Hump Day!~

Sitting on the phone with Dell atm waiting for their tech support monkey to fill out all the paperwork for sending me a replacement mainboard. It amazes me this company I do consultation work for paid for the premium service package for 80+ computers they ordered from Dell 2ish years ago and that it takes 20 minutes on hold to get to someone, then another 20-30 just to get the information they already had on file in the correct place to send me the part. I won't complain about how fast Dell actually gets the part to me once it ships under this plan, but it's a huge hassle just to even get it to that point most times.

Anyway, on to FFXI stuff.

Big news of the day is...

Kimille

Don't know how many of the readers are aware of this, but Kimille is a co-sack in Obsidian with me. When we promoted her, we knew she was preggers. So over the past few months, it's been "bun in oven", "fat" and "turtle" jokes abound. (Before some readers crucify me...Kimi makes those jokes at her own expense too.)

Last night prior to turning in, I was talking with her about our Odin run as well as various other in game activities. She informs me that her hubby (Gavin) has been doign a lot of flood cleanup work due to various nature issues where she lives. I made the off-hand comment about how ironic is it that her hubby is cleaning up flood damage and she's about due to make a flood of her own.

She was apparently supposed to go in Thursday for some tests, but this morning, just out of the blue, the following conversation takes place over MSN:

[10:18] Kimille: Heyyy.... it didn't happen during dynamis afterall..
[10:19] Qtipus: ?
[10:20] Kimille: Popping
[10:20] Qtipus: you had your baby?
[10:20] Kimille: No.. water broke, and this was the first chair...
[10:20] Qtipus: XD
[10:20] Qtipus: WTF, go to the hospital
[10:20] Kimille: Waiting on Gavin now..
[10:21] Kimille: I am! Just.. yah.. waiting on my ride. <_>

Obviously, since I'm in possession of beans and frank, I have no f***ing clue what goes on inside of a body once that water breaks. I'm relatively sure there's not any major pain involved or any contractions, but it seems to me that water break = sign to get to the hospital (anyone who's had a baby can feel free to correct me here). The humor in this conversation is that Kimille is basically sitting there about to give birth talking on an IM client about it to various people as well as apparently having been logged in game to announce said water breaking.

Needless to say, Kimi going to be out of action for a while as she adjusts to her new lifestyle of no sleep, no peace and quiet and lots of poop. GOOD LUCK KIMI!~

Einherjar

This Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of Obsidian doing Einherjar. If you look at the member list and sort it by the number of runs, you can get a really good idea who makes up the core of our group. From August 2nd, 2008 to August 1st, 2009, there will have been a grand total of 105 days that we had Einherjar scheduled. I've bragged a lot on this blog before about where we started vs. where we're at now. We've certainly had our highs and lows, but last night saw us hit a couple of milestones.

The first of which was that "elusive" e.body that Mav's been after since we started finally dropping. I'm not going to go as far to say that we've had bad luck with Odin, but I will say that anyone who waits patiently enough for a year or more for one drop is certainly to be commended as a person focused on team. Mav certainly earned this with the time he's put into our group, so a huge CONGRATS! to him.

In the year that we've been doing Einherjar, we've fought Odin 11 times compiling a 9-2 record against him. For some groups, that looks like a rather paltry number. A large reason for the low numbers is the fact that it took us 4 months to stock up our mules and find our identity. On top of that, we were heavily divided between a Tuesday crew and a Saturday crew as I made a specific point of trying to put a very NA friendly time in and a very EU friendly time in when setting this up.

After our first Odin win, I tried to set it up so that each "crew" would have an opportunity to win one on each tier between Odins. This meant that we were doing Odin every 7th run day. We stumbled a bit between our first few odins forcing me to push an Odin or two back by a week, but we eventually found our stride. Once I felt like we were capable of winning consistently, I lowered the Odin frequency down to every 5th run day. I knew this would lower our Odin attendance by a bit, but I also knew that killing Odin was entirely possible with 25ish people with a little bit of difficulty and it's been that way since May. This alternates which day Odin was on between Tuesday and Saturday, so I was able to keep the NA and EU crews happy by not monopolizing Odin on one day. All of this brings me to the second milestone...

Last night's Odin was done with 26 people. It marks the first time we've killed Odin with fewer than 30 people. Two Odins prior to this one, we had 25 and timed out at 1% (the blame for which is on my head for calling off damage over a 2 min period to get recovered a bit for a final push). Even with 26, I had a feeling it was going to be cutting it close, but after eating up 2-3 minutes getting everyone in, the crew last night kicked the living shit out of Odin killing him sometime around the 7 minute mark. That pretty much amounts to 26 people killing Odin in 20 minutes.

My how far we've come. Not too shabby for a non-end game shell eh?

I'm not going to get ahead of myself and assume that this will be the case every time we go in, but I'm certainly very confident that we're capable of this now and I'm certainly very confident in the fact that our crew is confident it can happen too.

The major reward in this for me is that I'm part of something essentially built from scratch. When you take the fact that most of Obsidian's members have little to no end-game experience, putting them in something like Einherjar seems like a recipe for disaster. The learning curve was definitely steep, but looking back on where we were this time last year vs. where we are now, it's very rewarding to me personally to know that I helped build something that can last for a long time and reward members consistently w/o having to go through the drama of HNM camping.

Everyone taking part in this can definitely take a minute to feel some pride in what's been built. Einherjar is not something very many groups have success in, much less have success in it very frequently.

A Moogle Kupo d'Etat

Yeah...more fetch quests although the story in this one is more entertaining than ACP. The first major fight, "Roar! A Cat Buglar Bears Her Fangs" was certainly entertaining though even though the fetch quest running around all over Quicksands Caves finding ???s marked on your map was something extremely annoying. I'm not going to bitch too much about it because I know what's coming up and this is apparently nothing on the annoyance scale compared to what we're about to deal with.

Anyway, the fight itself was very fun. We went in with Lect (RDM), Suraph (BLM), Rifu (SAM), Brizzy (SAM), Kauna (COR), and myself (PLD/NIN).

AND YES KAYLEA I REALIZE YOU'RE NOT ON THIS LIST~

It opens with Nanaa Mihgo and her three Goblin assistants. Suraph ES Sleepga IIs them all while I build up hate on Nanaa and Rifu/Brizzy take out the goblins. After 2-3 WS, each goblin went down and Nanaa had just woken up as the last goblin went down.

Nanaa Mihgo herself is no walk in the park. While the first major ACP fight in Fei'Yin had us getting dogpiled by 4 seed monsters resistant to sleep, Nanaa Mihgo basically dogpiles you by slapping damn near every annoying status effect in the book (Paralyze, Stun, Poison and Silence) through her normal melee attacks, she also uses a move called King Cobra Clamp.

This move actually went through Invincible and shadows I should note and knocked me around for 800-1200 each time.

Oh...and she spams it as her health gets lower.

To top it all off, she "summons" two mithra helpers as the fight is going on. As long as you haven't DoT'd Nanaa, you can sleep her and focus on her helpers. They've got more HP than her goblin counterparts, but they still go down rather easily. She will spawn either a NIN or a BLM helper first, then the other one later.

