Currents of Time

Went to the doctor again. They've put me on druuuuuugs. I have mixed feelings about this, but will spare you the paragraphs of doom. Also, side effect warnings are always hilariously alarming. (At least they are small enough pills that I will be able to swallow them? Advil gives me trouble a fair amount of time... I can't even swallow the round ones at all.)

And then I came home and spend hours making an Excel sheet of all my random gear in FFXI. What it is, what level it is, and, most importantly, which character has it. My god, do I get sick of shuffling through my three girls trying to find that one stupid item that I know I have. (Beeecause making an Excel sheet of it all is easier than just sorting it so you have Hisi and then GEAR MULE and OTHER STUFF MULE...? I wonder which character would do which... I mean, Kihara hoardes everything and Ayarei tends to only hang onto things that she'll actually have a use for... Damn my tendency to sort items onto them based on their characterisation rather than anything resembling practicality! AND HEAVEN FORBID I EVER SELL ANYTHING.)

30 Days of Video Games

( Day 23 - Game you think had the best graphics or art style )

So, I toggle between web browsers depending on what I'm doing. (And, since I'm inordinately lazy, if I have multiple accounts, I keep myself logged into a different one on each browser.) One of these browsers is Google Chrome! It is not excellent, but it is not terrible, either. However, apparently it has eaten Facebook or something? I have looked for ways to fix this but have not found any. Has anyone got any ideas? Here is what it looks like on Chrome. (And now you all know which browser I use for "FFXI on Facebook." Whee!) (Actually, since I almost never check FB using Hisime's account, I am not entirely sure when this started. Sometime in the last month or so, I know that much, at least.) Cache-clearing solved it. Took me am embarrassing amount of time to find it, but now it is functional again. Yaaay!


Anyway, this probably doesn't matter to any of you, but because I'm super cheap and my phone is pay-as-you-go, I'm going to start being (read: trying to be) on Skype more / at all. I am JeccaAM there. So if anyone ever wants to poke me that way, now you can!

What is this entry even really for? I DON'T KNOW. That is my disclaimer and your warning.

So, anyway, hey, I was clicking around YouTube, as you do, from one of the videos in the last entry, and ended up tripping my way to the FFXIV theme song. It's called "Answers" and is sung by Susan Calloway. I was familiar with the name, but I hadn't placed her as the singer in the clips I'd heard before. (They play a short bit of it during your intro, no matter which town you choose. The whole WALK FREEEEE bit, for those of you who witnessed the picture spam.) I'd been rather unimpressed, really, but that might've just been the repetition getting to me. Now that I've heard the whole thing, I find I rather like the song.

Except it is kind of not so great at being The Song for the game! Which is kind of disappointing! Maybe it will make more sense once they add in a storyline (BE FAIR THERE IS A STORY it is just rather a bit scattered and you haven't seen much of it). And, as far as I know so far, they never actually play the whole song. Final Fantasy XI's main song (well, I suppose there are two of them, now) was played in its entirety in the game's opening, and because of that (and probably in part because they actually say Vana'diel in it a few times), it's very much FFXI's song for me. (Said opening video. Or, if you'd rather just the song, click this one. The former has the benefit of including the lyrics and their translation - it's sung in Esperanto. OR, they're also up on SongMeanings.) (Memoro de la Stono's melody pops up all over the place, actually, though you only hear the lyrics in the opening movie.) And the other song is also heard in game, at the end of the Chains of Promathia story, which was huge and epic and definitely deserving of its own song. (Link to that, as well. AND OF COURSE. Obligatory lyrics link.)

I cannot listen to either of those without thinking of the game. (Despite having not yet finished the Chains of Promathia story, myself. Also, for reasons I am pretty sure I am never going to understand, Memoro de la Stono manages to slam right onto my IRRATIONAL EMOTIONAL REACTION button every single time I listen to it. Nostalgiaaaa. And sometimes eye-watering. I don't get it.) (Actually, the phrase "That world was [called] Vana'diel" also triggers something similar. MY BRAIN. I do not understand.)

...SINCE I'M ALREADY LINKING EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE, THIS ONE - sung by the aforementioned Susan Calloway - is the version of Distant Worlds that I much prefer. It also has a nice version of Memoro de la Stono in front of it, though they cut out the last verse, wtf.


