To have that moment you need...to sit and reflect upon the things that were such a long time ago. Ghosts now, but living one's still. It's only the odd glimpse your brain allows you now, to venture back among the dead. You are an observer of your past, a critic. It reminds you how all is well, and all is good.

Why is it that Wednesday always seems like the longest day of the week? I can't wait till the basement is done so we can re-organize everything and hopefully toss a bunch of stuff. I'm scared to look in the crawl space at what 3 years of a bunch of guys living in a house can amount to.  I'm not sure why, but it seems guys tend to be the pack rat of the sexes. Maybe they're thinking "Hey, I bet I'll use this thing for something, someday." I've tossed so much stuff over the years I've hardly got anything to worry about. Makes it easier to pack light.

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Campaign is so totally broken now that I can't be bothered with it. I find myself being bored a lot more because of it, but now that I'm leveling THF I'll have more to do. I've been exploring my weapon/gear options and I'm going to have to camp a few things for drops and farm a bunch for other items. Should keep me pleasantly busy. The only real problem is the agony of lower level exp...unless you have a full static you never know what you'll end up with. Last nite we had a pretty brutal PLD that just couldn't grasp the concept of SATA no matter how many ways we tried to explain it to him. I really don't think it's a hard concept, and it really bugs me when people can't be bothered to learn how to do something properly. I know we were all noobs once, but I listened to what advice people had to give, and did my very best to learn from it.

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Happy birfday The Grau! By far the cutest dog ever in her gay pink sweater.

Yay going to get the bathroom tiled and painted tomorrow. It looks so much better already. The bathroom that was originally there was built by monkeys or something, it was total crap. Our next project will be painting the basement, and of course moving everything out to the garage. The weather has been really nice so I'm happy about that, might be able to get some yard work done as well. This house is starting to look much better.

As soon as we're done with the reno's I'd like to take a trip home to visit my family. I spoke to them the other day and they kept asking me when I'd be back. I always hate not knowing the answer to that question, seeing them only a couple times a year just doesn't cut it. I'd really like to be there more for Emma, she needs all the encouragement she can get while she's working on getting back on her feet. She told me she got some crutches and she's able to "wobble" around. She sounded happy when she told me that, and from what she tells me her nerves are starting to repair themselves, she's starting to get some feeling back finally. They have a new litter of puppies too, and I'm going to be getting one if I can find a way to get it. Living 3500kms away sucks.

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Did a tiny bit of campaign today, not enough to decide if the changes were good or bad tho. Mostly just helped Brinn with DNC AF items. Fairly uneventful day online. Think I'll go play some Rockband before bed XD

Finally got the bathroom to the point where we can paint and tile, then we'll be done with it! This means tomorrow I get to go help choose colours (ewww @ going outside and dealing with ppl). The bathroom is gunna look great, can't wait to take my first bath in the new tub, with jets, oh my!

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Got my swift belt last nite, pretty happy about it. Berry nice for a bunch of stuff, don't know why I took so long to get one. Thanks guys!

Been reading up on the changes and additions in the update for today. Some of it sounds great, especially the adjustments to campaign. It'll rock when I'm not able to steal hate off the NPC's that are doing epic dmg with a poke from my sword. The SCH additions look like they may be enough to actually get me to lvl it to at least 37 to play with. I'm interested to find out how much of a nerf they put on /DNC, might make me a grumpy PLD/DNC in campaign. I'm also quite excited about the new BLM and WHM spells. I just love getting new shit!

Another thing I'm wondering about is the new gear. So far .dat mining hasn't yielded anything that I've seen. Kind of disappointing really but word is SE changed the format to make it harder to do so. Guess I'll find out soon enough.

P.S. Why does it always take wayyyyyyy longer to download updates for 360 than it does for PC? Whyyyyyyy????

Hmmm, where to begin. First of all I didn't post my first entry to be a "lightning rod for drama". I posted it to get things off my chest, it's a live journal after all. You might notice that it's written in a context that even people that didn't play FFXI would understand, as it was never aimed at anyone. I'm honestly not sure how all you people found it, I never posted a link to it anywhere, unless I have some e-stalkers or something. I'm not sure how it got to you guys since I have one person on my LJ friends list and it isn't any of you.

I fail to see how it makes us two faced to tell the truth about why we left. It's not embellished, it's not made up, it's simply what it is. If you guys don't like it I'm sorry, but it's how I feel and I haven't had anyone try to change my mind about it. We found out what our friends really thought of us, so what's done is done. I especially liked the amount of people that told me to go cut myself, how's that for two faced. It's pretty unbelievable that someone would actually say that to another human being, especially one they were friends with at one point. Yup these are the people leading your LS, people that are quick to anger and quick to jump down someone's throat for not seeing eye to eye with them.

We left what you guys wanted for an LS and returned to our family LS. We didn't rebuild an LS, it's the same family shell it started out to be. Contrary to what you think I don't hate the new LS, a lot of my friends are still in it. I just don't agree with the way it's being run, and I have no interest in it. I don't believe that I said anywhere that I had something against the new shell.

When my close friends stopped talking to me over a pixelated  item I knew things would never been the same. It wasn't me that stopped talking to them, it was them who stopped talking to me. You all seem to keep forgetting that. It altered my views of them because I know their views of me were altered over something that shouldn't have been a problem to begin with. Once that happens there isn't much you can do. Sure you can try to work thru it, but in all honesty is it really worth it for someone you'll never meet in the real world who's apt to do something like that again? Not really imo. Sure I'll be civil, but that's about it.