After the second helper went down, it was damn near impossible for me to keep my shadows up to avoid her en-status crap. On top of that (as mentioned before), Invincible was basically useless due to her special TP move. Our crew won this with a little effort, but I ended up eating a Cobra Clamp right as she died that killed me...so I got to watch the cutscene afterwards with 0 HP. :)

All of this sounds a lot more daunting than it really is though. As long as you keep your tank's HP high and know what to expect from the various assistants, then the battle is pretty tame. As I said before...anyone with a lot of experience in dealing with multi-mob BCNMs shouldn't have any issues with this.

I'm not looking forward to doing the stuff after this BC though. I'll trudge through it, but I'll likely bitch every step of the way.

Per LOLRifu's Request

Please take these numbers as general estimates of what to expect. It's noted that the formulas are wrong and haven't been rediscovered since the 2H update. Also note that I am only relatively sure that melee max pDIF caps at 3. It was understood before the update that the cap for a crit hit was at 3, so it stands to reason that the normal melee hit doesn't actually cap at 3, but for the purposes of this post, we will assume it does.

Rifuburade has taken an interest in my blog. For those of you that don't know Rifu, aside from having a ridiculously long name to spell for being an Einherjar tank in Obsidian, he's got several melee jobs leveled. He sent me a tell a few days ago wanting me to apply the FFXI formulas I've been using to his gear to see how he stacks up.

Here are his gear sets:

TP Set (I modified this one with food, his original can be found here.)

Weapon Skill gear set (I modified this one with food, his original can be found here.)

For the purposes of this post, all of the numbers (unless I say otherwise) will be calculated assuming Hasso, Berserk, Warcry and Aggressor are active. I do realize that this isn't always the case, but the main thing I want to look at is his maximum potential.

Just as a refresher:

Berserk: +25% Attack
Hasso: +5 STR, +5 ACC
Warcry: +9% Attack (It's a long ass 8.####### according to wiki)
Aggressor: Accuracy +25

TP Set numbers (against our Level 82 Colibri):

STR: 103
DEX: 93
Acc+: 27 (Gear)
Att+: 47 (Gear)
Total Acc: 410
Total Att: 657

This brings his calculated values to:

fSTR: 9.5
cRatio: 1.64
pDIF Min: 1.92
pDIF Max: 3 (3.23, but leaving at 3 since I'm relatively sure it caps at that)
Hit Rate: 95%
fMIN: 199
fMAX: 310

Those would be some rather eye popping numbers. I need to find out the exact numbers for his total attack as that looks a little high according to Wiki and FFXIGear.com(I could be wrong). Regardless of that number though, it's clear that Rifu's TP set is at the ACC cap against Greater Colibri when Aggressor is active. Without Aggressor, his Hit Rate is actually down around 80-85%.

Weapon Skill Gear numbers

STR: 136
DEX: 78
Acc+: 20 (Gear)
Att+: 20 (Gear)
Total Acc: 385
Total Att: 655

Raging Rush Calculated values (STR 35%, 3 Hit):

fSTR: 17.75
cRatio: 1.64
pDIF Min: 1.92
pDIF Max: 3 (3.23, again capping at 3)
fMIN: 214
fMAX: 335
Hit Rate: 80%
WSC: 39
WD: 151
Raging Rush damage range: 868-1359

Steel Cyclone Calculated Values (STR 50%, VIT 50%, 1 Hit)

100TP (x1.5)

VIT: 72
WSC: 86
Base WD: 198
WD: 297
Damage Range: 570-891

200TP (x1.75)

WSC: 86
Base WD: 198
WD: 341
Damage Range: 655-1023

300TP (x2)

WSC: 86
Base WD: 198
WD: 384
Damage Range: 737-1152

King's Justice Calculated Values (STR 50%, 3 hit):

100TP (x1)

WSC: 56
WD: 168
Damage range: 965-1512

200TP (x1.25)

WSC: 56
WD: 210
Damage Range: 1209-1890

300TP (x1.5)

WSC: 56
WD: 252
Damage Range: 1451-2268

Rifu's accuracy here took a huge hit in his set up. If he isn't anywhere close to the accuracy cap here on Greater Colibri, he's certainly going to have issues with it on larger, more difficult monsters. He had a near 25% drop in his DEX (thanks mostly to the pants and gloves change), but a near double increase of his fSTR w/o sacrificing too much of his overall attack. Accuracy should always be the priority. I generally agree with Ring that you shouldn't build a TP and a WS gear set around XP mobs, but I will add the caveat that if you're nowhere near caps on those, you're going to be hurting when it's crunch time.

Please note that his Hit Rate includes Aggressor being active. Without it, he's going to miss at least 1/4 of his weapon skills if the forumlas are correct.

General Observations

Rifu's gear set is relatively common among the Warriors I've been around. While I'm not going to profess to knowing everything there is to know about Warrior gear, I will say that Warrior shares a lot of gear with Dragoon. In his case, an E.Body and a Fortitude torque would do wonders (which he's working on), but he can definitely make his standing TP set better by picking up some Aurum Sabatons or some Unicorn Leggings (as funds allow for the latter...).

The other observation is that Rifu may be better off using his Haub for his Weapon Skills instead of his N.Body. Especially on those multihit weapon skills. He'll lose about 1.5 fSTR, but he'll negate the effects of his selected hand piece. Just for giggles, what if he continued to use his Dusk Gloves and Haub for his WS?

Numbers end up looking like this:

STR: 118
DEX: 89
Acc+: 20 (Gear)
Att+: 35 (Gear)
Total Acc: 395
Total Att: 655
fSTR: 13.25
cRatio: 1.65
pDIF Min: 1.96
pDIF Max: 3 (3.28, again capping at 3)
fMIN: 210
fMAX: 322
Hit Rate: 85%
WSC: 34
WD: 141
Raging Rush damage range: 829-1269

The damage range for Raging Rush drops a bit (about 5%), but he also gained a lot of accuracy just by changing two pieces of gear out that he already had. Most will look at that lower damage range and scoff, but in a long parse, nine times out of ten, the guy with the higher accuracy is parsing better than everyone else. It's also noteworthy to mention that while I did these numbers with carbonara used as the food, Pizza offers a lot of ACC and ATT and could easily cover up some of the Acc issues displayed here.

Last note, sometimes loading up on attack and increasing those pDIF values will have more of an impact than loading up on STR for a WS. Keep in mind that adding STR to anything effects a lot of different things in these equations since adding STR adds Attack as well, but if you're comparing say a STR+5 piece against an Attack +15, you should probably go with the Attack+15...especially if you're at or near the fSTR cap of 18.

Hope this helps Rifu. :)

Cookout Stories 2009 Vol. 3

As you know by now, we were up there in Maine for two full days and a couple of half days around them. This time, I'll go over a lot of the food we ended up eating over the course of the two full days as the last half day (morning) and the trip back to Hartford can probably be it's own volume of stories.

Canuck vs. "Fine China"

Friday morning, I was poked and prodded out of bed by Kay. Normally this isn't news except she F***ING WAITED UNTIL EVERYONE ELSE HAD THEIR BREAKFAST UNTIL SHE WOKE ME UP. NICE JOB TAKING CARE OF YOUR MAN THERE! I get downstairs to find everyone else out on the back deck happily eating their home made french toast, home made strawberry cream cheese covered with fresh strawberries and syrup along with their sides of bacon.

