Every morning between 7am and 8am, my neighbor lets her two Pugs out to go to the bathroom.  This wouldn't bother me so much if my bedroom window didn't overlook her backyard, which is probably 10 feet square.  So, most every morning, I wake up to  "Make peepees!"  "Go peepees!" "Have you made peepees?" "Do your peepees!" If I were male, I think I'd be tempted to stick my dick through the window screen and pee into her yard. "Duuude, you're good at making things pee! I don't even know why I did that.  Its like my bladder moved on its own!"

Anyway, my life is once again proving difficult, mostly due to my job, but I'm at a point where talking about it just leaves me feeling drained and unhappy, so I'll leave it at that and once again say thank you to everyone for their patience.

Oh oh, I've actually played RO since my last entry! Or I've tried to, anyway.  The lag has consistently been so horrendous (I blame Comcast) that I can only really play early in the morning and late at night, so we'll see how long my renewed interest lasts;

Tyr having fun with a Vanberk card, and a 4x Beholder Comp because I live in the past.  Jesus Christ, I forgot how effing hideous his leveling headgears are.  I may have  already said this, but his head looks like it belongs on an ugly fan-made Transformers character.  SNIPERTRON, ROLL OUT!

Hawkeye also got level 79, but I can't make ROS load the screenshot I took of it and I'm quite frankly too lazy to troubleshoot why. I logged onto him about a week ago to find that he had a bunch of unspent skill points, and I said to myself "why the hell didn't I spend these on Gloria?" It was a few minutes after I got Gloria that I remembered I was supposed to buy Signum Crucis. /facepalm.  Oh, did someone mention buying things?  That reminds me; before I went on my ohshitimfreakingoutpayattentiontome hiatus, I did a little shopping;



I freaking love this weapon.  And that's to say nothing of the Pantie/Undershirt combo, which is every bit as awesome as I'd hoped for.  It seems like a shame that playing RO has gotten to be such a struggle for me, between the lag and my own emotional state.  Eh well, unfortunately all I can do in both cases is wait and see if anything improves. I feel like I should be living it up before Renewal invalidates most of my gear and makes me re-learn everything, because I'm not sure if I'll have the drive to adapt to a whole new RO.  Shit, I don't even use battlemode.

RO, in an ROS journal?  Not on my watch! Back to my life.

My two little foster feral kittens went back to the shelter last week to get neutered, and this week they'll probably be put up for adoption.  They're pretty scared in their cage at the shelter, but I've been taking them out of it every day during my lunch break so that they can have some cuddle and socialization time. Its depressing to see them there, but hopefully they'll have great new families soon , and Michael shot some video of them to remember them by, which he promised he'd stick on YouTube once he gets a chance to edit it.

Speaking of Youtube, have you ever looked for something on it and then found yourself in a video you didn't even know was being shot?  How about yourself and your brother? At the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco?



Ohnoes, my net anonymity has been compromised! I know its not really that amazing to show up in the background of a grainy concert video, but I was pretty tickled to find it, and over a year after the fact, yet. I highly recommend checking this band out, if you like death metal, surf rock, Indian traditional and Persian religious music run through a blender and poured over ice.  I fucking love them. I once named an Alchemist after one of their songs (actually the one in this video,) and I want to name a Bard after another of their songs.  

Crap, I have 407 mil in zeny right now, and I’m thinking about using it to bribe someone into drawing me a really awesome group portrait of all of my RO characters. I can't think of any good reasons not to... Suck it, Renewal gear, I want pretty thangs!  But for now I have to clean the catbox before my D&D group gets here.  Think about it!

Well what have we here? I bow to, tip my hat to, prostrate myself before and heartily thank the lot of you for the incredible outpouring of support you gave on my last entry.  As a blanket response, I will tell you all that I feel much better now, though I’m sure I have to change something in my life if I don’t want this to happen again.  I’m sorry to hear that some of you have gone through similar things in the past as well, though it was quite generous of you all to share.  In all honesty, I think I wrote that last entry mostly as a way to organize my thoughts. My mind is tremendously disorganized, and I’ve found that the best way for me to get my thoughts strung together in a cohesive fashion is to write them down. I knew that I had fans, but I had no idea how supportive they could be! On that note, have personalized responses;

@Sepia - I feel pretty honored that you shared some of your own experiences with me, but of course I’m also sad to hear that you know first hand some of the things I feel.  You noticed I don’t write or draw anymore.  Not many people did. To be honest I really like talking to you, but I can never think of anything to say.   I wish I'd saved our MSN conversation so that this response doesn't sound so terse.

@Dynamo - Thanks so much for the compliments.  It probably would do me some good to reconnect with my family, in all honesty, since many of them have suffered with similar depression problems due to different disastrous events in their respective lives. Its odd though, because I always thought most them were very well-adjusted. If I never guessed they were so unhappy without their telling me, then they might not know how I’m feeling either… >_> And FYI regarding dirty push pins, I’m actually up-to-date on my tetanus vaccine!  I need to get my hepatitis B shots redone though.  Haven’t had those since college.

@Adeat - I know you've been through worse than I have, and when I talk to you I worry that I’m just selfishly talking your ear off and boring the hell out of you.  Yet, you listen to and interpret my every word and then you go and tell me how nice it was to talk to me.  Do you know how wonderful that makes me feel? I only hope I can be as good of a friend to you as you’ve been to me.

@Everae - If you have MSN, my screen name is in my profile. I’m not usually the type to start conversations and I sometimes take awhile to formulate responses since I have a hard time being social, but I’m here! You do sound like you definitely know where I am, and reading your response was indeed helpful… I know full well that I could be doing more things with my life than I’m currently doing, and that some things are very, very wrong, but its so hard to know how to take that first step at creating a change, since everything‘s so complicated and failure would set me back so much further than I am now.  I also know that my family and friends wouldn’t judge me, but I feel like I’ve failed them and myself anyway. If that makes any sense…

@Kumoko - I do have some distractions, actually… I have a weird obsession with brewing tea and holistic hair care, roffle. I think I need more of them though. Things I don’t take so god damn seriously.

@Callista - I hope reading my entry didn’t hit you too close to home there, it does definitely sound like you have a really similar situation.  I think that breaking out of my rut will be the hardest part of making myself better… In a way playing RO has been a mixed blessing…  For a long time I just played for myself and didn’t care about not having friends or gear, but it also was part of the horrible rut I found myself stuck in. That said, I still hope to come back too, haha.  

@Ditte - Thank you!  In a way, I know my family would be relieved to hear from me even if the news is bad, but I, ugh… I just don’t know what to say, in a way.

@Teepotsu - Yes, the “cheer up kid!” response is sort of irritating, yet you can’t get mad at someone for saying it, because at least they’re trying.  Which sort of makes it all the more annoying. And I’m on MSN and around!  Like I said the Everae, I’m not always forthcoming with conversation, but I lurk real good.

@Will - Where the hell are you, mystery lingerie salesman?

As for self-diagnosis, I got more than a few good ideas from you all, forgive me for not remembering who gave me what idea…

Stop judging yourself by other peoples’ standards - This one throws me for a loop.  It really does.  I like to think I live by my own standards; but they’re probably worse than those other people have for me.  I want to write transcendental fiction novels, read and understand every philosopher from Friedrich Nietzsche to Taizen Deshimaru and understand complex microbiology so I can get a career writing for National Geographic, for example.  Other people just want me to hold down a decent job and not cause trouble.  Yeah.  I’d say the only place where I really have a problem with using other peoples’ standards is in terms of my friendships and interactions with other people. I don’t have any real life friends, save the ones I “inherited” from my boyfriend when I moved to NorCal. I think that’s because I don’t think I meet the conventional standards of a good friend.

Look back at your life and try to replicate what was happening in the happiest part of it - My happiest time hands-down was when I was in college. And it was because I got to do all of the things I love the most, but I couldn’t second-guess myself or leave things unfinished because grades and deadlines were at stake.  I read books, wrote stories, made ceramic pots, I felt good about myself for accomplishing so many things.  In fact, I’d go to school professionally if I could. Maybe when I get a bit more cash, I should seek out some continuing education.

Try to trace your sadness back to its source and change whatever is making you sad - Aha. Tough one. I could blame external and internal factors on this one.  External factor = my job.  I am underpaid and underappreciated, and most of the non-animal related work I do is anathema to my personality; I’m really not a social or emotionally forthcoming person at all, and a good 75% of my job involves talking to people and being sympathetic to their needs.  On some days I will be perfectly social and pleasant at work, but get me home and I turn into an irritable wreck, because the “people person” act is tremendously draining on me. Which leads me to the internal factor, that being the fact that I have such a hard time with social interaction.  My life could be infinitely better if I could do simple things like walk into a store without trying to sneak past the salespeople, ask someone for directions, or even make conversation with my coworkers over lunch.  

All in all, maybe I should check my health insurance policy and see what sort of mental health coverage it offers… I know it didn’t sound like it in my last entry, but I really did like going to therapy. It was nice to have an impartial third party between me and my head, and to bypass all of the emotional dance of getting to know someone and cut straight to spilling my guts.

Holy shit, long entry. In closing, thanks everyone, and double thanks if you read all of this. Aside from that, just to return to RO for a moment… I found this RO roleplay community through ROLJ, and I admit I’m slightly intrigued.  

After the Academy

As dorky as it sounds, I miss RO roleplaying a lot. This community looks interesting and very, very well fleshed-out (take a look at the "Academy Guides" section, for example!) However, I’m worried because they seem to have rigid, uncompromising numerical rules for combat and skill usage, whereas I prefer to keep my RPs free of numbers in the interest of keeping a good literary mood. They also seem to want most players to start as Novices or 1st classers, and I have zero interest in playing a wide-eyed youngster. I like my characters older and with baggage.  They also won’t let non-members read the RPs, so I don’t have a way of scoping them out without registering. And they want your username to be your character name, and I don't have a character idea because I can't read their RPs and don;t know what they want.  >_>

If I do join, I’ll probably whip up a male Monk, since there are zero Monks/Champs so far, and more women than men. Is anyone else interested? Our characters could be buddies maybe? XD

Anyway, thank you all once again for listening! Sorry if I haven't been the best friend.

Warning: The following entry is extremely long, consists of my explanation as to why I’ve been depressed in recent weeks, has very few RO references, and probably won’t be well understood by, well, anyone.  I’m not sure why I’m keeping it public it either.  Probably because I secretly just want attention or somesuch.  Believe whatever you want. 

