Shantotto mini-expansion augments announced

So, the gear for the next SE RMT... I mean, mini-expansion has been announced. Leg gear, but it comes all the way down to the ankles, covering boots, so you could in theory wear one full set and it would be somewhat consistent. However, each piece does look horrendously ugly this time, a major step down from the ACP armor which I thought looked pretty decent. Macro pieces for sure... I don't think anyone would want to be caught dead wearing these pieces due to how ugly they look!

Details on the gear + augments are available at http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/addon/index.html#shantotto

For the previous two mini-expansions, I've always been looking into creating something unique for my Dancer. For ACP, I put together a +enmity & evasion body for the rare occasion where I want to evasion tank something. For AMK, it was a +enmity & -waltz timer piece, mainly macroed in to get those Waltzes out faster. (Yes, I use this over my Etoile Tiara +1 in all Waltzes except for IV) This expansion might be a little different as it has a few interesting augments from my perspective.

- "Waltz" TP cost -5

Definitely an improvement for Dancers. This isn't just a 5% increase in efficiency (unless they really meant -5%), but it goes up the lower level waltz you use. Curing Waltz III goes from 50% TP to 45%, a 10% reduction in TP used. Curing Waltz II goes from 35% to 30%, a 14% reduction, so overall this reduces the amount of TP used by quite a significant amount. It might even be worth it for people who sub-DNC simply to save TP!

- "Conserve TP" +5

Now... this is a weird augment. We've never had a "Conserve TP" trait before. What does this mean? Does it mean that when you WS, you might have a chance of not using all the TP you had? Or is it something for Dancers so that when you use any ability, it may not take the full cost? If so, Dancers are going to blink even more as this would get macroed in for everything from Waltzes, to Sambas and even Steps!

Or... did SE just have a typo and mean to say Conserve MP :P

- HP+25, Enmity +4

This was the first thing to catch my eye mainly because the previous two pieces I created both had +enmity on it...

- Movement Speed +8%

Now this is an interesting augment. It isn't the +12% that other pieces of gear have, but it is movement speed+, and it can go on basically whichever job you choose. I'm quite used to +movement speed on SCH & DNC, and this might have the potential of making it easier to kite things around on PLD without having to go do sky stuff

- Accuracy +7 / Evasion +7

Now this is interesting mainly because I've never seen this high accuracy on a leg piece before. My current "weird... I need accuracy but it's not worth using food" equipment, the Cobra Unit Subligar only gives +5 accuracy. Similarly for the evasion. That's high for a piece in this slot

- Physical damage taken -4%

I haven't really toyed much with -damage equipment... one of these days I might go try for a Jelly Ring again, but this does provide an unusual benefit to a slot that doesn't normally have it.

Mmmm... decisions, decisions... what to get? Well, if I look at it from a Dancer's perspective, the "Waltz TP Cost-5" augment is a definite must have. The 2nd augment would depend a lot on whether "Conserve TP" is worth it or not... I'll let someone else do the testing for that. +8% movement speed would be very nice since it would stack with Chocobo Jig for even faster moving around, as well as work on BLU. +enmity would be the last fallback... However, I really don't get to use my DNC tanking setup all that often, so I have a feeling that +movement would win out just for sheer convenience.

If I were to change over to a PLD's look, I'd probably also look at +movement speed, and possibly the -physical damage... Unlikely I'd look this way though since I like getting gear for DNC xD

Any further opinions from others?

HQ Lootwhoring!

Been a while since I've had any fun FFXI news... just not that much happening! This week though, I think I may have finally matched, if not at least come close to Fuuji's legendary lootwhoring week a few months ago when he got both Hachiryu and Novio in two days xD

Monday night ZNMs was pretty normal. Smoothest Tygers we've had so far, with near-perfect stunning of Fulmination (only one got through), me and Rooks pretty much tanking him the whole way through, and an army of Rangers and Summoners doing distance damage to take him down twice with only one sacrificial Bard who kept on dying! (Hi Dolly!) FFXI is really starting to feel less like an RPG, and more like a RTS with the way we do things these days. I mentioned it to Rooks last Thursday during the Odin Einherjar. The way we have people organized, Rangers standing together and firing tons of arrows into a single mob, really reminds me of how RTS units group together and shoot.