I go over the counter to get my breakfast and am handed a plate by her mother with everything they have (the last of it I might add) except for...

...the bacon.

I knew who was responsible for this travesty and he was out on the back porch trying to figure out how to use plastic eating utensils without breaking them. You'd think as cold as it is in Canada, being careful with plastic would be about as second nature as not eating yellow snow, but Canuck had his issues....breaking I think a grand total of 4 forks trying to cut things like...french toast.

Anyway, big point of this is that the breakfast was awesome despite the fact I didn't get any bacon, but that was to be expected since we had Canuck there wrapping everything he was eating in bacon and smothering that with a side of bacon itself.

Grandmother vs. Qtipus

We start Saturday morning off with the Donut Alarm. It's this alarm that goes off any time Kay's grandmother makes her home made donuts. It's silent and exists only in the head of her family, but I swear they all know when she does it w/o her having to say a word. If you share any DNA with this family, you just know when the donuts have been made and try to find your way there before they're all eaten.

After getting dragged out of bed by Kay, I was informed the donuts were ready.

I have to admit. When I visit up there, I always enjoy visiting her grandmother. Her mom and dad are awesome, but her grandmother loves to argue with me and give in to Kay's whining. Plus the donuts are freaking awesome. So the thought of going down there to jostle around with her grandmother plus eat some tasty breakfast treats is always something to look forward to.

Upon our arrival, her entire family is there. Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, siblings...hell I think there were even people from a yard sale her grandmother wanted to go to there eating too. I'm telling you...that Donut Alarm is real.

And we were actually up early...like 7:30AM early...how in the hell did we get beaten to the donuts. Her grandmother makes plenty though...except when Kay's brother is around (Kay's brother is appropriately, for this story, a police officer).

While we're all chowing down on donuts, I decided to pick the fight I normally pick with her grandmother while I'm there. Mainly cause it's an amusing fight and the rest of the crew is there to finally see it. Y'see...the reason I pick this fight isn't to actually stake claim to the favorite grandchild status (which I am). It's because this fight somehow causes Kay to revert to a 4 year old mentality and start whining about things like:

"Nana tell him he's not the favorite grandchild!"
(My Kaylea is a spoiled princess, you better start treating her like one!)

...this is followed by getting a pair of 40-year age gapped tongues stuck out at me.

"He's under the delusion that I actually want a ring!"
(She does want one and you better get her one!)

The best parts are when she starts talking about grandbabies. She likes to lay the guilt trip on thick to Kay. "I'm not getting any younger and we don't get to see the great-grandchild we have!" I keep trying to tell her that Kay's preggers, but she doesn't believe me. It could be that I'm telling her that while laughing as the reason she doesn't, but still, it's fun to start that conversation between Kay and her grandmother.



The Campground

This is where we ended up spending the bulk of our daylight hours. Kay's family owns a plot of land along a different lake than their house is built on. They use this for their camp ground. Here you can see Canuck and Mr. Pun exploring around a bit. Take note of the hammock. Fortunately no pictures were taken of this incident, but let's just say that whoever put that hammock up didn't secure it to one of the trees too good and the end result was Q sprawled out on the ground with the hammock under him.

Take note of how pale all of us are standing in that lake. Also take note of how clear the water is. It's a little hard to tell in that picture, but when Canuck and I got into some kayaks, we could still see the bottom of the lake about 50 yards out.



Pea pod splitting! This is yet another thing to blame Kaylea for on this trip. She whines to her mother "I want peas!" So what does her mother do?

She goes and buys two grocery bags full of peas in pods. I'm not talking plastic grocery bags. I'm talking large, brown, not-tree friendly paper bags full of these things. You can actually see said bag in this picture. It doesn't look as large as I described, but the top of the bag is crumpled.

To top it all off, Kay tried to get out of doing any pea splitting. Wasn't going to happen on my watch. If the guys were there shucking peas, she was gonna park her booty down on that same table and shuck right along with us. I don't know what I said in this picture to crack King Cranky and Canuck up, but it was likely something at Kay's expense.

And Kay gets to go sit in the Chair O' Shame. She got put in this chair because Team MAN defeated Team WOMAN in pea shucking. The men got through their entire bag o' peas despite Kay's Dad turning redcoat on us and helping the women out. That might've had more to do with Kay's mom giving Kay's dad the spock-eye than Kay's Dad's desire to actually help out Team WOMAN though. However any man with balls large enough to wear tighty-whities with various pieces of Fruit of the Loom fruits on the waist can get a pass at least once.

This is the only authorized picture that I can put up on my blog of Kay btw. There are more from this trip, but if I like my anatomy, this is the only picture I'll post. She's got a mystery to keep and all.

All of this work wasn't for naught though. Lunch had us eating hot dogs and burgers as an appetizer. Dinner was served up about a couple hours later consisting of things you normally find at a thanksgiving table. Two whole roasted turkeys, peas, potatos, etc. This is also where we discovered King Cranky Cat is apparently not the cat we thought he was as he isn't too fond of anything other than pizza, hot dogs and burgers. Which brings me to...

King Cranky Stuffed With Meat

Kay's mom must've taken a strong liking to King Cranky. I don't know if it was that award-winning smile...that salt n' pepper hair (I'm balding at 31...KCC is going gray at 27...take THAT old jokes)...the witty personality...or what, but basically if King Cranky demanded it, Kay's mom served it up. For lunch on the first day, after learning Suraph wasn't too fond of what was being served, Suraph got served with a plate containing 4 hot dogs and 4 hamburgers...all of which he nursed down over the course of the rest of the day/night (poor Canuck...).

Same thing happened the next day too. :)

Might've had something to do with King Cranky reminding Kay's family of some member named Travis I have yet to meet.

Moose Ribs

Saturday's lunch (after our schlacking of Odin) consisted of a few "Thanksgiving" leftovers and something I had never eaten before.

See title of this section.

My only previous experience with moose meat of any sort was in the form of some ground moose meat that Kay's mom had fixed for dinner a couple trips prior to this one. Kay turns her nose up at it in typical "Pretty Pretty Princess Ain't Going to Eat Bullwinkle So Fix Me What I Want" fashion.

This was one meal I was looking forward to. Mainly cause it opened the door for more Canadian jokes, but also cause it was something I had never eaten before. As a matter of fact, Kay's family and Yot were the only ones there who had eaten moose before.

I have to say...

...OMFG THAT WAS F***ING TASTY.

F***ING TASTY I SAY.

F***ING TASTY.

It wasn't what I expected. I thought it'd be similar to normal ribs from a cow. In reality, the meat was tougher, stringier and was rather tangy/bitter at the same time in a good way. I made a pig out of myself. These were served up with a side of grilled scallops...which were F***ING TASTY too.

Vanilla Soup

Just as a side note...Kay's Aunt made home made vanilla ice cream...but it melted the second it left the container. So we were forced to brain freeze ourselves in order to keep it from spilling on us.

