So it's been over a month since my last update. I tend to get a little bad at these things sometimes - especially after rolling with one for a while. A big obstacle between me and the bloggodrome is my new gainful employment at Skyline Chili. Where i used to toil away in front of a computer from 10-5 everyday (and find time for blogging in between), now I'm stuck with a headset on my head and 'approved gloves' on my hands. It's a good job though - and it was necessary to supplement my income after having my hours greatly cut at my computer desk job.
The new job brings new shifts and a shitty daily schedule for me. I'm working longer and getting paid less than ever before. Working nights again is a real drag - but perhaps it's for the best that I'm keeping busy. Weekends this summer have been filled with the wondrous glory of a hard-working rock band on the road. The Sailing has been getting out, playing places like Chicago and NYC, and feeling just a little bit better about ourselves (as we've made Dayton pretty sick of us over the last few years). It's full steam ahead with the band - and our sights are set on the west coast next.
And there's also the matter of the significant other - who's getting off work at 1:30am daily has created enough strain on the relationship to perhaps break it for good. I don't think it's very classy to go in depth about this stuff on a public blog, but it might be the true end of the road this time. Who knows.
Using my computer in my room is also not a lot of fun in these hot, sweaty days. The single window AC unit in my house is sort of a piece, and fails in making my room a comfortable place to work or play. This has driven me to playing FFXI on my ps3 almost exclusively. I'm in one of those awful 'grind spots' though - where I've reached lvl 50 with Red Mage, but now need to farm a copious amount of gil in order to get all my spells and gear up-to-snuff and ready for party leveling once again. Whenever I hit one of these tedious grind periods in an MMO it sometimes leads to a break - but I promised myself not to stop until RDM was 75, and so I'll carry on.
Another area that deserves immediate attention is thesailing.org. The website hasn't been updated in ages, all the shows listed have already been played, tons of new music/videos need to be added to the media section, and a general overall news update is long past due. I intend to take care of all this as soon as humanly possible.
And so now I'm here, enjoying a slight respite from the daily trials and tribulations that tumble my quaint little universe. In one hour's time I'll be putting on my Skyline uniform and preparing for an evening of "Skyline Time Hospitality" and the stench of steamed buns, burning hotdogs, and soupy chili. I will tend to this blog more now - or at least I will attempt to. Until our next meeting.
Showing posts with label FFXI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FFXI. Show all posts
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Escaping Velocity
So I played EVE Online for a few weeks. Jumping from system to system, getting bigger ships, blasting away NPC pirates, doing all of those great wonderful Escape Velocity things. I wasn't driven by the 'carrot on a stick' that drives me to play most MMORPGs - whether it's the Scholar AF gear in FFXI, or the full Season 3 Arena gear from WoW, most MMOs keep me hooked by the promise of mind blowing stats and unimaginable style.
But EVE was different. The long term plan I had formed involved me training a whole bunch of skills (training happens even when logged out - some skills taking days and days to complete), gearing up, then heading out to 'lowsec' or "Low Security" space to be a dirty rotten pirate. A long term goal like that, however, simply wasn't satisfying enough to keep me driven to play after things started to get repetitive.
At first, I was propelled to log in because the game was simply a blast to play. But after the initial "OMG this is Escape Velocity" shock wore off, I found myself grinding repetitive NPC missions with little overall payoff, and I never was really sure if I was truly "advancing" in the game. Maybe it was the lack of RPG levels, maybe it was the unobtainability of the more gigantic ships, or maybe the it's that an MMO with no cut-scene driven story line or hard level cap seems more like a pointless sandbox than anything else.
EVE just felt 'unfinished' somehow. The NPC content was lacking, and I never got around to ever doing anything that seemed worthwhile. Eventually, watching your ship jump between systems only to dock at one of 4 or 5 space station skins gets boring. Without that big fat beautiful carrot dangling in front of you, the urge to get out of the sandbox and work on something 'important' is overwhelming.
So I gave it a fair trial, but at the end of the day, EVE Online just wasn't for me. The drive for MMO grinding did, however, inspire a resurgence in FFXI playing. Phinn's Scholar level is now a comfortable 27, with Red Mage still hovering at 35. I was also able to convince our own Mike Kirkland to not only play again, but to make a whole new character all together. My other friend and faux-brother Matt also reactivated his content ID, which meant more Adventurer Recruitment Program items for me!