My mental health issues are a bit like a recurring pimple. It can be fine for several weeks or months, noticeable as a small spot, but nothing more. As I go about my life, every bad experience I have adds a little more infection, a little more vitriol, a little more pus to it. Despite the fact that I can feel it getting bigger and uglier, and hurting more and more, I’m afraid to touch the thing.  That is, until something happens. Something that I’d be able to shrug off under most other circumstances; the proverbial absent-minded scratch or feather light touch of a finger that turns a pimple into a painful, gooey mess. 

I’m having a really hard time thinking of how to explain the exact incident that set me off this time, and in fact I can’t think of a way to do so that doesn’t make me sound utterly pathetic.  So I guess I’ll have to sound utterly pathetic.

It started at a D&D game about 2 weeks ago.  The campaign is run by my boyfriend Michael, and the storyline revolves around the player characters having been hired to help protect a caravan that’s traveling cross-country on a mission of diplomacy. Its got a shit ton of things making it more complicated than that,  but that’s a story for another time.

At any rate, we were traveling through a forest, one in which my character (a Druid) had detected some traces of Treant activity.  Since Druids are committed to protecting nature in all its forms, and Treants are basically sentient trees who protect forests, most Druids are fond of them.  At any rate, my Druid warned the rest of the caravan not to do anything to harm the forest.  Just a few hours later, someone (we never figured out who) set fire to a tree, and disappeared.  I immediately thought of a spell my Druid could cast to put out the fire and hopefully fix things, but I didn’t do it for whatever reason, and instead I chose to get snappy and irritable with the rest of the players.

As I predicted would happen, the fire attracted the attention of several Treants, who moved in to attack the caravan.  Since my Druid speaks the Treant language, I had him take off running towards the biggest one, yelling at it to stop, while the other player characters tried to put out the fire. Fortunately diplomacy worked, the fire got put out, and nobody was injured, but I can’t help thinking that  Michael made things easier just because I whined so bitterly.

After this, all of the player characters discovered that one of the caravan members was missing, namely a dangerous spy known for his shapeshifting abilities, who had been with the caravan as a prisoner.  It was determined that he had probably killed one of the 20+ members of the caravan during the confusion, and taken over their identity. Everything sort of went to hell after that, with all of the player characters arguing over what the best course of action was to ferret out the spy, and whether or not it was even possible. During a particularly long argument between two of the other player characters, I closed my eyes in an effort to calm down, and when I next opened them, it was 2AM and everyone else was gone.  I couldn’t help but feel that everyone had been so argumentative because I started it all by turning into a raging bitch, simply because I’d been given a challenge.  And then I fell asleep, just like a toddler who thought she could stay up and play with the adults.

Were I any sort of normal person, I would have said “its just a game” and let it go, but I held onto all of the frustration, anger and embarrassment that I shouldn’t have even felt in the first place. Unfortunately I had to work that day, and it was a horrific.  Angry clients, sick animals, the whole bit.  At one point I pulled a push pin out of the bulletin board by my desk and dug it into my arm while no one was looking, just to give myself something else to think about.

So why cling to something so minor? I’ll tell you why.  Because I really hate the person I’ve grown into, and its incidents like this that remind me of that. Is this how I react when someone gives me a challenge? I just shut down and turn into a pissy little 4 year old? All my life I’ve had people telling me how smart I was, how witty, how far I’d go on my talents.  I took on intellectual puzzles and challenges head-on and succeeded. It didn’t matter that I had no social skills. I had teachers who called me brilliant and focused, relatives who called me witty and precocious, friends who called me loyal and compassionate. I went to a UC college, graduated with a 3.5 GPA and made the dean’s list.  I wrote stories, drew pictures and had a few close friends who cared about me. Right now, I barely have any of those things anymore, and observing my own reaction to this game session gave me a frightening glimpse of what its like to look into my own eyes. Short of brief loving moments with my boyfriend, there is literally nothing in my life that I enjoy anymore. 

I don’t write anymore because I can’t keep my mind on one topic and I get distracted too easily, I don’t draw because I’m so sick of my hands not being able to keep up with what I see in my head, and I’ve let most of my best friends (Zach, Remi, Zech, Monni and Esper, to name a few) slip away from me because I no longer have the patience to listen to their life stories, I’m jealous of their successes, and I‘m afraid they‘ll realize what a tiny, useless little person I am and walk away from me before I can walk away from them.  I don’t even read anymore.  I haven’t talked to my parents or my brother in over a month because I’m afraid of telling them that I haven’t done a single thing since I last talked to them. My aunts, uncles and grandparents haven’t heard from me in years.

What do I do all day, you ask?  I go to work, I come home, occasionally I watch a movie or play a game, I spend time with my boyfriend, but mostly I just stare at my computer and browse the same forums over and over again, in hopes of distracting myself from all the stupid shit that goes on in my head. I literally have no hobbies anymore. I sit around and worry about my 11$ an hour dead-end job, my 14,000$ in student debt for a useless degree, my housekeeping, my pets, the fact that I can’t remember Sartre and Shakespeare, the fact that I still don’t even have a driver‘s license.  I worry constantly.  I think the main reason RO appealed to me so much is because the game was so blissfully mind-occupying.  I could spend the energy I’d normally spend worrying about real life worrying about Ro, which was so much more innocuous.

I say to people that I prefer to solo on RO because my characters are useless and because I’m too shy to ask for parties , but the real reason is because I’m afraid.  Deathly afraid that people will see that I fail at RO as well as at life, and that the only reason I have so many trans characters is because its been 7  years.  I’ve been in big parties before, and I suck at them.  I can’t even beat console RPGs anymore.  I haven’t played Dragon Age in over a week because I can’t beat a certain boss.  Even the things I do for fun kick my ass.

As long as I’m incriminating myself, how about this? I was in therapy for depression for nearly 6 years in middle and high school..  But I never did anything to warrant it.  No suicide attempts, no cutting, no antisocial behavior, no sleeplessness, no weight loss, no ulcers, no skin conditions, no nothing.  And then came the meds.  I took antidepressants for 5 fucking years, and those were the best years of my life.  My grades got better, people liked me more, and emotional events that would knock me on my ass for weeks would just bounce off of me. I can‘t tell you how much I hate that fact.  I don’t want to depend on a chemical reaction in my brain to lead my life the way I want to.  And even if I did take pills, they wouldn’t get me friends, a better job, money, a car, or any of the time I’ve lost since everything I ever cared about slipped away.  I’m so scared of failure that I don’t even try anymore, at anything.  And I won’t grant myself any advantages because I’d feel even worse if I had them and still managed to fail.

And don’t tell me that I just need to be more cheerful, take a walk in the sun, pet my cats, kiss my boyfriend and be happy.  For me, someone telling me “have you ever tried not being sad?” is as bad as if I told my uncle Joey “have you ever tried not being gay?”   Its not that I don’t want people to understand me, I just hate it when they think they can fix me when they have no idea what a horrible place the inside of my head is. I don’t have the right to be as upset as I am, I really don’t.  I have a home, food, clean water, a person who loves me and a job that makes me able to keep all the aforementioned things. So why do I hate myself and fear the world so much?  I wish I knew.

At work the other day,  I found a small human hair in a piece of cheesecake that one of my coworkers had baked, and I was profoundly grossed out.  Then I remembered that my lunch for the previous day had contained several cat hairs, which I simply picked out before I continued eating.  Somewhere in the past 2 years, human hair in my food has become gross, and animal hair in my food has become perfectly fine.  Methinks I've been working at the SPCA too long. 

Speaking of perfectly fine, I've been sad, stressed and utterly hating my life for almost two solid weeks, all because of one extremely stupid incident I utterly overreacted to, and one recurring issue that I continue to take way more personally than I should, because I'm emotionally a very small person, and I really hate myself sometimes.  Adeat keeps telling me I'll feel better if I write about it, and maybe I'll do so in my next entry, but for now, its motherfucking kitten time.


They finally gained weight! Last week when I took them to the shelter for their second dose of dewormer,  they each weighed 18 ounces, and yesterday when I took them for shots, they both topped 24 ounces, meaning they're finally on track for kittens their age.  I'm still not introducing them to my cats (mostly because I signed a paper saying that I wouldn't, hurhur) but they have free run of my bathroom and they've taken to running up to me whenever I go in there, and I occasionally bring them into the living room for some couch time.  I can even get them to purr with a bit of well-placed ear and back scratching, which is the cutest thing ever.


Henry is not amused.  Makes me wish I didn't have to give them up when they reach 32 ounces. But not like I could adopt them anyway considering my financial situation werwrngrgnrg.

In other news, no, I haven't been on RO.  However, just so this entry has some RO in it, I'll post this nifty BHP edit I got from Lovely. She's an absolute beast, really.  The poor girl has been doing sprite edits by the dozen, and for free!  Makes me wish that A) I could draw something for her in return and B) that I had asked for more sprites.


I'm in love with his extra-long headband and the shades of blue on his coat. ;o; I really should play around with my template and try to get this sprite into my sidebar.  I also need to finish writing his history, but that's a separate issue.

EDIT: I just checked my messages and it turns out Ninalyn made me a Hawkeye sprite too, omgz thank you!


These both work really well for him, actually.  I have him pictured as a stern, no nonsense sort of guy who wouldn't hesitate to punch you in the back of the head if you didn't listen to him.

Oh yes, in other news, I'm going to get an art commission from Adeat, who was nice enough to give me the first of his upcoming commission slots.  However, I'm thinking of doing something crazy and asking him to draw some of my favorite OC/tabletop RPG characters instead of my RO characters. Heaven forbid!  I’ll keep you all posted. Or maybe I'll just write that whiny Ihatemylife entry instead.  Time will tell. >_>

Today I processed a kitten adoption for someone whose last name was Hackbarth. Which sounds to me like the kind of name J.K Rowling or Charles Dickens would give to a bad chef. Either that or Wheezevomit.

Just so this entry is not so wall-o-text, have this thing, from this site;


Yep, that's essentially the abridged version of my MMO persona. I love to find new things and collect new items, whether they're useful or not, I hate competing with other players, and I only have a slight preference for having other people around while I do my thing as opposed to doing it alone. Actually, if anything, these results make me wish RO's quest system didn't suck so badly.  I really, really wish RO's quests gave better exp/items, and involved less inane bullshit (like time-sensitive item turn-ins and tests of typing prowess) because a lot of them have really compelling story elements and involve some great world travel and exploration.

