Ack!

Avatar

Let me first start out by saying this is an amazing movie that MUST be seen in the theater and it MUST be a 3-D screen. It's fantastic and beautiful with a look and feel of something one might expect to see in a Final Fantasy game. This is a movie that will change the way we watch movies, for me personally I hadn't seen a 3-D movie since I was a kid and even then it was just a gimmick. What Avatar is able to do is amazing, there is depth and presence in every scene, it's not the occasional graphic that seems to float in front of you, it's everything. I won't go so far as to say it makes you feel like you are right there in the action, but one does get a sense they could just reach out and touch anything they see on the screen, whether it's in the foreground OR the background.

Ok, so with that said, why I am I about to start bitching? Well there are two things, the fans and the sequel(s). Let me start with the sequel, James Cameron is on record saying this is in the works. To me, this is a horrible idea, Avatar should be left as the amazing epic it is, expounding upon it where the good guys win (they have to) is playing with fire. It's like The Matrix, I enjoyed the sequels (the highway scene in the second movie was an amazing 20 minutes of pure adrenaline), but after seeing them I really wish they had left well enough alone. The same goes for Avatar, while sequels are likely to be enjoyable, they will not be able to carry over the raw originality of the first one. What's worse is we all know what happens when humans want resources they desperately need, they destroy EVERYTHING in their path. Given that it's 200 years in the future and mankind is capable of interstellar travel, it's not a stretch of the imagination that we could conduct a scorched earth policy from space and never set foot on Pandora. If you display people as we truly are in a sequel then you have to build a story around the fact we will wipe out every living thing in our path to get it. Look at it this way, try as they might, did the Native Americans beat the Europeans? No, the Europeans had such a vast lead in technology that they wiped out or nearly wiped out numerous indigenous peoples when populating North and South America and this was BEFORE nuclear and biological weapons. Who honestly wants to see that, and who would find it believable if mankind didn't do that, further, how do you win against an enemy capable of destroying you from space if all you have are spears and arrows?

The second thing I'm annoyed with are these dorks calling themselves "Avatards", the only positive thing I can say about these people is they have the "tard" part right. They are learning a made up language, naming their children characters from the movie, taking anti-depressants, etc. I mean, what the fuck people?! It was a three hour experience, there's only so much there, it doesn't evolve, it doesn't change, it's the same damn thing no matter how many times you watch it. How can you name your kids after this is beyond me, I play FFXI at least three hours EVERY DAY, I'll be damned if I ever name a future kid of mine Drakus (though I won't rule O'Drakus out just yet). Hell I wouldn't even name my pets after characters in the game, but if people did I would kind of get it. FFXI is something that the average person can spend 300 hours a year playing, and it's a constantly evolving and changing environment. That, folks, is how you get to the point in which the above nonsense is a bit odd, but acceptable. How pathetic do you have to be if you're so depressed as to be suicidal from watching a movie!? Get a life losers! It took five years to make the first one, I'm not sure if these fucktards can wait that long for another one, here's hoping they can't.

Nyzul Isle

Tuesday we finished up Floor 100! I got to say when I first started Nyzul I almost gave up on it, I had lost on the first five floors 7-8 times, but for whatever reason I agreed to go one more time. Since then we probably haven't lost that many times in the entire climb. Congrats to everyone who needed the climb, and thank you everyone for helping me with mine. The gear drops on the boss floors have been non-existent (we've seen one piece in a dozen boss fights I think) BUT we did get an appraisal for Trotter Boots on Tuesday and that was pretty damn awesome. I've also managed to get all three weapons for my jobs, I should have Blade: Kamu unlocked sometime this weekend, Vidohunir is going to have to wait until I get some more Staff skill and Trueflight will obviously have to wait until my RNG is 75.

Dynamis - Tavnazia

Obsidian has added these runs back to our schedule, however, they will no longer be done in conjunction with the other Dreamlands runs. As such I was on the second run Wednesday and ended up being the puller, which was my first time pulling for this zone. I feel like I pulled a little slow and probably could have done more to help with crowd control, but I also spent half the run weakened so more often than not I was hanging back so I could avoid any AOEs. Nevertheless, we got to all the extensions with ease and there was never any doubt we'd miss one. It's just a damn shame the only drops we got were open (SCH body and WAR legs), and the coins were pretty light also, I think we had around 70-75.

