Update? sure why not..

If you've got me on facebook, you'd know kind of what's been going on lately. Twitter, not so much ... as I've not really personally updated that in some time. So, how about a little update?

As I'd stated before, I have been going through a separation with my wife Victoria. We've been separated for some time now, and admittedly I was trying to repair it all. Though, through looking back at things and at my own feelings, there's nothing to repair. Our friendship just finally got to where it should have been from the start I suppose. Now I'm not saying that I didn't have a blast, nor do I regret being with her for so long and having 3 of the best behaved children their ages that I have seen ... anywhere. So, I'd been on this site called Plenty of Fish for some time, messaging many girls, trying to see if anyone would even be interested in talking to me at all.

About a month ago, a girl stated to the system that she wanted to meet me. I checked my profile's mailbox to find that she hadn't messaged me. So, I messaged her. She did in fact want to meet, and we were going to meet up and do a mini-golf thing... After messaging back and forth, it seemed that all she wanted was sex... which, while that's all fine and dandy... I'd rather not get that involved with someone just out of the blue without learning much about them. I tried to pry out some info from her, but she seemed reluctant to disclose anything. I went ahead and called the date off, telling her that I couldn't find a sitter...and well, she never replied back other than to say she couldn't find one either. So I suppose the feeling was mutual.

The following day I got one more girl that said they wanted to meet me. But I also got an actual message from someone else, stating they liked my profile. Seeing as this one actually took the time to go through and read my profile (which was quite long... much like how I write everywhere), I wrote her back. She was concerned about how far away I lived, and her profile stated she wanted to be able to spend time at least 3 times a week with whoever she were to try to start a relationship with. Unfortunately though, she is currently vehicle-less. The other big problem? The fact that she lives an hour and a half drive roughly from me.

We started chatting on the PoF site for a bit until it started being stupid, so we started actually texting. Things were discussed and we opened up to each other, answering any and all questions. Everything felt so perfect. So, I agreed to get down to her at least to see how the actual chemistry would work out. Now, I'll say that I've got some ... unique things in my mind that happened when I was younger (namely in dreams... yea strange) ... When I got there and a scene opened before me that I remembered seeing such a long time ago...and I knew things were perfect. We went in to her place, watched some movies, cuddled and all the good stuff. Nothing was really planned other than watching movies and cuddling...so we were both very happy about it going so well.

Everything was so great I really didn't want to leave. But I knew I needed to get home so that I could make sure the kids got up for the bus in the morning, and because Victoria didn't have an alarm set to do it herself. Since that date at her place went on, we've spent time on the phone, and texting a lot. I also managed to get time just this past week to get back down there and do much the same as last time, this time the movies were ones I brought. We only watched one movie really, then spent a while cuddling and stuff before I needed to go so that I wouldn't be tired on the drive home, and so she could get on some of her college work. Yes, I was such a distraction that she couldn't focus on the homework while I was there :)

Well, I'd love to be able to get down there more often, but... Well, this job that I had landed with TeleTech kind of has been delayed a few times, and this latest delay has me now starting towards the end of November (the 28th) for training. So, I spent yesterday applying to some other places again ... partly because I want to replace my video card in my machine due to necessity (the fan on it died, and now it overheats within 10 minutes of doing anything graphical intensive at all) ... but also to build up the funds to be able to get the divorce paperwork started and finished. I'd rather have Victoria able to go out and get her own place like she wants and not have her have to pay some exorbitant amount of money because she's married and unable to claim homestead exemption on two houses. Also, because I want to make sure my new girlfriend sees that I really am serious about our relationship (along with her family that isn't too thrilled with me only being separated).

So, yea, now I just have to get some job somewhere and get everything underway as fast as possible ... I applied yesterday at staples for their computer repair desk, but also applied at publix ... yes... as a bagger, or even stock person ... I've also got some applications to finish off at a couple hospitals around here to do pretty much anything they will let me do ... I just want some steady income that will let me be able to live on my own comfortably without having to rely on Victoria, and also be able to eventually build up the cash to repair some stuff that needs to be fixed in this house ... like, my heater, which seems to have croaked yet again ... and my front door, which also ... seems to be falling apart ... again ... Oh well.

yet again, what's going on here?

So, lately I've been pretty busy. What with me trying to get my certifications and also still searching for a job.

So, I'm still looking for a future mate, and that's still not going that great.

Anyway, next up is my normal gaming bit.

I've gotten into the FireFall beta ... and that's about all I'm allowed to say LOL ... oh well, whenever the NDA lifts, I'll share more about it... but I've been waiting for it for over a year now.

In the mean time, some friends got me into League of Legends ... it's pretty cool, and as an E-Sport, it's kicking arse ... and really kicking WoW to the curb as most played game on XFire, and average time played. If anyone reads this, sign up on League of Legends with this link...and try to grind up to like level 5 at least ... so I can get some free RP :) a lot easier than having to wrestle with funds to get the real $$$ towards it

Good gosh...

I'd forgotten about this for such a long time.

So, what's been going on?

lots of things actually... some good, some bad, and some that I'm not going to disclose on the internet here.