At any rate, my life is like bad tuna this week; stinky, messy, and covered in stray cats. My two little feral kittens are doing well and not so well for different reasons; they've come out of their shells enough to play together and sleep in my lap, and are much less scared of people, but they've only gained about a third of the weight they should have gained since I first took them in. The cat people at the shelter told me not to worry as long as they're eating, drinking, running around and pooping nice solid kitty doots, and that it probably just means they need another deworming treatment, but I feel like a bad mom just the same. I leave dry food out for them all day, and stuff them with wet food 3 times a day on top of that. Ergh. Anyway, glad everyone enjoyed the pictures of them! Hopefully they'll be fatter when I next take photos of them, and I'm glad they warmed up to me without me having to separate them.

As for the stinky and messy parts, 100 degree temperatures would explain the stinky, and the messy is just me being monstrously busy with real life things, especially work, even though I don't think I've ever mentioned my job without saying that I’m overworked.

But enough annoyingly vague passive-aggressive work rants. Its time for a convoluted ball joke. I started Dragon Age: Origins last week. The game allows you to choose from both genders, 3 races (Human, Elf and Dwarf) and 3 classes (Mage, Warrior and Rogue,) and takes you through a character origin story based on your choices. I decided to play a male human Rogue, which makes my character the diligent and well-behaved son of a noble, who is being eyed by a member of a super-awesome order of demon fighters. How the hell does this fit a character whose most basic skill is called "Dirty Fighting?" I can hear it now;

"Greetings, milord. The townsfolk tell me that your son is particularly adept at groin kicks. I wish for him to join my order, as we have recently discovered that the demon king who threatens your southern borders is known for his very rubbery and sensitive scrotum."

However, the game seems pretty solid. My only major complaint is that it has 3D real-time battles in which the camera angles have to be manually adjusted, which means pretty much every fight includes at least one awkward moment of trying to locate an enemy that just ran off-screen. However, it was originally a PC game and not an Xbox game, so I guess its just an issue of a bad port. Oh yes, and apparently the game also has a handful of semi-adult "romance" incidents that you can initiate by flirting with certain NPCs. Being a male human, I get to choose from two female humans... and one male elf. I'd sleep with the elf, but I think I'd probably have to kill myself. Oh yes, and the game lets you customize your character's hair and face; I gave my boy a big nose, sideburns, wicked 5 o'clock shadow and a beard along the jawline. I even resisted the urge to give him gigantic anime style eyes and a tiny pouty mouth. Aren't you proud of me?

Aside from that, its been almost 2 weeks since I've been on RO. But I guess that's okay, since I can't think of a damn thing to do, I still haven't looked into MS builds for Buzz, and this turtle quest sounds like too big of a clusterfuck for my liking. Speaking of RO, who wants to get my eternal gratitude and/or a zeny bribe in exchange for helping me with sprites for my sidebar? Its annoying the shit out of me that  Hawkeye and Buzz aren't on it. L/N/O plzkthx?

Oh yes, in other news, I heart Adeat;


He gave me black frame glasses for free so that I could complete Hawkeye's look, even after I borrowed two of his weapons and forgot to return them for three solid weeks. So sorry Mr. Adeat! *hugsqueeze*

I think I'll post Buzz's sordid past in my next entry.  Brace yourselves, because he's quite a corker!  Well, he'll cork you anyway, provided you're another man. 8D

tl;dr!

Remember my last entry and how I wrote about getting an Xbox 360 from my super-nice brother?  Well, on the very same day I wrote that entry, I got another unexpected gift that stands to eat up even more of my free time;



The brown tabby on the left is Ralph, the gray on the right is Henry, and Michael and I couldn't get them both to hold still at the same time, as you can see.  They're feral kittens, and for the next 2-4 weeks, I'm responsible for their care, feeding and socialization.  As for how I acquired them, it went like this;

- Heard kids making a commotion outside apartment.
- Ignored kids and began to prep for Tuesday night D&D game.
- Greeted boyfriend when boyfriend came home from work.
- Received info from boyfriend that aforementioned kids had a kitten cornered on neighbor’s porch.
- Shooed kids away from kitten (later named Ralph.)
- Picked kitten up, went inside to find a box to put it in.
- D&D group showed up.
- Neighbor showed up and stated that he had a second kitten in his yard (later named Henry,) requested its removal.
- D&D group found second kitten in yard (Rogue/Cleric cornered it, Samurai caught it, exp had by all.)
- Established kittens in plastic filing box in my bathtub.
- Had D&D game.
- Went to sleep.
- Took kittens to work at shelter on Wednesday.

So, there you have it. Officially, the shelter I work for is a private non-profit organization that doesn't take animals directly from the public (only from other shelters,) but I've seen that rule get lifted for employees who find stray animals *wink wink* Anyway, my manager told me that the shelter would take them in, provide all medical care for them and find homes for them, provided I foster (aka house, feed and socialize) them until they're big enough to be neutered and put up for adoption, which happens once they weigh 2 pounds, at about 8-9 weeks of age.  As of last Wednesday, they weighed 11 and 13 ounces (Ralph is the runt) and our vet guessed that they were 4-5 weeks old. But I digress. 

Needless to say, I agreed on the spot to fostering them. So, during my lunch break, I got to give them dewormer, flea treatment and their first shots, and names... Uh, yeah.  The names.  I had to give them names to get them into the shelter's database, and I hadn't really thought about it until my manager said I could foster them, because I didn't want to assume I'd be able to do so (I can't afford to keep them permanently, so I would have had to give them up at a public shelter.) So, upon being put on the spot, I remembered my English major roots and came up with Ralph (Ralph Waldo Emerson) and Henry (Henry David Thoreau.)  Emerson and Thoreau both wrote about the beauty and purity of the wilderness, and these kittens were born in the wild, so to speak. It made sense in my mind, I swear. 

Taking care of them is a bit tougher than I'd expect with kittens, mostly because they're still half-wild. They hissed every time they saw me for the first 3 days or so, but that's gone now and they trust me enough to sleep in my presence, sometimes even on top of me, which is absolutely adorable. I did a bit of research about socializing them, and it seems like the more time I spend with them, especially around mealtimes, the better they'll do.

In that spirit, I've been trying to spend at least 2 hours a day just feeding, petting and playing with them, which is sort of hard considering I'm either at work or commuting for 9-11 hours per day, 5 days a week, and I have to keep them isolated from my own cats because of the disease risk.  Thankfully my pedigree includes the blood of several overbearing Jewish grandmas, so I've taken to it pretty well. Hell, I look in on them every hour or so when I'm home just to make sure that they haven't died of terminal smallness or gotten tangled up in the hair in the shower drain. And when I'm not home I leave the radio on near them so they get used to human sounds.  Just the same, I'm still worried that they'll never be as people-oriented as most housecats and might always have some residual fear of people despite my best efforts.  But all I can do is my best!  I'll work on them as best I can.

Oh wait, RO. I haven't been on in over a week.  Hell, I haven't even been able to play my new Xbox that much, urgh. But I think this is about as good of an excuse as one can find for not playing video games.  Oh yes, and thanks everyone as always for the nice comments; I'm that sad, pathetic sort of person who checks ROS 3-4 times a day after I write an entry just so I can read my comments. n_n  I'm glad I wasn't the only one amused by the pink Xbox, and wow, I didn't realize MS builds were so... limited. More research is needed!  Anyway, I'm going to go play Dragon Age: Origins now, just because I spent an hour with the kittens this morning and I needs me a break. Kitten snuggles to you all!

Hihi! I am Tris and I am updating my little diary because I need to give you the latest gossip about my quest to date lots of boys and collect cute headgears.  I like to play anime games on my pink poring Xbox 360 and I also have a cute Mastersmith;


I'm aware that nobody who knows me could believe a single word of the above sentences, (and I apologize if that MS looks like yours,) but there is a juicy kernel of truth in them;


Crap, I think I ruined the joke by making the post-it note so hard to read... But it says exactly what Buzz is saying in the screenshot. Anyway, explanations are in order!

After I got off of work on the 4th of July, I got a call from my big brother asking if Michael and I wanted to come over and stay the night.  I thought this was odd, since my brother is even more of a recluse than I am. In fact, it had been almost a year since I'd seen him last.  I was overjoyed to hear from him, so Michael and I headed over. 

After we had all exchanged greetings, my brother started telling a story about an Xbox 360 that a friend had given him, and how it broke down and had to be sent back to the company.  Then he told me about how this Xbox had stayed gone for nearly 3 months, under pretense that the company couldn't figure out who to send it back to.  He told me about how he'd gotten impatient and purchased a new 360 after the other one had been gone for over a month, thinking that it wasn't coming back, only to find it arrive on his doorstep a few weeks later, once again fully functional.

Now, were you the one hearing this story, you probably would have wondered where it was going, and arrived at the conclusion that the person telling it was about to do something extremely generous.  Well, that's exactly what my brother did, and I am now the owner of a nicely refurbished 120 gig Xbox 360.  He could have left it at that, but he said he didn't want to leave me having to spend money to start enjoying it... So he bought me a 1 year gold Xbox Live membership, 1600 Microsoft points, a new controller, and "every used game I saw for under $20 that I knew you'd like" which boiled down to Battle Fantasia, Deadly Premonition, Left 4 Dead 2, Lost Odyssey,  Dragon Age Origins and Prototype. 

Holy crap, Josh.  You're almost 40, I’m almost 30, we rarely speak to each other, but every time I see you, I'm reminded of what a sweet big brother you are, and always have been, in all honesty.

So yes, I'm not sure how many of you out there have 360s, but I'll throw you my gamertag once I get everything set up.  Crap, I haven't  had a current generation console in years (I haven't even touched my PS2 in about 8 months, come to think of it.)  This is going to take some getting used to!

That aside, did someone say Mastersmith?  Yes, I think someone did.  When I got back from my vacation I realized that I had less than a week left of the anniversary events, and that I'd missed out on the Pirate quest the first time it was in the game, for reasons I can't remember.  Having 121 keys and 10 HE manuals in my storage, I could have made the choice to get my Sniper or Champion that much closer to 99, but since I'm a goddamn idiot, I bought more HE manuals, grabbed my level 81 Blacksmith and did this;


I would post a screen of his job change, but I spazzed out and hit insert instead of PrntScrn! Believe it or not, Buzz here was actually my second ever 2nd class character, and is only about a month younger than Tyr.  He has a really weird history to him, which I'll get into later, but the short version of it is that I originally made him as a vend/OC/DC Merchant, and got him to job change just because I thought Smiths were the sexiest class on RO at the time, even though I knew nothing about them. Admittedly, this is just history repeating itself, since I find Mastersmiths to be even sexier than Blacksmiths and I've always wanted one despite not knowing a damn thing about them.  All I know is that I want to rub my face on their abs.  Isn't that enough?

