The contraction of skeletal muscle

I forgot something. This is due its own journal entry anyway cause it's just that awesome.

An old FFXI bud made a picture for me.



Click dat.

The awesome cannot be contained.

I woke up at 3:00 A.M. because I'm sick as a dog (exactly how sick are dogs?) and I still can't seem to get back to sleep. So in honor of being awake and not giving a fig about black friday sales I will now fill out one of these question things that I haven't done in ages.

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
No. Apparently they just wanted someone to call "Chris". Thus, if I was a male I would have been dubbed Christopher.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
You'd actually be surprised at how much of a sap I am when it comes to watching shows or movies when I'm alone. Like the freaking waterworks! As far as serious life-involved crying goes. Eh, maybe couple months ago. Not something I do that often.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
yes, it's fabulous.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Salami!

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
no.
also. how babby is formed?

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Yeah, but it would likely be a very violent friendship.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
I gargle sarcasm.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
yeah

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
no.
No.
NO.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Cinnamon Toast Crunch :3

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Never never never. I double knot the laces and leave them be until the shoes fall apart and die.

12. Favorite sport to participate in?
laser tag isn't a sport, is it :[

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Chocolate Chip cookie dough

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Hair. That will never, ever change.

15. RED OR PINK?
Pink.

16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
My absolute social inadequacy. I have problems saying anything meaningful around a group of people. Even online nowadays.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
ohohohoho... I shan't say that.
I miss my family very much. And of absolute course, I miss my brother. I hope wherever he is now, he's at least comfortable and can witness his children growing up to be respectable young humanoids.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?
I wouldn't wish this upon anyone. Unless they want to, that is.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Umm... crap. I didn't consider the possibility of this question. How about blue boxers? No shoes though. It's 5AM, cut me a break. -.-

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0WAn8qEkOU

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Burnt Sienna

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Rain.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
myyyyyyy grandma. I don't really talk on the phone that much.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
not really sure about that

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
hockey

27. HAIR COLOR?
dark brown.

28. EYE COLOR?
green

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
not!

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Sushi (pref. Salmon or Eel)

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy movies with scary endings :3

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
In the theatres: it was either Star Trek or Coraline. I'm thinking Star Trek. At home: err... I guess haunting in CT? I don't really watch many movies.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Navy blue

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Christmas <333

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
hug

36. FAVORITE DESSERT?
Oatmeal raisin cookie

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
iiiii dunno. Maybe probably Aritrea. Or Lynn.

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Coji

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Am reading the Warriors series. Cause talking cats are where it's at.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
I don't use a MOUSE PAD

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
I didn't... I just played Persona 4 a little. I pretty much got off work and went straight to bed.

42. FAVORITE SOUND(S)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lz9d8eDjl0

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Look I'm tired of hearing these Rock Band Beatles commercials. And I don't really. Can I like choose Queen or something?

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Venezia <3 I would go back in a freaking heartbeat!

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I can breath oxygen pretty good

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
iiiiiiiin west philadelphia, born and raised (no seriously)

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
all answers

Google "OH GOD WHY IS THE TURKEY TURNING GREEN, THE GREEN BEANS ARE ON FIRE HELP"

But seriously though, I google crap when I can't remember how to do it, if I haven't already called my mom.

I miss... some stuff.

People and/or individual human entities may be included in said "stuff".

I don't actually wish to expand on that right now.

By my standards, it's late as hell and I'm loopy. I'm sorry, I'm probably completely overlooking something here. Because I know fooling around with google's auto fill can come up with some weird crap sometimes.

But seriously.

Seriously.

( This took even me by surprise. )

I don't know why, good sirs.

I don't... know...

I promised day_dreamer_84 that I'd post the screenshot in her in a cage like ages ago. So I'm going to have a screenshot dump.
( Behind this cut! )
Thats all. I have to do the dishes now.

Considering my original intent several years ago was not to bother touching online games, it seems kind of strange now that I have poked about several pay to plays and about eighty billion free MMORPGs. Of course, free MMOs all pretty much followed the same pattern, but they were easy to get ahold of and I could play them with my neice who didn't have access to any pay to play MMOs at the time.

Early last week I dropped the ball and threw down the five bucks to pre-order Aion so that I could fool around with the "open" beta (although they could probably use a few pointers on what an open beta usually entails consider you couldn't get into it unless you dropped the pre-order bucks).

I really didn't expect much of it. I wouldn't exactly consider myself a connoisseur of MMORPGs, but I'm a relatively normal human being who has a job and limited amount of free time who has dabbled in many but really drawn into few. This includes, of course, FFXI (which I had been playing casually for five years). But it also includes other ones like WoW, RO, Phantasy Star Universe, etc.

