Today wasn't nearly as entertaining, but over the years I have come to expect that. As you grow older Christmas takes on a whole new feeling, but it was never so magically as when you were a young child. Perhaps parents indulge their children with extravagant gifts in the hopes that if only for a moment, they will remember what it felt like to be a child on Christmas morning. Maybe that's what everybody is seeking this time of the year; a chance to return to a simpler time long since past, even if only for a few moments. It's a nice thought in any case.

I was pleased with the gifts I received this year. My parents gave me season nine of MASH on DVD. Noviel got me a clock, and Magus got me a Windurst shirt. I also received a Nintendo DS, but I got that quite some time ago. I spent much of the day watching Christmas specials with my parents, and I'd say I enjoyed myself. I can only hope for similar Christmas' to come.

Aside from today's events I've been playing FFIV. Well actually I played all of it but the last boss, which I have been fairly reluctant to go beat. In any case, it was definitely a fun game. I wasn't a big fan of Cecil changing from Dark Knight to Paladin, but there's no denying it's a damn good game.

In the world of FFXI I've been fortunate enough to get another piece of AF2 since my last post. I picked up a pair of Abyss Gauntlets in Dynamis-Windurst last Tuesday. That puts me at 3/5 as far as AF2 goes. Most of the armor is quite simply for show though. If I'm actually fighting things you can bet I'll have my thick set, Hauberk, and Optical Hat on. Dark Knight AF looks nice, but I'm blind as a bat; I need all the accuracy I can get. Noviel's Dragoon is 59 and has been for a while now. She hasn't had a lot of time to level it, but I know she plans to as soon as she can. Athos is still sitting at 60 with his Dragoon. He's been leveling his whm with my Ninja and Abanon's Samurai so he can sub it when parties ask for it. I'm not sure how often parties actually request a Dragoon subbing whm, but I see most Dragoons add in there lfp comments that they have it. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be a big waste of time.

Just as I mentioned before, Noviel has been making decent progress. She's up to 58 on her Dragoon, and she already has her full AF set. She was fortunate enough to go along with Athos when he did his final AF quest, so she got her helmet 6 levels before she could wear it. Athos has gotten his DRG up to 60, and with Limit Break 3 out of the way he hopes to be making some progress on 65. Beyond that he is trying to organize Outcast enough to get some Promyvians done. Not a small task to be sure. Given the 'out-there' personalities of most of the members, its hard to get them all into one place at a specific time. Hopefully he can pull it off because I'd really like to get those out of the way. It got kind of embarrassing at about 73 explaining to XP parties we couldn't go to Lufaise Meadows because I hadn't done Promyvian.

Aside from FFXI, the information I've been reading on the newest WoW expansion has me a bit excited. As I've mentioned before, I've never really quit the game, I'm just patiently waiting for some new content that interests me. I think the new expansion should at the very least warrant my attention for a few months.

As for the non-online games, there really hasn't been much in the way of console games in the last half year. Athos and I rented Shadow's of the Colossus. Neither of us finished it however, but what I played was interesting. There are plenty of Zelda throwbacks for those who are looking for that sort of thing. I also picked up Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Mario Kart DS, and Mario & Luigi 2. I'll start with Castlevania.

Quite easily the best handheld Castlevania game out there. Infact, probably my second favorite after Symphony of the Night. The only qualm I had about the whole thing was actually with the stylus on the DS. To defeat bosses you must draw a symbol on the stylus at the end of the fight to finish the boss off. If you draw it incorrectly, the boss regains his health and the battle starts over. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned my artistic abilities, but I could make a stick figure cry, literally cry. Needless to say, I started to get very very good at fighting bosses just to stay alive long enough to attempt drawing the symbol the seven to eight times it would take me. As the game progress, the symbols would get harder and harder. However, after completing the game and finding you can replay the whole game as Alucard from SOTN, it made all the pain seem completely worth it.

Mario Kart DS lives up to the series from which is was created. But having new tracks and karts is hardly what warrants the purchase of this game. For the first time ever, you can race people over the internet using Nintendo's new WiFi. It is refreshing to see that at the very least, when Nintendo does decided to use the internet for multiplayer, they can do it very well. It gives me a great deal of hope for the upcoming Animal Crossing, which should be in my hands sometime next week.

As for Mario & Luigi, I'm not very far into it, a few hours at most. So far it's been a fun diversion to kill some time between classes at school. Many of the controls and abilities are identical to the previous title. Hopefully school and work permitting I can get some more time on it to see where the story goes.