I don't know how I expect myself to level him either.  The main reason he never got leveled in the first place is because the idea of spending zeny to use skills repulses me, and the zeny abuse involved in leveling a Mastersmith is even more repulsive than that of a Blacksmith. I also have no clue what Mastersmith builds usually look like. So for now he's a level 68/1 trophy trans with 650 unspent stat points, and the only zeny I’ll be spending on him will go entirely to manscaping, self-tanner and hair gel.  Which reminds me that I need to change his hair... I subjected him to the random hair change NPC sometime ago, and I don't think I like his current  'do anymore.

Oh, aside from that, I had enough keys left to get Hawkeye to level 78, and Meursault got this while hunting the exp items I used to get Buzz through High Merchant;


I find it sad that he's 9x now, despite the fact that I haven't actively leveled him since he turned Stalker; he's gotten this far just by hunting exp items.  But now he can do so with a Bison and a Thorny.

I think that's it for now.  I'm going to go play Battle Fantasia, because everything's coming up Tris!

So, my boyfriend and I visited historic Balboa Park in my hometown of San Diego, and for about 2 minutes I had him convinced it was named after Rocky Balboa. I was proud of myself.

Anyway, perhaps you have inferred from the above sentence that I'm back, and I had a good vacation.  You might be right, but I don't think I even know yet.  I didn't really return to work any less stressed than I was when I left (the 57 phone messages and 9 days worth of adoption center paperwork my colleagues so graciously left me didn't help,) but I spent some time with my parents, bummed around the city, did a tiny bit of writing, and got a shit ton of sleep.  I also did some yard work for the aforementioned parents, mostly in the form of getting on a ladder to clear away some vines from the roof, and trimming some overgrown hedges. I really wasn't under any obligation to do it, but I'd actually been starved for that sort of thing, for reasons I can only partially explain.

Of all the things I lack in my economical, pared-down apartment life 350ish miles up the coast from my parents' place, the one I lament the loss of most of all is a yard. I don't really care that I've lost TV, closet space and my own room so much as I care that I've lost a  quiet, private place that has plants in it. I live in a complex that is arranged quite a bit like a bank of glass-fronted cages at PetCo; Michael and I are in perpetual view of nearly every other person living in our immediate vicinity. Even when we can't see them, they are in such close proximity that we hear them yelling, playing, having sex and talking on the phone; running on their proverbial hamster wheels in the grand scheme of things.  Not like I'm any better, of course, but it is annoying not even be able to water the plants on my teeny tiny porch without being stared and/or talked at. Plants and the outdoors are very calming to me, but the fact that contact with people and noise is very stressful to me tends to undo any sort of tranquility I get from the plants and the outdoors.

Did I mention I did some writing?  Its not much, but its something, read it here.  Its just a little D&D based literary scribble, but I hope to someday follow it with an elaborate history of my D&D character, since character histories seem to be all I can write these days, not that I’m complaining!

As for other things I did, I followed my dad to a blues music festival, in which he actually got to play a set that included one of his own handwritten songs, awesomely enough (he sings and plays the harmonica and acoustic guitar as well.) I admire my dad so much.  He's spent most of his adult life struggling with unemployment, borderline substance abuse (he was the first person who ever offered me pot, roffle) and multiple health problems, yet he's a wise, optimistic, bright and genuinely kind man who is always surrounded by friends and pursues his life's passions wholeheartedly. Which is more than I can say for my mom, who seems to grow more vindictive, moody and aloof with every passing year... Although I can still talk with her for hours, oddly enough.

I also went to the San Diego Natural History Museum.  I try to go there whenever I'm in town, just because, well, I really love museums. They had a really cool dinosaur exhibit this time too. A good portion of it was about how Tyrannosaurs might have moved; apparently they couldn't have been fast runners because of the sheer amount of weight their legs would have had to support, and they probably walked straight legged like elephants do.  The museum also had a dire wolf skeleton, which I spent a good 20 minutes staring at for reasons you probably already know.

Annd then my mom took me to a swap meet, in which I heard a Mexican woman ask a vendor how much he wanted for his "Yee Aye Yos." Had she not been holding Snakeyes, Flint and Shipwreck in her left hand, I would have had no clue what the hell she was talking about.

That was, in essence, my vacation.  As for RO, I'm pissed at all the stuff that happened while I was gone. Namely the fact that three iRO wiki artists I would kill for art from opened zeny commissions, and their queues all filled up while I was gone.  Not one or two, three! And they all filled! I've been waiting forever for artists to start taking zeny again.  UGH. Well, I'm also sort of angry at the lazily rehashed anniversary events and the stupid titans/dragon events.  Okay, renewal is coming, you're fattening us up, I get it.  Stop already! Not like any of this shit is gonna help a loser like me get a level 99 trans anytime soon. Well, there is the pirate quest.  I suppose I should pay up my girl account so I can set my Priestess a'warpin for it, since I have 118 keys and 9 HE manuals in storage. I really don't want to be bothered with the whole thing, but I probably will anyway, if I can make up my mind on which character to spam it with.

Ah hell, I need to get my ass to bed so that I can go to work fresh and ready to chip away at phone messages tomorrow.  Hot diggity daffodil! I promise I'll go to my friends page and make some comments tomorrow. 8D

Its not like me to make two entries in a week, but I haven't checked ROS/iROwiki in awhile, and checking them today alerted me to a number people who have given me awesome drawings, asked me questions or otherwise referenced me in a friendly fashion.  If you are one those people, I apologize for the long silence, and read on!

First off, thanks to Ninalyn who bypassed my lazy ass and designed my Soul Linker (Alban Eiler) for me, doing a far better job than I probably would have;


I mentioned in his backstory that he's a member of the Rachel clergy, and she did a really good job of making him look like it; the sandals, the scarf, the gold bands on the sleeve, etc. Yet he still is recognizable as a Linker. And I love his face for some reason too. Its so cute and so simple its almost an emote. XD Thanks so much Ninalyn! This makes me feel so guilty that I had to delete him in the merge to save Hawkeye and my OC/DC Blacksmith. /sobbbb And I am also going to go comment on your new Swordie girl profile!

Second off, when Finae asked for some people to submit characters for her to sketch, I told her I'd love it if she chose one of mine, and is apparently "ashamed" of what she ended up doing, but I don't see why;


Champs with hoods = win! I also very much appreciate the fact that she actually paid attention when I said he's half Umbalan, and made him look biracial, which is something a lot of artists neglect, even the ones I actually pay to get it right. :-P He's also nice and meaty, which is another thing I like to see, since he’s definitely not the skinny bishonen type.  I also really like how his eyes sort of match the color of his hood, and he wears the serious expression well!

And a few other things;

@ Rei - I ACCEPT YOUR MANLINESS CHALLENGE! Just let me get my e-dick all loaded up in its polished chrome and leather wheelbarrow and LET'S GO!! *rips into beef jerky and scratches self* My Stalker is currently guildless, so if you need a midriff-baring man-whore mascot for rent, he's your man. Sorry my Champ has been taking up guild space and not doing anything (or anyone.) But wtf is lawn fat? Is that like a treasure trail? Or a dingleberry? And I am VERY interested in your ROS parties, whatever form they may take.  I can always find a character who can afford to lose some % if you want to do random raids, or alternately, I can pay up my girl account and make a n00b!

@ Ditte - I saw a shot of your Sniper with an aura in someone else's ROS.  Wtfwhendidthishappengrats! As for the exp items I used on Hawkeye... He changed at 66/50, and I used NPCed Bill of Birds, then I popped an HE manual and from there I think it was something like 1150 Frills, 900 Dokebi Horns, 1000 Huge Leaves and 450 Bacillus? It may have been more, I'm going off of the numbers I just found scribbled on the back of a Comcast bill hurhurrr. I probably should have thrown Anolian Skins in there somewhere to be more efficient, but I didnt feel like it. And there's also this calculator. Bother me on MSN sometime and I'll gladly party your Smith, or your anything else. 8D

@ teepotsu - You comment on my ROS a lot.  I wish you posted in your ROS so I could comment back!  And I do remember the Crunky HP in Niff... Its so weird to see people actually partying there! And I think I love the idea of a Sniper with glasses. XD

@ Adeat - I am still seriously considering participating in the previously discussed shady dealings involving an exchange of vanity headgear, however the fickle nature of the RO market is proving troublesome.  *sparklyeyeclenchedfist*

Anyway, I haven't done too much on RO, mostly due to just feeling a bit burnt out, I suppose.  Hawkeye is at 71/36, and he sort of sucks at the moment since I chose to get his Agi and Dex done first, but I thought he deserved a present anyway;


I would have preferred a belt sander, but I suppose this'll do in a pinch.  As you can tell, I've been doing the Louyang anniversary thing, but its sort of well, irritating as hell, especially with the laughably low exp reward and mediocre item rewards. In fact, it feels sort of like Gravity is trying to get me to...


...Never mind.

Anyway, I'll finally be taking some time off of work from the 14th - 22nd to visit some family but until then, I'll be where I always am! Thank everyone for listening, as always!

Hello. It is officially summer. I know this because cats are like barometers.  If they tuck their paws under their bodies and look like meatloaves, its winter.  If they lie on their backs and look like sea otters, its summer. I also took a walk after work on Friday and noticed that it quite simply "felt" like summer.  There was a breeze blowing that was so warm and delicate it felt almost like human breath, and the air itself was so clear that I think the robins I was hearing could have been singing from miles away, and each note of birdsong carried with it the warm scent of blonde summer grass...  I hate you so much, summer. You come on like a high school crush, all full of sweet sighs and perfect moments, but next thing I know you'll be hitting me with pitstains down to my waist and making me feel like a poached salmon in tinfoil when I try to sleep under my covers, and then you’ll top it all off with trying to weld my ass to the vinyl of my computer chair.