(Of course, Rooks also says that he's been playing XI as a RTS for years now xD)

Still... that might be an interesting game mechanic if a guild leader can take a different interface, take a seat back and give people direction from a higher perspective. Move people around, give commands instead of having to type it all out, or talk over vent(which most people don't have in XI). It might make for an interesting game mechanic... someone go implement that? Maybe in some sci-fi MMO where it would make sense? I seem to recall that there was some FPS game which had a "commander" role who could give orders to individual players who were actually playing the FPS.

Anyway... time for the loot!

ZNMs: Antares Magic Atk Bonus +10, Magic Accuracy+10, MP+20

This dropped on the... I think last Tyger we did. It's on my list for two reasons... First, I really don't want to buy all the elemental staves and have them take up tons of inventory. I have the basics... dark staff for /heal, light staff for curing, and the important one is the HQ Ice Staff since a SCH does the most damage with Blizzard due to the way Hailstorm provides +int. I have a NQ Thunder staff just cos Thunder IV is my highest spell, though Blizzard IV consistently outperforms it. Everything else I don't have anything specific... so... Antares would come in! Magic Attack Bonus & Magic Accuracy would help with casting anything else from the other elemental magic, to Dia, Slow or Gravity where I do not have the elemental staff. And the +20MP does push my initial max MP up by another 20 up to 864MP when I add in the shield slot. Of course, that initial MP is only good for stuff like initial buffing as my other equipment quickly brings my "operational MP" down to about 650.

Secondly, having it look like a wand with a star on the end turns me into Sailor Ascule so I must use it to defeat evil!

aaaaaaand... a minor point was that I didn't have any other ideas on things I would have wanted from ZNMs anyway xD

Sea: Jailer of Love

So... erm... ya... I think this is the definition of lootwhoring!

Ya... that's... everything JoL dropped last night xD Sorry DO, this time the Novio earring didn't drop ^^;

After the last three JoLs didn't drop the Novia earring, I was getting fed up with him. Also, over the last few weeks I've been coming up in DRG levels (63 now!) and I'm quite enjoying it, so I decided that the Love Torque would be a really nice piece to have for both DRG & DNC. The Love Halberd of course goes for 1 point to whoever feels like getting it that day. I looked over my points and realized that I actually had enough points to get everything in one shot judging from previous bids on the items, and I'd been winning the Novia bid for the last few runs anyway, just that it wouldn't drop. I gave Rooks some warning that I might be doing something like this last week, but even I didn't think that this would happen. Sooooooo.... last night I went all out, won bids on everything and... surprisingly, JoL actually liked me and dropped it all xD Epic lootwhoring!

Love Halberd - DMG: 60, Delay: 396, Dex+7, Virtue stone equipped: Occasionally attacks twice. Lv. 73 SAM/DRG

Soo... if you look at the stats of the Love Halberd, it really isn't that good for DRG. It's low damage compared to other polearms, which means that Jump will not do as much damage... Low delay as well, so you don't get as much TP per hit. Even with the "occasionally attacks twice" part and the +dex, I'm pretty sure you'd end up coming out low in terms of DD output even by spamming WS since the WS would also be weaker...

The main reason I'm interested in this is... the double attack. Due to level sync, I'm pretty sure that by the time I hit 75 (or even 73), my polearm skill would be quite a bit out of date. Skilling up takes forever, so I'm hoping that using this with the double attack trait, it should go a bit faster. And it helps that I have 15 stacks of virtue stones sitting in storage, so that's up to almost 1500 double attacks xD

Novia Earring - Evasion +7, Enmity -7

I always call this "the evasion earring that JoL drops" because when I first became interested in it, I wanted it for my DNC evasion set. Truthfully, both aspects are very useful.

Dancers have a crazy high amount of evasion, second only the THF. Coupled with Fan Dance, our native healing abilities, and of course, /NIN and Utsusemi, we're crazy hard to kill by anything that doesn't one-shot us. I believe that this is the last piece I needed for my DNC evasion set, and it replaces my Velocity Earring (Evasion +4). The only other evasion piece that I do not have on DNC would be Ermine's Tail (Evasion +8) which would supplement my Adder Jambiya (Evasion+4), but not replace it due to the Beast Affinity aspect of Ermie. I'd be curious to try out DNC/NIN against something that is evasion tanked like Charby sometime... too bad Charby is so heavily camped and that you really don't want to risk losing claim.