Other than games, there isn't a lot worth mentioning. My birthday is coming up in a little over a week. Hopefully that will bring some excitement to an otherwise boring last couple of weeks.

A friend of mine got me into a high level shell he was in which is how most of the previously stated things have become possible. I've also been on a few Dynamis runs, we've completed a number of zones, and to my surprise, I'm usually the only Dark Knight along with means any AF2 drops are mine. Or at least they would be if any ever dropped. I've seen AF2 drops for every job BUT Dark Knight, Paladin, and Dragoon, and in most cases, more than just one. So many at times that people with secondary jobs get to lot because the piece has been obtained by all the main jobs in the group. I'm sure if I keep with it I'll finally get to see some pieces though. Just a matter to time….I hope.

Last time I mentioned Noviell was 36 on her Dragoon, but she has made decent progress and is currently standing at 47. But she has the day off so I'll assume that by the time the day is over, she will be higher. That of course means that it will be limit break 1 time soon. When I went through it, it was a horrible experience, however having helped a few people I have found when taking it on for one person at a time, it becomes vastly easier. It would seem most of the drops required usually drop within the first few kills, but additional ones take exceedingly longer. We helped an LS member a few months ago, he got the ancient papyrus in two kills, the Exoray mold in one, and the bomb coal is of course has an almost 300% drop rate so he got that first kill as well. I hope Noviell's will go as smoothly.

Athos has also been making progress with his Dragoon. He is up to 56 now with three AF pieces to show for it. He seems fairly pleased with himself about it. He has the coffer for his last coffer piece, it's just a matter of going in and finding one. A task that sounds much less pleasant when you realize the coffer is in Ifrit's Cauldron. But even that will be vastly easier than his last piece. I'm still not sure how we are going to pull that one off…

Aside from school there is also work, which goes on as usual. I've been working as a delivery driver for almost 15 months now. Why do I keep doing it? A few very simple reasons. First of which is, while Dominos doesn't pay me much more than minimum wage, when you add the tips I make, I'm still making considerably more than I would elsewhere, even after gas costs. Secondly, and my personally favorite, since I simply drive pizza's here and there, that means I'm not standing up all day as I would with other jobs I could obtain with this age and level of education. Third, since I work evenings it works out really well with my college schedule. Lastly, it's one of the first jobs in a long time that my boss and co-workers aren't complete assholes. I get along with most of them pretty well, even enough to hang out when we aren't working. Why go get another job and risk finding more complete dickheads?

Beyond work as school I still have at least one day a week when Magus and Sandman come over to hang out. Yesterday was apparently "Fix Magus' computer day." At some point the night before, and details are sketchy at best, Magus and Sandman's cousin decided it was a good idea to wipe Magus second hard drive that he has assumed help only a Linux operating system. When the computer stopped working entirely, it was fairly apparent that wasn't the case. After playing around with it all night, Sandman came to the conclusion that the second hard drive held both Linux and the Windows operating systems that the other hard drive was using to function. After playing around with it a while yesterday, Sandman and I were able to get Windows back onto the second hardrive, but were unable to set it up as it was last time. Any of the programs that had stored their "necessary to run" files on the smaller hard drive now much be reloaded entirely to work properly. You can bet Magus was anything but pleased at the aspect of reloaded both FFXI and WoW. Hopefully he should be able to get it all back to normal shortly.

I was disappointed, if not surprised at the delay on Twilight Princess. It was basically one of the only games I was planning on getting this year. I'm still thinking of getting a DS for Christmas to pick up the new DS Animal Crossing that comes out in December. Beyond that however, I'll probably just keep playing FFXI. Unless of course I feel the desire to start WoW up again. Chances are I'll hold out until the next expansion before I get back on though.

Noviell is still playing XI, she's managed to get her Dragoon to 36. Magus' Dragoon is sitting patiently at 51 while he levels warrior up to sub with it. As for me, after 22 months of playing, almost 200 combined levels, 1 vile elixer, 30 hi-potions, 1 blink band, 1 opo-opo necklace, 4 sleeping potions, 1 icarus wing, and a little luck:

Maat Mashed 9/28/05

A number of things has happened in FFXI since I last posted. It's no secret how difficult it can be to get party invites later on as a Dark Knight, or really any melee job that doesn't start with the letters "Ranger", but I try my best with it. A few weeks ago I finally succumb to what the world wanted and leveled my Thief to sub with my Dark Knight. It wasn't nearly as strenuous as I had led myself to believe. While I can level drk for 8 hours and never see the "level up" animation, I can put that same amount of time into thf at lvl 25 and see said animation a total of five times. However, I had thought it would improve my chances of invites, and maybe it will, but the first three parties I got after leveling thf, all wanted me to sub warrior. Not that I complain, I prefer subbing warrior. Higher attack/defense, berserk, and double hit are nice to have when your in the business of doing damage. But I'll sub whatever the hell they want just so long as they'll invite me.