Ahhhh what.  I've been trying to write an ROS entry for days and I've been drawing a total blank, except for the pseudo-poetic nonsense of the previous paragraph.  You'd think I'd have a lot more to say with a fresh 99 on my hands;


I don't know who that Knight is, but I was too impatient to wait for him to move. 8D I actually had to log off literally minutes after this screenshot was taken, because my boyfriend the part-time videographer (the job he gets paid for) and part-time indie filmmaker (the job he does not get paid for) had to kick me off of my computer because he was filming in our kitchen and his camera microphone was picking up my mouse clicks and keystrokes. Ewps. Of course when I logged in again a few days later, I had nobody to tank me or hand me items.  But then some skanky guy with ugly 2003 bot Swordsman hair wanted to make out with me, so I strung him along long enough to get job 10, thereby saving myself about 2 hours of work;


No rly, ILU Alex. :3! And I would post a pic of my Aco job change, but it got ruined by an announcement about some dingbat getting an OCA. This raffle thing is such a devilishly clever way for the GMs to get zeny out of the economy... Of course they put a lot of it there in the first place with Kafra shop bullshit, but who cares?  I spent about 2 mil, got squat, and that's enough for me.  I guess I have to limit myself to exp items to make my zeny from now on, le sigh.  And to think, just a week ago I was kicking myself for selling my stash of 200ish Karvos for 500k each.

Anyway, I shot through High Aco in all of 10 minutes thanks to mold and animal parts that my Stalker found on the ground, since getting a Battle Aco to job 50 is like trying to run the Kentucky derby on a Shetland pony. I was lucky enough to catch Adeat online (or get caught by him online, rather) since he had wanted to see me turn HP, but I hadn't seen him in a few days, so I was about to do it solo!


Whee!  I also went to dye him right after, and he rocks the alt color scheme. I really hate the off-white of the top robe, but the purple parts aren't bad, and I love the blue and gold trim.  Blue and gold were my college colors, in fact. I have also decided that the male HP is one of my favorite RO sprites.  Its so classy and elegant, yet conveys strength and competence as well. /onlyslightlyofftopic

Ahhh, I started this entry wanting to rant again (mostly about RO,) but something about mulling over clever ways to write always ends up cheering me up. I even thought about my fanfic the other day after falling asleep face-down in one of my Norse mythology books while Michael was filming.  I sincerely hope to get back to writing it soon. I've been a very bad girl. n_n

So, the other day I got asked if I had any kids.  Fuck.  I was hoping to avoid that question until I was at least 30, but I guess I look older than I actually am.  I went straight from getting called "little girl" to getting called "ma'am" when my boobs took root, after all.  I never really had a "miss" stage. And like my friends in high school always said, "Samantha, you look like the type to eat your own children."

Speaking of children, thanks so much for all the nice comments on my HP design!  I sort of liked his casual nerd/cowboy/hippie look, but wasn’t sure if anyone else would.  I do in fact think he's more interesting than Yag... All I really did with Yag was slap a scarf on him and change the all of his crosses into birds, thereby making him one of the laziest designs EVER. I'm also glad I’m not the only one who enjoys the irony of a supposedly sharp-eyed character who needs corrective eyewear.  And you may all have red velvet cake!  Yes it has tons of food coloring, but it has such a lovely flavor; like yellow cake, but more subtle and complex. In fact, cake for everyone!


I... uh... Wish I actually felt a sense of accomplishment because of this.  Maybe it was the medals, or maybe it was the fact that I could pull 10-12 mil per hour soloing Niff, but this didn't seem all that hard.  Although I suppose you can congratulate me anyway!  Oh, and I chose to 99 off of a Nine Tails just to keep up with the canine theme that most of my past 99s have had in common (what with Tristan 99ing off of a Desert Wolf, Yag off of an Anubis, Sam of off an axe Kobold, and Meursault off of a Galion.)

So, soon I will have a BHP/HBP.  And then a BBQ, time TBA, BYOB. Now its off to stockpile exp items so I can get through High Aco with a minimum of struggle.  Oh yeah, and here are his final stats with gears. The brooches actually belong to Adeat, and I forgot to switch to a Brutal shield for the Ninetails, but who's keeping score?  *cough*


You'd think an aspd junkie like me would have made something with 99 Agi sooner (that silk robe is actually +3 Agi too, lololol.)  After all, it is actually pretty sweet. He has more Flee than my Stalker. : D In fact, the only thing I want to change about his build as a HP is the annoyingly low Dex.

Oh yes, prior to his 99ing, I spent a few more hours in Chiv, mostly out of spite since I was offended by the fact that I found 2 Iron Cains in an hour the last time I was there.  When things like that happen to me on RO, I get a mental image of a man not unlike a Korean version of Colonel Sanders slapping me in the face with a perfumed white glove, yelling at me that I must defend my honor.  Thankfully I had my boxing gloves on this time, and delivered a proper response.


Now there's the great "sell vs. keep" debate.  I already have a +7 Immune Muffler and a +4 Immune Valk Mant, but an upgrade to a +7 Immune Valk would be lovely. Except that I'm probably too much of a chickenshit to actually make a thread or chatroom to see if someone will sell me a pre-made +7 Valk Mant, and I flat out refuse to buy Enriched Elu to make one myself.

Oh, and while we're on the topic of inane cash shop items;


Quite lucky for me that my account expired on May 24th, don't you think? I usually renew in 3 or 6 month increments anyway. All things considered, RO is moving along nicely, and I should be happier. But real life has sort of been sucking lately; I'm really being taken advantage of at work, my D&D group is full of flakes, douche bags and flaky douche bags (eww,) and I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping.  I just wrote out a nice long rant about it, but I think I'll keep it out of this entry, since ROS should be a happy place. Although hinting at one’s unhappiness is probably almost as bad as actually talking about one's unhappiness when potentially worried friends are involved, but at least the entry is shorter this way! I love you all, and thanks for your support.

I once heard that the domestic dog's habit of meticulously sniffing everything is the canine equivalent of reading the newspaper, and if it is, then I recently met a 14 year old Pug who thought my jeans were the Sunday New York Times.   She was staying in the shelter's boarding kennels this past week, and during the two occasions I wound up getting kennel scrubbing duty, her nose was magnetically attracted to my pant leg (which was all she could reach.) Really, I didn't even have to leash her up to take her outside, since she would follow me around just for the privilege of noisily snorting the fabric of my Levis.  Coming back to the newspaper analogy, watching her sniff me was like watching my grandma read the Times, only my grandma muttered comments about Mexicans instead of making snorkelly little piggy sounds.

I haven't been on RO all that much, mainly due to running into some horrible lag spikes that I've been getting routinely for almost a week; up and down, up and down... It feels like playing whack-a-mole, only using my characters' faces instead of a mallet. So, I decided to sit back and relax for a spell, and I ended up drawing. I can't remember the last time I finished a drawing, or even a doodle. I was making such good progress in improving my art style back before I stopped drawing over a year ago, and now it appears I'm reverting back to all of my old bad art habits. Oh well, drawing badly is better than not drawing at all, I suppose.  

Hawkeye HP Costume Design

Please excuse the terrible, poorly lit digital photo, and don't pay too much attention to Hawkeye himself; he's too young, too skinny, and looks like I could kick his ass if I wanted to.  I like how the outfit came out though.  I was going for a casual, utilitarian look, and the result was the jeans/t-shirt/belt combo, which looks sort of cowboy, but I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing, since I still own a Members Only jacket, and routinely wear it in public with athletic shoes and a crocheted wool scarf.  And yes, I will be dying his clothes when he makes HP; if I'm going to have two transes of the same class, they damn well better be different colors.

I also decided that he wears glasses, mostly because the idea of someone with horrible eyesight being named "Hawkeye" amuses me (B < black frame glasses for less than 5 mil plzkthx.) The idea of him wearing a peace sign with his rosary actually comes from my dad, who wore a wrought iron peace sign with his dog tags when he was in the Navy.  And I don't know what the emblem on his coat/belt buckle stands for.  I guess I'll figure that out when I write his history.  The black armband is for the people killed by Satan Morroc, and the headband... Indulging his inner hippie? Or his inner Ryu?  Although I gave it military camo colors, so maybe its got some significance on that front, (it's actually a Red Bandana in-game.)

Oh, wait.  Gameplay!  I did manage to do something moderately useful;


Tyr is somewhere underneath there (as evidenced by the falcon,) but if I squint, the dragons look like a big pile of gold coins, and I can pretend I died from being crushed by zeny, which makes me feel less like a complete tool.  Good god, I'm so bad at being a party Sniper. xD Esper got me on MSN and told me to come to AL3, and then I found myself in a party, and Esper told me I did okay despite being really nervous and not knowing anyone, but I fucked up so many times I’m surprised I didn't get my ass voted off of the island.   I swear, I know how FAS works, but sometimes I get so nervous I fire off 3-4 times before I realize I'm not hitting everything, and frantically scoot around trying to find the optimal place to stand.  Or I hit my Blitz Beat key 5 times in a row and wonder why my damage is so low. Anyway, I made almost 30% despite all the deaths, even without a dragon hat (4$ for something that *should* have been a free quest item like pirate daggers and baseball caps were?  Suck it, Gravity.) But seriously, I need to party more often so that I don't get so freaked out, since it felt so good to get that much exp in so short a time.

Speaking of feeling so good, why didn't anyone tell me that red velvet cake was this awesome? How did I go my whole life without ever eating it before last night? WHY HAVE YOU HIDDEN THIS FROM ME?! Anyway, comments about HP design and/or that Stalker history I posted, please? Thank you?  I have cake!

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

- Albert Camus

Wow, here I am saying he's my favorite writer (my Stalker is named after his most famous character) yet today was the first time I'd ever seen this quote. Let's see, since yesterday, I have;

- Hidden myself in the bathroom at work so I wouldn't have to sign for a package because I feel like its too much responsibility.
- Mixed extra-spicy buffalo wings with chow mein and topped it with ranch dressing.
- Spent about 4 minutes trying to compose myself enough to page someone over the intercom at the shelter vet clinic because the idea embarrassed me, even though all I had to say was "Sarah, please call Debbie's cell phone."
- Moved one of my bookshelves and noticed that CLAMP, Hunter S. Thompson , J.D Salinger, Myung Jin Lee and Geoffrey Chaucer are all living on the same shelf.
- Remembered it was a friend's birthday, and decided not to message her about it because I'm afraid she'd want to have a conversation, and her life is much more interesting than mine.