She's made home made ice cream for me before and she usually makes it with snow that's fallen, but given it was July...yeah no snow. Not even in Maine.

Bean-Hole Beans

Saturday's dinner had this as the main, unique attraction. I have had these before. They're basically beans cooked in a dutch oven (not the type that involves an ass and bed covers) that's buried in a firepit for a day. Here's a picture of said bean-hole. To cook beans in a burning hole, you A) Dig hole, B) Start fire in said hole, C) put dutch oven filled with beans in said hole, and D) Bury, pray it doesn't rain and let cook for 24 hours. These were served various pieces like home made cornbread and hot dogs.

This meal led to some real dutch ovens happening to Kay later that night. :)

These were just the main meals we all ate as a collective group. This doesn't include various snacks and treats her mom made for us while we were trying to come out of our respective food comas. Between home made Key Lime Pies and various other fruit treats (mostly revolving around strawberries), our tummies didn't have much of a chance to recover.

The Return of Friends

When friends leave FFXI, more often times than not, it's going to result in one of three things happening:

1. Stay in touch via methods like other games, IM software, phone etc.
2. Never speak to them again.
3. Take over their account, turn it into an AH mule, feather mule, PL'ing mule etc.

Normally, in the third case, this is done in hopes that one day the real owner of the account says "My account is still active...I think I'll give FFXI another try" and comes back.

That or you just like having a a second account to do shit with so that you don't have to level an entirely new one to get around.

Anyway, the past month and a half or so has seen the return of several of my old friends. Some weren't gone as long as others, but it didn't necessarily reflect any more or less impact on my clique of friend's activities.

When I log in to play FFXI, I don't log in to make new friends to spend time with. I've found over the years that friendships develop on their own and trying to force friendships to happen usually results in drama. I get it when people want to keep their real and cyber lives separate, I'm generally the same way. I have no issue telling someone what I do for a living, what I look like, etc because it's just simple truth and that is just me.

There's usually a natural order to how things play out in the development of a friendship though. Obviously, first thing you do is interact with someone within the game itself. It's generally a safe thing to say that within the first 2-3 interactions (XP party, LS Event, etc), you have a decent idea if said person is just going to annoy the piss out of you or if they're generally someone decent.

The next logical step is usually something along the lines of an IM Client or another game interface once you feel like you can trust someone enough outside of FFXI. It's also perhaps mixed in with some form of internet voice communication like Skpye, Vent, Teamspeak, etc.

After a while, if you start running around with said person quite a bit and come to rely on them for various events (say co-leading a linkshell, doing missions, etc), phone numbers are exchanged. From there, you've inadvertently managed to cultivate your friendship beyond the limitations of the cyber world. Don't get me wrong, you can still have friendships that go beyond the cyber world as long as both parties are being completely truthful, but generally speaking...this point doesn't happen w/o some form of a real life interaction.

This would be the case with the series of friends who have returned to FFXI the past couple months. Name by name:

Kaelis/Erimentha

I like to refer to them as Mr. and Mrs. Pun or Mr. and Mrs Kaelis. This is due to the fact that when I first met Eri online, I could never remember her name, so I just made something up that was convenient for me to remember. Kaelis was a co-sack in Obsidian back in the shell's early days. I knew him well before I knew Eri. Hell, I don't even think I knew Eri played FFXI until about 2 years after I started hanging out with Kaelis...

The friendships transcended FFXI upon the creation of a linkshell BBQ. The idea was for a number of us to gather together at Kaelis' house who were in GTC/SSI. The original 6 of us that attended (despite more invites being sent) were Kaylea, Sirinity, Looco Mr. and Mrs. Kaelis and myself. The first one was in 2007.

Anyway, about a year ago, real life intervened and they had to drop FFXI. Eri wasn't really into playing FFXI too much and generally logged in while she did her crafts at home. Kaelis, on the other hand, is someone who was running around with our clique doing missions and whatnot whenever he could. He was caught up on everything at the time that he quit, but as everyone knows...a lot has changed in FFXI over the past year.

Suraph

King Cranky and I go way back to FFXI's near infant days. He's never been one that dumped a crapload of time into the game each night, but the time he did spend early on was effective and very goal oriented. He was one of the original sackholders for Obsidian and the developer of our original bidding system and website. At it's peak (and back then it was pretty much necessary...), Suraph helmed website demands for nearly 300 members Obsidian had active. This would be where he earned the moniker of "King Cranky" and the worldwide consumption of Advil tripled thanks to one small location in the eastern US.

Around 4ish years ago, he decided FFXI wasn't for him anymore and ended up leaving the game. Given that he and I were pretty much in the same linkshell the entire time that we were logged in, I'm lucky enough to have been counted among his friends. The tell-tale moment of our adventures together involve his level 65ish THF tanking Vouivre in Ifrit's Cauldron to get me a Gae Bolg. It wasn't a lance I was particularly after (and I still have it), but we were up there farming Opo-Crown items and he popped, so we said "we like dying, let's try to kill it." Also, upon his leaving, he sold all of his gear and gave me 30 million gil out of the blue to help fund Gungnir. 30 mil back then is pretty much like 4 mil or so now thanks to the inflation, but Suraph's niceness (despite his nickname) funded about 1/4 of my Dynamis Lance and bought me a Barone Corazza (back when they were 10 mil...) to help pimp out my Dragoon at the time. It makes it sound like he bought my friendship and I certainly don't mean to imply that he did, but that act of kindness is something a person doesn't forget.

Since he left, he's been an on/off again player. Mostly when he comes back, it's to try to get those blasted Monk AF2 pants that seem to elude him (even though his Monk wasn't even in equipping range when he started trying to collect the AF2 through open bids...). After a 1-2 year hiatus, the solo content that SE was implementing into the game lured him back to a bit more of a part time player as opposed to an on/off again player.

Lectrikelion

This one came as the biggest surprise to me. I knew Kaelis wanted to return (even though he hadn't vocalized it...his mannerisms were enough to tell me) and Suraph is who he is, but I hadn't spoken to Lect in nearly 2 years and he quit something like 3+ years ago. Obviously, if I had his account information to use his character as a mule, we already know that our friendship had transcended the game.

He called me up out of the blue a few days ago wanting to know if his account was still active, which it obviously was. Only huge problem was that I had linked it to my SE ID and apparently SE won't allow you to call in and verify in 40 different ways that you are who you say you are and unlink a POL ID from the SE ID.

And...Odin's still closed.

Lect being who he is (real life intervened on him too years ago and he had to leave), someone who probably had spent more time with me in-game than anyone else up to that point, I naturally will do what I can to help him return. Even though I hadn't talked to him in a long time, our friendship had trascended the game years before he left. Given some of the things he had to deal with at the time, I'm not going say "you should have kept in touch!" to him cause it's a two way street. We'd play phone tag for a week or so, but never could quite hook up to catch up on things.

He was lured back by the same content that lured Suraph back, but at the same time...he's missed a ton. Which is one of the bigger points of this post...

...I get to do CoP, ToAU and WotG missions again.

So I'm being a little more proactive this time around.

I'm using Dantess' account to go with them.

Cause at the rate I'm going, Dantess will show up out of the blue too and I'll just have to double back and bring him up to speed as well. We also need a dash of Mighty Midget Ruh and Theora.