I didn't really think too hard about the Enmity-7 in the past. On Dancer, while I was leveling up, I did stack on -enmity gear so that a tank could maintain hate. However, at 75, I strongly believe that DNC stops wanting -enmity and switches over to +enmity simply because it can survive that much better compared to the people we're healing. If I'm in a party with DDs, I want them to be able to do damage, stay alive, and keep Hasso/Berserk up. I can evade hits, have shadows and have Fan Dance to reduce the damage I take, so I'd rather have the mob on me. DNC relic reflects this with +enmity compared to the -enmity on AF, and there have been many times in Einherjar where I'd end up tanking the later half of a large wave simply from building up hate from spamming Divine Waltz (having a BRD in my party that sleeps the mobs pretty much guarantees that I'll become a target in a large enough pull)

It wasn't until Kaeko's post on the use of an Enmity Down set on SCH that I thought about using the -enmity side of things. I've added it to my Light Arts set so I can do more spamming of AoE buffs, Cure IV-gas and more. On the Dark Arts side, I'm considering adding it in, but currently I have two nuking earrings... Moldy for magical attack+, and I got a Sapphire Earring with Magic Accuracy +2 from the ACP chest... lucked out there with one good piece of augmented equipment. I rarely nuke in anything outside of a full BLM party anyway, so not having the -enmity is no big deal since I'm usually outdamaged by BLMs, or I actually *want* to pull hate in order to get the mob off the BLMs so that they can stun/bind/sleep/live.

Love Torque - Dex+5, Dagger & Polearm skill +7, Lv. 73

I already had my eyes on this due to the +dagger skill. This should beat my Peacock Charm for dagger accuracy, and of course, WS damage. It wasn't until I really decided to take DRG to 75 that this became something I really wanted. Poking things should be a lot more effective with this :D

Only question I have... would Love Torque or Chiv Chain be better for TPing/WSing on DRG? On DNC, it's not a question since in the past I was previously full-timing PCC. Plus on DNC I mainly use a Haste setup with minimal consideration to StoreTP. On DRG, StoreTP becomes a consideration to get to 100% TP for the next WS... also, isn't Str a modifier for WSing? so would it be better to WS in Chiv Chain, or Love Torque?

In any case... I think this also makes my Peacock Charm obsolete :o It's my main piece for DNC, but that just got replaced. My DRG is already post-60, so I've been using my Chiv Chain on that already. I've moved my PCC to my mog satchel for now in case I need to use it for some reason (like skilling up staff on hard mobs maybe?) but I'm really considering selling it as it *would* complete my Roundel Earring fund... not that there are any of those for sale at the moment ~.~ Still... I do have a sentimental reason for hanging onto the PCC since it was one that our BCNM40 group that Utaru put together got... and that Ashle let me have first cos I was leveling DNC at the time...

Aaaanyway... lots of macros have been changed to accommodate the new gear! Lots of testing needs to be done to make sure all the macros work properly too...

I officially hate Apple ~.~

For the record, I've been using Macs since I was a kid. I currently own 3 Macs and one iPhone, and since OS X was released I've been using Macs regularly and WAS an advocate of Apple hardware and software until very recently.

My experiences with Apple hardware and software over the last year have convinced me that Apple is no longer about quality, but is now just pure hype and marketing.

What changed my mind? Simple... Apple products are unreliable.

I don't know when this happened... sometime between the change from PowerPC to Intel processors, something went wrong with Apple's QA department. Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) is the only operating system that I've seen that can go from working perfectly fine on one day to having weird malfunctions for absolutely no reason at all.

Cases I've experienced so far:

- Mac Mini suddenly deciding that it will not display 1920x1080. I have a Mac Mini hooked up to my HDTV acting as my PVR. Using EyeTV hardware & software, it worked just fine as a media PC, turning on automatically to record shows, playing back late. That's ALL I used it for. Most of the time it sits idle. Then one day, it prompts me to install some Apple software updates... looks harmless enough, just some security patches. After a simple reboot, I discover that it will not display in 1080p, just a semi-functional 1080i -.- Major wtf. There's nothing in their release notes about changing display drivers, and a Google search shows tons of other people with the same issue, on Apple forums and elsewhere, with no solution at all from Apple's technicians. Talking to the Genius Bar shows me nothing but barely trained (but polite) monkeys who tell me that this was never a supported option and that I am to be blamed for even thinking that it could do 1080p. I must be lying. Wasted 8 hours before I found a really, REALLY obscure post somewhere on page 10 of Google Search results that suggested trying an off-the-wall display changer software... which worked, though I had to buy this 3rd party driver.