Magus has been leveling Dragoon, which I am pleased about. He had planned to be a Dragoon since he first got the game, but somewhere along the way, things changed and he thought a Thief would benefit the shell more. Now that he is free of those obligations, he is able to pursue other more 'fun' opportunities in the game. He's managed to get lvl 44, and there are hints of a semi-static that might take place in Outcast. If so I hope they catch my drk so I don't have to lfp anymore.

Since I am very much in favor of Magus leveling his Dragoon, and he always wants the best equipment available before he will level, I agreed to help in camp a new NM that was added in July's update. It drops lvl 38 drg only boots that add +4 Jump Accuracy. Three NM kills later he had what very well may have been the first pair on Bahamut. Now not only does he have them, but after he's moved on to his AF boots, Noviell will have some for her Dragoon…if she ever gets to 38.

We could all have continued to live in our fantasy, but the moment Bill quit, there was no going back. It's not something I'm surprised with, nor do I blame him for it. I found his blog post on the situation an adequate summary of the problems. After speaking with BT and finding him on the verge of the same decision, and the apparent resignation of Jon, it became all too clear it was finally over. There isn't much to keep me here either I must admit. Just about everybody who came from gamer.com has left. Those that stay post rarely, or are now different people from who they once were.

My personal feelings are simply that I don't care anymore. Gamer's Logik has become nothing more than a "festering hole" as Bill so eloquently put it. I've no interest in sifting through 20 posts from Locke and Raddad's bullshit everyday just to find the one or two posts with any meaning at all. I don't know Locke in real life, and maybe he's not such a bad guy, but damn if he doesn't come off as the biggest cocksuck I've ever seen on the Internet. And if that wasn't bad enough, his brother is just like him. It's fairly obvious why his Navy acquaintances had so much disdain for him when he first showed up at GL. I regret feeling sorry for him then.

I don't know what's next, and I don't know where GL will go. Jon told me once that even if we stop writing reviews he would just make it into a community site and the board would continue on. Well if that's all I have to look forward to on GL is listening to Locke and Raddad all day, I think it may be a wiser choice to follow Bill and BT. If it is indeed the end for me, I am saddened by it, and I don't think I'm going to find another site with as many good friends as I had found here.

The linkshell that I mentioned before being about 12-15 members seems to be growing larger everytime I get on. Athos' brother as well as my sister Noviel have gotten the game, and a few of the friends Athos made while I was gone seems to find plenty of people who want in the shell. I don't really mind too much. I don't really like large groups, but when you have the 'ban' button in your possession, people tend to be nicer.

After a long time coming, I finally finished the last of my Artifact Armor yesterday. All I needed before I left was the helmet, but I had forgone getting it because my Valkerie Mask was adequate, and there wasn't a quest that I needed to beg people for help with to get it. As it turned out however, I found a friend on the game whom I'd helped with subjobs and advanced jobs before I left, who's now at 75 with a lot of 75 friends. He felt it was his turn to help me out and we went and got my helmet. It's nice to finally have it all, even if it took me almost a year to do it.

Other than that, the game is mostly how I remember it. It has it's ups and downs, but for as long as the downs don't get to me, I'll be having fun.

In the mean time, against my better judgment, I let Athos talk me into the free month Square has been offering for FFXI players who come back. I don't know how long I will stay on the game, but it's nice to see it all again. I didn't missing the time it takes to get from place to place, the crappy UI, or the constant need for money, but then again, I'm not missing my world crashing around me every 30 min, lag that defeats the purpose of being on, and constant raids on WoW either. My second day on I found that Loriant was on too. I asked him and apparently, he had taken up the same offer for about the same reasons. I talked with Draos, and while he's still enjoying WoW, he decided to give the game another go as well. Aside from Shield the entire Outcast static is back on. Athos' brother decided to buy the game after we all got on, so now he's to see what all the commotion is about. Not one to be left out, Noviel has also decided to pick it up. With all of them, and friends Athos had made while I was gone, the Outcast shell is looking at about 12-15 members now, which is kind of nice. It's not the 150+ from Evolution on WoW, but to be honest, I didn't care for so many people anyways. Seemed like anybody who talked at all just wanted you for something.

I was looking through Playonline, and I found some old screenshots from FFXI, including some from fighting the Shadow Lord. Figured this was as good a place as any to put them.

Aside from all that, my eight hours plus in line was fairly enjoyable. We brought a cooler with soda, enough junk food to survive for a week, chairs for everybody with us, and a laptop with the original trilogy on DVD that we watched all of before being let into the theater.

This same theater showed Episode II three years ago and last time they sold out the first screen and sold the seats for the other screen on a first come first serve basis on opening night. This year however the theater only secured one copy, and all those unsuspecting n00bs who came to the theater to buy a ticket that night were turned away because all the tickets for the screening had been sold out in under 30 min a week ago. For some reason, I found happiness in there misfortune.

As for the actual movie, it was just as I expected it to be, which is of no surprise since I read the book. I enjoyed it like I do all Star Wars movies, but the problems that plagued Episode I & II are still present. A blatant overuse of CG effects, stale acting at times, and lines that are a bit corny. However it is easily the best of the prequels. I hear many fans saying its better than some of the original trilogy, but I'm not so sure at this point. I heard those same things immediately after both I & II, but after the shock factor wears off, most everybody agrees that Empire is still the reigning king. I will say one thing about ROTS though; it's dark enough to make Empire look like a Walt Disney motion picture.

The latest and last installment in the Star Wars saga is nearly here, and while most of the country was able to buy tickets for the movie weeks ago, the local theater finally decided to start selling them today. They don't however go on sale until I'm at work, so I've put my faith into Magus and his brother to get my ticket tonight. If Magus should fail in his task, you may not be hearing from him for a long while, now you'll know why.

Needless to say I'm excited about the movie. This is actually only the second Star Wars opening I will have attended. I wasn't even around yet for the first three movies, and while I very much wanted to go to the Episode I premier, I wasn't of legal age to drive myself, and my parents firmly believe in waiting until the last possible day a movie is in the theater so they don't have to fight a crowd. I had to settle for seeing the movie the next day. As with the previous two, I read the book before seeing the actual movie. George Lucas may have a great story in his head, but lets face it. He has some trouble transferring it to the screen at times. Even knowing all that I do hasn't diminished my desire to see it. This was the movie I wanted since Lucas announced he was finally making prequels. And even though the movie will result in the transformation into my favorite character, Darth Vader, I know a part of me will always want to see Anakin Skywalker make the right choices.

*Update 12:42 am*
Fortunately for Magus, he was successful in retrieving tickets for the midnight showing.

In the month and a half since I last posted I've picked up Devil May Cry 3 and Doom 3(for Xbox). DMC3 I really can't say much about. I bought it, played the first mission, and once I was asked to save I did so and turned it off. Haven't turned it back on since. I liked the original DMC, but for a while it was basically the only PS2 game I had, and that meant I played it all the time. To the point where I even hate it now. DMC2 left a bad taste in my mouth for obvious reason, so going into 3 I was skeptical, but everybody was saying good things. Well from what I played, yeah, it is much more like the original game. But if you recall, I now hate the original game. Hence why DMC3 is now collecting dust.

Doom 3 had a bit more lasting power with me than DMC3. However I made the mistake of not looking into the game too much. Usually I check out PC/Xbox differences, as well as regular/collectors edition differences. This time however, I didn't. I went with the Xbox version because I didn't feel like trying to figure out if my PC could run it, or for how long before it overheated. Then when I went to Wal-Mart to pick it up and noticed they had both a regular and collectors edition. I thought to myself "$10 more for a tin case and a directors commentary disk, screw that" thinking that surely that's all that was added. To my surprise later I found that the extra $10 also got you Ultimate Doom and Doom 2. Needles to say, I was a little pissed. Aside from all that the game was fairly fun. We aren't exactly looking at game of the year or anything, but it was good enough for a play through. I would have been much happier with the game had it included split-screen co-op. If Perfect Dark taught us anything, its that co-op increases the FPS fun factor by at least a factor of 2x.