I'm definitely glad they're back, but at the same time, it's a little bitter because a lot of the new, fun things in the game don't make much sense w/o a story to go with them (or in some cases actually being past a certain mission to access it). There's also the gear that's free and great like the CoP and ToAU rings and the expensive stuff that goes along with the Gobbiebag quests. It makes it difficult to do things with them when the missions are a bit of a cockblock.

Just like in the old days though, going through the game with old friends is the best thing you can do in this game.

Now to figure out what I can move around on my schedule to help them out as much as possible.

(...just don't expect me to do the fkn crawls through ACP again... :D)

Relic Weapon Skill - Geirskogul

I've bitched for a while that I'm not particularly happy with SE's choice of modifiers for Geirskogul. As an Elvaan DRG, having an AGI modifier on a WS means I'm having to do two things:

First, I'm having to utilize my second worst job stat.

Second, I'm having to build an entire secondary set of gear that Dragoon doesn't have many options for.

So with that in mind, here's some more math today to illustrate whether it's effective or not for me to actually carry around an AGI build.

From my previous WS gear series posts (which I still need to correct a bit...), most already know what my WS gear set is. Across the board it's:

Gungnir/Pole Grip/Empty/Olibanum Sachet
Askar hat/Love Torque/Brutal Earring/Ethereal Earring
Ares body/Hecatomb Hands/Flame Ring/Rajas Ring
Amemet Mantle+1/Warwolf Belt/Hecatomb legs+1/Hecatomb Feet

Or you can click here to see a graphical representation (keep in mind that link doesn't take merits or job abilities into account):

The base information you need to know here is:

Target: Same level 82 Greater Colibri
STR: 139
DEX: 98
AGI: 57
Accuracy: +20
Polearm Skill: +7
Attack: +61
Total Attack: 547
fSTR: 18.5
cRatio: 1.31
pDIF min: 1
pDIF max: 2.06
Accuracy: 94%

For using Drakesbane, the important WS numbers end up looking like this:

WSC: 57
WD: 175
Damage Range: 875-1800

Using this same gear set up, Geirskogul numbers end up looking like this:

WSC: 28
WD: 440
Damage Range: 550-1132

So what happens if I load up on AGI gear? Would I be sacrficing too much STR and attack in order to do so? Does AGI make any difference at all?

Let's just swap out one piece of gear. The easiest one to compare straight stats would be my Flame Ring. Replace it with a Breeze Ring and we end up with the following:

(Click here for graphical representation.)

STR: 134
DEX: 98
AGI: 62
Accuracy: +20
Polearm Skill: +7
Attack: +61
Total Attack: 543
fSTR: 17.25
cRatio: 1.30
pDIF min: 1
pDIF max: 2.01
Accuracy: 94%

WSC: 30
WD: 441
Damage Range: 551-1107

With that one piece of gear, we managed to bring up my minimum damage by a whole 1 point while dropping my maximum damage by a 25 points. That was just with the ring. Now what happens if I go apeshit with an entire AGI set for Geirskogul purposes?

Click here for the set and here are the relevant numbers:

STR: 109
DEX: 88
AGI: 118
Accuracy: +32
Attack: +3
Total Attack: 444
fSTR: 11
cRatio: 1
pDIF min: .69
pDIF max: 1.19
Accuracy: 95%

WSC: 58
WD: 507
Damage Range: 438-754

Even with the absolute maximum amount of gear that I can get with AGI+ on it, it is no substitute for +STR or +Att. Out of curiosity though...what happens if Geirskogul's modifier is STR or DEX? Would it be broken then? Use my normal weapon skill gear set and numbers look like:

STR/DEX
WSC: 68/48
WD: 558/499
Damage Range: 697-1436/623-1285

Certainly still not better than Drakesbane, but mostly due to the fact that Drakesbane is multihit. Also add in the fact that Geirskogul, despite it's animation saying otherwise, is a single hit WS and we all know how LOL Elvaan accuracy is in regards to that. On top of all that, I just look flat retarded in that AGI set. Light Blue + Red + Purple + Teal/Brown...yeah...

Thoughts

If SE were to take a second look at this, (and if you believe the formulas which are currently known to be wrong after the 2H update), I'm sure they would see changing the modifier for this WS wouldn't have a game breaking effect. In a way, I can see the whole Double Light thing being effected drastically, but I can't imagine it would be any worse than a maxed out SAM's closing double.

Even if they made the modifier DEX or VIT, it'd be a significant improvement over AGI. If these formulas are believed to be close to accurate, then it's already a given that most Dragoons are going to load up on a combination of STR and DEX anyway. Some of the best gear Dragoon has will also come with VIT. Also, if a Dragoon goes all out on DEX or VIT, it's pretty much shown here that removing even 1 STR or 1 Attack is far more detrimental than adding a ton of anything else.

Having AGI as a modifier knowing damn well it's the 2nd worst job trait along with knowing damn well a Dragoon can't even come close to touching the amount of STR or DEX in terms of gear was just flat stupid on SE's part. Even back when these relics were implemented, I can't imagine AGI was something Dragoon had a lot of access to.

A question I'm asked quite a bit is, "Why did you upgrade the relic if you knew the WS was crappy?"

I really hate this question as it generally means most people don't understand that nearly all of the relic weapon skills (especially in the 2h case) don't compare with the multihit weapon skills a particular weapon has. You don't upgrade a relic weapon to spam these weapon skills in most cases. You upgrade them because of the hidden damage multipliers, the base damage (which are generally the highest in the game) and generally for the aftermath effects. Granted, Shock Spikes kind of eliminates that for Gungnir (and is a whole other issue I can rant about), but for other weapons, the aftermath effects are rather astounding. That's not to say a relic can't be beaten with certain gear combinations in certain situations, but that is to say if you have one, odds are you're going to outstrip everyone else in your class.

Conclusion

Either SE was insanely stupid in their selection of WS modifiers or the conventional wisdom for what modifies Geirskogul is wrong. People upgrading this relic shouldn't worry about building an AGI set. If a piece of WS gear just happens to have AGI on it, so be it...it's a slight bonus to your damage. Just don't go seeking out an AGI build thinking that 60% modifier is going to do insane boosts to it.

Cookout Stories 2009 Vol. 2

Last volume, I told the beginning and the end of this trip. This volume, I'll tell the noteworthy moments up to our arrival in Maine.

Sushi, Einherjar, and Night Driving

Kaelis got home to find a Canuck and myself sitting on his back porch drinking beer. After some chitchat, we go inside and start getting set up for our Einherjar run later that evening. All of us could have taken the night off in regards to Einherjar due to already having the feathers needed for Odin...except for the Canuck...who, for some reason, prioritized things like...family, concerts and beer over Einherjar. So in order for us to see the "Everyone doing Odin Saturday" plans come to fruition, Yoteo is faced with a must-win Tier 3 run.

Since we had a crapload of time before Einherjar started, we decided to go get some dinner when Mrs. Kaelis got home. Japanese restaurant named Ando was where we went and boy did we destroy some sushi. I think the final count was 6 california rolls, 3 sushi dinners, 2 eel rolls, 2 spicy tuna rolls and I can't even remember the rest. We had leftovers that made their way to CT with us (more on this part later).

