Just two more finals left tomorrow and Wednesday and then it's off to home for Christmas break. There's a pretty good chance I'll end up working at Dominos for the few weeks I'm home. Apparently they are short staffed, and I could always use some money. Hopefully I'll still have some free time to hang out with friends while I'm home.

On FFXI my last Dark Knight AF2 piece still eludes me, but I did manage to pick up two other pieces for my trouble. I can only hope that Outcasts leveling static picks up the pace so I can actually wear these soon…

Aside from all the fun schoolwork I’ll be doing, the Wii launch is quickly approaching. I was back home the day Ebgame’s started taking preorders for it, and thus missed my opportunity to do so. I had hoped that their online store would be my saving grace, but as I understand it, when they FINALLY start taking preorders later today, it will be for a bundle only, coming with one game I want, and five I don’t. Did I also mention it costs $700? No thanks.

Looks like my best chance at this is simply to hit the Ebgame’s down the street at midnight and see if they have any non-preordered consoles left. If I were to listen to the ‘buzz’ around the Internet, it sounds like finding a Wii on launch day won’t be a problem. Nintendo is ahead of production schedule and there will be more consoles out than planned. However when I look at all the places that have sold out, that tells quite a different story. I’m not naive enough to believe it’s going to be as hard as finding a PS3 that weekend. But I am slightly worried it will take some doing to get a hold of one.

As for current games, I picked up FFXII a week ago. As one might expect, it is a fun game. However I am finding myself not enjoying it as much as some other FF games. *Minor spoilers ahead for both FFXII and FFIV* Now the last FF I played was FFIV Advanced. I hadn’t played it before, and I absolutely fell in love with it when I played it. Right from the start you are the rouge warrior defying an empire. Now when I start FFXII I’m the winy “wish I had Tidus back” kid who’s hiding from an empire. Not exactly a good impression coming straight off of FFIV. So far the story hasn’t gotten that much better. It’s decent I guess, but it’s just not grabbing me. RPG’s are generally played for their story, and when the story isn’t appealing to you, it’s hard to keep playing. For those that couldn’t guess from my statement a few moments ago, I don’t care much for Vaan either. At this point I’m coming to expect that though after Zidane in IX and Tidus in X. I’m hoping the story picks up soon, because as it is, it’s getting hard to even turn the game on anymore.

The CoP static made it past Sacrarium, and Promyvian-Vahzl, and we are right in the middle of Three Paths. We have two of the paths finished, with the hardest coming up. Even if we do manage to squeak out a victory in the last section, it only means we are now on what is considered the hardest mission in the game. Winning will mean a straight shot to Sea access. I'm not going to hold my breath on getting that anytime soon though. We have a decent group, but we don't have any of the recommended jobs for it.

Outside of FFXI, I've been replaying through some old games, but I am looking forward to FFXII's launch at the end of the month. It's been a while since I had a new game, it will be nice to see something new for a change. I am trying to get a Wii at launch as well, but that is more or less motivated by the fact that the new Zelda game will launch with the Wii, whereas the Gamecube version that should have been out months ago won't hit store shelves for a full month after the Wii version. Aside from that, I'm also looking forward to the new Mario game, Smash Bros, Metroid Prime 3, and FF: Crystal Chronicles. Hopefully at least some of those will make it out this year.

The CoP static Magus and I are in are hoping to tackle the Sacrarium on Friday night, and assuming we succeed we will hopefully be onto Promyvian-Vahzl in another week or two. Our leveling static has been on a short break since lvl 60 while Noviel and I got settle in at college, but hopefully that will pick up again soon. Magus is also trying to get Assault runs going again. I for one would love to get some done, I'm tired of being Private Second Class. However getting some of the other people in the LS to go is about like pulling teeth. Given the armor and weapons you can get by doing it, it's a surprise how opposed some of them are to doing Assault. Everybody was pretty interested while we were trying to get a Chivalrous Chain, but the moment we all got one, interest in doing runs again dropped through the floor. Hopefully Magus can convinced enough of them to get off their asses and go on some more.

My end game LS has been working on Dynamis-Xarcabard for a little while. We've pretty much just been farming the place dry, with one exceptionally lucky night that saw seven AF drops. I still have yet to get the Dark Knight piece, but I'm first up to get one so hopefully it won't take too long. We should be attempting the Dynamis Lord in the next few weeks so hopefully that will prove successful.