My interest in WoW has been slowing dropping for a while. I haven't turned it on much at all. You can only raid the same 4 places so many times before you start pulling hair out. In addition to that, for most people raiding is a business. I had assumed people would be doing this for fun, I was wrong. Most people view this as a job, something they must do, and there are very strict rules involved. One wrong move and your reputation on the server takes a nosedive and you'll likely never get another raid party again. Not that it's that big a loss. I'm not sure I'm ready to just quit, but I doubt I'll be on as frequently. Instead I think I'll retry FFIII.

I picked up two new games since my last post, Star Fox Assault and Gran Turismo 4; I'll start with SFA. The one word that springs forth in my mind when thinking about the game is: crap. Don't get me wrong, I will most likely love the actual arwing missions in any Star Fox game, but all this tank and running shit that Namco seems to think Star Fox is or should be, sucks ass. I would have thought that Star Fox Adventures would teach people, if nothing else, that any game with Fox McCloud on foot that isn't a Smash Bros. game is going to suck. Apparently I was wrong because here it is again. I think I've just about given up on the series all together.

Gran Turismo 4 is quite a bit better than SFA, but it's not anything really great either. GT3 was great. It looked amazing the first time I played it, and it still does. The tracks/cars/features and everything else just came together so wonderfully. That was four years ago, and in all that time the only thing Polyphony Digital has done for the next game is a minor graphics upgrade, and decided that apparently Rally Race was just so great in GT3 they should take it out of GT4. Great job guys, that was some great thinking.

Besides GT4 and SFA I'm still playing WoW. For a while now I haven't done much else besides instance raids. End game offers little in the way of content, so the best thing I can find to do with my time is raiding for armor upgrades. Upgrading for what I don't know. Hopefully Blizzard will see fit to start adding some more end game content as it would seem end game players are starting to outnumber everybody else. Or at least I can hope anyways.

Surprisingly I haven't dropped WoW, and I still play it fairly often. I found it to be exactly the opposite of FFXI. In XI I had fun from the beginning but the higher I went, the less fun I had. In WoW I found the game rather bland from the start. It wasn't bad, I just didn't feel any motivation to play. As I have gotten farther this seems to have changed. My paladin is finally something I can enjoy. I don't think he will ever be as cool as my Dark Knight was, but I gave up that dream long ago.

The whole concept of PvP in WoW has pretty much been nonexistent to me. Since I'm on a PvE server I don't really have to fight Horde unless I want to. So far, I've never felt the need. I don't exactly have anything against them, and I've had no real reason to hate them either, Blizzard just says, "Hey, fight them, they're bad." I can imagine I perspective may be quite different on a PvP server since I'm sure I would have been assaulted by Horde players with levels well exceeding my own. Actually I don't even feel that strong a conviction to Alliance either. I'm here because my cousin was here.

In another surprise twist, Magus decided to reactivate his WoW account to play some more. He seems to be enjoying it more this time around. However since he was gone for a while I'm now 20 levels above him. What us grouping together usually amounts to is me killing something for him for a quest. Magus actually let Sandman start a character as well, but with the strictly limited time Sandman actually gets between Magus playing WoW, FFXI, and surfing the internet, he has yet to reach lvl 10. He seems to have enjoyed what he played so hopefully Magus will let him get some more time in soon.

Against my previous prediction, I have ended up staying with World of Warcraft passed the initial free month. I was a little short with it in my last post, but I do have fun on the game. Instead of finding something better or worse than FFXI, I simply found something different. For the time being that has been enough to hold my interest. Magus apparently didn't feel the same way and decided to quit WoW in favor of returning to FFXI. If he wants to that's his business, but I can't help but question it since he was the first one of us to considering quitting in the first place. On top of that he's going back with no armor, no money, and no friends.

As far as other games, I'm picking up the newest Zelda game today, so that's pretty cool. I still haven't finish Prince of Persia though. For some reason the game just hasn't grabbed my attention. Most of my friends seem to think I have a mental deficiency because they all love it. I'll play the game some more since it probably deserves it given how many people seem to have enjoyed it. I also picked up Soul Calibur II at Wal-Mart the other day. I've liked few fighters in my life so I usually don't look into them unless the title reads "Street Fighter Alpha 3," but a game that features Link as one of the fighters warrants a closer look. So far it's been fun, but to be honest I've only played as Link so I have absolutely no idea how any of the other fighters play. But since that was the reason I bought the game in the first place, I don't see anything wrong with that. Besides that it's just been WoW and Halo 2.