- Today my Macbook Pro suddenly decided that it no longer liked it's sound card and stopped playing sounds at all. It's not a hardware problem, the hardware works just fine since I'm able to reboot into Windows and use the sound. System Profiler shows that it's there, and I haven't changed anything at all in Mac OS X. I booted it up yesterday, checked mail, then shut it down. Booting it up today shows me... no fucking sound. There is no "restore" function, no way of reinstalling drivers, and calling up Apple support leads me to go through the same debugging steps I did before (yes, please do it again... please let me give you the exact steps you have to do even though you just told me what I'm about to say word for fucking word). Escalating it up two levels of support gives me to a genius who says "well, I'm out of ideas... reinstall the OS." In ANY other operating system, you'd be able to pinpoint the problem and if necessary, reinstall the specific driver. Oh, and his genius advise lead to a system that is unbootable in Mac OS X so now I have to do a full wipe and reinstall. I just hope their so-called "Time Machine" actually works as that's what I've been relying on for data -.-;

So... I assert that Apple products are shiny, pretty to look at and play with, but simply fail on you for no apparent reason with NO reasonable way of fixing it. In any other computer, you'd be able to fix it or use it as you see fit. Apple stuff is so locked up and inflexible that you don't even need to sneeze for it to break. Either Apple will break it for you, or it'll break for absolutely no reason whatsoever. The iPhone is so stupid locked up that Jailbreaking it is the only way to make it as useful and customizable as the average Windows Mobile phone.

I also assert that this is a recent development. I have a Powerbook G4 that I purchased when it was first released in 2003 which is still functioning perfectly even after 6 years. It's running 10.4, and has been pretty much rock solid except for it's HDD failing, a hardware failure that is understandable. Everything that I have running Intel processors, and 10.5 has had some sort of completely unexplained, out of the blue failure that results in hours of wasted time and absolutely no help from Apple support.

And before you say that I'm just a dumb girl who doesn't know computers, I'll have to say that my early career is in IT. I've been using computers since I was a kid, been using the Internet since before the WWW, and know more operating systems than most people can name! I can take a crippled Windows or any Unix-based system and repair it. Mac OS X is just that crappy.

/wrist

So... even now, my stupid Macbook is getting it's OS reinstalled. I'm looking immediately into buying a high-end, gaming capable but still quiet desktop computer running Windows, and will be getting rid of all Apple crap in my life in the next few months. Definitely not upgrading my iPhone, and am keeping a close eye out on that new Droid phone coming out next week. If anyone has any suggestions on the best graphics card/motherboard/quiet case, do let me know.

The melee code

Rooks said something funny during Saturday's Dynamis-Tavnasia about asking the only 4 DDs we had with us to "break the melee code" and stop dying. Funny part is that I finally understand why people like to play DDs so much.

I've caught up on so much stuff on Hulu... this season's Family Guy, Simpsons, American Dad and Dollhouse. Add to that Conan & Leno and I pretty much a ton of stuff that I can watch while I'm exping or DDing or whatever on DRG! Best part is that even when I'm spending most of my time watching TV, I'm still doing my job completely as a DD! Jump, Jump, WS... Jump, WS... etc. etc.

I guess the melee code involves putting out as much damage as possible. Dying is, of course, a side effect of the WHM/RDM/DNC/BLU/BRD/SMN not curing or the PLD not tanking properly! xD

(Of course, I'm completely joking... I... think... maybe DDing also involves getting a lobotomy)

Meanwhile, other updates:

Dragoon

DRG56 now, in exclusively LS parties... I thought that I'd catch a bug and try to finish DRG to 75 in any party no matter what, but so far the desire hasn't hit me. I had time on Saturday to go party, but I decided that cleaning my room and re-organizing my closet had a higher priority! Of course, having Zurar setup fairly regular exp parties also helps, so DRG is making steady progress to 75. With some luck, I might be DRG75 by Thanksgiving!

