Incoherent Thoughts

Final Fantasy XIV Online. Oh. Em. Gee. Guess who'll be starting with the launch this time, monthly fees be damned.

Too hot to do anything else. So you get a screenshot post again, this time suspiciously close to the last one...maybe I'll catch up one day yet.

( Tons of screenies, several days IRL )

Hey, only about 400 screenshots to go through and decide which ones to post! =D I usually post about one screenshot in four, so that'd make around 100 screenies to post before I'm fully caught up...

I got bored of updating waff (guh, FF11 basic playing guide, why did I ever decide to write such a thing?!), so you get a FF11 screenshot post.

( Something forgotten, something new )

43 screenshots this time, from March to..actually, I don't know when. Not too long in RL-time though, as we played rather much around that time. But still, that much closer to catching up with these! Next up, we have a very annoying goblin, some black magey destruction, and finally unlocking Paladin.

Another day, another missed opportunity to call a place. The problem is that you can call only between 10-11 AM, and no way am I calling anywhere without breakfast. And knowing my sleeping habits, waking up early enough is proving to be a bit of a problem...

I seem to have become addicted to updating waff. Even though I should be reading to entrance exams or something..instead, I just write various more-or-less interesting pages. Hey, at least I'm finally getting things done for it! Like the moogle page, I'm pretty proud of the Vana'diel and Crystal Chronicles sections at least. Of course, I haven't even attempted writing sections for the early games yet..I just can't remember enough of most of them to write anything. Like FF5, I just sped through at the same time as I was playing other games. Or FF6, which I've played in short spurts when I remember I have it. The result is that I can remember hardly anything of either game.

Didn't mention it, but I reached MNK lv 20 a couple days ago in FF11. Retired it shortly after for now. I wasn't really intending on leveling it that much, but it turned out to be so much fun...
Maybe I should do a screenshot post again. It'd really be preferable to write this stuff the same time with the screenies, as it is I end up writing most stuff twice, pretty much. Hmmh.

Notifed my ISP of moving. As I suspected, they'll take ages to switch it. Told me they won't reconnect until the 16th, which pretty much sucks. Probably getting mom's mokkula for those couple weeks, but that won't work in Linux as far as I know... *sigh* Just when I was excited to be able to access all my stuff again.

Wow, can Susan Boyle sing. I know I know, I always get around to this stuff late. But..damn, can she sing. I regret passing over mentions of her name before. It's kind of an automatic reaction. Something new comes along, gets mentioned at most every blog I mention, and I just let it be. xD

I received my Final Fantasy IV novels last week, been reading the first book when I remember. It's really interesting. It doesn't actually make the main point be the story of the game. It follows various people in the sidelines. When Cecil went to Mysidia, there was Kain!angst over Rosa. When Cecil and Kain left to Mist, there was Rosa!angst, and following the events in Baron. After reaching Kaipo, there was Gilbart and Anna's story, and a bit before that there was a bit about Tellah's feelings and thoughts as he struggled alone towards Damcyan. Basically, it expands on the people and bits of stories that the game didn't concentrate on.
Naturally, they've only been published in Japanese. But if you can read it.. author is Tezuka Ichirou, there's two of the novels, and they were published by Square Enix. There's an introduction by Tokita Takashi at the end of the second book, too, talking about FF4 and the sequel.

Screenie post tiemz. ( FF11: New Year's and up to March )

34 screenshots, and I'm up to March. Getting some hopes of catching up finally...

Gaming meme, stolen from Kitty. *nods*

( Clicky )

Huh, I wonder when I last did any meme. Been a while. O.o

I cut my fingertip earlier. Now it hurts to type...

Hee, they're releasing Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver! *___* Without a doubt, the best Pokemon games ever. Finally!! I've been waitng for this for years and years already. Going to get Soul Silver as soon as it's released in English. <3 Got Silver back during the days of GBC, can't break the tradition. I like Lugia more anyway.
...this reminds me that I barely even started Pearl before getting seriously distracted. And when was it that I got it? xD;; I should really play it more, but it didn't quite capture my attention like the previous generations. I've been a fan since Red and Blue... Got Red by the way, quite unlike all the other gens. After that I've always gotten the second of the duo. I wonder if I should get Platinum, too... I don't really want to miss on all the new stuff. But I haven't gotten too deep into Emerald either! Arrgh. There's never enough time. I remember I did some breeding on Emeral already, but not enough to more than scratch the surface of all my plans for it.
I wonder which starter I should pick in Soul Silver. My traditional choice is the grass pokemon, although I've played through Silver on both Cyndaquil and Totodile as well as Chikorita. Although I guess it's a bit early to worry about that already, if they're coming out this fall in Japan. xD;

In The World Ends With You...I'm still on Joshua day 5. I've almost finished my daily round of all the shops though, so getting closer to the end of it. I even managed to buy something from that Pegasos-brand shop in the big department store right off the Scramble Crossing (no, I can't remember the area name), even though it was only the cheapest of them... damn those insanely expensive shops there.