In other news, I went through a period of broken-tape-adaptor iPodlessness, which brought about another phase of DPR (Dayton's local public all-classical radio station) listening. Their website is totally revamped now, with their playlist finally fixed. This means that if I hear a song I feel like I can't live without, I just have to make note of the date and time I was listening, log onto their playlist, and there I can see exactly what was playing every second of the day.
This handy service helped me to identify a few songs that I've been a long time fan of, but just never knew exactly where they were from. One was a Chopin nocturne that I had originally discovered on the soundtrack to a Japanese SNES game. I thought it was just an amazing video game song, until I heard it once again as a demo song on Tech's Korg. When I heard it on DPR I was thrilled to finally discover what it was, and promptly downloaded it from the iTunes Store.
The iTunes store is wonderful for classical music, by the way, as you can simply enter the name of a song, and then preview the many different performances of it. That's the thing about classical music - just because it's a beautiful song doesn't mean the recording/performance of it isn't subpar. I've purchased a few classical CDs that have really disappointed me - whether it's that the piece is being played too fast, or if the recording sounds flat, there are so many things that can go wrong with a classical recording. So it's really a nice to be able to get that 30 second preview of the multiple performances of the more popular tunes.
That Chopin piece was "Nocturnes, Op. 9 \ No. 2 in E-flat" by the way. The other tune that I was amazed to hear was the "Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia" from the 1956 Aram Khachaturian ballet "Spartacus" (I don't like the faster speed of the performance I just linked to, but it's the only one I could find on youtube.) I was amazed to hear it, as it was one of my favorite songs as a kid - first hearing it in the Coen Brother's often-overlooked "The Hudsucker Proxy." All my life I always assumed that it was just an amazing film score - and I suppose that's not too much of a stretch as the ballet was from the 1950's, when sweepingly romantic film scores were the norm. It lends "The Hudsucker Proxy" a touch of authenticity, as its most haunting musical theme actually comes from the age it was trying to recreate.
But EVE was different. The long term plan I had formed involved me training a whole bunch of skills (training happens even when logged out - some skills taking days and days to complete), gearing up, then heading out to 'lowsec' or "Low Security" space to be a dirty rotten pirate. A long term goal like that, however, simply wasn't satisfying enough to keep me driven to play after things started to get repetitive.
At first, I was propelled to log in because the game was simply a blast to play. But after the initial "OMG this is Escape Velocity" shock wore off, I found myself grinding repetitive NPC missions with little overall payoff, and I never was really sure if I was truly "advancing" in the game. Maybe it was the lack of RPG levels, maybe it was the unobtainability of the more gigantic ships, or maybe the it's that an MMO with no cut-scene driven story line or hard level cap seems more like a pointless sandbox than anything else.
EVE just felt 'unfinished' somehow. The NPC content was lacking, and I never got around to ever doing anything that seemed worthwhile. Eventually, watching your ship jump between systems only to dock at one of 4 or 5 space station skins gets boring. Without that big fat beautiful carrot dangling in front of you, the urge to get out of the sandbox and work on something 'important' is overwhelming.
So I gave it a fair trial, but at the end of the day, EVE Online just wasn't for me. The drive for MMO grinding did, however, inspire a resurgence in FFXI playing. Phinn's Scholar level is now a comfortable 27, with Red Mage still hovering at 35. I was also able to convince our own Mike Kirkland to not only play again, but to make a whole new character all together. My other friend and faux-brother Matt also reactivated his content ID, which meant more Adventurer Recruitment Program items for me!
In other news, I went through a period of broken-tape-adaptor iPodlessness, which brought about another phase of DPR (Dayton's local public all-classical radio station) listening. Their website is totally revamped now, with their playlist finally fixed. This means that if I hear a song I feel like I can't live without, I just have to make note of the date and time I was listening, log onto their playlist, and there I can see exactly what was playing every second of the day.
This handy service helped me to identify a few songs that I've been a long time fan of, but just never knew exactly where they were from. One was a Chopin nocturne that I had originally discovered on the soundtrack to a Japanese SNES game. I thought it was just an amazing video game song, until I heard it once again as a demo song on Tech's Korg. When I heard it on DPR I was thrilled to finally discover what it was, and promptly downloaded it from the iTunes Store.