Honestly, I don't even understand myself.  I'm weird, neurotic and a hopeless introvert, yet I work in a customer service position, and then I come home and play an MMO.  Maybe this quote explains why I'm always so exasperated with the world.  Apparently I'm not expending enough energy.

Anyway, once again I have failed to be witty in an ROS opener.  No worries though, I'm not upset or sad or anything, just feeling a bit bewildered, but better than I was after my last entry.  In fact, right after I posted that last entry, Esper and Adeat (wonderful fellows that they are) snatched me up and took me to Niff. Which would have been a fun proposition in itself, but they had to break out the big guns;


Tristan + Aid Zerk…


 … + Aspersio + Signum Crucis = ALL KINDS OF AWESOME.  Although I had to ask Adeat and Esper to lay off for a minute to get this shot, since we were killing things so fast I could never finish my combos, LOLOLOLOL.

God damn I love my Champion. I just wish he could be this awesome on his own.  I still haven't found anywhere I can easily solo him. Oh yeah, and Esper was drunk.  Apparently not drunk enough to fail at partying (even when he switched to his HP) but drunk enough to use such choice phrases as "I dn't reality care," and "my grnadma seems nappy." I feel bad in that I didn't screenshot any of the choice bits of conversation (I was too busy touching myself over Tristan) but apparently Adeat /savechatted the whole thing.  Blackmail tiem? : D

Aside from that, I used all of my medals on my Battle Priest. /wrist. As much as I wanted to use them on Tristan for base levels, I would have never forgiven myself for leaving him with crappy job exp. So, said medals got Hawkeye from base 90 at 40%-ish to base 97 at 34%. After that I noticed I had enough Kafra points to buy a box of Battle Manuals, so I used them all in a single day;


I also got 25% into 98, which is pretty freakin' awesome. Niff works quite nicely now that Hawk has the Flee and Hit for Lolis. Oh, and that's my Chaos friend Alex's guild, just because he offered me an invite and I was feeling sort of lonely.  But then I remembered that Shilin and Sepia are also in this guild, and got all flustered and starstruck (OMG IWIKI FANART CELEBS,) hence my title. What I didn't tell them is that I'm actually a pink She-Hulk, and the blushing just means that I am soon to smash things.

Soooo, I guess the last thing I have to say is that I plan on getting 99 whenever the next 2x exp event is, since its not bloody likely I'll get this guy into an AL3 party.  However, we've been having a lot of exp events lately, so perhaps I'll get him to HP sooner rather than later.  I’m already getting mental pictures of how I want to alter his outfit. T-shirts and hippie headbands! @_@

I've been wanting to write an entry for awhile, but was stopped by my inability to think up a witty one-liner or amusing anecdote to start with, and I'm sort of depressed, and my D&D game for tonight got cancelled.  So, you get my sinuses.  For the first 20ish years of my life, I had no allergies whatsoever.  I mowed lawns barefoot for cash, kissed the neighbors' golden retriever on the mouth, faceplanted in fields of ragweed and crawled through dusty attics.  No allergy symptoms whatsoever.  But since I moved to NorCal, from April through July, I have at least one day a week of horribly itchy ear canals and a nose that works as well as a clogged shower drain, and has just as much gross stringy stuff in it. Huzzah!

That and I've had the most horrible lag while trying to play RO.  So, I turned to the iRO forums and found a topic about it, and after sifting through a page and a half of the usual complaining and demands for compensation, found out that Comcast is apparently having issues with packet loss on the west coast, or... something.  Not like I need an excuse to hate Comcast. They already are the only internet provider in my area, charge me almost 70$ a month for intarwebs, and have almost nonexistent customer service.  At any rate, it seems to be improving, at least.

During the height of the lag, I decided to get Tyr and farm a few blank cards in Ant Hell just to augment my medal total, and ended up picking up a lot of Empty Bottles just for the hell of it. When I got back to town, I couldn't put them in my storage... I now know why.



…Wow. I guess having a presence across all 3 main servers plus old Sakray at one time combined with being a packrat paid off.  If you can count bottles as "paying off."  Looks like its time to holy up some water to get that total down. I browsed the rest of my storage, and I have a few thousand of almost every ore too.  Except rough elu, since I used it all. Hot diggity!

Anyway, I’ve mostly been playing Hawkeye, and I did a couple of runs of 150 Lolis in Niff now that he has my badass Loki gear, but the fact that it took me several hours and I had to regen a lot made me not want to keep doing it. So, after recalling Tristan's time as a 9x Monk, and noticing that I had 1200ish Tassels and a slotted Bucket Hat in storage, I went to Tamruans, which was apparently a bad idea.  Stretching my sidebar is also a bad idea, but the truth must be told.


For the first second after the first one dropped, I thought "oh hey, blank!" Then I remembered I wasn't actually wearing my Spare Card.  The second one dropped within an hour of the first, and the third dropped the next day,  by the way.  Poor Hawkeye seems to be really unlucky with item drops (see Siroma and Orc lady cards in previous entries.)   And if you still don’t believe me;


I'd like to ponder the statistical odds of two masks and 11 chiv emblems with no card drops (or even slotted chainmails or 2-handed swords, for that matter) but who really cares.  Plus, I think at least 4-5 of those emblems were already in my storage. But back to Tamruans.  They actually turned out to be better exp than Niff, even with turn-ins, which is sort of a head scratcher.  I guess because I never have to regen?

I'm still pondering what to do with those medals, but very much leaning towards using them on Hawkeye.  With the number I have, I could get him up to level 97 and with exp to spare, which is pretty damn good.  After that I'd be perfectly willing to hunt cards and starsands to 99, because it sure beats killing Goats with my Stalker. And not like those medals will do me much good on any of my transes.

God dammit, something tells me Massive Attack and Radiohead aren't the best bands for me to be listening to right now.  I thought they'd make me feel less tense, but now I just feel like I’m going to slip into a coma and then dream of undoing my own existence so completely that I revert to a pre-birth state.  Wish me luck!

So, there's a Chihuahua at the shelter named Vlad, who has a medical condition.  It's harmless, though a little rude, to say the least, since it entails the sheath of his penis not covering as much as it should.   Now, every Friday, our shelter vet sends out a mass email to let everyone know what animals were seen for what during the week. This Friday's read "Vlad - Penis constantly exposed. Lubricate as needed, add medical waiver."  Apparently a free tube of KY jelly is included with his adoption as well.  I loled at my desk, for srs. At least I'm not among the shelter staff that gets the honor of lubing Vlad's impaler. 

So how about that merger? I haven't been on RO much, mostly because just logging into Pront makes me want to void my bowels and curl up in a fetal position.  But I've stopped scratching my head over the name "Ymir" and logged on long enough to do two things;


Second of two boxes! The first one actually gave me Agi scrolls, but it gave me enough of them to visit Granny Boxter, so I actually only used points on one box. Thx Granny!

Now if only I knew who to use them on.   I'd *love* to use them on Tristan, but since he still needs job exp, I'd feel obligated to split them equally between base and job, and they wouldn't go that far. I suppose Hawkeye would be the best choice, since he's a job 50 non-trans who's low enough to get a really significant boost from them. Just the same, I'll probably sit on 'em for awhile.

Oh yes, and the other thing I did was equally awesome.  Dynamo had said in one of his ROS entries that he'd be at the friendship statue at 9pm on Friday in hopes of meeting ROS people... And I was the only one who showed up.  Next time, more publicity, methinks! But I happened to be talking to Adeat on MSN and he asked if I wanted to do anything on RO, so;


3 holy classes representing 3 servers, united to repeatedly curbstomp demons at 180+ aspd.  It was so much fun. Honestly, these are the types of parties I always hope for; just a few friends/acquaintances having a good time. No pressure, no exp/hr agonizing, just a bit of fun.  I feel bad for Adeat since we ate his SP so much; although Tristan was pulling off 14k Chain Crush Combos on Loli Ruris thanks to Signum Crucis and Aspersio. ;D I promise I'll bring blue pots and holy waters next time!  There will be a next time, right?  RIGHT?! Both of you! I just wish I'd gotten better screenies.

We also ran into Rei in Pront, and he surprise buttsexed me with a guild invite for the absurdly named Dango.  And it occurs to me that this is actually the second time I’ve been in a guild that used a Japanese bun type thing as an emblem. My last Chaos guild (Panhellenic) used an onigiri emblem.  *snrk* Thx Rei!

Anyway, further into the merge business, all of my names (unsurprisingly) came through intact, so no free name changes for me.  The characters and gear attached to those names came through just fine as well, right down to my Adventurer’s Trusty Towels and Lovely Choco-Tarts from old friends.  Although I'm sort of pissed that my characters are all out of order now, and aren't even arranged by age like they're supposed to be. And who was that Anonymous person who commented on Hawkeye's name in my last entry? Yes, I do like M*A*S*H!  Its very much a comfort show for me, and the movie was pretty awesome too.  Although nobody has commented on the name yet. Then again, yes, I am pretty old. 8D

Michael hasn't seen the anniversary pic yet, because he had to go to SoCal for a week after I dropped the jpeg off at the print shop (which did a fantastic job, by the way.)  I've missed him a lot, much to my surprise.  I'm not a terribly social creature, and I usually love getting alone time, but I've just been sort of bored, distractible, and tired.  Well, the tired part might just be due to my having to walk home from work instead of getting a ride. Hahahaha.

Adeat can argue the distractible part, since he politely encouraged me to write more of my story last night, and I got as far as re-reading the last 5 or so chapters, after which I... washed the dishes and terrorized my cats.  I might just pull another "no RO until you write a chapter, young lady!" thing on myself.

Oh yes, speaking of anniversaries and being driven to distraction, I just realized I need to update my blog title.  April 2010 not only marks my 6th anniversary with Michael, it also marks my 7th anniversary with RO.  What a thing to be able to say that your romantic relationship isn't as established as your MMO relationship.  I should hand out some cigars to celebrate.


Good thing I know where to buy them! 

Wow, that last entry got a lot of comments. Thanks guys! I really need to start taking the time to answer comments individually, but I feel like I already write way too much in these entries.  >.> In short, glad you liked my Evil Druid and Esper's character page, I like sending random hats in the mail, and wtf where did you come from, Will?