Einherjar went off w/o a hitch and Odin on Saturday for everyone was now possible. Given the time, we all started prepping the car for our 12 hour drive to Hartford, CT the next day.



This would be said car (in Maine at the end of the trip...it was dark in Cinci when we loaded it up). Note the open hatchback. Fill it up with all of our stuff and keep that mental image in mind for later.



This would be an obligatory ass picture demonstrating the actual loading of the car.

After I took my shower, I felt really refreshed and energized and I knew if I had tried to go to sleep, I'd just feel like absolute shit driving the next day. So I had the bright idea to get everyone packed up and get on the road....

...at 1AM.

Now the 3 that were in the car with me will all gripe about having to get in a car at 1AM and start the process, but given the events that unfolded later in the trip with said car, it was actually awesome that we did. Aside from my fatigue logic, I also knew it'd be faster if we drove through the busy portions of the trip (mostly Ohio) during the night. The original plan was for us to head out about 7 or 8 AM and it was already 1AM.

So off we go. A stationwagon full of luggage, gaming gear, Yoteo, Kaelis, Erimentha and myself.

A Canuck's Collection of Rest Stop Ass Symphonies

About 2-3 hours into this trip, we pull off for a restroom break. Kaelis, Yot and I all head into the men's room and take up a stall. I just had to pee, so I wasn't going to be in there long. While I'm in there, I start singing "Swing Low" in my basso grando voice and next thing I know...I'm being drowned out by what sounds like someone letting an untied, air-filled balloon go flying around the room.

Repeatedly.

And not your standard sized balloons, we're talking hot-air balloon sized.

Now normally, someone farting while having a bowel movement isn't something I would laugh at, but this just kept going and going and going. It was seriously along the lines of the Jeff Daniels' "Dumb and Dumber" laxative scene. I couldn't help it any longer...I just cracked up. Even Kaelis, who is far less likely than me to laugh at that sort of thing, started laughing. There's nothing I can really say to describe the noises that came out of Yoteo's stall that particular break to do it justice other than to say that was one manly ASS EXPLOSION!™ [call4]

Talk about first impressions. Yot hadn't been around us any longer than maybe...half a day at that point and two of us had already had audio representation of his bathroom trips.

(Sorry, no pictures of this thankfully.)

Car Upkeep Part 1

Back on the road we go. The rest of the drive is relatively uneventful until we get into Connecticut. I drove up to I-80 then let Yoteo take over for a bit. After a couple hours, it was Kaelis' turn to drive, then Erimentha's. As we got towards the end of I-80, I took over again and drove the rest of the way.

Once we got into Connecticut though, we got stopped by some heavy congestion on the highway. About this time, I notice that the temperature gauge on the car is almost in the red zone.

Thats....not good.

When we'd move, it'd drop, but when we'd idle, it'd go up. So I pulled off at a rest stop a bit to let it cool off (plus we had to take a rest stop break anyway). Turns out the oil hadn't been changed prior to us coming up here. It wasn't that the car was way over the mileage (hit the "change me" point when we actually got into Hartford), it was that if it had been changed, odds are the cooling issue we discovered later would have been found and dealt with then. Fortunately, we weren't slowed down much after the rest stop break and the temperature gauge behaved itself for the most part. We knew we were going to have to get it checked before we made the part of the trip from Hartford to Maine though.

Kaylea's Place

Finally the long part of our drive was done. We got to Kay's place about 2PM and unloaded the car. She didn't know we were leaving earlier than usual and upon finding that out, she calls me to make sure I wasn't going to take a nap and to come pick her up from work.

Brief recap...

- Overheating Car
- Boyfriend that just drove 12 hours on a couple hours of sleep.

...and she wouldn't even let me take a nap.

So it's only natural I ask her to marry me w/o a ring right? :)

Yeah...

After picking her up, I did indeed get a nap in (along with everyone else). We woke up around 5:30PM all hungry, but first, we needed to get the oil changed and find out why the car was overheating.

In my own, do-it-yourself diagnostic, I guessed the fluid in the cooling tank was low or gone. This guess was backed up by me wiggling said tank looking for the silhouette of fluid bouncing around inside that would indicate how much was in there. There was no bouncing silhouette...and I avoided opening the tank up due to the engine being hot at the time (I did this when we initially got to Kay's apartment right off the highway).

The only place that changes oil that's open after 6PM is apparently Sears. When we come back to get the car (we killed time by looking through Toys R' Us and a couple other stores in the vicinity), turns out that the cooling tank is indeed full of fluid but...it's actually some form of congealed goop. This is usually caused by fluids mixing via two different brands of coolant, oil leaking in from the head gasket, etc. Cooling system flush was going to be $80, but Kaelis wanted to try to wait and see if it was cheaper with his mechanic back home. We knew the car was fine on the highway as long as we were moving and the trip from Hartford to Maine wasn't exactly a congested trip and the weather was on our side as it was rather cool for this time of year in New England.

With that, we ran off to dinner at a greek restaurant called Tapas (my favorite place to eat in Hartford). After dinner, it was off to the mall to pick up chocolates from Munson's for Kay's grandmother and mother. This was an absolute necessity as my life would have ended if we showed up without them. Then it was back to Kay's place to lounge around for a few hours until everyone went to sleep and then back on the road again in the morning around 9AM to head to Maine.

Enter King Cranky and "70MPH + Open Hatchback = ?"

Once we crossed into Maine about noonish, we met up with the King of Cranky himself, Suraph.



This is in Maine at the end of the trip, but pretty much sums up Comrade Cranky as best as any picture can w/o a plane and hockey gear in it. We split the crew up between cars making sure Kay was in one car and I was in the other since we were the only two that knew the way to our destination. It ended up being Cranky, Canuck and me in Cranky's car and Kaelis, Kay and Erimentha in the wagon.

We drive for a bit, pull off to get lunch, then drive for a little bit more and pull off at a gas station for a restroom break. While we're all in this store, Kaelis gets into the back of the wagon to get something out (I can't remember what). Yoteo and I both saw him close the hatchback. As we're leaving the gas station parking lot, the Cranky crew notices...the hatchback has opened.

No problem right? We can just honk our horn or call them and they'll pull over to close it.

Yeah, no.

We're in the left turn lane getting ready to turn back onto the interstate. Suraph basically has the nose of his car against the back of theirs laying into the horn. I've got the passenger door open getting ready to run up and try to close the thing before they take off, but it's too late. They took off. I fumbled around with my phone trying to call Kay to let her know what was up and...

...no answer.

They're up to about 70 on the highway now and what's worse is they're changing lanes quite a bit to weave in and out of traffic. We're watching the contents of the wagon blow around a bit and we're certain we're going to lose a lot of stuff. Finally I get through to Kaelis and they pulled over, but not before we lost the most important thing in there:

The Munson's chocolates.

Man I was pissed.