Not much other than that, but I did find this pic on the internet, can't quite remember where now. I find it to be a fairly accurate statement though:

On that subject, our CoP static has reached Rivern Site #B01, which has some of us concerned about our current party setup and whether it will be what we need to take down Ouryu. We will see in the next week or two if we can pull it off or if we will have to rethink our strategies. Our leveling static, made it to 52 yesterday, so everybody got to try on their first piece of AF armor. It is amazing how much easier all these quests are when you have a 75 job to take care of the hard stuff. Hopefully we will get some levels and Assaults done in the coming weeks.

The crew all went to see Superman on Wednesday. We were a little skeptical given how badly it could go in the wrong hands. I'm not sure about everybody else, but I was fairly pleased with it. The actor they got for Superman/Clark Kent nailed Christopher Reeves portrayal of the character, and the other actors did a pretty good job as well in my opinion. Every time a superhero movie comes out there is the inevitable argument that it wasn't 'truthful to the comics.' It's an argument I don't pay much attention to, as I haven't read many comics in my life, and not nearly enough to bitch about discontinuities. My major introduction to the character was the original four movies, and the animated series. All of which I liked, and this movie fits in nicely with them. Also, and too my amazement, there was a preview for Spiderman 3. It struck me as odd that a Marvel movie was being advertised as a DC movie. Confusion aside, the trailer looked pretty good. Nothing like getting excited about a movie that's a year away. Next week however it will be the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Hopefully it won't disappoint.

Shield has been sending me letters from Argentina were he still resides for at least the rest of this year. Some of his letters talked of missing Vanadiel more than missing home. He had deleted his character before he left back in 2004 though and had pretty much resigned to the fact that if he ever wanted to play again, he was starting back at lvl 1. A few weeks ago however SE restarted the "Return to Vanadiel" campaign and I saw at least the opportunity to try for him. I was able to get all the necessary game information from his younger brothers and managed to reactivate a character that had been deleted over a year and a half ago. It makes you wonder if SE actually deletes anything. Looking around on his character, it's a wonder he was able to tank for our party at all. A 51 warrior with a 17 monk sub wearing lvl 40 armor. We had often joked that Draos was the best white mage tank in the game, looking at his stuff it's easy to see why. One downside was that since his character had been deleted, somebody has taken the name Shield and the game made me rename his character. Magus suggested 'Xylen' since Shield used the name in other games, and if he really didn't want that name, he could petition for a name change later on. Unfortunately I don't have his e-mail address and snail mail to Argentina takes quite a while back and forth so I haven't been able to hear from him about what he wants me to do with his character until he gets back, if anything at all.

The new expansion pack released last week, "The Treasures of Aht Urgan." Along with it came a new city, three new jobs, and an entire new continent. All the new zones are full of mobs that will attack even 75 players so sneak and invisible are required to travel through them. As a result the price on the items to do so has skyrocketed and anybody with alchemy skill high enough to make them is sitting pretty. Magus had quite a time actually getting his copy however when UPS ended up sending it somewhere else and delayed its arrival by almost four days. Other than that little mishap, he and just about everybody else seem to be enjoying all the new content. I've managed to solo all the available missions for the new zones, which is fairly uncommon since most missions up to this point require at least whole parties if not alliances. I just hope it doesn't take SE six months to add in new missions.

It would seem luck was on my side tonight on FFXI. I took my first trip into Dynamis Beaucidine, and the third kill produced an Abyss Cuirass which puts my AF2 total to 4 out of 5 pieces. My linkshell has gone to Beaucidine before, but I have a Tuesday night class that has kept me from attending. This being spring break however, I was finally able to make it and was VERY pleased that I had. That just leaves one last piece from Dynamis Xarcabard, and I'm not expecting it will be nearly as easy. I have given some thought to trying to upgrade a relic weapon, but most of my money these days goes straight into Smithing. Perhaps at some point in the future I will try for one, but I won't hold my breath on it. They aren't notoriously expensive for nothing. I did snap a screen shot of one of the few on the server the other day, sure would look nice on me: