Well I only logged in out of tearful drunken nostalgia.

Mal'Ganis is lonely, hit me up.

I'm in a funny mood tonight

who remembers IT'S ON

I was drunk here but yeah things were a bit dodgy with me last night. Too much lager and a disappointing football match!

Heavenly Creatures is bloody funny

Been back a bit longer now, back into the swing of things even? When you swap around from game to game shit gets confused, you don't know your place in the world, all is askew... and you are LADEN WITH FAIL! See also: dying in Tav.

Been doing Salvage again, it's kinda more fun than I remember. I really miss Neo's kclub rng action and the way that we'd always start out having Ajit's mnk unlock everything and then Neo would just be tank anyway. But then he'd die or something and Ajit would be all "yeah". Actually that says more about how awesome a healer I am (not). Anyway I'm trying to pay more attention these days but people still die because I keep forgetting that this isn't wow and I can't take a 15min afk, come back when I hear a ready check and play for 5 minutes then afk again. I'm sorta joking. Sorta. I have to pay attention now cause Firelink is MNK and he has so much HP I just hold down the cure3 button.

Got some drops the couple of SSRs I was back for so far, like THREE CONSECUTIVE usu head 35s or something (never ever saw it before), plenty for all, and some nice new magey macha's trousers for Grant. So then we had to farm marids or something for the mats, and a chigoe killed me, and then we killed some more marids and I was so tired I forgot to buy Moogley Bonanza stuff. Just as well really, I wouldn't have won and would have moaned about wasting money/space on marbles for sure. Now I don't have to bother, happy days!

Grant slew me on LAC brainjack like always, I swear he locks on to me before he even gets charmed or something. Not cool bro! >:o

I did the first ever astral burn I ever, ever did with Illytaru, Grant, and some others. It was pretty fun, in the "standing around for 30 mins while pulling then nuke the gnaester out of things" way.  So I guess next time I get to pull with phalanx or something on another job because that one burn to chain 130-something took my SMN buffer (as if I ever play SMN) from like 8k to capped + 2 merits, and the cute newish player we synced to from 13pld to.... 20something pld? He was proper ecstatic and really kind of adorable despite being a dhalmel.

Did a couple of Dynamis-Tav, sadly neither time did anything Tav-exclusive drop apart from some +acc enchant gloves. We did get a couple of nice Xarc AFs, better than nothing, but c'mon, it's Tav, gief something special. The 2nd Tav went better, I think it's a really good idea to do them close together rather than once in a blue moon so everyone is confident and things go more smoothly as a result. Only thing is, I keep dying on BLM. A lot. And it's always massive, ridiculous fucking overkill like 1400, or a random t4, or a double attack for 600+ each with terra's, cheviot, goliard pants blah blah. I need one of those JSE earrings, doubt it would save my life at <30% hp but I'm all for sacrificing an inventory slot for another placebo item.

Rosandra came back to Knights, I'm really happy to see an old (well not really, but feels like it after 8 months gone) face and my only fellow Englisher come back and talk to me about Spaced. I'm starting to chat with newer people in the shell and impressions are pretty good too. Darc and Tild back also make it a happy place. >:{D>

We did Odin last Sunday, I did put screenshots on FFXIAH but they turned out so boring because I was spazzing out the whole time. It's such an fun and epic fight, although not very hard, except for the annoying aoe curse/silence and dangers when rebuffing after buffs are wiped. I didn't play WHM much since coming back and had to redo macros in Hazhalm before entering. Luckily I did OK, kept people buffed, healed, silena'd and so forth, apart from an unlucky buff-wiping tp move -> terror+aoe dmg ws when I rebuffed tanks -> some other rapey AoE that splatted me. I hadn't done anything requiring much focus since about... ooh, last July? so I was kinda bricking it but managed to RR->rest->heal->repeat until unweak with Eru covering, and tanks were being good. Rur's back on nin which I love and Drakul who joined while I was gone is a good pld and did well.

So it was all gravy and we finished with much time to spare. We have a butt ton of rangers in LS and Cylus SMN too for Zantetsuken. Shame about the drops, (h feet/body, nhead, fork) but I'm biased after we got ebody when we did it before. All were wanted (sorta... poor shadow clogs for 1 point or something) and I'm glad, but kings bodies would have been nice simply for the rarity value for us, probably about 90 bajillion people want an ebody. I was very happy we won easily and quickly in ~20 mins (5mins of which holding time because I died LOL) with 19, thanks to great kiting (<3) and damage. Plus 2 new happy DRGberts in shell with a new hat and a fork to poke it with.

Also did Omega, easy peasy etc, stupid hat dropped though taking up a slot for something actually wanted. We also got the most coins from pods I'd ever seen. Some smelly BLU got new pants though. Hm what else, nothing really, except I levelled a little with Kainelf's BLU (fun actually, I really like just engaging and hitting things...) and did MNK afs. Alei was a star and "helped" me when I was bored. We killed some new NM I'd never seen before in CN, it was really funny, it was the scorpion with a name like Afeqgjlfdkwedf which spammed Cold Breath and 2shot his 1400 hp but then it died anyway because Xey showed up on a Galka I'd never even seen before and Raging Rush'd it in the liver.

I swear back when people used to actually exp in Garlaige keys fell like rain. I don't know why I thought it'd be a good idea to go on MNK51 to farm coffer keys with Alei when I needed to retrace anyway to find the coffer. I might as well have told him to go and study properly and gone on RDM (well, I did say that but he ignored me). Anyway we got there in the end, he got some studying done in the process, and I finished my AF. Now to fulltime it to 75. The NM for the last piece was a super bitch, because I didn't wiki it before popping and I didn't realise it has THIRTY THOUSAND COCKING HP. It took like 15 mins to kill it on pld, jesus christ. It was just hitting hard enough that I couldn't even afk and make a cup of tea, so yeah, I kinda regret turning down the cute mithra thf who offered me help. Not gonna take up someone else's valuable scroll farming time though tbh, and besides, I got like 5 levels of parrying because, yeah, it's a mnk NM. Score.

Saw Motakie, Sobie, Sorencia online the last couple of days, it was great, I really miss those guys, keeping in touch out of game isn't really the same. You don't get that kind of shared thingymcgubbins (simultaneous social interaction?) on facebook, it's just a fancy forum with shiny buttons. Motcat is prob my fav mithra cause she's super casual and cool with it, and still manages to have great magey skills and a 95 craft. I really admire people with any high level craft because frankly, cooking 40 bored the shit out of me and it only took about an afternoon of muling.

I wish Etibian still played :( Looks like he quit while I was gone. I miss our flist conversations spanning like 3 days or whatever with anecdotes of Garuda. Dunno what happened to Tyger but he's not in LS anymore it seems, I only played with him a few days but super nice guy, will have to clone him or something. Cactus is on more now as well, yay plantaru. Seems Xey is keeping it strictly EU hours though, sucks when timing means you don't get to talk with people.

Uhhh, oh yeah some lucky people got koggelmanders in MMM today. We did the bugard dude on 2 occasions now, first time 1 sword, this time 2. Grant and Fogo wanted for BLU, sadly the 2nd was in Alei's hoardbox so Fogo missed out. Annoying part was, there was an earring in Illy's box too but it went poof because he has one.

RL wise have been up to a bit. Been out partyin a lot lately, summer is here and that means beach, barbecues, boozin and so on. Was invited to a fun party on Saturday night to celebrate my friend's cousin's wife becoming a qualified teacher (!) didn't know anyone except my friend and her cousin but enjoyed myself, chatted to some 14 year olds about how they should stop playing xbox and read more books (actually they were nice kids, one of them said "I want to be a primary school teacher" and I was all "D'AWWWWWWW" in my head, how often do you hear that from a teenage boy and not footballer, rapper, drug dealer?). Stayed up all night listening to Billie Holiday and drinking some more round another friend's, ruined me for the Monday though.

My BFF came down for a quick visit from Norfolk, I miss Kat so much when she's not around <3. We had a good night out on Friday with some of her other friends-she-hadn't-seen-in-6-months and we had girly chats and all that + cute photos with her meeting my new doggy. I actually sorta appreciate having so many people I know spread around the country, it makes actually seeing them all the more pleasant. My old college buddy Meg came down to visit too last month, she was in Edinburgh before moving to London, and it was like we'd not seen each other for 3 days instead of 3 years. One thing I do wish is that it was more feasible to meet online-only people. I know that hypothetically everyone on the internet is a serial-killing-paedo-rapist, but there's lots of people I'd love to meet with for like a pint now and again and chat to, if only they didn't live in Wyoming or Singapore or wherever. Let's work on making a Teleport-Mea irl happen..

Rereading this over it's encouraging, I feel like I am enjoying FF again more than I did at the point where I was being almost forced to play, maybe this break was what I needed. I hope I can continue to semi-casual it up rather than being stressed and ragey like I was before.

Byebye, Keria~

Been back like a week now, certain people are still rolling around being morons, ho hum pig's bum. Raen is back, yay etc, Asmodee back to and joined some moron new shell called (?) minutemen who are supposedly laden with fail. Poor guy can never get a break. AV's latest incarnation seems pretty fail, they got a few rejects from knights as well as lolHassassin and a certain mithra who is pretty terrible. same old AV attitude though haha

Dynamis is still pretty fail, we managed to kill Bubu time guy with like 15 people and 1 SV brd which isn't too bad, the fail comes with only drop all run being bst hands -1.

ix'thingy (the one who RRs) was kinda fail too, he only RR once but we agroed a ghrah moving him and one of his adds EES'd me after I stunned it. and deeded of course.

