Good: We got halfway done the flooring yesterday, and let me tell you that it looks fricking GORGEOUS. We’re more experienced after having put down the library and kitchen flooring, and thius looks polished and perfect. We shouldn’t have any problem finishing today, and we might be able to get some baseboards in.

Bad: We moved the aquarium — even completely empty, we had a 50-50 chance of it breaking due to to it having been there for 7 years and the pressure from everything. We actually managed to move it, so that’s not the bad. No, the bad was that as I was pulling out the thick clear garbage bag I was using as a fish bag out of the bucket, it RIPPED… sending the fish crashing down 6-12″ back into the bucket.

I mean, it could have been worse — the bag could have ripped while I was transferring it to the tank, and destroying the floor. But this isn’t much comfort as…

Ugly: … all the fish were dead come this morning, save for my pleco and my two clown loaches.

Current Mood:Sad emoticon Sad

 

I am so looking forward to this upcoming long weekend.

Made some progress on this over the weekend; bought the primer and paint, and we did the priming yesterday. I’ve never used primer before so I don’t know if this is supposed to look like ass. I’ll have to buy new rollers as we destroyed the cheapy ones we bought (oops).

If all goes well and this week isn’t too draining on us, we’re thinking of putting the first coat of paint on Wednesday. Then we’ll do the second coat on Friday… or, if it doesn’t need it, we’ll start on the flooring itself (ulp).

I say “ulp”, but it really shouldn’t be too bad — it’s a rectangle. That’s it. No stupid angles like my kitchen, no going around door frames (we ripped them out this time — not making that mistake twice). The toughest parts will be the load-bearing column and moving the aquarium.

Still need to buy a shop vac, the rest of the flooring, and the baseboards… I need to buy a stud finder, too, because of Big Bertha the TV.

Yeah, I bought a new TV. I feel MISERABLY guilty because of it, but it’s done, so no use crying about it. It’s a Sharp Aquos 52″LED LCD — the “older”, discontinued model that has the 3,000:000:1 contrast ratio (my monitors have 9000:1!). The “newer” one was $300 more, but I also heard of flickering issues with it, so I didn’t want to chance it.

For the curious, the TV did fit in my 2005 Toyota Echo Hatchback, but I had to drive and Sky was crazy cramped up.

Anyways, why am I stepping things up? Because it’s going to be 27°C all week, and it was crazy hot over the weekend… and reese is hot.

Yes, I’m doing all this mostly for a rabbit.

Sigh.

I’m pretty fricking warm myself too, though…

Current Mood:Sleepy emoticon Sleepy

 

Okay, so. Things I want to establish so we’re all on the same track:

1. I dual-box.
2. I run the EU client of the game because I enjoy watching cutscenes in French. (Incidentally, if anyone wants an EU Content ID for all the expansions and minipacks, let me know.)

So imagine my surprise that while waiting for She Who Refuses To Drop My Furia Pigment, when I tried to login with Ithan-Yuran, I got a message saying that I have no Content IDs.

No “your payment didn’t go through”, no nothing.

I run the EU version, so it’s really difficult for me to do anything with my account (though I tried real hard). Long story short, after fighting with my client for 15 minutes, then kicking Karm off her computer and using her NA client to try to get into Member services, and then updating my whole billing info/SecureCode thing even though IT WAS EXACTLY RIGHT, I managed to get in.

And then I realised I’d forgotten my mail password (I figured it out after another half-hour).

So, yeah. Nearly had a heart attack when I saw he was gone. I didn’t realise how attached I’d gotten to the little guy, but, well, here I am.

All’s well that ends well, at least! Have a pic of him and Ooke.

 

Oh hai allzzzzzzz…

Health and Exercise

I’m apparently still slimming down… at least, according to my co-workers. The last few weeks have been hell so my diet hasn’t been great, but I think I managed to eat smart most of last week… just that I was dead on my feet (to the point of skipping Dynamis last Tuesday).

I went to bed early-ish last week and it did me a load of good. (Case in point, I went to bed at 11:00 last night and I feel like crap.) Early bed on Tuesday’s not an option, but I’m hoping to stay on track for the rest of the week (including tonight).

Car

We brought the car in for a tune-up two Saturdays ago, and we found out that the water pump needed to be replaced as it was leaking. So that, and the tune up, cost $660. Ow.

