Return

Well I have finally been able to secure a definite return date to FFXI, which is January 13th. I've been gone nearly 3 full months already and am looking forward to my return very much. I've been able to think a lot about things in that time, been able to gain a good perspective.

As much as I want things to be the way they were before I left, I have a gut feeling they won't be. I used to do lots of things with Shay, and even though we have made plans to do more things together, I just can't help but think it won't be the same. Maybe she moved on while I was gone, maybe not. I can't expect her to drop everything and go back to the way things were 3 months ago no matter how much I want her to. I'm sure you'll probably be reading this soon Shay, just remember that above all I want you to be happy and do things for yourself, not for me.

All this time away has made me realize that the only really good thing about the game is the people you meet. I miss all my friends a lot and my life has been a little more empty without them. Not that my life outside of FFXI is empty, its not like that at all. True I don't have many real life friends but I have lots of people that care about me. I have a job I like very much and work with people I like very much. Its not a half bad deal really.

Just 13 more days

Final Fantasy XI - Part 2

Last and definitely not least is Shayesda. I could fill a thousand Blogs telling you about how wonderful she is and it still wouldn't be enough. All you really need to know is that I love her lots and thats she is the cutest Beast girl in the world. Here are a few of my favorite pics of us.

I'm sure you'll be reading lots more about these people when I get back to the game, which btw, will be exactly 2 weeks from Sunday. I'm very eager to get back cause I miss these guys so much.

Final Fantasy XI

As I said in an earlier post my favorite hobby in the world is a MMORPG called Final Fantasy XI. This has taken up much of my free time the last few years, and along the way I've met many great people, had lots of great experiences, and made some good friends.

I have three level 75 jobs that I love to play, being Beastmaster, Monk, and Ninja. They have different roles being solo job, melee damage dealer, and tank (guy who keeps the monsters attention) respectively. I use them all for different situations and love each one equally. I guess now I should introduce some of my friends whom I love to adventure with.

The first one is my first friend I ever made on FFXI, a little Taru Black Mage named Anningan. This guy is really funny and I have always liked haging out and bullshitting with him. He's almost like a little brother to me. Here is an extremely old picture of us taken way back in the day before he quit for the first time

Then I can't forget my Linkshell leader Dragonsoul. This guy is seriously the coolest guy I know, always willing to help at a drop of a hat, honest, loyal. Seriously I would go to hell and back for this guy in a heartbeat. He carried my nab ass through so much in this game and I will never be able to fully repay him for that. Interestingly enough I have almost no pictures of him, but this is the best of what I do have sadly.

Saturday Maintenance

Well its Saturday, and since most normal people have off weekends we do all our maintenance on the weekend. Well as with anything that needs to be maintained/updated/etc something pretty much always goes wrong. Today was no exception.

There is a system job that runs every morning at 7:00am, and on Saturdays we have to put the weekly tape backup jobs on hold so this job can run. As luck would have it today this job decided to bomb. So now comes what has slowly become the most hated part of my job, calling the Oncall.

Talking to Oncall programmers is a lot like talking to a bill collector, the difference being you can't yell at them or curse them out (or you lose your job). So after about 3 pages the chick finally calls back, and of course "Thats not my issue, call XXXX group and have them fix it". So I call the other group, "Thats *insert first group I called* issue". Great, now I get to be the middle man in this crap and deal with 2 people that don't feel like working on a Saturday, and just want to pass the buck and go back to bed.

So time goes by and finally one of them takes it. I get a call back "I can't fix it, call this group now". So I call that group and they finally fix it, a mere 4 hours after it bombed in the first place. Now I get to come back next set to an email from some higher up bitching at me because it took too long to fix. Yeah, this happens every weekend, you think they would learn by now that this kind of shit is normal.

I'm off work tomorrow so maybe I'll work on my FFXI stuff then, posting screenshots and introducing people and whatnot. Maybe one of them will actually read this. Not likely though.

First post

So like I say in my description, I created this blog for the sole purpose of making the day go faster at work. I'm a Computer Operator II, which is a fancy way of saying I sit on my ass and stare at computer screens and surf the web all day. Don't get me wrong, I like my job a lot, there just isn't much going on 95% of the time.

My favorite hobby is playing video games, and my favorite thing to do at work is read video game message boards. The main game I play, and not coincidentally my favorite, is an MMORPG called Final Fantasy XI. MMORPG is a fancy term for spending your whole life staring at pixelated characters trying to accumulate virtual "power and wealth" so you can say you have the biggest e-peen of them all. Its a huge addictive time sink and frankly I can't get enough of it.

I have been on a break from FFXI for nearly 3 months and I am eager to get back. Hopefully that will be in the very near future. I have several good friends that I will introduce in later posts. I'll probably bitch about it, and other things in my life too.

Well thats it for now, its almost time to go home.