The iTunes store is wonderful for classical music, by the way, as you can simply enter the name of a song, and then preview the many different performances of it. That's the thing about classical music - just because it's a beautiful song doesn't mean the recording/performance of it isn't subpar. I've purchased a few classical CDs that have really disappointed me - whether it's that the piece is being played too fast, or if the recording sounds flat, there are so many things that can go wrong with a classical recording. So it's really a nice to be able to get that 30 second preview of the multiple performances of the more popular tunes.
That Chopin piece was "Nocturnes, Op. 9 \ No. 2 in E-flat" by the way. The other tune that I was amazed to hear was the "Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia" from the 1956 Aram Khachaturian ballet "Spartacus" (I don't like the faster speed of the performance I just linked to, but it's the only one I could find on youtube.) I was amazed to hear it, as it was one of my favorite songs as a kid - first hearing it in the Coen Brother's often-overlooked "The Hudsucker Proxy." All my life I always assumed that it was just an amazing film score - and I suppose that's not too much of a stretch as the ballet was from the 1950's, when sweepingly romantic film scores were the norm. It lends "The Hudsucker Proxy" a touch of authenticity, as its most haunting musical theme actually comes from the age it was trying to recreate.
Monday, April 21, 2008
'Trails' and Tribulation
It finally happened. After over half a decade of practicing on Schrubb Drive, we had the cops called on us. It couldn't have happened on a worse day too, as we had special guests on site to witness our majesty. But it was all interrupted when, after a stirring rendition of "Ghost Train," there came a knock on the door by a local 'boy in blue.'
The copper gave us some rigamarole about "pissing contests" (his words), feeding us basically the "I'm cool, but I'm a big prickly cock too" line which is pretty standard from quiet suburban area 5-0 bronze. And that was that. With a single republican swipe, the fat assed old sow diagonal-neighbor murdered The Sailing after 7 or so years of space rocking.
Of course, it should be noted that our practices have been a little bit... louder as of late, this due to the fact that we had to move from the stanky basement to the wide-open living room upstairs for medical reasons. So yes, it probably was louder than usual, but there's no reason the old whore couldn't have at least left a note or tried to talk to us about it, without wasting some poor dickhead cop's time.
Even when the brass was standing right there she refused to talk to us, like we were all going to start bleeding acid on her like a Xenomorph or something (see below).
So what now? Well, until we can make that stanky basement livable once again (and possibly sound proof it as much as we can) we can't practice at that house anymore. Luckily The Sailing are blessed with some of the greatest friends and colleagues any band from any town could ask for. Specifically the boys of Captain of Industry, who with absolutely zero notice were able to reserve a room for us in their secret practice space downtown.
On Saturday, Kirkland, Gus, and I assisted "The Coop" and Nathan of Captain (damn, that's a lot of capitalization) in clearing out the long-unused room in the practice space that The Sailing will be utilizing. While down there we discovered a cat who had given birth to a litter of 4 or 5 tiny kittehs. Knowing first hand what unattended cats in a practice space can do to the living conditions there, we successfully removed them from the space. To accomplish this, we employed the abilities of Gus' gal Rachel in putting the kittehs in a box, and then the the abilities of Michael Kirkland in frightening the mama cat out the door. The kittehs were taken to an appropriate caregiving facility, and the space was once again reclaimed for humanity.
So now it's Monday, and we hope to move in all of our shit tonight. This is weird, since for the last 7 or so years Tuesday and Thursday have been ingrained in my skull as 'fâtum days.' There was a stint in 2003 that had us practicing on Wednesdays - but never before have I had a 3 day block of no practice in the middle of the week. It will be interesting to be certain. But the important thing here is that we can now get to serious practice grinding for the summer tour. Oh! That reminds me! I need to write up a big update for thesailing.org's front page ;)
STAY TUNED SAILSMITHZ!
p.s. - Got my Vindicator's Dreadweave Cuffs, and by the end of tonight I (by all means) SHOULD have my Vindicator's Band of Dominance.
In FFXI I'm very very close to hitting 17 with Scholar, which means that I'm 2 levels from getting it out of the forsaken hell hole that is the Valkurm Dunes (aka teh n00bocaust).