But what was I saying. Right. Yes. So then I listen to "Answers" (the lyrics have trouble, I picked it for the pretty video. If you want the lyrics, this one has a better version of them), I think, wow, this is actually a pretty song, and I like it, but I do not see the connection. And I don't know if this is SE failing to get XIV up and running properly, or if it's just not a fitting song, or what, but it kind of makes me sad that I don't get it.



While we're here rambling pointlessly and incoherently about Final Fantasy music, though, here, have a listen to the English version of Suteki da ne and then wonder with me at why on Earth they would feel the need to do such a thing. I dunno, maybe I just have too much of an emotional attachment to the original (by "emotional attachment" I mean DAMN IT FFX STOP MAKING ME CRY EVERY TIME I BEAT YOU). ...(lyrics! - which, if you look at, you'll notice the English version isn't really that far off, but that doesn't stop me from wondering why they bothered with it.)

Woke up freakishly early Friday morning because we were leaving early and because I have a bunch of errands to run before we left. So I throw myself to the floor around 7 am? Run around, barely finish everything, and am ready to go at 9 am! .... 9:05 the phone rings, it's my mother, she's only just leaving, so I've got an hour to waste. I COULD HAVE SLEPT MORE? Woe. She arrives, we finally leave, everything's good! It's kind of warm, sun is shining... We drive without incident for five hours! Then we pull over to change drivers and, in a display if incredible timing skill, my brother calls while we're at the rest stop. He wanted to let us know it was snowing where he was, had been snowing for the last day+. We still had blue skies and sun, so that was kind of strange to hear. SURE ENOUGH, THOUGH, I've barely been driving for ten minutes when suddenly it's snowing! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?! I don't drive long ("only" about two hours), because my ankle's still bothering me, and the snow's only been getting worse as we've gone along. (I have a bunch of pictures taken from the car, if anyone wants me to upload them, just let me know. Or check Facebook, since they're up there.) It ended up snowing the entire weekend. And nothing accumulated! It was insane.

Anyway, we rolled into town, checked into a room, and then met my brother... wasted some time, ate dinner, crashed early (driving all day can do that). On Saturday, we went to the National Museum of Play, 'cause they've got a LEGO exhibit right now (Nathan Sawaya's stuff), and it was AWESOME. Here is a photo link dump, but I think all of them can be seen at his site (and the pictures are probably better quality. Light was a little too low for no flash, but then the flash bounced off them). LEGO tree, man and his reflection, paint project, no flash and with flash.

Random other images from the trip include the tree behind my brother's place (he doesn't know why there are chairs in it), a MASSIVE SNOWMAN OMG seriously this thing was ridiculous, and the only magnet on their fridge (I love the duck's expression. IT KNOWS IT IS IRRITATING YOU AND IT DOESN'T CARE. It is mocking you).

We ate more delicious food (we ate a lot of delicious food...), didn't really do anything on Sunday, and then drove home Monday in THANKFULLY NOT A SNOWSTORM (we drove home in the dark in a snowstorm last year). It did rain, though.


AND THEN I CAME HOME AND FFXI / THE PLAYERBASE HAD EXPLODED. (To be fair, I knew about that before I got home again, since my brother had seen most of it and told me.) Those of you who get mail from my FFXI characters, in the next set of letters they're ignoring the fourth wall again. More so than usual, I mean. Just so you're prepared.



PS IT IS MARCH NOW HOORAY HOORAY WE SURVIVED ANOTHER FEBRUARY


Edit:
Transformers fandom is full of lunatics in the best ways possible. The thread's a bit long, but you can just read the first post for the story.

WHY ARE YOU BEING NICE

WHY ARE YOU LISTENING TO THE PLAYERBASE


WHAT IS THIS WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING



I AM ON TO YOU!!!




...Only you, SquareEnix, can so frighten the players by being nice and doing things they've wanted since the dawn of time in Vana'diel.

Now, seriously, what evil or WTF-inducing thing are you about to spring on us? The suspense is killing me.

Edit:
I mentioned my Supernatural DVD set came with a tiny Impala, right? So, I am bored. And talking to Aniko. And have just finished putting stuff back on my desk (had to clear it off to clean a bit). (So now it has TF:A Blackarachnia, Alt Mirage, Cybertron/Primus, some books, my PS2, and a stack of papers.)

And I have a tiny Impala in my hands and no idea what to do with it....

( ADVENTURES OF TEENY IMPALA )

I am not sure why she puts up with me sometimes.