Well, the merge has really crept up on me, and I thought someone might be interested in my worthless, arrogant opinions in the half hour I have before I have to leave for the afternoon. No matter how much I think about it, I can't say I'm really looking forward to it, to be honest.  I'm primarily an antisocial solo player, and I don't like tripping over 5 billion people on the more crowded maps I frequent. I'm also apprehensive about everything going smoothly, since I don't entirely trust the GMs not to make some sort of screwup involving a 12-24 hour block of server downtime followed by repeated emergency maintenances.

I also heard that DI is disbanding, which is sort of a kick in the nuts even though I haven't actually been in the guild for quite awhile. I left because I didn't want to WoE, nobody wanted to party me unless I played my HP, and it was constantly full of people I didn't know talking about things I didn't care about, but really, I should have made more of an effort to at least keep in touch with the few DI members I actually considered myself friends with. But me being antisocial is hardly new.

However, on the bright side, I do have hopes of running into more ROS people (bother me if you see me, please, and I'll do my best to get over myself and say hi) and hopes that more people active and hunting might un-fuck the economy just a bit.  Plus, I want to level Tristan with Adeat's BHP, and I'm still pondering making a guild for useless PvM scrubs like myself. /ho

Speaking of BHPs, last night I asked Adeat to transfer zeny from my doomed Iris Merchant to Hawkeye, and we ended up going to Niff and meeting another BP, which was unexpectedly pretty awesome. XD


Level 86! It took about 40 minutes to gain 60%, which is all sorts of awesome.  And then this morning, I got to play pretend FS to Adeat's Scholar, and got even better exp...


...which lead to 87! Now I'm wishing I didn't waste all of the exp event on my slave girls.  Maybe I can trans this guy someday after all?

Oh, and re: server name... Ymir is okay, I suppose? But I wanted Fenris or Yggdrasil;

Fenris - Wolf chained up by the gods who would break free at Ragnarok and kill Odin. I like it because, well, let's face it, RO is a dying game.  Why not name what’s probably the final iRO server after a harbinger of the end days?  Besides, you know how I feel about wolves. >.>
Yggdrasil - Giant ash tree that connected all the realms of the Norse world (Asgard, Midgard, Niflheim, etc.) Sort of works for a server that brings so many people from different "worlds" together.
Ymir - Frost giant that was killed by Odin and subsequently used to create the world. His bones and teeth became rocks and mountains, his hair became trees and other plants, his blood became oceans and rivers, his skull became the sky, and his brains became the clouds, etc.

Eh well, at least Ymir is better than Asgard, in my opinion.  Asgard was the realm of the gods, and I think naming a server after it is a little arrogant, and would just reinforce my idea that too much of RO is composed of people who aren't gods, but seem to think they are. 

Hrm, this entry feels like its nothing but self-indulgent pseudo-intellectual rambling. I'm sort of in a tired/cranky mood today for reasons I'll get to in a couple paragraphs. But Remi did finish my commission (which is of the two characters Michael and I played in the tabletop RPG game that brought us together.)

Wind's End

Holy hell, Remi does such a good job of catering to her clients' interests.  She knows I love the way she puts flat colors over sketches and the variety of textures she uses, so she did both for me, and in spades. The forest, fur and moon textures are jaw-dropping, and those rich colors are to die for. I'm sure it'll look even better at its full 11 x 14 dimensions. *_* The guy on the left is Michael’s character, Brogan "Burning Cloud" Eustace, and the one on the right is my character, Tristan "Sky's Shadow" Kestler, whom my Champ is named after.  The wolves are them in their alternate forms.

Since it's a gift for Michael, I started with the idea of putting Brogan in front, but he just ended up dwarfing Tristan, and it didn't really look good.  It sort of fits the relationship between the two of them too.  They're turned away from each other in their human forms, yet their two wolf forms almost look like they're trying to reconcile. Brogan started off being a mentor to Tristan, but ended up betraying him and turning to the dark side in a pretty epic way, yet Tristan ended up doing everything he could to save him.

The text "Wind’s End" was the name of the location where all of the player characters were headquartered. It was called that because they were all outcasts or misfits of some sort, who ended up there by deliberate exile or by unlucky circumstances.  So, philosophically speaking, they weren't tied down by anyone, were blown there by winds of change, and made to stay because they weren’t wanted anywhere else. Hence, wind’s end.

Anyway, I took it to a print shop yesterday, and ended up walking in circles for 2 hours and getting sunburned before realizing that the bus/walking directions I'd downloaded told me to go down the wrong cross street.  And the place is already a mile from the nearest bus stop (I don't have a car, as you may know.)  Plus, I have to go pick up the printed version today, I can't remember if I made it clear to the person I talked to that I wanted a full printed picture and not a proof, I have to find a place to get it framed, AND its currently raining on and off, which makes me fear for the safety of the print while I'm out walking with it. Ugh. x_o

Whether or not things go well, I'm going to leave now.  There but for the grace of public transit go I!

Before I get into this long and boring entry, I'd like to say thanks to a couple of people for being awesome. 

First off, Esper made me this character page on his website.  When you click the sprites, it takes you to each character's biography! I told him I always wanted something like this, and he did it so nicely. He used my favorite city as a background, plus one of my favorite colors, and the fern leaves are such a pretty extra detail.  I don't think I could have made a better one even I knew how to code.  Crap, that means I have to finish all of my backstories and catalog the 30-40 other commissions I have lying around. Hah!

Oh yes, and I sent my old Romantic Gent to Aki after she sent me some extra exp items, and then she drew this picture of Hawkeye, and I would venture to say its awesome.  Its pretty close to the persona I've been brainstorming for him; a battered and cynical veteran of the destruction of Morroc, who's really a disillusioned hippie at heart who will never stop regretting that he didn't get the improved SP regen skill. ;(

Thanks to both of you! Also, Remi’s nearly finished with my anniversary commission. My heart started racing when I looked at the semi-final version, which I think is a very good sign.  She went for a Mucha-esque art nouveau orgy of beautiful varied textures and rich colors and its fan-freaking tastic. Hopefully I'll be able to chat with her about it soon and I'll have the final to post in my next entry.  I'm so excited about it!

I haven't been on RO as much as usual, in part because there seems to be a constant coming and going of people in my apartment. Mostly a couple of old friends I hadn't seen in awhile, which is nice.  But I have found time to make more slave girls. With my boy characters, I plan for them for weeks; figuring out names, builds, hairstyles, gears, all that good stuff. With these fine ladies, however, my goal is to spit them out as rapidly as possible before their sub expires, since I only bought a month. In that spirit;


Mail-order bride for Kaspar. I named her after the Isis who follows him around and tries to steal his book... please don't ask me how I'm going to justify this in his character bio. I think the name means "tomb watcher" in some obscure Egyptian dialect. I should get them married soon, but I'm apparently too lazy to play zeny ping-pong between my accounts to pay for it, at least for the moment.  Huzzah for Soul Linkers not needing job 50! Not so huzzah for this gal needing job 50;


Trifecta 10/alt warp slave.  She's named after a character in my fanfic, who I hope to get around to introducing eventually because I hearts her.  She’s supposed to have light brown hair, but I decided that blond looked better with the sprite. Though I don't really like any of the longer female RO hairstyles, to be honest. Speaking of hair;


Liluye got her new style! And then an Evil Druid got jealous of it and cleaved her head clean off. Ever notice how Evil Druids are so emaciated and skeletal, yet they have such perfect flowing bishonen locks? Hmm, on closer inspection, I probably should have drawn him making a pouty pretty boy face with one hand on his cheek, and swatting her with the cross like it were a hairbrush. Damn MS paint and its lack of layers. No eraser for you, Tris!


Seriously, I loved this hairstyle as soon as I saw it, then when I saw that Adeat had it on his female BP, I knew I had to get it on my Priesty girl too, even though she's FS.  The "manliness" (Adeat's word) of it sort of defuses the explosive kawaiitude of the Priestess sprite, which is nice.  And I like how it shows the collar of the dress too.

On the real life front, the shelter recently got 5 new cats who needed some procedures done; weighing, vaccines, de-worming, flea treatment, ID microchipping, etc. Because our feline person was on vacation, my boss told me that the canine staff would take care of it all, Unless I wanted to help.  Not only did I help... I did ALL of it. Normally I don't appreciate doing someone else's work, but I've really been wanting to do more of this sort of thing for the learning experience.

Anyway, it wasn't nearly as traumatic as I thought it would be; but that was probably thanks in part to the fact that two of the canine staff members were holding the cats for me and giving pointers. Vaccines are actually a lot easier to give than I thought.  Microchips, however, are not.  They have to be given with a really, really big, long needle under the skin between the cat's shoulder blades, and its hard not to feel guilty even if the cat doesn't flinch.  Anyway, yes! I'm proud of myself.  Sometimes I think it'd be a good idea for me to go to night school and become a vet tech, then I remember I'm already in enough debt because of my useless Bachelor's degree.  Oops! 

Oh hell, I forgot something;


A colorful, mobby level 88 for Frenchy le Buttfuzz, who got more exp hunting 50 Deviruchis for the Easter quest than he did from actually finishing the Easter quest, thereby freeing me from feeling obligated to do said quest with any of my other characters.  And yes, Aki, I probably was that Stalker on the Dokebi map...  I tend to do an immediate 180 when I see someone ahead of me on that map. I'm so skittish, roffle. I need to remember to look more closely at names.

Oh hell, now that I have all my slaves in order, I suppose I'll have to level someone useful. D:

I stayed up way too late at my D&D game last night, and as a result had a weird, distracted day today in which thoughts moved through my brain about as quickly as a fish moves through a bathtub filled with cotton balls.  My super-ultra-mega head honcho manager spent about 2 hours hanging around my desk at work, and she scares the hell out of me. So, I didn't want to leave the aforementioned desk, since I'm not really supposed to during business hours.  However, about 3 hours prior, I had downed 9 ounces of concentrated drip-brewed French roast coffee in hopes that I could make those fish swim faster. By the time my lunch break rolled around, I had to pee so badly that I'm surprised steam didn't come out of the bathroom stall I installed myself in.

As if that wasn't bad enough, my boyfriend couldn't pick me up from work on time, but I really didn't want to wait for him at the local Peet's like I usually do, so I started walking home, and made it about 2 1/2 miles before he caught up and drove me the rest of the way.  Anyway, I'm home now and baking my emergency cake.  I keep emergency cake mix and frosting in my kitchen cabinet for days like this one.

