Running Down a Dream

So I haven't updated my blog since the BBQ, partly because I've actually been busy at work since the my last update and partly because so much has happened in that time frame I'm not sure where to begin. I'll begin with my quick rundown of the BBQ itself (yes more shit happened that I'm not covering and yes I had a blast).

Obsidian BBQ

What can I say that Qtipus didn't already cover in his blog? Well...for the most pair my hair didn't do anything batshit crazy the whole time, not sure what it is about the way I sleep, but more often than not I wake up looking like I belong in a punk band. Also, the drive there was literally a 42 hour marathon. It started on Tuesday, I woke up around 10:30 AM my time, showered, packed, watered the banana tree (and one of the cats by mistake), checked to make sure I had my token maybe 50 times, etc. and I left a little after noon to meet up with Qtipus. Now I knew we'd be driving most of the night, but I figured we'd be there and sleeping within 24 hours at the very worst, what I didn't count on was just how many stops at Wal-Mart we'd make (and subsequently all the Mudflaps we'd find). For me a road trip is all about how fast I can make it, an eight-hour drive for me consists of one stop: gas, food and a piss break, I go into robot mode, Q looks for robots lol! At any rate, we arrived at our destination around 2PM local time, Q had managed to get some sleep (at a rest stop while the sun was coming up), Kreoss got quite a bit of sleep, and me...well I dozed off a few times, but my body won't let me sleep for very long in a moving vehicle (god forbid I ever decide to go to Japan or something). So when we got there I was dog tired, but, as one might expect, meeting up with everyone got the adrenaline flowing and it was another nine hours before I was too tired to continue functioning.

The next day I was the last to get up (I think), someone made breakfast, pancakes I think, but I'm not a morning person and that includes eating, so I can't say what went on for the first hour or two I was up. When I did get up, I noticed it was Earthsday in the game, thus I found myself killing dragons for my Magian trial, and this would inadvertently be a running joke all weekend. Most of the day was spent playing video games, chit-chatting, etc. One would think a summit of the Obsidian leaders would lead to long, drawn out discussions about Final Fantasy XI and how to best run events and such, but one would be wrong. We did talk about our characters, in-game goals and Obsidian related goals, but for the most part, FFXI was more about something we all had in common not something we obsessed over. That evening we ate at a Japanese Steakhouse, and let me say, the food was fucking awesome, especially the rice, that could have been all I had to eat and I would have been happy. When we got back to Mt. Cranky it was almost Earthsday again, most everyone went outside to look at the stars (for those who don't know me, my original ambition in life was to be an astrophysicist), but the Magian trials were calling and the sky being unlikely to yield anything new, I stayed inside. Thirty minutes into Earthsday and Q decided he'd had enough of me and my damn trials by demanding I join everyone outside. I figured it was best to not be anti-social and dejectedly put the controller down.

Saturday was our one and only LS event, it was an Odin Einherjar run. It's a bit different doing something like that with living, breathing people in the room, which was kind of cool and I wish we had done something larger (like a CoP Dyna run or something). After Einherjar we left for Baltimore to go watch the Orioles lose...ahem, play. For the most part this was a fun time, except the asshole sitting on my right (not Kaelis, he was on my left), fucking jackass kept leaning forward and blocking my view! By the 8th inning I was getting vocal about this, but even though the jerkoff was trying to lean back (I'm assuming to avoid any confrontation), he kept creeping forward until he was blocking my view again. I know the seats were kind of small, but ffs, sit your ass down like a normal human and not the fucking Hunchback of Notre Dame! You jackass!

On Sunday we had the actual BBQ, which once again I found myself doing Magian trials (now before you give me shit, please observe, Kaylea went to Dynamis). Unknowingly, being inside was probably a good thing given that everyone else came in with a sunburn. During this time inside I received a few tells about the BLMs making a mess of things, being the micromanaging asshole that I apparently am, I decided to investigate and find out what the problem was. Turns out some people had suggested they do things differently without me there, this pissed me off. It still pisses me off. Did I mention this shit pissed me off? While it essentially reinforced what I've been saying all along (i.e. BLMs multi-tasking is not the best way to go about things), it also showed that left to their own devices, people won't stick to the plan and that's what upset me the most. Simply put, I don't give a shit how it was done in the past, when it comes to playing BLM in Obsidian these days, it's my way or the motherfucking highway. For those of you who like to bitch about the way I run my ship (and should you be reading this blog), you're not in charge (and thus free of taking the blame for anything that goes wrong) and you're way has been outdated for a long fucking time now, just give it a rest already because shit ain't changing!

Monday was the last day everyone was together, and it wasn't for long as half of us were leaving at noon. Kreoss and Kaylea were flying out, while Kaelis and Erimentha were hitting the road. Because of this, I drew the short straw and had to stay behind and guard the fort (ok, I volunteered to stay), needless to say I did virtually nothing, even in FFXI all I really did was chat. By the time Qtipus and Suraph got back, I was bored out of my skull. We started the evening out watching Monday Night Raw, but that morphed into three hours of South Park Tower Defense, which was a hilariously fun game. When done, we packed our shit and got ready to depart in the morning.

Tuesday promised to be another marathon drive, but it wasn't nearly as long, myself and Qtipus covered the same amount of ground in about half the time (and actually found the Transformers we were looking for). Unfortunately we didn't cover it fast enough and I knowingly put my character in the hands of Qtipus so I wouldn't miss Einherjar. Now, needless to say, I expected things to be fucked with and they were (Q sent my gil to my mules, rearranged my furniture, changed my HP to Raboa, moved gear and items all over the place and he even found time to log into every mule and clear my inboxes forcing me to walk each mule back to the delivery box to return my main character's gil), but the thing that he managed to fuck with me the most about was actually nothing at all. You see Q made a casual reference that some of my gear had been hidden on my mules, this in turn led me to look at each of the mules, which eyeballing them yielded nothing out of place. Me being too obsessive to let this rest (and failing to recognize Q really was fucking with me), I pulled up my Altana Cubby and proceeded to run down my inventory list (which I update weekly with my inventory and what character it's on) and verify everything was where it should be. All told, I spent about three hours looking for shit that was never out of place to begin with. Thanks Q, I could have been doing Magian Trials...

At any rate, more stuff has happened since then, some of it I'm very happy about, some of it is shit only I could care about, but that's for a different day. And yeah, the title has nothing to do with this post, I just like the song.