Drakus vs. a Logitech Rumblepad 2

Just to provide a bit of background, I've been a console player since I was 7 years old, anything on the PC was stuff like SimCity or Roller Coaster Tycoon, so learning a complex game like FFXI came more naturally through a gamepad. Anyway, mine started acting up on Wednesday, making this the third one I've killed in two and a half years of playing FFXI. The problem is, I bought this one in the summer, it should have lasted longer. Last night I got locked up in the game again and decided maybe I just need to clean the thing up a bit and figured (correctly) that it probably had cat hair inside it (my cats get fur into fucking everything). I took the screws off and fiddled with a bit, when the cover came off the buttons comically scattered in a dozen directions (ironically one of them landed on a cat and was temporarily lost in his fur). However, taking it apart turned out to be a bad idea. When I pulled the gel cushion off for the directional pad I couldn't get it to fit back in place correctly (it has four gel pegs that hold it to the circuit board, these wouldn't go all the way back in) and it managed to jack things up even more. To add to that I'm not certain I put all other gel pads on in their correct positions as I was too busy watching the buttons scatter to make note of where everything went. So now the damn thing is more fucked up than when I started and by trying to delay the inevitable outcome of buying a new one, I have to buy one on the way home tonight if I want to play FFXI again (cause I sure as shit am not gonna try and learn how to use the keyboard to play). So just to recap, the Logitech Rumblepad 2 beat Drakus by TKO in the 8th round, a rematch is pending.

Welcome to the Next Decade

Well now that the holidays are over it seems like is returning to normal, maybe holiday hangover is real. All of my endgame activities have went really well and I don't need to pound the keyboard in anger as I type all of this today :)

Limbus

Last Friday our mage team lost Apollyon because they pulled KB with one of the babies still wandering around, not sure what happened there, seems to have been miscommunication or something. So as a result we have to redo NW on Monday as well as SE to get the two Omega chips we needed. We had 19 people show up, so we threw six BLMs and a BRD at NW, and went DD heavy for SE. Both runs destroyed their respective zones with a ton of time left on the clock (NW even took the time to kill Cynoprosopi). It was nice to see people come back after a botched run and lay waste to it.

Einjerhar

Last night we took out Odin in about 15 minutes and it didn't even feel like we were trying. I know from my own perspective it was a breeze, during my two times kiting I lost exactly one shadow and when I went in for the last 10% I got the killshot from my 2hr. I guess most people felt the drops were crap (though they always seem to be crap unless and E Body drops, which makes no sense because only two people are trying to get it), but the Hadean Abjuration: Legs were among the drops and that was the piece I really wanted so as far as I'm concerned the drops were awesome.

Dynamis

Last two runs have been impressive, especially Valkrum. Valkrum was like being an action hero and kicking the door to the bad guy's hideout down, we were badass. We had 20 minutes left when we got to the boss and despite our best efforts, the damn thing ignored stun and wiped everyone with breath. Like any action movie, the hero has to get his ass kicked a bit before gritting his teeth and laying the samckdown on his foe and that's exactly what happened. We got up, rested back to full (still had a ton of time on the clock) and dropped that fucking malboro in less than a minute. Obsidian then went on to pillage the zone, killing all the hippos, cacti and manticores, we were on the last of the sheep when time ran out.

Glacier was a bittersweet run, we cold-cocked everything in our way and managed to get three (yes, I said three) attestations with plenty of time left to still go for the win. Unfortunately this is where things went south, on the boss pull someone missed their cue and the boss went with the dragons, by the time we could regroup the dragons were on their way back to kill everyone. Folks managed to get the boss down to 41%, but the dragons wiped everyone out before we could finish. Was very disappointing end after such an excellent run.

Oh and tonight will be my 100th Obsidian run (damn shame it has to be in Windy, I don't like that zone), I may stop by the grocery and get cupcakes to celebrate, lol!

Nyzul

Unlike my other endgame activities we didn't have the so-called holiday hangover, we've been steadily climbing and are now on Floor 90. Sadly we have only seen one gear drop and none of our appraisals have been worthwhile. That said, barring any surprises, we'll have three shots at the win next Tuesday. Once Floor 100 is finished I'll get Blade: Kamu, hopefully that happens next Thursday.