Annnyway, as you may have gathered from the entry title, I have two female characters now, though they are not named Jane, though it wouldn’t be surprising if they were, because I suck at girl's names.  I name most of my characters after my favorite movie/book/music/mythology figures, most of which are male (jeez, do I EVER shut up about gender politics?) so I really couldn't think of many good vagina-centric ones that weren't already taken.  Hell, my parents had the same problem, since they even named ME after a man, but that's another kettle of carp and fluffy white balls.

I wanted to be true to my character histories and have my first female character be a Crusader named after my HP's daughter, since I had this image in my head of her all grown up and going to look for daddy after he left her, and I have a femsader fetish.  Anyway, that name was taken, of course.  Eh well, maybe I'll try again after the merger in case it was taken by someone who made a trial account in 2005?

But that aside, I wanted my second character to be a Sage, but because of the aforementioned issues, couldn't think of a name.  So I, uh... Improvised.  I had played with a char sim and knew I wanted to give her white hair, so what did I go and do?


Salvia Apiana =  the species name for the white sage plant, because I'm a smartass whose brain is more occupied with useless facts than practical knowledge, AND I grew up in Southern California. Thankfully the name makes her sound like a classy sort of dame, and I can cell her Sally if I'm feeling pedestrian.

After that, I moved on to making a peekaboo-thighs-pointless-garter-belt Priestess;


Liluye is a Miwok Indian name that means "singing hawk who soars," and I hope nobody on the other servers has it because its one of my favorite female names.  n_n It'd probably fit a Dancer more, but I don't really plan on making a Dancer unless someone gives me a really good reason to, besides boobage.  And I want to change her hair to one of the new stylist-only ones, but I need to make Mixtures and Counteragents, and nobody sells fucking Alcohol anymore.

Oh, yeah, and I took both of them to job 50.  Seriously?  What the hell is wrong with me? I know I'm never going to 99 either of them, but my inner perfectionist said I wasn't EVER allowed to go job 40 on any caster class.  Eh well, with 2 HE manuals and the drops event, it only took my Stalker about 5 hours to collect enough Earthworm Peelings, Dokebi Horns and Anolian Skins to do it, so I guess its not that bad.  Although if my brain weren't filled with trout, I would have made Liluye a Monk so she could warp and be a Trifecta 10 slave for my Stalker. But my brain is filled with trout, apparently, so now I'll have to do job 50 on a second Aco, who I will name after a character in my fanfic who will probably never be introduced if I continue writing with a speed comparable to the speed at which my mind is currently operating. Then I'll make a mail-order Soul Linker bride for my Scholar.

But right now, I'm gonna go put cute headgears on these ladies and then frost my emergency cake, kthx. 

Last week my boyfriend's dad (who's a CPA) showed me the 2009 tax return he filed for me, and, for the first time ever, I owe the government money.  Every other tax return I've filed has resulted in a big fat refund due to my being unemployed/employed only part time, or being a student.  Griping about jury duty, stressing about my job, paying taxes... I feel like such an adult! : D

Speaking of being grown-up, I just put on my big girl panties this morning and made myself a female account. I even had my Stalker collect a bunch of exp items all special-like so I could get an endower and a warper started. Annnd then I found out that I have to wait "up to 24 hours depending on the time of day" for Gravity to make sure I'm not ~*iLl3g1t*~ before I can pay for a premium subscription.  Suddenly I'm thinking of the time all the servers were down for 8-9 hours before the GM team even noticed, and I wonder if I'm even going to be able to pay up this account before the merge. Or if this account will even survive the merge. 8D

Jumping right into things;


I bought a bit of Luk and Int at his last two levels, so he's officially a hybrid build now, and no longer identical to my Champ in terms of stat progression. So far so good?  He'll be even better when the merge happens and I can set him up with some non-mooched gear.  Oh, and I now have more zeny on Iris than I do on Loki.  Probably because I impulse-bought a second Lunakaligo last time I was on Loki, even though I haven't even carded the first one.

Oh yes, and Dynamo, this guy isn't currently an important character of mine, but I'm already brainstorming ideas for a backstory for him (mostly while on the bus, roffle.)  He's named after a fictional army surgeon, so I think it'd be cool if I made him some kind of Morroc military man who was there when Satan Morroc broke free. Maybe he was formerly an FS Priest who got tired of  the endless tide of wounded refugees and decided to go kick ass and take names? /hmm

In recent weeks I've been running in circles on all three servers trying to get my shit in order. I figured the merge rules would be a lot like the  transfer rules and thusly we wouldn't be allowed to take cart items, so I sort of panicked and sold off a bunch of stuff on Chaos and Iris, since my combined storage from all three servers added up to 892 items, and I'm too lazy to inventory which ones are duplicates. Then I found out we can take cart items. Since I have 2 Merchant class characters who will be included in the merge, and can cram all my equips onto their respective characters, I probably don't have anything to worry about.  Now to make myself presentable for all of them new people I hope to meet!  *spits in hand and slicks hair back*

Real life's been the same as usual, for the most part.  I didn't play much RO last week because my boyfriend's best friend/business partner came up from SoCal and stayed with us for a week, and believe it or not, I'm actually embarrassed to play RO when I have company.  I think it's due to my playing RO in college, and how sick I got of random dorm people leaning over my shoulder and asking "wtf is your guy wearing on his head?" No matter how much I love RO, it is not a good game to have to explain to people. 

I was glad to see a few comments on my last entry regarding D&D 3.5. I prefer the Forgotten Realms setting myself, and I'm never converting to 4.0, no sirree.  I prefer to play humans because I love the extra feats and skill points.  My friends also tend to go for the more crazy races, and somebody's gotta be on the straight and narrow, right? But I have played almost as many elves, now that I think of it; so far I’ve played 2 Human Druids, a Drow Sorceror, a Moon Elf Fighter, and a Human Ranger.

Shit, I'm rambling again. But I'm gonna ramble a bit more.  I'm finally connecting with my old RO buddy Remichan/Jill Secord about that art commission I'm getting for my boyfriend for our anniversary (of the two characters we played in the tabletop game that brought us together,) and provided my PayPal account actually verifies itself like it says its going to, I'll be able to pay her for it. She's sent me a few awesome sketches so far that I'm dying to post here, but I almost don't want to get too used to looking at them so that the final product will look that much better to me. But I also feel like I should ask for opinions and bust out critiques/suggestions for her. For all of my RO commissions, I was content to just let the artist's imagination run wild, but since I'm probably going to pay 150-200$ in real money for this one,  I feel like I should be picky.  It takes a lot for me to spend this much money on myself or on other people, yet I'm drawing a total blank for what to suggest to her and how to facilitate her seeing these characters the same way I do.  I love what she's sent so far, but I feel like I should be pushing her somehow?  Its hard to explain.

Anyway, long entry is long.  Maybe I'll update again tomorrow if my girl account is available by then! Love, Barkskin and Greater Vigor to you all!

Question of the week: What has Tris purchased 3 times since her last entry?

A. Kafra Points
B. Anal Bleaching
C. Spring Daffodils
D. Schlitz Malt Liquor

Answer: C

Despite the fact that winter is my favorite season, right before spring rolls around I'm positively hungry for flowers, especially daffodils.  Just seeing them makes me forget whatever is bothering me at the moment and quiets my anxiety. And now that they're cheap and in season... yeah! 

For all of my bluff and bluster about not being a girly girl, I have a huge weakness for plants; I have about 8 potted plants on my porch and 2 houseplants, and my biggest complaint about my apartment is that it doesn't have a yard.  One of my heroes is John Muir, and he once said that showing pictures of nature to city-dwellers is the equivalent of showing pictures of bread to famine victims.  That's right Tris, pass it off as a metaphysical appreciation of nature rather than a girly love of pretty stuff... Swish!

Anyway, my clicky finger hurts;


That's level 80! Hooray for drunken Irish cats. Everyone is complaining about this quest, but I'm actually really digging it.  The 900k exp makes it perfect for Hawkeye's level, though the single UP coin is pointless product placement and sort of a cocktease (130 of them to buy the absolute smallest thing on PlaySpan's site, wuffux?)  Anyway, so far its brought him 4 base levels, 1032 Starsands, 1489 Poison Spores and some number of Green Ales that I forgot.  /$! It also brought him this;


Yep, same drop rate as a Whisper card. Poor Hawkeye seems to have the most tragically absurd luck.  He spent about 7 hours in Byalan and didn’t find any cards, then found an Orc Lady card after 30 minutes at West HOs,  after which he spent about 5 hours in Chiv without finding any cards, then found a Siroma card after 45 minutes in ID1.  Eh well, I suppose I should be happy he gets any card drops at all.

Battle Priest is definitely fun, and I really appreciate all the help Adeat is giving me, but to be honest, playing a BP is making me miss my Champion. I get irritated when a monster slaps me in the face and I can't retaliate by combo-smashing its face into the pavement.  I hope the server merge somehow includes Loki + Iris.  I really want to get Tristan and Adeat's HBP together, because in my mind the two of them fighting side-by-side looks like an epic Marvel superhero crossover comic; bulging biceps, snappy one-liners and action lines EVERYWHERE.  PvM Aco trans characters so hot they'll overheat your processor.

Oh yes, and speaking of Tristan, I've somehow neglected to post this nifty new sig I got despite the fact that I got it... 3 weeks ago?


Ang on iwiki was doing freebies. I absolutely love the green background and leaf patterns.  And he said he got the soil texture on the right by cloning and re-coloring part of a Mi Gao.  Very clever!

Aside from that, real life is the same as always.   The most interesting thing going on is still my D&D 3.5 game.  We have an extremely weird party class/race breakdown (Human Druid, Halfling Rogue, Githzerai Monk, Gnome Bard, Earth Genasi Samurai) and its so fucking fun.  I love my Druid. He’s the only dedicated spellcaster in the group, and we're currently in an exclusively outdoor setting, thusly he's AWESOME.  Druids are my favorite D&D class.  Not only do I share their worldview, but they're so annoyingly overpowered in the right circumstances. Heeheeeeeeee.

Agh, I need to get ready for bed.  There's something else I need to talk about but it can wait until next entry. I feel like I'm ignoring a lot of people who've been showing interest in me (hi Uennie and Aki?), which I really shouldn't be doing.  The thought of having new friends to talk with is so tantalizing to me, yet I can't ever seem to actually come out from under my rock and say hello, and come off as a total snob bitch when I'm really just shy and afraid. Oh well, don't take me too seriously! xD