to the mall right near my house and visit the game shop. I went to the mall this morning, and went to the game shop. …They don’t have a PC game section anymore…. That’s ok, there’s still the music store. They have games, too. So I go down there. …EverQuest as far as the eye can see, and basically nothing else…. Ok, there’s a department store with an electronics section. Nothing, but I kinda expected that one. Well, that’s it for the mall. That’s ok, there’s a Wal-Mart right next door. So I go to the Wal-Mart. I check the electronics section….looks like it hasn’t been stocked in at least a week, and there is practically nothing there except for mah jongg adventure and the like. Needless to say, no FFXI. So, probably until next week or until I can find a copy of the game, I will not be playing with my new shiny happy computer. Instead, I’m stuck with the ps2 that I really dislike. So I probably won’t be on much at all. Stupid computer…. *stares it down*

I can’t control my joy today.   In the midst of all the drama and bs, something awesome happened yesterday.  While my Assault SP was out and about, we figured we might as well take out our next ToAU mission.  So we went, and things were going very smoothly.  While we were doing this we thought: Hey, why not try Alexander while we’re out here?  We really had nothing to lose, so we went for it.

Heeeeere's Alex!

First try, no meds, I didn’t even have to two hour…we won!  Where’s the big scary thing that everyone /fumes over?  It must have been having an off night or something.  But what a rush…an impromptu run through the last two fights of ToAU, and went off without a hitch!  Oh yeah, and something I promised myself I’d gloat about when this day came:

My hat? Made of win.

My crown!  Naja finally gave it back!  Made of win!  And as a little side note, I really like and should endorse ffxidats.com  >.>  Making me look cooler on my end from login to logout!

Oh what a wonderful week this is turning out to be.  …Actually, it could be worse, so I’ll refrain from bellyaching too much.  Let’s see, how about starting with the good stuff first!

Missions – Thursday, our SP took out Gessho with minimal owwies.  I have to say…I really enjoy the ToAU mission cutscenes.  So much humor, it’s really great!  We also knocked down a few assaults, and found the trend of “This is really annoying”.

Leveling – Since I got ninja out of the way, I decided to start tackling another subjob: Scholar!  Got it to 16 already and am currently in Selbina with my flag up.  Wish me luck!  Dancer hasn’t gotten much love, considering I spent most of my free time this week farming random things so I could afford a shiny happy Utsusemi: Ni scroll (which I managed to do last night).  Maybe next week I’ll try to level it more….

Dynamis – Another Sunday, another Dynamis!  This week was Dynamis – San d’oria.  It wasn’t a bad run, a little low on money though.  With a final count of 16 AF2, we rocked the elvaan city!  And I ended up with these somehow.

Other things – Here’s where it gets hairy.  A few days ago, I made a nasty little discovery…Jiko is back on Cerberus, and raising hell just like always.

As I may or may not have stated here, Raarmix was a cooperative effort between myself and Wheaty who had been aching to make his own linkshell for a while before I took the initiative.  Since I knew this, I worked with him on making the shell and writing out the rules and such.

Now, when Jiko came back, Wheaty and he got to talking I guess.  (Gah, I really despise being left in the dark… >.>;)  They had been hanging out together, or so I’m told, and now Wheaty has left the shell and taken down the ls website.  Just peachy.  The driving forces of the linkshell split apart because of some cocky little /btard who thinks he can get the best of me.

So yeah…if anyone sees him around… feel free to bash him.   He deserves it!  Rianon can tell you that! ;D

So yeah, this week’s blog doesn’t have much. ^^;  It wasn’t a very productive week last week, and since I don’t really want to write about cheese and /whine, I was going to opt not to write one.  However my biggest fan prodded me about it…so here I am and here’s what’s happened to me since I wrote last!

Missions – Last Thursday, our ToAU static tackled Puppet in Peril and Shades of Vengeance.  I dunno what it was about that mamool ja…but he really hated mithra that day. -_-  If he wasn’t chasing our poor kitty bard down, he was after me.  No one else!  But despite his obviously racist behavior, we won.  Shades of Vengeance was easy too, thankfully we had a good puller.

Levelling – Last Friday I managed to finally get a party on dancer, and got it to 65!  Thank Altana for the Japanese, they know what to do with me! XD  It was awesome, dnc main heal in a bird camp with a brd puller… *drool*  Also, yesterday I finally managed to finish soloing ninja to 37.  Fields of Valor is great!  Makes painstakingly annoying jobs a little more stress free.

Dynamis – This past week, my linkshell did two dynamis runs.  Wednesday in Bubu, and Sunday in Bastok.  Bubu got us…nothing too interesting.  Two accessories, one drk and one rng.  Sunday was a killer day for synthesis materials lotters with 16+ wootz ores and pretty nice for money lotters with 2 100 currency drops.  However, for people like me lotting AF…not so good. XD  Especially drg…honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them drop there.  Maybe since I complained about it here, I’ll see it next time we go!  *crosses fingers*

Well, here’s to hoping the rest of this week turns out great for everyone!

And what a week it’s been.  Today, I’m going to discuss everything that has happened to me from the mundane to the wild.

Missions – This past week, I started getting caught up again with WotG.  I really do like the story so far, just wish the updates on it weren’t so few and far between! >.<  I’d go into more detail…but for now all I’m going to say is: blah blah blah, spoiler, blah lol blah blah, spoiler, spoiler, blah.   This past week, our ToAU SP tackled Shield of Diplomacy as well, with only one death…poor Raseraun, he always has the tendency to make monsters angry at him….

Dancer – If only I could say that dancer was going somewhere.  It’s still stuck at 63, ever so slowly creeping up with campaign battles.  But then again, when my dancer is in a party I do get the feeling that my spot could be filled with, oh I dunno, anything else.   Another solo job past 60?  Yeah, I think it is.  {That’s too bad.}

Dynamis – Ahh yes.  Another week, another dynamis.   This past week we tackled both Dynamis – Tavnazia and Dynamis – Jeuno so no one was left out on the action.  Since I still need the Qufim sliver *cry* I was in the Jeuno group.  It was a rocky start for us, since another shell was in there before us and were…well…kinda dumb about exiting, making us start almost an hour late.  Most everyone had left, however there were two souls who were afk and dead and were being yelled at by their leader for about 20 minutes to just hp and get out so we could enter..but nooo.  Once we did manage to get in though, it was a great run especially with an entire alliance missing from our usual ranks.  14 AFs, including these:

Two Koga feetz in a row! o.O

And these:

Yay!

Which I now proudly wear.   No more running with bare hands or dusk gloves for me!