The workfront of things hasn't gone any better. Well, at least in the case of having a steady paying job. I'd managed to get an interview with Universal Orlando, for a security position... I feel I flew through the initial interview with ease. The problem lies in the fact that Security positions require a second interview, which I've not gotten :(

Luckily however, I was approved for the WIA grant from the state (I got one of the last 4 for this year I think she said). This gives me $5000 towards retraining / certifications needed for job market. I've already gotten a class schedule set up with New Horizons to use that 5k, which they will be pushing another $500 my way towards their MCITP program cost. Which, will cover the entire thing! YAY being able to get certified for free. Not to mention that I'll be rubbing elbows with some higher ups from some great companies while I'm down there, so I could possibly get some good networking in to get a great job in the future.

On the gaming front, I was playing Rift for a while there, and it was a blast. Really, it was. Up until I needed to pay for the MRC, and with a lack of a steady paying job, that's impossible to keep up. So, I had to hold off for a while. In the mean time, the group I was playing with on there, were going downhill when someone pseudo-took over the guild, but some would still stick on Vent. A couple of them had started playing World of Tanks, and invited me to join them, seeing as it is free to play. Awesome I thought, get on there, play some tank shooting and have some fun. The couple of guys didn't want to start a guild up on it, and I kind of prefer to have a higher social-able group of people, so I managed to see that the OTG (Old Timer's Guild) was playing as well...so I joined up with them. Gaming is great, I get to have some fun, chat with some fellow older aged gamers, and ignore my constant pain in my back a little easier.

After grinding away for a while on there, I got an invite to a closed beta test of Eden Eternal. Being another Free MMORPG, I figured what the heck, I'll see what it's like. Closed beta didn't have as many bugs in it as you would half expect, especially from a translated game that's still in development. Closed beta only lasted about a week and a half, then the brought the server down for a 3 day maint to upgrade / update some stuff, before dropping it into open beta. they raised the level cap from the closed beta, but it's not to the true cap for the game (mainly it seems so that they can add only a couple classes at a time safely). See, in this game, you can change classes anywhere on the field, or in the dungeons...barring in the middle of combat. There are 5 main styles of classes: Defensive (tanks), Melee (close range DPS), Ranged (ranged dps), Healer (duh?), and Magic damage (another ... duh?). Each style of play allows you to progress however you see fit. When you first start off you only have the choice of being a mage or a warrior (magic or defensive). At character level 5 (there are character (heroic) levels, and class levels) it unlocks the ability to be a cleric. Later you get hunter (ranged) and thief (melee).

Unfortunately it seems the botters and gold-sellers are already all up in the game and trying to feed the people money that they got against the ToS. I enjoyed one time though, seeing a group of 5 botters that were hunters with their hunter pets out (a tiger). in sequence, they all would target the nearest mob, send their pets in (simultaneously mind you), then start auto-attacking. Kindly enough, they'd parked themselves near a path where a guild boss would walk, but smartly enough that their bot wouldn't go attacking that guild boss. These guild bosses HURT ... a LOT. Luckily they leash back to their spawns if you agro them and can get out of their way without getting one-shot. Unluckily for these botters, I could pull said guild boss in the middle of the group of them, pop into a hide that drops agro from me and pulls me out of combat, and watch them target it, and proceed to get owned by it. I called for GM assistance with the bots, as they would walk back one by one, and once all were at the spot, would start up their bot again. The GM said they'd watch for a little while to make sure they're botting. I said that 99.9999% of people that see a guild boss agro'd on someone, would immediately run for the border, seeing as all of the guild bosses have mean AoE attacks that will kill most people that are leveling in those areas. I then pulled the guild boss over again, they did their predictable thing of targeting the boss, siccing their pets, and start attacking. The GM started laughing and called in a couple more GM's to actually show up in front of all of them, rather than staying invisible ... they then popped some major bosses on top of them, and watched them start going to town on said bosses, which one-shot all of them.

Other than the idiot botters, and gold-selling spammers you see in the initial starting area and the main town ... the game's pretty solid ... I mean, what game do you know of, that gives you a pet for free early in the game, which will pick up all your loot so that you don't have to ... and said pet (a dog) ... has the graphic ... pretty ... shall we say, accurate? Well, at least the paint job, unless you'd consider them all to be females. The dog is a Pug, with a curly tail...under the tail? yep, that's a little brown spot ... it's bum-hole! Later on you get an all white Alpaca as a mount ... guess what's under it's poofy rabbit-like tail? Yep, the anus. Totally awesome to have a graphic designer actually put that detail in a model's skinning, and even more awesome for the devs and publishers to keep it in. Yes the overall graphics are child-like, but the game itself is no-where near childish. There is a LOT to do, and as you level up you get new classes to try out. You're even kind of encouraged (on a side way) to level up other classes. See, the more class levels you accrue, you get more class points, which, at certain point breaks, you get a permanent buff to your HP, MP, Attack, and Magic Attack.

The one problem I've seen so far? All classes have HP and MP yes ... and all skills use MP. Now, when you're thinking of a game that has 3 DPS class trees (each tree has 3 classes in them by the way), and 2 other class trees that are caster based... which one would you think uses the most MP potions? Mages and clerics? nope, they don't use much at all actually, even when in a rough fight. The real MP users are the melee classes, followed closely by the ranged DPS'rs. Heck, the second magic DPS class (requires character level 35, and mage level 30) is an illusionist, which has a buff at level 20 I think it was ... that regenerates mana for everyone in range. This spell is a god-send in dungeons, especially if the player keeps it up. Add in a Bard for party-wide Heal Over Time song, the party will dang near faceroll a dungeon. Unfortunately though, the majority of the dungeons are only 3 players allowed in the dungeon ... only because the first 5 person dungeon is 3 or 4 zones away from the starter one. Each zone up to that point has one dungeon each, and then from that point has 2.