...why don't I have a single Pokemon icon?!

Still in the process of trying to catch up with the Final Fantasy XI screenies. So yeah, a screenshot post time.

( FF11 Screenies, last week of December: A couple quests and a mission. Chocobos! )

33 screenies, and I've finally reached this year! x___X Wrote some Jenare!posts earlier too, they're at Thoughts From the Otherworld like usually. Although I couldn't remember what we settled on as happening on Valentione's Day, so I couldn't post as many as I wrote...the Valentione's Day post got on the way, and I want to post them in order.

Mass media never ceases to disgust me. I'd forgotten how bad exactly it can be, but mom once again left the TV open, and the news came on, and one bit of news that made me irritated (and worried, really worried) was commented on...
You see, there's this media company, YLE, for which a fee called 'tv-maksu' (a fee for watching TV) is paid to. (never mind the fact that YLE is just one company and there are other channels too. It all goes to YLE) You can watch TV, you pay it. But YLE isn't content with that. They think that since nowadays you require a digi-box to watch TV even if you own an old one (and not everyone by far has bothered to get a dixi-box), the number of people paying the fee wasn't enough anymore. So they whined enough and came up with a solution. Make every household pay 175€. If they have a home, they must pay. Even if you're poor as fuck or blind and deaf, you'll pay. What a brilliant solution! Naturally, younger people, especially students (which aren't really known for having any money to spare for anything), get pissy. How does news react? "This media fee has made lots of young people angry, since they are used to getting everything for free." ....what's the problem here. Legitimate concerns over being able to buy food after this fucking thing, and it's broadcasted as being a fucking tantrum over having to pay for not having a TV.
No, not paying it is not an option either. They're government-backed. Not actually government-controlled, but heavily backed. Not having the government pay to prop them up is just a technicality, if YLE complains that not enough people pay since they can't even watch TV, our dear shitheads gotta make it better of course.

And on top of it all, you get branded as whining over not getting everything for free when you say that it's not a good solution, in mass media, where old people who can't use the internet go for for their information. Gee, thanks a lot for the support to the less well off people in the country.

...the only hope is the decision getting overturned. News and YLE themselves are behaving like it's a given it'll go through, though. I'm not sure how realistic that is. I mean, the TV 'tax' has traditionally been something you can't get financial support for separately, you're supposed to pay it out of your food/clothes/non-housing bills money. How much hope there's actually of getting financial support for paying this mandatory fee-that-they-refuse-to-call-unscaling-tax? And you don't even get out of it by not having a fucking TV, you have to pay it even if you're deaf and blind. I can't stress that point enough. Not to mention that it's the same amount for everyone, no matter how poor or rich. You pay it even if you can't get food afterwards, or you ruin your credit and they take all your stuff away in exchange.

I'm disgusted over how much commenting on politics there's been recently. What the fuck has happened to this world?

So..let's get this straight. The Pirate Bay trial. All defendants got time in prison and fines, despite flimsy prosecution. The decision was even worded so that Google is apparently a pirating company in Sweden now. Fast forward to today, a couple hours ago. News flash. People had looked at the background of the judge in the case. He's a big media crony.
.......what a surprise. After the police corruption case (big media gave a job worth one million to the police leading the investigation concerning TPB), it should be no surprise that the judge was compromised too.
It's like they're begging for Piratpartiet to become the biggest political force in Sweden. The judgement itself already raised quite enough hell, but the latest news pretty much guaranteed that EU will have some politicians from Piratpartiet in quite important places shortly. Even our local Piraattipuolue got a pretty damn good boost in supporters. And there's the Copyright Day shortly (too bad that I'm stuck here in the backwoods, there's a gathering in Tampere as well as Helsinki and I'd really love to be there) and that's bound to get Piraattipuolue even more supporters.