3/5 on DRG AF right now, with thanks to Zurar for helping me poke the NM on the hard to get to island in Battalia Downs, as well as Tasya for helping escort me to the coffer in Ifrit's Cauldron. Still need to get the key & coffer in the Boyada Tree, poke Dark Spark and fight a NM in the ugly temple to finish the full AF set. I'm not sure what people are complaining about for DRG AF... So far the pieces seem quite useful to macro in!

On Sunday afternoon, we were in Ifrit's Cauldron poking bombs for Bomb Queen pops as well as farming a coffer key for me... I was half asleep during the whole run, but I'm under the impression we also poked a few NMs, including one that triple-attack WS'ed me with one shot and dropped some weird Gae Bolg polearm :o Not sure how good it is, but it joins my polearm collection which includes a Narval, the Nyzul WS polearm and hopefully a Love Halberd soon :o

At DRG56, I'm nearing the point where I'm finishing off my gear set and can sell the low level gear. I'm pretty much set for gear from now till 75, and have my polearms lined up except for one I'll use at level 75 xD Hopefully I'll finish this job soon so I can sell or put away the lowbie gear.

Other random stuff

Last night I picked up some other random things... after ZNMs, Tasya organized the Bomb Queen run that she's been threatening me with for the last few months. Like the Joyeuse, this is another thing Tasya dragged me out to go farm the pop items for (by telling me I could get my coffer key for DRG!) then organized the people to go get it done. The fight was surprisingly easy... I was under the impression that it required a full alliance of people with tons of death, but a simple party of 6 managed to get it done xD Big thanks to Fuuji, Weaponx and Vengence for coming to help us xD

I'm still not 100% sure what to do with the Bomb Queen Ring... +75 HP is crazy nice, but the -75 fire resistance scares me since I'm not sure what that would mean with a single Firaga III xD Still... that much extra HP should push me to about 1500 HP on PLD... I'm close to that on BLU/NIN already :o

Oh ya... also picked up Aurum hands since nobody wanted it. Might be funny to get more Aurum pieces and run around in it sometime xD With random gear pieces, I'm starting to run low on storage again so I'm starting to throw out random quest items that I picked up but have no intention of doing, or the random AF+1 pieces that I have in storage... threw out WHM last night, and I think I still have BST, BRD, SAM & RDM pair sitting around.

Other random non-XI stuff

So... Fry's had a sale on the PSP Go last weekend ($50 savings! $249 BEFORE savings... tricky ad. Nearly missed it). It's Fry's, so I figure that if I didn't like it, I'd just return it...

So far, I'm liking the hardware... it's small, and with the docking cradle, easy to pick up and put down to recharge. Downloaded a bunch of demos for it, though I haven't really started playing it yet. I like how there are no carts or UMDs to change when you change games, and that you can just download games using the on-board UI. However, I don't like that the games I actually want to BUY aren't available. I've been curious about that Dissidia game for a while and was planning on buying it... but... it's not available on PSN ~.~

Other games are available, but it's still a limited subset of everything on the PSP. I still have about 20ish days before I have to decide whether I want to keep this or not... hopefully Dissidia will come out by then, or else it'll probably go back to Fry's.

/wrist

3 days back in FFXI and I'm no longer feeling any desire to login... Bad week? Or is it an indication of the state of FFXI?

Let's see... what's the current status?

Monday: ZNMs

On the surface, this event *seems* to be doing okay... we're killing stuff, getting loot and people aren't dying too often. We have almost a full alliance these days, even though there are a couple of supermules hiding among them, and we have mostly regular attendance by a core group of regular people.

The bigger issue with ZNMs is the getting the zeni & pop items. In the past, when someone signed up to get a pop item, you could rely on them to get it and have it ready. More recently, people have been slacking on picking up the pop items, meaning that we have to go back multiple times to the same mob, spending extra time on travel instead of killing stuff.

And... truthfully, I don't blame people. We've been relying on the same people to do the bulk of the zeni contribution over the last few months. They're always the ones who step up to the plate to pick up the challenge, and certain other people never volunteer, or are incredibly unreliable in getting pop items or even showing up. Of course, we take that into account whenever we hand items out, but at the end of the day, it does mean that there are people out there who are still getting items without contributing as much compared to other people.

I'm pretty sure the top contributors are burnt out of farming zeni by now... and it does show. Take me for example. I've basically burnt out on farming zeni and stopped popping mobs. I've stopped for at least the last two months, barely holding onto enough zeni to pop something in an emergency, and of course, islet access. Even then, I'm #2 on the amount of zeni spent (which include well over 100 hours of photo taking and turning plates in) even with the break. Our #1 person (Fuuji) has spent over 2x our #3 person.

I'm not sure what the solution to this is... it's not fair to expect new people to pick up the bulk of the farming, and zeni farming is such a time consuming, inventory hassle that just the thought of going out to farm more zeni sends me running with fear.

Tuesday: Boredom and emptiness

After sea on Tuesday, I found that there was... nobody on... at all. Nobody doing anything, nobody on LS, no exp parties, or anything going on. Pretty depressing actually. Was hoping to get some exp, or something going, but... that's impossible if nobody is actually in FFXI.

Is it the end of FFXI? Or is this just the Aion effect? I really doubt it's the later since nobody in AP has gone to Aion that I know of. At least on Tues I totally caught up with all the TV I missed...

Wednesday: Dynamis

Not sure what was going on in Dynamis... I didn't think that I was *that* squishy on PLD. Started out fine on bosses, and on Efts... It wasn't until we started getting multi-mob pulls against beastmen that I started going down... and quickly too. Can't get cures off due to spell interruption, even with my new Valor legs, and mobs killing me as soon as they woke up. Of course, it doesn't help that I only had one Tav taco on me since I forgot to stock up after the last event. Still, in almost every case I had Phalanx, Stoneskin and Blink up so I really shouldn't have died that quickly... Am I just out of practice?

I know I'm seemingly missing my Invincible instinct... Could have used it a lot earlier in the night on the 1st multi-mob pull, which would have prevented the first death. I'm usually better at it...

Wednesday: Limbus

Mmm... another SW fail... I don't know what to say about this one... Really doesn't help when everyone runs around trying to sac pull (impossible with alliance hate) or running away from sleepers (so that the mob can kill you, then gang up on the sleeper) Basically we were dead even before we begun.

Attendance is down to just BARELY a party. And that's with Alt coming in super-late. If not for Slemp forgetting soap, we would have gone in with 5 only. I'm not sure we can still do Omega if attendance stays at this level... Also, Slemp says that he's actively in Aion (and was trying to convince us to go join him) so... well...

Ya... XI does seem to be a dying game.

Thursday: We shall see...

So... tonight... nothing scheduled... I wonder if there'll be anything to do in FFXI? Kinda hoping to level DRG... but... are there still people around to exp? Before I left, I was hot on going to get my DRG AF pieces... right now I'm not too sure I want to bother with it... I guess I'll eventually do it to get the pieces and another outfit, but...

Maybe I'll go play with my 360 >.>

Back & refreshed

Whee... I'm back... mostly. Still completely jetlagged, still tired from basically running around on my feet nearly constantly except for short periods of sleep, but I'm mentally refreshed and wide awake xD

Let's see... first up, impressions...

Manhattan/New York

Wow... this city is... smelly x.x; I think that every time I stepped into the subway I started to hold my breath... I was surprised at how dirty it is compared to other large cities that I've been to.

Had quite a bit of fun! Hit all the tourist sites, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, natural history museum, etc. Managed to get to Central park too, which is completely alive and crowded with people. Caught Wicked while I was out there too.

Crazy crowded city... never sleeps... just what I felt like what a city should be like... staying out till midnight isn't an issue and there are always tons of people around. I love the cheap little street stalls where you can pick up really yummy food at any time!

Washington/D.C.

So... the capitol of the greatest nation on the planet... right? At least that's what the advertising says... I was surprised at how quickly D.C. shuts down in the evening, and how quiet it becomes at night. Ironically, it was in D.C. which I actually felt vulnerable and in danger. NYC always has people around, so I never felt that I was in danger of being mugged or worse... in D.C., everything shuts down so early that I often found myself walking down completely deserted streets as early as 6:30pm... just blocks away from government buildings.