Yes, being a free to play game, means there is a cash shop, and I've already seen my fair share of people dumping hundreds of dollars into it, and it's only started the item mall when the open beta started on Thursday (the 16th) ... I mean what the heck people ... I could use that money myself, why not donate it to me? :D

Anywhos ... I'll try to remember to update this more often.

So....more banks?

Right, so just now, well, maybe not JUST now ... but still, recently, I'd gotten a couple @messages via Twitter from SunTrust, concerning Friday's Blog post I made. I couldn't write that scathing e-mail I said I was going to do, because their web-form didn't have a check-box for COMPLAINT for the first reason, and for the second reason that their web-form had an "8 line" limit, although it didn't prevent you from going over 8 "lines", it wouldn't let you send it if you were over that limit. My message I had originally written may have been able to be shortened down a fair bit had I used less punctuations, and shortened words into "txt wrd lngth", but I don't think that would have been enough still. Let's just say, if I were to have pulled up the form on my smart phone, if held in portrait view, it would have had room on either side of the form.

My message to them was all typed out, and ready to go, but I wasn't about to break up my message and send it 8 separate times. Yes, my message ended up being nearly 64 of their "lines", without line breaks in it to try to save space. Granted, yes, I can be a bit long-winded, but when you try to explain the following (which is what I wrote by the way):

Greetings, to whomsoever this needs to get to…Recently I had gone to couple forced trips far out of town from my own for my military disability compensation claims evaluation. Doing this, the VA allows to have a reimbursement check mailed to you for travel expenses. This recent check that I had gotten was for a simple $72 and some change. Having been a prior SunTrust account holder, I figured I would give a minor chance to re-earn my trust that was lost after a slower than expected fraud reversal process. I stepped into the office in Leesburg, FL, off of highway 27. Upon entering the location I had never been in before, I was greeted expectedly as I entered. I noted however at entry, that there wasn’t a desk or set-aside area for individuals to fill out deposit/withdraw slips (however I may have missed it being camouflage or something where one would expect to see this countertop (which, normally would be before the entrance to the queue to see a teller)). Behind the glass, were 3 representatives, one of which was assisting another customer. I did not take note of which teller I had walked up to (mainly due to the fact that I am very forgetful over names, and I figured this would be an easy transaction). Upon signing my check, handing it, along with my photo ID, I was asked if I had an account. I of course answered no, as I had closed those accounts and had the monies transferred to my USAA account (Which, if you didn’t know, USAA only handles Military, Prior Military, or the spouses of same). At that time, the one teller had finished with her customer and came over to ‘explain’ that I would have to have an account to withdraw money. I stated that it was a military check, that I had no account, and that I just wanted to cash the check for the amount it was for, not withdraw from an account; or deposit it into my USAA account. At this time, the third teller had come over, along with the greeter from the door (slow day if all 4 people needed to come to confront me, as if I were trying to rob the place or something). All 4 of them were attempting to get me to open a new account, “we’d love to have you back”, “you need an account to cash a check”, “that’s what happens when you deal with a bank like that”. Now, that last comment was from the original teller…I’m sorry, but right there, showed a level of ineptitude that I wouldn’t stand for. I calmly retrieved my check, and my driver’s license, bid them a “you’re welcome for my service to your freedom”, and started for the door. That statement showed to me that all of them either had never heard of USAA, or thought it to be “just another online only bank”. It is either that, or if they had known as to the bank’s history and clientele, had no appreciation for service members. To me, if I walk into a bank, ANY bank, with a GOVERNMENT check, I should be able to withdraw that money…that bank would get the money from the government, it’s not like they’re passing out bad checks, or that you wouldn’t get the money.

... it's kind of hard to not explain the faults that I experienced. Anyway, done bitchin about that for now, perhaps I'll write later tonight, or sometime again soon...I've been slacking ... (at least not as much as [GM]Dave though, which I used to read regularly...until he just ... stopped ... after saying he'd be back to regular updates ... I miss GM blogs, maybe I need to try to get to be a GM on Rift or something and blog about that

*edit* Just applied for an in-game-rep at Trion (makers of Rift), although I don't know if I'll get it due to not being near their centers -.- ... maybe they could help me relocate?

Stupid Banks!!!

Ok, so, I recently went for a review for increasing my disability with the VA. I had to drive all the way up to Daytona Beach VA center to do this ... and I had to do it twice. Once to be able to get x-rays on my back, and the second to actually see someone to do the review. I've not gotten anything back on if they're increasing my disability %'age yet, but meh. For those that don't know, when you are 'forced' to travel to a VA appointment, you can attempt to claim travel compensation. This is a GREAT thing for now, with the fact that the gas prices are soaring. I recently did get my compensation check in the mail. Unfortunately they wouldn't just deposit it into my bank on file with my disability checks.

The reason this is unfortunate, is because now I have a check that I'd like to deposit into my bank (USAA), which there are no offices in Florida. Upon signing up with USAA, I was informed that I should be able to go to any bank and deposit money into the account. This would be a great thing obviously, if it were the case with SunTrust. Now, I'd had an account or three with SunTrust before, but I had canceled them all when there was a Fraud issue that wasn't solved in ANY kind of timely manner (I believe I blogged about it before). Anyway, I went with this GOVERNMENT check, into SunTrust (Specifically the one in Leesburg, off of Highway 27), wherein I was informed that I not only couldn't cash said check unless I had an active account with them, but that I wouldn't be able to deposit the check into my USAA account.

For those not in the know, USAA bank is specifically there for Military and Prior military individuals, such as myself. Normal individuals cannot get an account there without either being in the Military themselves, previously been in the military, or the spouse of either. So, SunTrust therefore not only doesn't accept to cash any checks unless you have an account with them, but they obviously don't support our military by not allowing you do deposit money into a military bank account.

I'd say now, if you hadn't done so after my last scathing blog post about them, leave SunTrust, and never look back. Even if you're not prior military, or military currently. If you desire to support our troops, SunTrust isn't the way to go. I will be writing a nice scathing letter straight to SunTrust themselves regarding these issues. But I will not step foot into any of their banks again.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

On the Gaming front, I'm enjoying Rift like mad, and if anyone wants to join me, by all means, message/comment and I'll get you info as needed :)

Rift

Oh my gosh, when was the last time I updated this? oh yea, that horrible weekend.

So, the results of my 4 complaint letters to them yielded me ... not a refund ... but two complimentary 2 day 2 park passes. After that debacle, and me telling them I'm not planning on going back any time soon ... that's their solution.

Meh, I suppose we could try again sometime next year, or maybe later this year, I mean, we did pay for the passes and were seriously disappointed. And they're not seeming to understand that I'd rather have my money back than to go again just because it's "free".

I think the last time I posted, I had gone back to FFXI, and was having some fun there. Up until I decided to take one of my lower leveled jobs up to the new cap...boy was that a mistake. I mean, I got bitched at for being gimp, bitched at for not having the best gear for my level (when I was leveling super fast with the new areas), bitched at for TRYING to skill up my skills (because my damage sucked, they just wanted me to sit and do nothing), THEN a tard that I thought to be a friend sends me a tell saying I should listen to the people that were already top level on the job I was trying to level. I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING DAMNIT. That's exactly what I said to the guy just moments before canceling the subscription to FFXI, and browsing some free games.

I found Vindicated, which was a pretty nicely done graphically game. It being free, it was surprising to see that level of graphics. Then I ran into the part where they LIMIT your ability to play the game per day, or even per 3 days if you go through and use all your travel tokens on the same day that they are granted. Oh sure, you could have other players foot your travel cost if they're nice... but why would they decide to do that if they're trying to ration them to play for the three days? Sure you could go play the starter area that doesn't cost travel coins, but after a certain point, you get no EXP, and end up just walking through beating the snot out of everything while the newbies that are trying to do it themselves just soak up the exp that your pain-train is causing. Granted, even at max level you couldn't one-shot the bosses on the beginner isle, but still, the fodder was laughable.

Friends in the UK wanted me to come back to WoW again, so I went back ... All was well, got to the new cap in a very short amount of time. Found that the hacker that had gotten into my account had stripped me of all my gold, and taken off my herbalism, and replaced it with mining. The GM's weren't able to restore my character or anything because it was so long ago. Luckily the tard that got ahold of the char didn't strip it's gear, just the gold. So I made my money, got the new stuff, and was ready to raid the new dungeons ... but, then it got boring again ... I hadn't even gotten into a "schedule" with doing things (mainly because there was no schedule with the guild I was in, but also because I was getting bored). So, I rolled up a mage. I was topping most DPS charts for a while, and it was fun ... got myself up into the 60's or 70's I think before it got boring there as well.

Went to Wal-Mart and was wandering around, saw Rift on the shelf, and figured, meh, I'll try it...what's the worst that happens? I write a review of it saying what it's about and why I'd not play it? ... Well, how about this, I write about how quickly I canned my WoW subscription once I popped in Rift. It was exactly 10 minutes BEFORE I started Rift up for the first time. Wait, how is that possible? Well, I could care less about WoW really. I'd read reviews and stuff from people about Rift that had played the beta, and I was actually kind of looking forward to playing it eventually anyway. This just came sooner than latter.

My personal experiences so far have made me feel I've been accomplishing things along the way (and not in the fact that there's achievements in the game). The gameplay is nice. The dynamic raids that the NPC's cause is superb (although at one event I'd taken part in, it bugged out). There are so many other things that are great about this game that I can't write it down. I am playing on all the ultra settings, and the only time I see a slow-down in my FPS, is when one of the zone events kicks in and I run over to the boss...75+ people all firing spells and skills at a huge mob makes for huge particle effects all over the place, which slows me down to like 7-15 FPS. Meh, that's not bad really considering what's going on, with ULTRA settings no less. Granted I've also got a kickin system so to say for it's age (I could use a better vid card).

The downside that I dislike about it, that I had liked in WoW, is the fact that there's no dungeon queue thing. You have to watch or shout out for dungeon crawls. Granted, dungeons aren't NEEDED, mainly because you'll be going through them all when you hit the 50 cap, and do all the dungeons on expert difficulty. Sure you'd leave a few quests behind by skipping the dungeon, but that's no biggie really.