Tl;dr - stop corruption. Defend your right to privacy. Support your local pirate party.

FF13 demo, FFa13 trailer, and the FFv13 trailer from last year? Geesh, yesterday was busy for some people.
..for me too. Woke up a bit late, I'd promised to Kitty I'd be up by noon since her RSE week started then. Ended up oversleeping by a bit due to this strangest dream, and then we started playing. And playing. And playing. Aside from a few pauses, the longest an hour long, we kept playing until around 1 AM. At no point did I /shutdown, just idled. Man, really gotta try to play less. @__@ Although I had an excuse yesterday, the RSE-hunting took unexpectedly long (we got one piece of Kitty's RSE in the time it took us to get two and a half for me), and leveling our subjobs (BLM) was getting kinda urgent so we did that too... Well, at least we made some progress. One more level on RDM (I think? Must've leveled at least once since we spent so long down in Shakhrami this time, even though the mobs were getting a bit weak for us) and four levels on BLM, that's really some progress there for someone who only does duos instead of partying. (and by the way? Manaburns are godly on the exp, even with just two people)
In a couple more days we gotta go to Shakhrami again to get my last piece of RSE...then we'll be finally done with that place, and good riddance.

..got sidetracked. FF13 demo? Looked pretty good. I haven't had the time to read reactions much, although I can totally see the kind of people who complained about FF12 battle system complaining about FF13 too. And completely ignoring that it's the same fucking system presented a tiny bit differently, once again.
Agito keeps looking interesting. I still think I'll get the Japanese version, unless it's launched at about the same time everywhere. Considering that it's SE..probably no such luck.

( FF11 screenies, late December: Christmas event and Jeuno )

...how many screenies was that? I guess they're enough for now. I still didn't get away from December's screenies though. The very last week of it left.

Egg-hunt Eggstravaganza 2009 started today in FF11, and that means gathering initial eggs, these eggs marked with letters. You need all sorts of combinations to get event items, for a total of fifteen different ones. ....yeah. The combinations all require 3-8 eggs each. That's a whole load of eggs I need. It complicates matters that you can only get one egg per Vana'diel day if you don't want to pay for them (I need to save gil for other matters so currently I can't pay for them), so this is gonna take long. Good thing this event isn't ending anytime soon.

( Rambling on )

Easter in RL, huh... I hate these multi-day things most of all. Always have to try to remember which days you can go buy food on, and remember to buy enough for the days you can't. Ugh, keep your cruddy feast days out of my life. D:

The Crystal Bearers (the new FF Crystal Chronicles) is confusing me. I've been visiting the site way too much lately, it has this thing where more visits unlock more content...

( Thoughts, speculation )

Not sure what else to write about. As usual, haven't been doing much.

Well hello there SE, you fucking money-grubbing bitch you. Not is it enough to make me pay for a downloadable add-on for FF11 this month, you also want me to necessarily buy that security token. What's the ONE thing players are always clamoring for in FF11? That they're ready to do anything for? More storage/inventory space of course. And what do you get as a bonus for buying the security token? Any guesses? ...double inventory space, inventory space that grows by te same amount as the normal inventory when you expand your normal inventory by in-game means. Fuck you, SE. I know I was going to get my hands on that security token anyway, but just fuck you. That action makes it pretty much mandatory for everyone to get the 10€/$ security token, even if they don't want it.

( Shortly about the FF11 April update )

Looks like I really won't be going to Helsinki in April. It was already pretty certain (since I'm stuck in Joensuu and the train tickets would be literally double the cost than from Tampere) but this hammered it in.

Read a manga yesterday, randomly stumbled across it when I was searching for something to read. I ended up reading it the whole night. It's a manga with no excessive humor in it (I don't think it had even one intentional joke?) and is of 5th graders of all things. Starts with the main charas as 5th graders anyway, the latest chapter I found was with them on 8th grade. It's...really awesome. The two main characters are transsexual, and it's just about them going about their lives, trying to figure out life. Taking a look at another manga after that was almost painful, seeing that whimsical nature in most even remotely popular manga and comparing it to that. It's..painful, too.
It's called Hourou Musuko if you want to take a look. What's most surprising is that I found it on Manga Fox, it's the fifth most popular manga there. And the comments on it, while there's some not so amazing ones too, are generally respectful and even mature. I was really, really surprised.

Hey, see how long my resolve to update every other day held. =D;