I didn't like D.C. as much simply cos... well, there wasn't anything to do after 5:30pm! The Smithsonian museums shut down, and the government builds shut down even before that. Many restaurants were also shutting down, and the ones that stayed open were completely full with reservations. I guess I should have researched this aspect a little better.

Still... managed to do all the touristy things... White House, Capitol buildings, Library of Congress, as well as most of the Smithsonian museums and all the big memorials/monuments, so I feel like I've explored D.C. enough :)

Overall

Lucked out with weather... the few times it did rain happened to be the days which I was indoors for the whole time so I barely got wet at all. I think my decision to come during the off-season was still the right one even though D.C. shut down early compared to summer. There were simply very few lines or tourists around, so moving from attraction to attraction was really fast.

Now the bigger question... could I live in either place? Well, I never got comfortable in D.C. It felt like... a dead city no matter where I was. Not much in commerce, just pure government... I guess I should have expected that. I just didn't expect that there would be absolutely nothing else out there ~.~ NYC on the other hand might be possible... I like running around on the subway system (even though it stinks) and being able to go from one side of the city to the other without bothering with a car. I liked the pace of the city, that it never shuts down, and that there seemed to be so much to do in so many industries. I guess the only thing that I'd hesitate over would be cost of living... It's even worse there compared to where I currently am... though not by THAT much x.x; However, it is still on my list of possible places to move to... would be fun for at least a few years!

Reflection

The weird part about being on the east coast was being ahead of everyone I talk to as opposed to my usual being a couple of hours behind. That, and being alone, gave me a lot of time to think and reflect, so I have a few answers to my questions in the last post...

- I'm not happy with a slow-pace. I think in my whole career I've never been doing less than two full-time things at the same time... either two jobs, job + school of some sort. School is over... time to pick up the pace (unless I want to go for a doctorate o.o)

- My risk tolerance isn't high enough to jump head first into funding my own startup. I like my toys and having the money to make impulse purchases or have a nice expensive meal. I don't want to run out of money on a crazy idea. However, I wouldn't mind using other people's money! So... unless I come up with a killer idea for angels, it's either low-budget, or free/part-time startups for me!

- House-wise... I don't like being tied down... currently, this is the longest I've actually stayed in one area... normally I move around a lot more often xD Buying a house would tie me down and limit my options... plus I'd actually have to be responsible for fixing things instead of just harassing my landlord

- Linked to housing... location wise, I really want to go back to some sort of large city. Living in the suburbs is okay I guess... but I'd really rather be somewhere where I can stay out late and be able to get home without driving x.x;

- Career path... well, after doing a lot more reflecting, I'm definitely going to stay in technology... most likely moving more towards consumer-oriented things instead of B2B. Definitely going to have to move further into product management, though I'll probably stay away from marketing.

- Company wise... I decided that there is no way I can work for a company where I second-guess the executives, or believe that I can do a better job compared to them. Companies without a vision, or any company without a good leader is not one I can stand behind

- What about MMO commitments?

So... this is an interesting topic... I brought a computer along with me and was able to login to FFXI at any time during this vacation. I even had some evenings where I was done early and could have easily made events (especially being on EST). I just never felt the urge to do so. I found myself watching more TV with the news (imagine that!), Jay Leno and Conan xD

I still do not feel the urge to log back in to do things... I guess I'll still be coming to events, but since I've managed to delegate some of the work behind the scenes to other people, I'm hoping that they'll continue helping me there and give me a little slack so that I can take care of other things (thanks Zurar & Tasya!)

I'm pretty deep in XI still... the welcome back I got last night during ZNMs did make me feel welcome, even though I was still half-asleep and jetlagged. I'm not sure I'd want to start another MMO at all even when Star Wars is released... I'm now behind on TV, and significantly behind on other games (though I did catch up on anime & movies... Virgin America is awesome! xD) But I'm still going to look into reclaiming more of my own time from FFXI to use in other activities, including fun things like... well, console gaming xD

And finally... the big one... it's time to start up the career search task. I've been relaxing for the last 6 months since school ended... time to get back up and push even further ahead! With some luck, that would mean that I'd end up with an even more extended break from XI. The last time I decided to change my life direction I ended up quitting FFXI for quite some time... (and threw away a decently-equipped RDM75 back then) This time, less extreme measures... hopefully ;)

Alright! Enough about me... next posts will be back about FFXI and gaming!