So when I approached the Aion beta I wasn't really expecting to be impressed. I wanted to try it so I could say I tried it and possibly make comparisons. Considering my time with FFXI is pretty much done, it couldn't hurt. And yeah, at the very beginning, Aion really didn't really show much more than what any other MMO has in the very beginning.

-Start out in some beginner area
-Get a few low level quests
-Kill a few easy monsters
-Find a town and meet some important NPCs
-Level up a few times and learn the basic mechanics of the game

It was pretty straightforward. The character creation was detailed. The surroundings were pretty. The quests were easy to follow and awarded plenty of experience and items. I'll spare the smallest details, but we spent a few hours fooling around and I noticed something- The flow seemed pretty much flawless. Nothing really seemed like grinding at all. I never really got bored or sleepy (as a result of repetitive games, I often get sleepy. I sometimes use this to my advantage). This would hold true even up through level 15 (which is as far as I got before the beta was over).

So I had already roped a few people into trying out the beta (just as I was roped into it).

The cast:

Jiavanne - Myself
Vercyllia - Angel
Morphalexis - Morphalexis
Varucard - Varucard
Phaet - Phaet

Funny enough, the game seemed to reward more than it punished which is something I'm not used to in an MMORPG. No joke, as soon as we hit level nine we got a quest. This quest was mostly travel and talking to NPCs, but in the end it rewarded us with all of the necessary experience to hit level 10 and a free trip to the Sanctum. A huge, gorgeous city in the north. We unlocked our advanced jobs (mine being Assassin, Vercy was Gladiator, Phaet was Templar.). Morph and Varu has already unlocked their advanced jobs. They had been playing the beta a few days longer and were a bit ahead of us. As an added bonus though, we also got wings.

Yes, wings. I thought it would be a cheap gimmick. And it sure seemed that way at first, as all we could really do in the sanctum was glide with them. However, once we moved to the Citadel we got a sort of introductory quest regarding flying. In certain areas you do have complete free reign to fly where ever you please within a certain time limit (You have a minute, and then you have to get at least safely close to the ground so you don't hurt yourself).

We continued onward, completing the excellent flow of quests (with surprisingly decent storyline) that eased us slowly into the world around us. We leveled in accord and never really fell behind so that we would have to grind. There was no grinding. Never, ever once did it feel like grinding. We had to kill a wide range of enemies and didn't much run into trouble during the flow of things. Excluding, of course, our run-in with GIANT. FREAKING. CRAB. that ganked us right in the eyeball.

We ran through some gorgeously crafted areas. Intricate cities, flourishing forests, swamps littered with wildlife, flora and... dinosaurs. Not to mention ancient ruins and nuclear fallout forest. It was impressive, to say the least. We enjoyed exploring whilst we were trying to complete quests.

In the end, I think the five of us pretty much agree that this is the most fun we've had in a while. And truthfully it's been a good while since we had been able to kick back and have fun with Phaet since FFXI had slowly been dying out for all of us. It wasn't a chore, it was fun. I had kind of forgotten what that was like.

The interface is very customizable. You're able to filter out certain kinds of chat (such as world chat, LFG, class chat etc), and also customize what battle messages you receive and in which color you receive them in case you have trouble seeing the default colors. I do wish it was possible to make the chat window opaque though, as it was kind of tough to read the chat through the surroundings at times.

Quests are very straightforward and most times will allow you to locate on the map exactly where you are supposed to go next. We didn't have to waste much time running around aimlessly unless it was a "I lost something, I need you to find it" sort of quest. In the sanctum, when you use the locate function, it even gives you a little sparkly that you can follow straight to your destination.

You can earn titles from quests that you equip for added stats of some sort. You can also obtain stones which you can use to augment some of your equipments. It's a risk to augment an armor multiple times. If you fail, you could lose all previous augments. However, the stones aren't too hard to come across.

Some of the rarer pieces of equipment need to be soul bound to use them. You can't sell an item after it is soul bound. Speaking of selling, they do have a trader's market at the Sanctum which allows you to put things up for sale that players can peruse for things they need. As well as setting up your own personal shop on your toon while you're AFK.

The last thing I'll mention is that the crafting system is awesome. I love the whole concept of being able to autocraft all materials instead of selecting everything individually. And gathering resources is actually kind of fun.

For the first time in a while, I feel like the true time sink is in the fact that the game is so fun. Not artificially injected into monotonous tasks.