There's two stages to my level of anger. Mouthy and Silent. If I'm mouthing off about it, I'm not too angry. If I'm silent...yeah don't bug me. While they're checking out the contents of the wagon to make sure everything is there, I ran about a half mile back along the shoulder of the highway to see if the chocolates stayed in their box. The run was actually a lot further than I thought it'd be, but I knew I needed to do it to blow off some steam.

Here's what didn't make sense and why it didn't ring a bell:

Q: Hatchback is open, there's a light on the dashboard indicating that it is.
A: Bike rack that's normally kept on the hatchback door prevents it from closing, thus the light is usually ignored.

Q: Nose of car nearly touching your rear end with a car horn blaring would usually be cause to at least turn around and look.
A: Music in car was apparently louder than the car horn.

Q: Gaping hole in the back of the car causing the wind to blow or at least make more noise than usual in the car.
A: See previous answer. My own car has an issue on the driver's side window where when it rolls up, it'll sometimes catch the moulding and flip it into the car. This creates a little hole for wind to get through and I hear that no matter what. I'm not sure I understand how this little hole in the side of my car can make more noise than the gaping hole a hatchback door being open would make...

Q: Girlfriend didn't hear her phone.
A: See previous answer.

Q: Driving with music blaring as you're getting onto an interstate thus drowning out noises that could potentially be helpful and keep you alive?
A: I have no explanation for this.

Q: Three people failed to hear a car horn blaring through an open hatchback situated less than 6' behind them.
A: I have no explanation for this either.

Before I go further, I need to explain why I was pissed. Generally, when something happens that's potentially going to cost people a lot of money, I'm going to get angry. The contents in the back of that car probably totaled nearly $6-7000 in value. If those things had fallen out, yeah they're all replaceable, but how do you explain "loud music" as a justifiable reason for not seeing or hearing that in the first place. If it were something like "I hit a pothole, jarred the hatchback open and everything fell out", I would have been mad, but I would have known there was nothing that could have been done.

It just completely baffled me and it's due to my own set of standards while I'm driving. I'm not always the best when it comes to paying attention to my surroundings, but when I'm in a car, I'm more in tune with my surroundings than Beethoven was with his pianos due to the death/danger factor. This was something that wasn't anyone's fault combined with something that was. Fortunately, this was the only time I was angry throughout this entire trip.

Anyway, I got to what was left of the chocolates on the highway and saw that one box was mostly in tact. The other box didn't fare so well and had been flattened by a truck before I could get to it. When I got back to the car, it was pretty obvious that they felt bad. I know the hatchback not latching when Kaelis closed it at the gas station wasn't anyone's fault, but seeing some expressions, I kept what was left of my anger to myself aside from saying "I feel a rant coming on" in the car after we had already gotten back on the road. Suraph is a fan of my rants at times, so he naturally tried to egg me on, but I kept it to myself.

Kaelis fixed the chocolates issue though. While we were driving, he apparently ordered more online. That still didn't stop me from pointing at him the second we saw Kay's mom and saying "it's his fault" before she could even say "Hi."

The Arrival



This would be the house that Kay's Mom designed and Kay's Dad built. It looks modest from the front, but...



From the back, you can see the actual size of the house. The design of this house is meant to have a very open and airy feel to it. You can see in this picture, the bottom and middle floors of the house have windows 3/4 of the way around it. Can't really tell on the bottom floor due to the firewood stacks, but they're there, I promise. :)

From inside the house, you get views like these:






Needless to say, Kaelis, Eri, Yoteo and Suraph were not expecting this. I certainly wasn't when I went up there the first time. Lakefront property in Maine though is pretty much like regular property everywhere else. It's hard to build a house in Maine that isn't next to some body of water or a huge forest.

Once we got in though, we barely had time to get settled in before we were served up with a huge platter of Shepherd's Pie. This started a series of meals that her mom fixed for us every two hours it seemed like.

We had arrived though and now it was time to kick back and relax for a couple days. :)

Update = Win

Update notes state:

"When dragoons with the job trait "Empathy" use the job ability "Spirit Link," wyverns under the effect of sleep will be healed of that status even if no hit points are regained."

Don't care about the rest of the stuff. That right there made my f***ing day. I don't know how many times I've died after seeing:

The Heraldic Imp casts Sleepga.
Qtipus is asleep.
Qiqiru is asleep.
Qtipus uses Spirit Link.
Qiqiru recovers 0 HP.
/l Fuck.

(Not always imps, just anything that can cast Sleepga in general that I can solo...)

Win. Win. Mother F***ing Win.

Pimping almost complete...

In a rare Saturday post...



I got a new toy. Thanks a ton to the Salvage crew for helping me get these things. I started doing Salvage with them last October sometime with only a couple of the 15 Ares pieces. By January, I was 4/5 Ares.

They're a little cursed when it comes to Ares Legs though. I'm not sure if that has more to do with Inbred's inability to obtain anything below the waist in an expedient manner or if the group as a whole is cursed, but these were only the third ones that have dropped for them since they started doing Salvage long before I ever started going with them.

(This is the part where Mav says "we got 3 ares legs in a month...")

At any rate, I'm anxious to see how this will effect things like my Jumps and how it will actually compare to WS in a full set vs. WS'ing in the set I currently use. Thanks again to everyone who helped me. :)

(And Blaize uses his photo-editing skills to capture the moment...)





Gogo Store TP! I picked this up cause I was in a good mood. I normally hate spending this much on anything, but this is something I've had my eye on for a while. Especially since I made the transition from Askar Body to Ares Body as my TP piece. A decently geared Dragoon against any other decently geared 2-hander will generally keep pace from the DoT standpoint thanks to the built in accuracy bonuses. To start pulling ahead, a Dragoon needs to find a good balance of +Haste, +Attack and Store TP.

Plus it's part of a 5-hit build I'm working on building. Now just need to start working on those ZNM paths to pick up an Aurum body.






Not that upgrading from an Amemet Mantle +1 to a Forager's Mantle is anything super huge, I was just waiting for the price to get down further before picking it up.

Only thing left for me to "finish" Dragoon completely at this point is the N.Head. It'll come in time. After that, I may start working on picking up a V.Belt, HQ'ing N.Hands and N.Feet and trying to justify spending 8 mil on a piece of equipment that gives me 4 accuracy and 2 attack over what I currently use in my WS ranged slot. I may also start trying to organize some King V. runs for an Ace's Helm.

Cookout Stories 2009 Vol. 1.

In going with the stories I currently have pictures for, the first one that gets told is Yoteo's trip to the Creationist Museum. This story will cover the bookends of my portion of this trip. You can say my portion of the trip was Cinci - Hartford - Maine - Hartford - Cinci.

The Beginning: A Canuck and Q Face to Face.

When I met up with Yot, it was off an exit in extreme northern KY in a city called Covington. For those of you unfamiliar with this area, it's basically the part of Cincinatti that's on the KY side of the Ohio River. Yot was a little lost and if you've never been to Kaelis' house before, it's a little bit of a pain in the ass to find. Not because it's hidden or anything, but because the exit off of I-75 is just absolutely retarded and easy to miss if you're not looking for it.

I also like to say he got lost and ended up in KY, but that'd be a little untrue as I thought the I-74 to I-75 interchange was a lot further north and I told him to go south thinking he'd find the correct exit to Kaelis' house from there...