There aren't any addons or plugins for the game, nor is there a capability to use them currently. I say currently because the devs hinted somewhat that they may be working on that capability, but they want to make sure that everything is perfect before launching anything (even though some things are bugged currently, they are working fast on them). The nice thing though, is that it's not really needed at all! Yes, I'd love a threat meeter, or a DPS meeter, but really, that's just extra information on my screen, and not REALLY needed. Quest helper? PSSH, it's built in naturally. Heck, when you pick up a quest, it puts arrows up showing you where to go, and big circles in the areas where your objectives would be located, or stars where specific goals are. I've not run into a full quest log yet, so I'm not sure that it even has a limit to how many quests it can hold.

The achievement system is pretty funny at times. Some of the achievements can be gotten just by playing and doing the quests ... while others, require specific things that aren't combat related to be done. For example, every zone has a puzzle. None of which that I've run into require fighting of any sort to get it done. One zone you just have to click the right plaque to go to the next tower... while another zone you play a simple 3x3 slider game. The last one I did was a pain in the arse though ... it had 3 concentric circles of torches. If you pressed one button, it would rotate the circle corrisponding to the button you pressed in that direction one slot, BUT, the other two circles would rotate in another direction 2 or 3 slots. The goal of that puzzle was to get the 'holes' in the circles to line up with some towers (where you were pressing the buttons). I didn't really decipher or figure out exactly how things moved, but I eventually got it unlocked. There are some exploration achieves as well, in which you just have to reach a certain location to get it, be it highest place on that map, or a small hidden outcropping somewhere. There's some fun ones too that can be difficult ... most notably ones which require you to jump from somewhere very high, and hope you didn't mis-aim (killing yourself), and land safely to get it. One that had even a nice context to it was a cliff with a sign that said "lover's leap" ... and yeap, jumping from that was an achieve for that zone. That's the other nice thing, the achieves are all separated by zones, so you can figure out where you should go mess around with stuff later when you hit 50 if you want to fill out your achievements.

So, With all of these things, I'm thinking that Rift is my new game for a long while. Whenever Firefall comes out though, it may steal some time away from Rift, but that one will be free, so I won't feel like I _need_ to play it. That and the fact that Firefall will be SKILL based, not LEVEL based ... I won't be "left behind" if I don't play for a week or whatever.

You may note that I didn't state anything about the PvP aspect of Rift. Mainly because no matter what game, I dislike PvP in games where people aren't on level grounds. IE: My skill vs your skill. If there are classes, with personalization to skills, I'm not for the PvP at all. Same goes with weaponry that can be seriously upgraded or changed via some cash-shop items. In game weaponry that anyone can get, just having to get the materials or pattern for? That's fine ... it's when someone that has a huge disposable income goes and breaks the balance system by having overpowered armor or weapons, that I despise and leave. Any game that has skills that are supposed to work better versus another class, invariably will have something that, with the right combination of skills, breaks the balance, and makes that class superior in PvP.

Ace Online (Space Cowboy, Air Rivals) had a system where it was a rock-paper-scissors setup with 4 classes, which right there is not really a proper RPS system anyway. A gears were supposed to be good vs I gears, but weak vs B gears ... but what about M gears? ... I gears were supposed to be better than B gears, but weak vs M gears ... but they're also weak vs A gears? Then B gears are supposed to be strong vs A gears, weak vs I gears, and an unknown vs M gears...then the M gears were supposed to be just support class, but supposedly strong vs A gears and B gears? It was confusing as all snot. The problem came when you could upgrade a weapon or armor to a ridiculous + 20 or even higher, that made the weapon hit super hard, or your armor take the damage and shuff it off like it was nothing. I flew an I gear, that was level 70 or something like that (of the 100 possible levels). My weapons were only +4 (the max safe level you can upgrade without risking loss of the weapon). My damage vs monsters were great, I could one-shot most mobs that were 5-7 levels above me. The problem lied in the fact that after level 20 or so, you were forced to be in areas that were contested and constant PVP area. I flew through one gate once, and got blasted out of the air before my loading screen was finished. I respawned and saw that there was an M Gear straight ahead of me. I popped all my skills, tossed 3 full salvos of missiles (total of 16 each) at him ... and watched the numbers FLY ... an astounding 5 damage each missile ... What the hell? I'm supposed to be superior to this guy...OSHI ... missiles, one salvo (of 4) headed towards me, and I was dead ... the damage numbers that popped up on my screen? oh, only 20k EACH MISSILE ... I only had 10k health I think it was... That right there? yea, that's what a cash shop can do to a game that's centered around PvP. I left there shortly thereafter LOL.

Anyway, long rant short... I don't do PvP unless it's skill vs skill, not time/money vs lack of time/money.

My anniversary weekend

So, this past weekend, was my anniversary. YAY! 12 years down, with a lifetime to look forward to!

That may have sounded a bit harsh, but no, I'll look forward to every day, month, and year to follow with joy.

So, what has been happening in the mean time?