I’ll admit that I’m somewhat disappointed in this car. It feels like it’s more cheaply built than my old Corolla, but they don’t make ‘em like they used to. It did save my ass in that stupid car accident, though, so it can’t be all that bad.

I don’t want another car loan, seriously. I haven’t run this car through the ground yet, and in the coming years, we may need more than one vehicle…

Pets

Reese is doing great, but I have to drive to Saint Albert to buy him another grass hut since he utterly destroyed the one he has right now (he likes toppling it). Eris is okay, too.

My fish, however…

My fish themselves are fine, except for two otos that got caught by the powerhead intake (we’ve now taken steps to prevent this). But I have a nasty algae problem again, and there’s a ton of crap at the bottom of the tank… and I’ve only had this setup for two weeks! I’m going to need to check to see if it’s a filtration problem or something.

Anime

I started watching the anime adaptation of Fairy Tail; I hated it at first because the opening theme just does not fit with the series at all, and the style was more “cartoony” than I liked.

The soundtrack, however, is what got me loving the series. It’s a mix of celtic rock, Newfie-style music (I’m not joking) and hard rock (the type that you hear in Japanese fighting games). It’s glorious and it works. All of the Natsu-related themes are all Celtic-esque, and they’re oh-so-incredible. Next Amazon Japan order I make, I’m definitely buying this!

Renovations

We’re hoping to finish everything this weekend. I’m going to buy a nail gun sometime this week so we don’t have to worry about rushing to return it, and I’m borrowing the air compressor from work.

Final Fantasy XI

As mentioned above, I skipped my first Tuesday Dynamis last week and I feel like crap about it.

I’ll fully admit that I act girly in a sense that I like putting Dar in clothes that make him look good. The motivation behind my town gear for SCH (that black coat and pants) was entirely for looks, though I got a nice nuking body out of the deal, so yay for me. I hit DRG 70 the other day, and the Barone set caught my eye; it’s got “okay” stats, but there’s better elsewhere… however, I look amazing in it, so yes, I’m spending over a million gil to make my character look pretty. Sigh.

I’ve got everything but the helm (don’t want) and the feet; the latter is painful because it costs about 800,000 gil to make them, but they commonly sell for 400,000 gil on auction. There’s a guy, however, that’s trying to sell a pair for more than that — I tried up to 480,000 at one point and couldn’t buy them — so I’m holding off until I’ve got the money (I’d have to borrow again if I wanted them now).

Saturday, we got Ithan-Yuran and Mielle Lufaise/Misareaux access so we can go ahead with Myrna’s FFXI wedding on Friday. I still have to finish off the script since I’m the one officiating the whole thing (eep).

Sky was fond of “stab shit in the face” jobs in WoW, and he felt there was no outlet for that in FFXI. I suggested DRG, and seeing that his was 10, we synced down and with Ithan-Yuran in tow for heals, we started tearing stuff apart in Tahrongi as DRG DRG RDM. Myrna soon joined in with her DRG (with Anrym as plevel), and we moved to Buburimu. Over the course of three hours, we brought Karm from DRG 10 to 19 by just casually roaming and decimating stuff… and I hit level 71, meaning we got about 30,000 exp in that time, without rings (ours burned off really darn fast). And it was DAMN FUN.

I hope he likes DRG, but I’m not going to push him to level it if he doesn’t, seeing as he has other stuff he wants to level (BLM, SMN). If we do decide to duo (well, trio), though, this will be my ticket to getting DRG to 75 in a heck of a hurry, which means I can merit SCH.

That’s about it. I’m planning on making a “State of the RP” post on That Other Blog of Mine, so keep an eye out for that!

Current Mood:Okay emoticon Okay

 

Work is kicking my ass today. Seriously. Anyways, have an update on the Cas. Note that there’s mention of poop from here on. (WoW players, this shouldn’t faze you, given how many quests revolve around the stuff. God.)

Pets

Eris was bunged up again, hence the puking. She had x-rays an enema done, producing the desired results that one expects out of the latter. What worries me is that ONE of the cats puked this morning, but I can’t tell who…

Reese is also better, and he’s currently Captain Destructobun with his new grass house. He’s on Oxbow food now (Bunny Basics) and he doesn’t have the poopybutt issue he had before. Just to give you an idea, I used to have to change his litter once every week and a half, and now I need to change it every two days. I think I have a healthy bun.