BLM is super behind the times, having been gone 7 months and all, I got like 3M of shit on AH to buy for it and everyone and their mother has morrigan robe (even more than before). QQ etc, hope I can get my hands on a macha's coat and sell genie and be all YO IM PURPLE DAWG.

RDM's still missing MMM earring. I just did the earring NM maze with some LS people but no drops except a koggelmanderthingy. Nothing else missing except the obvious ROBE QQ and like dusk feet+1 which frankly, I don't really give a shit about- not that desperate for money atm so I can't be arsed to do anything where I might actually need those.  gotta keep augmenting shit too sigh; want a mnd bow for god's sake!

WHM is missing a bunch but tbh I don't care. Utility job and all, someday I will work out how to properly combine Afflatus, Esuna and Sacrifice and all will be right with the world. even with my patched together sets i'm still better geared than 95% of people with whm, shame just changing to whm in mog house makes me want to afk and sleep.

BRD probably needs to finally upgrade marduk tiara but my funds are kinda limited so morrigans comes first.

BST: lol

PLD: bought it a terror shield, kind of a campaign beast, the other day though I went to the longest campaign ever (2hrs+ easy) in Rolanberry, some PLD NM turned up and Cylus pulled hate, I had to engage and cover, then invincibled so of course the fucker finished me with holy, gotta love that irony, then after I rr'd, managed to agro like 6 quadavs and had to kite them round the fort for the next 10 mins in terras/wlegs/vermy (lolstillhaven'tupgradedaresbody) while recovering from weakness. Then by the time I was down to 1 chasing me, I engaged and the fucker warped. TYPICAL. In general though PLD is a huge campaign beast and I really enjoy it especially /rdm.

SMN: capped buffer in some astral burn last night, again can't really be arsed, just want relic horn so I can store the bloody relic and save space. only gonna get used in said astral burns and on like odin so whatevs! need odin/alex though so im getting serious about finishing toau (I have been on toau42 for about 18 months- really, best part is i was salvaging all those months and never once ran out of mp so fuck you very much for making me do these missions and saddling me with balrahn's ring SE)

levelling mnk, drg and blu on and off. mnk is 48 and the only one with slight gear effort whatsis. not shelling out for crosscounters though fuck that. gonna have some TM+2 weap made probs. really need 25 usu feet to finish usu boots before it gets 75 though. blu's going to 49 as a sub for whatever. is surprisingly bearable but like, taxing getting spells and just unfun when compared to pld/rdm. need sam49 also in case i ever get my butt in gear and level war like i keep saying i will.

einherjar is still fail; just did a t3 with same ls we were going with before my break and like I was the only one cursnaing and succeeding, i'm mortal ray god. always stun it in tav and always the one to win at cursna haha. timed out after the world's longest wipe to chairguy and friends, got a good laugh from blms trying to sleep imps and then binding them on top of people when they failed. was funny shit how often mobs came running for me when i had just rr'd, i ended up blowing penury/celerity constantly just to keep rr up and cast the odd haste/cure. odin is planned on sunday with silly low numbers; let's hope a) we win (had 30 last time and Neo who counts as like 3) and b) abody drops so i can cry when i lose it to someone who didn't take an 8 month break.

tatty byes, keria~

people in my ls going on about how they like "all natural" women, apparently this means no silicone, i think it means full body hair. what do you think livejournal

why do i obsess over this stupid shit haha this is ridiculous i need a life or something!

#1: never bother reading or even skimming a blog with "musings" in the header

Had no net for like 6 weeks, before that my life was being eaten by MMOs. Enjoyed the break but it rly rly rly hasn't given me any goddamn focus at all. First thing I did when I got the net back was log into FFXI, 2nd was log into WoW, 3rd was download like 100 albums from various blogs. As opposed to job hunting. On the plus side I did write 15 pages of MY NOVEL LOL and did a bit of arty wank on the side. I don't really think I'm a born artist, but I do my best. 

Been thinking I should make this a MY LAIF style journal or something, but then that would be pretty stupid since the name is from ffxi. On the other hand though I really don't want yet another blog account that I will update once and forget about so I don't know. Shit.

Here, have a painting I did in 2008. It is sort of shit but also one of those happy accidents where you just start painting and everything goes right the way you want it to straight away.



And one from 2006, oh god, where did my je ne sais quoi go, not the cheeky shooping out of the crap parts