Random musings

Seems like people like to comment on my controversial posts where I do some math and put up some interesting theories on certain job behavior... Dancer is, of course, where I put most of my effort into thinking about things, especially since Blue Mage and Scholar have already been fully analyzed and experimented with by people much more knowledgeable by myself.

But... this post is more about me and is more random musings and off-topic stuff!

Let's see... what's happening with me...

Personal stuff/Off-topic

Seems like ever since school stopped, I've had a ton more free time, and I've found many more things to do. Of course, last week was spring break, so... technically I haven't actually HAD any more time than I normally would, but my mindset has definitely changed! Since finishing up with school, I've done:

- Cleaned up and totally reorganized my things, especially my closet.

- Cleaned up the junk on my computers and re-optimized them, including playing around with the Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my little Acer Aspire One.

- Did my taxes >.> Big losses last year offset capital gains so I didn't have to write too big of a cheque.

- Caught up with TV, except for the Sarah Conner Chronicles. I'm mostly up-to-date with the anime on my "must watch" list too, which is good since last season is ending and the new season is almost beginning. I still have the backlog to work on though, and the next season is looking quite good >.<

- Game wise... erm... I've been playing Star Ocean 4, but that's a long RPG, so my backlog of games still remains the same, unfortunately.

Not too bad considering my list from my last post.

Still to do:

- Figure out a real, honest-to-god vacation! I haven't been on a real vacation for nearly 4 years now... all my previous trips in the last few years either had a school class attached to it, or was some sort of responsibility. I think it's time to take a real vacation on my own for once instead of being tied down with someone else. This year, I'm thinking the east coast of the U.S. including New York and Washington. I've done a lot of international traveling, but I haven't really been many places in THIS country xD

- Start up a Roth IRA. Now that school is over, I can finally free up some money to put into retirement instead of having it dumped into tuition and books @.@ At least I'm still in better shape compared to other people who have loans to pay back!

- New job... Now that I have new qualifications, it's really time to go jump jobs and hopefully get a corresponding pay increase. The sucky part is that the economy is so bad right now that I'm not sure it's worth bothering to search at the moment... I'm secure where I currently am, but the pay isn't that good compared to what I should be making >.>

Another thing to consider is that... this is really a good environment to be buying stuff... nobody is buying, so houses and cars are some of the things where there may be good deals to be had. Unfortunately, I don't really want to commit to either a house, or even a new car until I change jobs since I don't know where a new job will be... in this area, another city, another state, or possibly even another country. It's kind of a weird place to be... I really need to sit down and plan out a transition to get out of my current position and into something else, but I'm in no rush to do it because things are so bad out there >.<

What else... I've been fooling around with little $0.99 iPhone games... geoDefender and AirportMania are both fun little games for the iPhone that are surprisingly addictive and easy to get into. I think I've wasted quite a few hours playing those. Been doing more work on my "2nd job" too... gotta see if that can develop from a concept into a real startup in the next couple of months. Getting funding in this environment will be a pain, but... at least it's a possibility... and of course, FFXI.

Musings/FFXI stuffs

Seems like last week was the "everyone running away" week for AP... Nuyu going away, Vanh taking a break, Wu moving, so the shell was virtually deserted. I think only me, Dexie, Fuuji, Utaru and Connie are semi-regulars on AP now, and even that's iffy since we only login for events now and don't do anything else. Ghiren & Zurar are pretty much "login only when Ascy summons for events" people now. Hopefully that'll change a little since we've put noisy Karou in on the shell. Hopefully she can liven things up a little!

ZNMs/Limbus

Event wise... seems like a mixed bag. We've picked up some new blood for ZNMs and Limbus, but attendance is still iffy enough that we can't consistently take on the big ticket items, Tier IV ZNMs and Omega, with consistency. I'm hoping that this was just a reflection on last week being Spring break, but... we'll have to see how things turn out going forward. We're always right on the verge of having the right number of people, then suddenly we'll go waaaaaaaaaay over and have too many people for the event >.>

Nyzul

Nyzul has been nice to me lately, giving me a pair of Denali gloves and a Goliard hat. I've been hoping for the Denali gloves for a while to help with my Dancer's evasion/tanking equipment set. The Goliard hat is nice for completion, but what we really need is a ton of Askar equipment, considering that almost everyone except me wants it.

Nyzul members have also gotten weird lately... With Vanh taking a break, Nuyu being out and Wu being away, both Fuuji and my Nyzul groups have been short of manpower... seems like we're basically merging now in order to have enough people to pull off Nyzul... far cry from when we used to have 2, sometimes 3 groups going at the same time.

Assaults

Weird thing is that a couple of weeks ago I got to do a couple of First Lieutenant assaults with Lyricdylan... this means that I'm only one assault away from Captain rank. Just need to kill that stupid King-on-a-chair mob. >.<>

4th job?

So, looking at my jobs, I'm considering leveling PLD seriously now to have a critical tank job so that I can take on that role when it is necessary... I've pretty much got the other roles covered with my existing jobs, so a tank job would be nice. Plus, more importantly, the AF looks good!

Vanh has lent me his Cassie Earring to help in this, and Zu is supposed to dig through his stuff to find some lowbie stuff to lend me... anyone else wanna level a job together?

Maybe after PLD I'll look into BRD or COR.

Distant Worlds

This is interesting... Nobuo Uematsu's Final Fantasy music will be going on performance with his new show called "Distant Worlds" in the next few months. There is one performance in San Francisco in July that I'm thinking about attending... I attended the "Dear Friends" performance back in 2005, and it was quite an experience. The new show has quite a good lineup, including many songs I think those reading this blog will be familiar with xD

Other locations include Minneapolis, Grand Rapids, Singapore, Taipei, Detroit, Dallas, Baltimore, Seattle.

Well, that's up for this week's update... don't be shy to post comments, especially those of you who lurk :P