The copper gave us some rigamarole about "pissing contests" (his words), feeding us basically the "I'm cool, but I'm a big prickly cock too" line which is pretty standard from quiet suburban area 5-0 bronze. And that was that. With a single republican swipe, the fat assed old sow diagonal-neighbor murdered The Sailing after 7 or so years of space rocking.
Of course, it should be noted that our practices have been a little bit... louder as of late, this due to the fact that we had to move from the stanky basement to the wide-open living room upstairs for medical reasons. So yes, it probably was louder than usual, but there's no reason the old whore couldn't have at least left a note or tried to talk to us about it, without wasting some poor dickhead cop's time.
Even when the brass was standing right there she refused to talk to us, like we were all going to start bleeding acid on her like a Xenomorph or something (see below).
So what now? Well, until we can make that stanky basement livable once again (and possibly sound proof it as much as we can) we can't practice at that house anymore. Luckily The Sailing are blessed with some of the greatest friends and colleagues any band from any town could ask for. Specifically the boys of Captain of Industry, who with absolutely zero notice were able to reserve a room for us in their secret practice space downtown.
On Saturday, Kirkland, Gus, and I assisted "The Coop" and Nathan of Captain (damn, that's a lot of capitalization) in clearing out the long-unused room in the practice space that The Sailing will be utilizing. While down there we discovered a cat who had given birth to a litter of 4 or 5 tiny kittehs. Knowing first hand what unattended cats in a practice space can do to the living conditions there, we successfully removed them from the space. To accomplish this, we employed the abilities of Gus' gal Rachel in putting the kittehs in a box, and then the the abilities of Michael Kirkland in frightening the mama cat out the door. The kittehs were taken to an appropriate caregiving facility, and the space was once again reclaimed for humanity.
So now it's Monday, and we hope to move in all of our shit tonight. This is weird, since for the last 7 or so years Tuesday and Thursday have been ingrained in my skull as 'fâtum days.' There was a stint in 2003 that had us practicing on Wednesdays - but never before have I had a 3 day block of no practice in the middle of the week. It will be interesting to be certain. But the important thing here is that we can now get to serious practice grinding for the summer tour. Oh! That reminds me! I need to write up a big update for thesailing.org's front page ;)
STAY TUNED SAILSMITHZ!
p.s. - Got my Vindicator's Dreadweave Cuffs, and by the end of tonight I (by all means) SHOULD have my Vindicator's Band of Dominance.
In FFXI I'm very very close to hitting 17 with Scholar, which means that I'm 2 levels from getting it out of the forsaken hell hole that is the Valkurm Dunes (aka teh n00bocaust).
Monday, April 7, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Site News, FFXI News
Just a minor update to thesailing.org today - expect a wrap up of the GBV tribute later tonight (and an exciting announcement!), for now enjoy a tiny little the sailing logo (sailcrest?) in your URL address bar, history display, and bookmarks menu! That's right, the shortcut icon issues have been ironed out (mostly problems getting a Windows icon file out of the Mac version of Photoshop) and now you can enjoy the sailcrest all over your favorite browser experience!
In other news my boy Matt Hamm, viceroy of Las Vegas, has joined the fight against the Beastmen of Vana'diel! For the MMO-backstory-deficient I'm talking about Final Fantasy XI - the most "SERIOUS BUSINESS" of all MMORPGs. I've been powerleveling him the last few nights, and hope to be in a 'real' group with him once he hits 15. An interesting side effect of this is Matt's great interest in crafting igniting an interest in me as well. Crafting in FFXI is just something I've never really messed with before, but Matt's eagerness to get involved with woodworking has sort of gotten me into it myself. Sometimes you need to see the game through another's eyes in order to appreciate its finer points!
In other news my boy Matt Hamm, viceroy of Las Vegas, has joined the fight against the Beastmen of Vana'diel! For the MMO-backstory-deficient I'm talking about Final Fantasy XI - the most "SERIOUS BUSINESS" of all MMORPGs. I've been powerleveling him the last few nights, and hope to be in a 'real' group with him once he hits 15. An interesting side effect of this is Matt's great interest in crafting igniting an interest in me as well. Crafting in FFXI is just something I've never really messed with before, but Matt's eagerness to get involved with woodworking has sort of gotten me into it myself. Sometimes you need to see the game through another's eyes in order to appreciate its finer points!
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