Well, Victoria just recently got transfered over to the higher-class restaurant in the wilderness lodge. With that change, she had her days off changed slightly. Now, instead of getting Monday-Tuesday, she's getting Friday-Saturday. Finally, she gets a schedule that gives her some weekend time off! Of course, this is kind of lucky in the fact that her first 'weekend' off happened between my B-day and our Anniversary. So what did we do?

First, we got my parents to watch the kids for us, and we took off on Friday morning towards Universal. We haven't been there since 2005 or thereabouts. Figuring we'd do both days there, we decided to purchase 2 day 2 park passes. Now, this is where our day started getting hairy. Florida resident? Best get your passes online, because you CAN'T GET THEM AT THE GATE! ...Wait, WHAT? ... That's right, even though if you purchase the tickets online, you have to go to the ticket counter to prove you're a Florida resident, you can't purchase them at the gate. I was asked if I was a triple A member, or military. I calmly pulled out both my AAA card and Military ID from long ago. She said that the military discount was more than the AAA so she gave me that. I didn't think to ask at that time what the difference between military and Florida discounts were. So, we entered the Studios to spend the day there, and perhaps do the Islands of Adventure the next day, thus making use of our passes to the best we could.

In Studios, is a new roller coaster that we hadn't been on, that of some 'rip roaring rocking roller coaster' or some such nonsense. Now, we walked in about 9:15 (park opened at 9:00), but that ride was not running yet, something about maintenance not there yet to double check everything. Continuing around the park we came upon 'Disaster' (AKA: Twister) ... which was closed when we walked by. Up next around the bend was the Monster show, which we've never been impressed by, and besides, there wasn't a show this early for it. Following that was the Mummy ride. We've been on this one of course long ago, but there was a 5 minute wait supposedly (for the Universal signs, 5 minutes is the shortest they can put on the timer) ... which ended up being about 5 minutes worth of walking the FULL QUEUE layout before reaching the cars, where there wasn't a team member to tell us what seat to take, we were expected to just find a row and board at our leasure ... granted, there were very few people there in line, but still.

Getting off our first ride, which seemed to be a bit darker than before (not a bad thing), we walked back over to the roller coaster thing, which, was closed still. So, we walked over to Amnity ville area... yes, the Jaws area. The area just before Jaws usually has all kinds of midway games, Unfortunately 90% of them were CLOSED, and the final 10% were busy setting up their displays, and thereby unplayable. Jaws itself was also closed, by this time it's already 10:00 mind you. So, we continued our way around to MIB, and rode that (another 5 minute wait line).

It started raining about this time, and we stopped at the Simpsons ride. If you haven't been to the park lately, this is where Back to the Future used to be. The ride carts for Simpsons = ride car for Back to the Future with a paint job. The theatre was still the same as well, just different movie. The problem with this ride's movie: There is TOOOOOOO much going on in it. Your mind will flay from one 'scene' to the next (which change so quickly you don't know where you are, nor which way you're going ... and at times wondering how you got to one location that shouldn't be there). It was like 20 different 'scenes' stuck in a 2 minute film ... figure that one out and how much your mind will flipflop. Add in the cramped space of the cart, and jerky behaviour of the cart itself (which was so bad it was knocking us into the other occupants of the vehicle). I got to feeling pretty dang ill, to the point where I was forcing myself from hurling, causing a sick-sweat to form all over. Luckily it had stopped raining while we were in the ride.

Leaving that ride, both of us were feeling ill and not really daring to risk our stomach contents on the new roller coaster (which looked kind of cool, had our stomach's not been feeling bad, we might have rode it), which was finally open and already had a 45 minute wait on it at 10:30. We left that park as there basically wasn't anything else to do with everything closed, and our stomachs completely out of whack from the Simpsons.

Entering into IoA, we noted that the population of the park seemed to be 10 times more than Studios. We walked around towards seus land, noted that they had the slow-sky-rail ride operational ... which had a 45 minute wait to get on, and continued over to the lost continent area. We had a lovely lunch at Mythos, which we hadn't been in before as the menu always didn't look pleasing to go into with children. Walked around to the coin minter people, and got us a couple necklaces, then continued around the bend to the Harry Potter area. This place was immaculately done for the visuals... It looked GREAT ... except for one slight problem, it should have the nickname of: Toonarrow Deadends. The path between the building were so cramped that if 5 people in wheelchairs wanted, they could stop just half a foot from each other, and blocked the entire path in some points. Other areas weren't as bad, but the vast majority of it was. Now, this wasn't only due to the fact that the path itself was narrow, but because some of the shops (read: most, if not all of them) had a queue ... yes a flipping QUEUE to get INTO the store. About this time it starts raining again, and, we're not allowed to just enter a shop, because there's a line at the other end of the line of shops. Yep, they've got 2 or 3 shops tied together, and to get into the last one in the 'line' you have to work your way through the first one or two.

There were a few missed opportunities that they could have done in the area, but the majority of the 'shops' were just false shop fronts. What was behind them? Probably storage for other shops next to it. These shops were also so crowded, that had I been in a wheelchair, I don't think I would have been able to navigate them without running into someTHING or someONE ... they were so crowded with people it was difficult to even walk with my cane.

Leaving the horrendous area of the shops, we went to the end of the alley to where the harry potter ride was ... we didn't go on it because it was a 90 minute wait, and we weren't interested in standing out in the open for probably 80 minutes in the rain before getting inside. We walked around to the front of the park, and it had stopped raining. The Hulk was closed for some reason when we passed by it, so we didn't go on that, besides, at least my stomach was STILL not right from the Simpsons slammer earlier. We went back around and went to Poseidon's fury, then back around to the harry potter area ... it was a bit less people there now, but this time I also noted that they'd changed the entrance of the Dueling Dragons ... no wait ... they re-named it ... it's now the Dragon's Challenge ... The entrance of which was so camouflaged with the shop fronts and other items around that you didn't even see it. The wait for the Dragon's? ... 5 minutes ... I watched an entire car go by, EMPTY. Back when I worked there we were jammed pack full throughout the day, much of the time wait was around 30-60 minutes.

We left the parks and Universal shortly after noting that the wait time for the Harry Potter ride had climbed to 120 minutes... I'm sorry, I'm not waiting in line for 2 hours to see a 2 minute show. We discussed as we were leaving on getting to the parks early and heading directly to that ride just to ride it...but in the end, we ended up deciding to sleep in, then going to Disney's Hollywood Studios.

We got to the studios around noon, and left around 5. We rode the rockin roller-coaster, and went in to a lot of shops and stuff. It felt almost like we'd accomplished MORE in a half day at Disney, than we had done in the whole day spent at Universal.

In the end, we were very happy that we got to spend the days with each other and had some fun while doing it. We also now know that unless we get something from Universal stating a senciere apology for the atrocity that has become their parks, we're not going back there anytime soon. Next year: We'll be going to Sea World! Victoria's never been, and I haven't been there since just before Penguin Encounter was built.

Schedule? What's that?

Ok, time to actually try to get myself back into a schedule of some sort on this, be a bit more regular than the one person I wish would update more often. Who's that you ask? Why, "[GM] Dave" ... Is he a real GM? Can never tell. There are times his posts seem to actually be GM material, while others, I don't think is how SE would handle GM's in the least.

Either way, let's try to get me back on a schedule. Daily if possible, if not, at least weekly. I originally wanted to do daily, so let's start off with that shall we? So, what's been going on lately you may ask? Well, if you've looked at my twitter feed lately, you'll note that I've been playing a fair bit of Final Fantasy XI again. You may also note that I've switched from XFire instant messaging to one called Raptr.

On the messenger change: There was an update forced to windows 7 users a while back, that of a new internet explorer version. Granted I don't use IE in the least, unfortunately some programs default to use that rather than using the current default browser (why? I don't know but it's pretty flipping annoying). The problem with this, is that XFire does just that, and apparently there was a bug somewhere along the lines in the coding for this IE version that would cause XFire to crash once it tries to load the buddy listing. The fix on XFire's forums? de-grade IE to a previous version, re-download XFire, and hope for the best. I should probably note that this problem only existed for Windows 7 64 bit users...which I am. I found somehow, this Raptr friends listing. Where you can use it to log into Xfire, Steam, PSN, XBL, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, ICQ (who still uses that?!?!?) and a few others. Wait, that's not all! It will update time played across all platforms, track your achievements earned, and even import your playtime from xfire if you've used that before.

The insurance sales thing fell through the floor. I attempted to take the test for licensing another time, and didn't get any better. I take that back, I did improve, by less than 2%. The site I was using for study told me that I should study specific sections, which when I went into the site and took the tests for those sections, I got 100%. This means, that the content on the site, while great, either didn't have the content that was asked about on the test (which was about 60% of the test), or I froze up on the test hard-core. I studied a bit more and still, couldn't seem to grasp things, and was still confused about others. Why in the world do I need to get the license if 90% of the stuff is going to be changing in the near future, and I wouldn't need any of that information once I started? Oh well. On to other things I suppose.

In light of me basically giving up on that venture for now, I've gone back to playing Final Fantasy XI. I've been gone for some time, just after they announced that they would be upping the level cap past 75. This is fine for me, except the fact that I didn't have the 3 latest add-ons. I went ahead and got those, and logged back in to many welcomes and hugs. This is the community I loved and missed. I was promptly taken in and shown some of the rough ropes to the new areas, which are still confusing, but I'm learning. There are still hard things, but that's good. The thing that pleases me the most? The fact that they made summoners (my main love of a job) gain some desire to have in parties and are allowed to BE SUMMONERS rather than being a crappy main healer, that they really aren't fit to be. Where someone got the gall to say that a Summoner could be a healer, I don't know. I mean, white magic = MND stats; summoning magic = .... yea, that's right, there is no stat that affects the strength of summoning magic. A Summoner could have just as easily been deemed a backup black-mage, but everyone knows a sub black mage can't do much damage at all...but somewhere everyone figures that a subbed white mage works just fine. Half-leveled heals + sub-par skills due to being a sub = healer? No, the big thing back then was the fact that Summoners have the highest MP pool, so even if they were subbed healer job, they'd have more than enough MP needed to continually dump heals on everyone because the heals wouldn't even touch 10% of a person's HP bar. Granted, sub white mage has it's own bonus's for a summoner, that of reraise, auto-regen, raise ability of allies, and the sneak/invis. I just never liked White Mage anyway. I can't keep a party alive for anything, even with great macros. The only way I can get myself able to cure even slightly, is to use the unofficial windower, and get a plugin to use my G-Keys on my G15 keyboard.