As for Brinn I'm not really sure how I've been sticking up for him. I haven't posted on his LJ, I didn't mention him in my posts and the only time I said anything about him was on BG when I saw him being slandered. He's my friend so of course I'll stick up for him when I feel he's right about something. I stuck up for him in the LS because i think a lot of the sacks hated him for the wrong reasons. You guys definitely didn't give him enough credit, he's a lot smarter than you made him out to be. He figured a lot of stuff out on his own, but I'm not going to lie to him when he asks me why I'm upset about something.

Lastly Dyna. I was a sackholder post herc and I was privy to all the goings on of the LS. I wasn't around much because I was with my sister, but I tried my best to stay up to date. I'm not sure how the funding works anymore, but I've had several members ask me how it works and I wasn't able to tell them anything as a sack. I think there was a short list of names for funding posted in the sack area but it was rather short and outdated if I do recall. I also remember certain people could fund when they weren't at the run while others were not allowed for some strange reason. From what I've seen Cham was doing all the admin work and when she wanted to take a bit of a break from it she got called lame by the leader. Very nice way to talk about the person that does the majority of the work in the LS.

So again, if you don't like what I'm saying I'm sorry. I'm telling it how I see it, but I do realize not everyone will understand or agree and I'm fine with that. Just like you all should be. Not everyone likes everyone, not everyone sees things the same way, it's a part of life. I've accepted it, and I'm moving on.

This story has been coming for a while, I just wasn't ready to write it I guess. I wanted to be able to tell it when I wasn't overcome with emotion still, and had a clear mind for telling it. Anyways here it is, take it for what you will.

I play a game called Final Fantasy 11, it's online and quite an addicting game. I've met both amazing and pathetic people in the 3 years I've been playing. I even met my boyfriend playing this game. Honestly it's like a nerds heaven, although it tends to make people act differently than they would in the real world.  It's the anonymity of the game that makes people think it's okay to act certain ways that they wouldn't normally.

Anyways, moving on...

I was one of many leaders in an endgame linkshell (read: group of people that kill big bad dragons and such together) and all was well for a time. All the leaders were close friends, and things ran fairly smoothly. We were new to the endgame scene so it was a learning experience for us all. We killed things, we played, we got some pretty shiny items.

We had always prided ourselves in the fact that we were a bit different than other endgame shells because we were like family. We decided who was to get what items based on a fairly simple system. Each member picked 2 jobs that they wanted gear for the most and leaders would decided who was to get what depending on attendance, items already received and the jobs that they wanted it for. So an item that really only benefits a blackmage would go to someone with blackmage as one of their job choices before it would go to anyone else, etc. Each drop was decided on by the group of leaders, and all the factors were carefully taken into consideration before items were handed out.

Unless, of course, a leader whined to get an item ahead of someone because they wanted it more even though they had far less attendance. This was about where I started to see some problems. Fortunately the case with the whining leader, the other person with significantly more attendance was another leader who was kind enough to pass on the item so they could have it. If the other person had not been a leader I'm wondering if he would have screwed the member over to get his coveted item.

Months pass and things are running smoothly still. We've moved onto different areas to kill different things. Significantly harder things, with significantly better drops in some cases. Again the leaders sit to decide what items go where. There are 2 people up for a very amazing drop for black mage, both of them leaders. Just one problem though, one of the leaders does not have black mage as one of his job choices. The other leader with black mage and myself bring this up as a problem, it would appear that the leader without black mage chosen is trying to score a drop without actually having the job it benefits most as a job choice.

I'll digress a little here to explain the significance of  certain drops for certain jobs. For each job in game, be it warrior, paladin, black mage or whatever, there are usually a few items that are absolutely amazing for that job, and usually very hard to get. We tried our best to award the members that worked hard with these amazing items for their job choices. I know we wouldn't have very many happy members if we were giving away their amazing drops to jobs that didn't benefit as much from them. We had the job choices for a reason, to give members that worked hard what they wanted most, very simple.

Now that we found a problem with a leader trying to take advantage of the system we had to get it fixed right away or we'd been seen as a joke. While my bf and I were trying to present alternatives and working to solve the problem the other leaders (who all talked on ventrillo all the time and were very close friends) decided to either say nothing, accuse myself and the other leader of being biased because it was his drop and I am his gf or argue that it was actually okay to give away a Novio earring with +7 MAB to someone that wasn't a black mage.

They were refusing to see a problem with the system and despite our best efforts to fix it they wanted things their way. My bf didn't mind that the red mage leader lotted the item with him as long as the problem was fixed after that. That still didn't make the other leaders rethink anything, they continued to either not talk to us or to fruitlessly argue that it was a fair decision. My bf and I couldn't run an LS like that, with leaders that wanted items more than friends, and leaders that whined more than they contributed. We told them we were quitting then came back a week later when they had reformed. We managed to take our family LS back and our friends with us.

Looking back I can see some of the things that lead to this happening. Too many leaders, not enough of them contributing enough time, admin work or input. Leader's that thought because they did more admin work than regular members that they should get drop priority and such. It's a selfless job, my bf and I never asked for special treatment for the hours upon hours of hard work put into the website, showing up early and staying late for meetings, strat planning...the list goes on and on.

Sadly the redmage leader leads a Dyna LS for which it appears he does little work for. He attends half the runs, due to his timezone, but still collects the currency for every run. I might be missing something, but that seems pretty wrong to me. They used to let members fund runs but it doesn't appear that happens anymore. Some Dyna linkshells sell their currency and if they have any profit they distribute it amongst deserving members, but not this one. Since the original leader left it hasn't been the same. The leadership has gone downhill (cause you can't lead a linkshell if you're only there half the time) and the friendly atmosphere is all but gone.

Anyways I'm happy with my family shell once again, we'll get back into things when we're ready, but this time we'll do it right.