So to make things easy for him, I told him to take I-75 south until he crossed into KY, take the first exit, then meet me at the first gas station he found. I was still about 30 mins from him when we made this arrangement, so I couldn't tell him anything more specific.

He was easy enough to find.

Upon finding him, the first thing I did was shake his hand and...

"Nice to meet you, I gotta piss."

...and I ran off into the store behind us to find a bathroom.

After discovering the store behind us apparently is stuck in the 60s and had no public restroom, I went back outside and talked to Yot for a bit about what we could do since Kaelis wasn't going to be home for an hour or so (he was working). We decided that we'd go drop a car off at Kaelis' house then head to Wal-Mart so that Yot could find a smaller cooler and so I could relieve myself of the 44oz of Diet Coke I had consumed along the way to Cinci.

Thirty minutes later...we still have 30 minutes until Kaelis gets home and we're trying to figure out what to do. Yot had a brilliant idea...

Kaelis had two lawn chairs on his shady back porch.

It was a rather mild summer day.

Yot and I each had a cup.

Yot had a cooler full of beer from various micro-breweries he'd visited on his way down.

Nothing like sitting on a back porch drinking some cold beer from a gatorade bottle and a white castle cup at someone's house who wasn't home....

And thus...our trip got started in fantastic fashion. :)

(No pictures of this part unfortunately...but use your imaginations.)

The End: Qtipus + 'Canook' + Creationist Museum = ...?

Somewhere in his boring trip to Cinci, Yoteo came up with the bright idea of visiting the Creationist Museum in Covington, KY. The primary reason for this was comedy. When you're in the presence of religious fanatics, it's comedy gold. (If you're a religious fanatic...sorry, but I'm going to offend you from this point on.)

He apparently knew this museum was there whereas I had never heard of it. We were close enough to it that he justified the visit there by saying something along the lines of "I'm already here and I may never get a chance to see this again."

Now I've never been one that's studied religion, practiced it to any heavy degree or even bothered to learn the differences between the various types. I just know that religious fanatics are generally the reason most wars break out and that the reasons they do are generally on the extreme end of it. Creationism, from what I knew at the time, was on the extreme end of it. Creationism's arch enemy would be scientfic theory or evolution or Darwinism.

(I personally believe the truth is likely in the middle somewhere...)

So Yoteo wants something to make fun of and anyone who's been around me long enough knows I love to make fun of things. Since we're back in Cinci, it means we're about to part ways soon and the museum is basically on my way home (not so much for Yot, but only about 20 miles out of the way for him), I figured I may as well tag along and see what it's all about.



This would be the entrance. It doesn't really do justice to the sheer size of this building. We're probably about 200ft away from the entrance here(THAT'S RIGHT I SAID "ft" CANUCK. F*CK YOU AND YOUR METRIC SYSTEM). One of the things that instantly surprised us was the fact that it was Tuesday Morning about an hour before lunch and this place was packed. We had to park at the back end of the parking lot.

Once we got in, we go to the counter to buy up our tickets. The price to enter was a little surprising at $23 ea, but Yot was nice enough to pick up my ticket for me since I had bought his lunch/dinner a couple times along the trip.

At the counter, Yot hands his credit card to the lady and is asked for his zip code. The following conversation takes place...

Canuck: It's actually a postal code.
Lady: Oh you're from Canada?
Canuck: Yeah.
Lady: We've been getting a lot of Canooks in here lately.
Q: /snicker

About this time, she notices Yoteo's shirt. It's from the Penny Arcade...

Lady: I wish I...could...hate you to death? I don't get it.
Canuck: It's from a website called Penny Arcade.
Lady: Oh?
Canuck: Yeah have you ever heard of it?
Lady: No.

I took a couple steps away cause I knew it was going to be brutal hearing Yot explain this one to an employee at the Creationist Museum. I'm not sure what he said afterwards, but she appeared happy. Probably cause it's hard to get angry at a Canook.

So we go in...



This is the exhibit that's viewable from the waiting line.



One of the first things we see after we enter the main area.



Second thing we see. Take notice of the level of detail in that mannequin. This will be a theme throughout this museum.



Skeletal remains named "Lucy".



Paul.



The resurrection of Christ.



Isiah, Moses and David.



And the fanaticism begins...this is what we came for!



Selective messaging.



More selective messaging.



Information about the sea scrolls.



Another realistic mannequin depicting the rebuilding process of something...



Food.



Wait...naked mannequins...in a religious institution?



FFS A LITTLE PRIVACY PLEASE! I'M TRYING TO SIN!



SEE? IT'S ALL WOMAN'S FAULT!



About the only thing that religions across the world can agree on...



Yeah...God was pissed.



Thanks Eve. We could be prancing around naked, but noooooo...you just had to eat some fruit and bring it to Adam knowing damn well a man can only think with his stomach...



Now we get to plow fields and fend for ourselves...

Oh and those labor pains? God's punishment according to this museum.



Rawrs n' Stuf~™



NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooo~!



Ringth...er Methusala in his younger years. This guy actually bitched about the July update notes, tried to sell us his product, griped about our armor selection ("YOU WON'T DAMAGE A LETTUCE HEAD WITH THAT SORT OF SHIT") and waved his staff at us while yelling to get off his exhibit.



Noah's Ark. This is supposed to depict 1% of the Ark's total size. Picture doesn't really do the size of this exhibit justice, but let's just say...it's fkn huge.



Smaller, scaled down representation of the Ark's construction. Where did they plug in those power tools for such great looking lumber I wonder...



Ceiling Ark Builder is watching you masturbate...



Noah, where be all the sheep at?



No caption needed as this simply speaks for itself.



That's a huge boat.



Pretty.



Pill theory.



Skull of something I can't remember.



Can't remember what this was depicting either.



Awesome.



Ring's pet in statue form.



I'm in this picture to show the relative size of this exhibit.



I'm in this picture to show that my bald spot is brigher than the lights on this exhibit.

Also, it's hard to tell from the pictures, but the level of detail they put into these things is astounding. I ended up shining a keychain light of mine into the mouth of this Rex and they have the details of this thing all the way down into the throat.



More Dinos.



Triceratops skeleton (real deal...)



This is what they want you to believe when you've left this museum.



Obligatory Dragoon reference. It is an FFXI blog after all.



This is the scenery outside after you've finished the tour.



Canook + Scenery = homo.



Feeding fish.



Botched picture, but pretty anyway.



Lilypad flowers (I think...).



Everyone laugh as I nearly fall on my ass walking across a suspension bridge.



Canook + Q + scenery. No homo, I promise.

So we finished up our tour and headed out. We both left this museum a lot more impressed than we expected to be. We also both left this museum with a lot less comedy fodder than we were hoping for. Regardless of religious viewpoints, the money they put into this place is incredible. I wouldn't go as far to say it's worth $23 for admission, but if you're bored and in the region, definitely check it out.

This was also the point where we parted ways. Canuck began his 2-3 day drive back home and I began my 3-4 hour drive back home. These are the sort of trips that get talked about for years though. Next year's get together should be even larger as we're hoping some other friends from around the FFXI world can manage to make it.

Next week, the meat of the trip. :)