So, I get back get into the new areas, get some exp, within an hour or two, I'd gotten almost capped on merits seeing as I was already 75 on my SMN. I go, unlock to 80 and 85 fairly easily, get back out and get to 83 or so before logging that first day. Over the coming days I'd gotten merits, uncaps, and eventually reached the current cap of 90. This, caused my sub jobs to be "gimped". I now had to re-level those jobs I could use as a supporting job to my summoner. White mage being the least favorite. Luckily though, the new areas can be leeched upon by level 30+. Granted they won't be much use, but they can get some great EXP and level fast. The only problem I faced, was the fact that I'm too nice of a person I suppose. I'd come out as my Summoner to burn things to the ground, get myself to 20 merits (max able to hold for those that aren't FFXI players), then state that I'd like to swap out with one of the current leeches to get them on a productive job so that I could then leech my white mage up so it's not gimped out. I'd always get declined, end up coming back out on my SMN. I didn't mind, as I really still needed to get more merit points to be able to get all the merit skills and things for my SMN anyway.

Yesterday however, I got fed up. I got myself to 20 merits in a kickin party that had been going on for about an hour before I got into it. Somewhere along the lines I ended up with the alliance lead position. I refilled the alliance from those people that were leaving, ran back to town to dump my merit points, then, came out on my white mage. I took it within a few hours, from level 44, up to 63. I only wanted to get it to 50 originally so that I wouldn't have to touch it when the cap got raised again to either 99 or 100. Experience was flowing too fast for me to want to go change. Then we needed black mages, so that we could get time extensions and stuff for the newer people that were coming in, also to send people home that forgot stuff to do such for themselves. So, I warped back, changed to black mage main, which was level 44 ... and ran back out. I warped the people home that needed, re-filled the party as needed. Then proceded to soak up the exp from everyone doing things. MANY hours later, I had gotten up to level 76 before I started getting tired. So much fun was had yesterday that I completely forgot about the new web game that had garnered my attention.

Yes, I've found a web game that I think is actually worth playing! This is a shock as most of them are inundated with advertisements, sales ploys, junk mail, and other stupidities that cause the game to fail. Where does this game go right though? Well, the fact that it's not combat driven in the least! Everything is story-based. Sure you've got stats for your character, that you build up by doing these story missions. But you aren't required to fight at all, well, not in the traditional sense of the word. You may get into a "fight" in a story, but you don't have to use skills on the fly, or have the best gear just to do the quests. It's all handled in the storyline. If you fail, you fail, if you win, you win. Easy as that. Sure there is a "pvp" section of the game, but you aren't required to take part in it at all. In fact, if you decide not to do the PvP part, you won't ever be attacked by anyone that IS doing the PvP stuff. This means you can sit in your little part of the game, do it's stories, and enjoy it. You connect to this with either your Twitter account, or Facebook, either way, you can link the two as well, and it can use your friends list (on facebook), and your follower & followed listings on twitter to allow for extra interactions so to say. There are quests and things you can do that you can invite friends to help you with in the game.

So, what is this new game? It's called Echo Bazaar! and can be found at: http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com ... Of course, if you wanted to partake in doing things with me in game, just follow me on twitter. I don't really frequent going to Facebook that often (maybe once a month or so), seeing as all the changes on there seem to be geared for advertisements, and a cess pool of crappy games that seem to have the solitary goal of taking all contact information from you and on your friends, possibly for junk-mail listings. So, if you desire to add me on your facebook friends, contact me either via Twitter, or well, if you're not a friend on there already, and you really are a friend of mine, you should have other contact methods to find me.

R.I.P. MC Classic Server

Yep, I got fed up finally. All the system restarts randomly. All the lack of system resources when even 3 people sign in. The whole bit of me signing into the classic stuff causes my video card to jump 80 degrees in temperature within 2 minutes of it being opened.

So this morning when I woke up, my computer was sitting on the log in screen, as the computer had restarted itself while I was asleep. Of course, windows doesn't know why it crashed so it can't fix the problem.

I've also been in a bit of a mental rut as well. My second attempt at getting that insurance job's required licensure, didn't go any better. I take that back ... I did 3% better than last time. At the cost of $68 to re-take the test ... and the current rate of improvement in grades, I'd have to take the test another 4 times at least to get to the required 70%. The bad part about that though, is that comparing my score from last time and this time... I'd improved on some sections, while getting worse in other sections. Yes, overall I got better. But even if I were STEADY at getting that much improvement, that's another $250 I just don't have. Not to mention, that my mindset really has never been that of a salesman. Granted yes, it would be a kick arse job for income ... if I could make it work, I'm just not sure I'd have the proper mindset to make it work, even if I had assistance the entire time.

Things also haven't been going that well on the friendship front of things as well. It seems that I really need to get some form of a job within the next couple years so that I can afford to stay where I am... or I'm going to have to find a place to shack up, or a very nice roommate.

Pile on all these things at once ... yea, the mental drain is huge. On the plus side of things I suppose you could say though... is that ... wait nope... can't think of anything good right now :( Maybe I'll think of something later ... go figure that I've not been steady in updating my blog, but, well, if anyone even reads it, they'll know what to not expect.

PeAcE for now. Enjoy your life, because hell, it could be mine.