House

I’m slowly in the process of bringing the books downstairs. The library’s looking pathetic and I want that fixed.

We bought a nice cushy red rug for the library that is easily vaccuumable. My plan is to take out the coffee table (anyone want a coffee table?) and put in a table where we can play board games, tabletop RP, card games, etc. I’ve got my eye on this table in brown (hoping it’s not too big), but ironically, it expands to be bigger than my kitchen table, so my library might turn into a dining room when we have company over. We’re definitely keeping the couch, though, and I want a big cushy chair in the corner, so we’ll see how things go.

We should hopefully have the baseboards done the weekend of May 1st, come hell or high water. I can borrow an air compressor and I’m going to buy a nail gun (instead of renting) so that we’re not zomg stressing over returning it on time.

Health and Exercise

I had a… “condition” last week that forced me to take antibiotics. (It’s a sulfa med, so astute Googlers can figure out what it is if they so choose.) I’m allergic to both penicillin and Tetracyclin, so that pretty much was my only option.

Hoo.

If it’s listed as a side effect, I got it. Nausea, lethargy, stomach cramps, rash, the runs, lack of appetite… the list goes on and on. It also causes ANOTHER condition in me (that’s thankfully treated with OTC meds), and it was that time, too. So yeah, not a happy camper, but I took my last dose today.

Other Video Games

I got Pokemon HeartGold… and haven’t played much of it yet. I’m serious, I have a Chikorita and a Pidgey and that’s it. I think it’s because I’ve already gone through Crystal…

I’m enjoying watching Sky play through Disgaea 3, though. Damn, the music’s good in that game!

FFXI

The above and other things resulted in my not giving a flying crap about FFXI last week. As most of you know, I’d been going a little crazy trying to get Seveneyes, and this resulted in me staying logged into the game practically 24/7 with a thing that would send a very loud sound through my speakers if certain people sent me a tell. It’s a little nuts, but with all the maintenance going on, and the fact that the NM pops every 48-72 hours, I kinda wanted to get this over with.

I had no luck, but by Wednesday, I was sick of the whole thing and stopped trying. I had Myrna sign me in on Thursday night and I went to sleep.

When I woke up, I saw I had three messages from her: one saying that the NM popped, one saying simply “…” and the last saying “Check Dar in the morning :D

And sure enough… (Click to make bigger.)

What you’re seeing there is actually my “town” gear (as in, the gear I run around in when I’m not getting killed by stuff). Not a lot of people wear town gear, and it’s often the subject of ridicule since people thing I fight in that stuff full-time, whereas the reality is that I fight wearing bits and pieces of that stuff and look like a mismatched buffoon.

I know it’s really weird and narcissistic to say this, but I really think I look awesome in this stuff. I also look great (in a nerdtastic way) in my Scholar AF and Relic attire. I idle (as in, when I’m in battle but just standing there) in my SCH Relic (except for the hat); people look at me funny, but I gear switch so often that they really can’t complain.

So anyways, how does Seveneyes perform? Well, it’s an interesting weapon in that it has a chance to reduce the cost of my spells. I’m swapping it in for my spells that don’t require any particular stats from a weapon (e.g Storms, Protect, Shell, Raise, Regen, etc.) and… I’m not seeing a noticeable difference, mostly because I don’t know how much MP all my spells cost, and I can’t do math in my head. Oh well. However, the weapon is ACE in Campaign. It’s a very fast wand, so add an en-spell and I’m doing damage like it’s no one’s business. I’ve only done a couple of Campaign Battles with it so far, but I like what I’m seeing!

Aside from that, I got 5k to DRG 69 (from 67), and Ithan-Yuran from SCH 37 to 42 in one night. That’s 30,000 exp in 4 hours. I love East Ronfaure. I love it so much. I’m really, REALLY behind on Ithan-Yuran’s spells, though, including Aspir. (I have all the bits and pieces I need to get that, it’s finding the time…)

We also did the Viridian Urushi onry Hagun ENM… and actually got a Hagun. Woot! We’ve been lucky lately with the two Toreador’s Rings and Hagun we got. I used the money to pay off part of my debts. Now I technically owe Myrna 2 million (1 million for Seveneyes, 1 million for my Ebon Frock), but I think it’ll be a challenge to get her to accept the money. >.>

Okay, back to work for me.

Current Mood:Sleepy emoticon Sleepy

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