Month: December 2003

I spend almost all of today playing Final Fantasy XI. I went from level 12 to level 16 (and most of the way to 17) in nine hours. That’s amazing speed. I was in a party that just worked. Unfortunately, as party members left and were replaced, the “magic” or something was lost and we started dying. Yes, for four or five hours, no one died. Eventually, I was pulled away by Hank and Albert to go to dinner.

Now, I’m high enough in level that I can wander between the three major cities, but now I need to work my way to Jeuno to get my Chocobo license… but before that, I’m hanging out at Bastok trying to get the grass I need for that quest, although I might just break down and buy it…

Leon and Hank are both at their respective parents’ houses, I get the house all to myself for the next day. And I think I’m going to end up cleaning… *sigh* I made the mistake of going to Costco hungry today, and ended up with a bunch of food. I finally beat Final Fantasy X-2, and will probably not try the New Game + for a long while.

I’m rebuilding the Lego Star Destroyer, which was damaged and disassembled when I attempted to move it upstairs. I took a picture of all the pieces organized on my table, but it’s in my camera and I’m in bed, so that will have to be shown another day.

I’ve also been watching Firefly, and realizing what a loss that show getting cancelled was. I also realized something: Firefly == Cowboy Bebop.

Went into the city today to watch Return of the King. We were over three hours in, when suddenly the screen goes dark and the emergency lights came on, one beat later the entire theatre is in an uproar. Yes, the Coronet theater was one of the more than 100,000 PG&E customers who were without electricity this evening… and still are, last we heard. So, not only did I miss the last 10-20 minutes of this epic film, we had to endure intersection after intersection of four-way stops.

SF is so odd… the pattern of power and powerless areas made no sense whatsoever… if only the theater were one block to the West, we’d been fine… but if it were three blocks to the West, it would have been out of power again…

I finally got my iPod the other day, not too long after getting the iTrip. Ironically, I came to the exact same conclusion that bigdumbthing did (who also just got an iPod and iTrip) — the iTrip would be a great piece of hardware if it wasn’t for the fact that every single channel on the radio has either a station, or random blips from a station near it, making the thing very frustrating to listen to. Electromagnetism now takes its place… second on my “Fundamental forces that piss me off” list, right behind Gravity.

So now, I’m going to have to research line in options for my car stereo. First is going to an auto sound place and giving them my model info for my stock head unit and seeing if they have a line in adapter for the CD changer interface (which I’ve got, hidden in the back there). If that doesn’t work, I start investigating new head units… although that may have to be a purchase in the not-so-near future, as it would be a more significant expense.

But anyway. Final Fantasy X-2 is starting to annoy me with the minutia and tedium, but still has enough of the spark of addiction that keeps me going. I need to finish it so I can start working down my games wishlist. I also need to spend more time on FFXI… I’m paying for it, after all. I’ll get a bunch of time over the holiday weeks, as I’m going to not have as much work to do, so I’ll be at home. Plenty of time to catch up.

So, once again, a phone post disappeared. I was wondering why people were asking me “Hey, Andy, why were you on a bus at 1 a.m.?” I was at the Yahoo! Year End Party again. I had made a post on the way up, even commenting on how I was hoping I didn’t get stuck next to a drunk who would throw up. Go figure, huh?

The evening was pretty much a repeat of last year. Got there early, wasted some time playing fake blackjack, met up with Stacey, wandered around, broke off from Stacey, played DDR, got tired and went onto a bus with a bunch of drunk people. Between the man who wouldn’t stop yelling “Yahoo!”, the woman who started singing, the girl who sat next to me and had to put her legs up on my lap because the guy threw up very close to her, it was one of the more eventful bus rides.

The scariness continued, though…. on Monday at work, right as I was standing there, a guy slipped and fell on a puddle in the cafeteria. (There was a warning sign and everything, but he had a medical condition that caused him to shuffle or something like that.) Well, it took a bit for me to realize, but he had not just fallen, but snapped his ankle and was bleeding everywhere, due to his condition, which was something like “overly veined legs.” Well, that was a bit traumatizing… although I bet more for him… very scary.

So, I’m going “skiing” this weekend. We’ll see if I actually ski or not.

..he popped.

The guy in the seat across from me looks awfully drunk. Once this bus starts moving, I’m pretty sure he’s gonna pop. At least this time, the guy has a trash bag. Let’s hope he’s conscious enough to use it.

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