( Big screenshots for your viewing pleasure. )
( Video of Flight )

The entire experience was definitely a 9/10. Point deducted for ridiculous lag at times. Hopefully that will be something that will be fixed in the final. The final that I will definitely be picking up this week.

Ding. Level 24 IRL.

HP +25
MP +12
STR +2
DEX +1
AGI -4
MND +2
INT -12
CHR -43

...sleepy +12

AT HOME!

Drawing picture.

And playing video game.

Wrap up in a couple warm blankets, burrito style. Drink massive amounts of water. Sleep it off. Sleep is the body's maintainance mode after all...

Last time I had a respiratory infection I also was drinking a mixture of apple cider vinegar and water that I had heard about from several people. Whether it worked or not is probably questionable, but the infection went away without any antibiotics so I was quite thrilled.

Things you don't want to hear from your 10-year old neice: Volume 1.

Tarliacatz: lol.
Tarliacatz: the severed head is underneath bostons mattress

Furry drama and popularity contests are absolutely fascinating on so many levels.

Last night I actually met someone worthwhile on Playstation Home.

That hasn't happened in ages. Most of the people on home give the vibe of 'flailing their arms wildly and banging on the keyboard' when talking. I had to change my avatar from a female to a male because lonely, awkward people flock to the female avatars like flies. Although, I have to say. I laughed when I saw a guy get rejected by one of said female avatars because he only had 20 trophies (the playstation equivalent of Achievement Points). Ouch!

So anyway. I popped on momentarily last night to fool around and see what was new. As I'm leaving one of the mall stores someone comes up to me and starts talking. Well, he took note of my PSN ID (Cojirofoxfur) and was curious as to whether I was a furry. I kind of skated around the question a bit, but then explained after a bit that furry is among my hobbies and that I'm not hardcore about it or anything. Turns out he was about similar in mindset to I and we ended up talking and eventually befriending one another on PSN.

All the meanwhile while his "bodyguard" friend was controlling traffic around us. <_< It's just strange how I was going to pop on for only a few minutes, and ended up meeting someone cool. Given the quality of PS Home's users, this doesn't happen that often.

I don't really tailgate people, and I certainly won't grow huffy behind a person who is at least going the speed limit. But I've noticed more and more going on the on-ramps onto I-24 to and from work that people don't seem to like to... accelerate?

I hardly think its appropriate to hit the 65 MPH speed limit highway doing roughly 35 MPH. They make the on-ramps so long so that there is ample time to accelerate even for cars that are a bit feeble. So what gives? Cars in the right lane need to swing out of the way because these people are merging into 65-80MPH traffic (face it, people don't always follow the speed limit and even I am guilty of this sometimes) doing 35-40MPH.

All I'm trying to say is... speed up on the on-ramps. Geez!

milk in closet; cereal in fridge.

Dentist's office. Kinda like an office slave.

Saved up to buy my gamecube when it came out. Was back in like 2001. It wasn't so bad. I just had to file stuff, handle tedious tasks and develop X-Rays. Part time, of course, since I was in high school.

It was minimum wage, but I got to work alongside my mom who was the office manager of whatever so it was pretty cool.

In the end, the dentist let me go because he didn't really need an office slave anymore. I didn't complain much, since i got to spend more time playing my new gamecube. :3

My favorite quote today thus far:

Your Friendly Neighbourhood KeithyBoy. Now with P Plates! says:
Hahah
i reckon its better to obses over something REAL if obsessing at all
i at the moment am obsessed with life
it takes up all my time
i love it

Five years is so short time. There's a lot of things that were possible then that are also possible now. It's just like... how accessible to the public was it? I don't really pay attention to when things are first engineered, so this tech that might be just now becoming commonplace to me other people may have had back then.

Let's see...

Couldn't text message worth a damn-- thanks, phone with a full qwerty keyboard.

Watch anime on a portable device? Mp3s and play games too? Thanks, PSP. You'll do just fine.

Watching live streaming videos of people drawing or people playing music in their basements or whatever. This is something I've only recently started participating in.

Oh-- here's a good one. Streaming TV shows I have on my computer to the 360 or PS3 up front and watching it on the big TV. I definitely couldn't have done that five years ago.

Now... ask me what things I couldn't do 10 or 15 years ago that I can do now because of technological advancement. Go ahead. I dare you. Hoooo boah.

Updated internets information:

AIM: The Spastic Fork

Yahoo: Tapioca_Warrior

MSN: cojiro@morphiro.com

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Hamburger42

Deviantart: http://coji.deviantart.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cojiplz

Xbox360: Coji Plz

Steam: Coji_Plz

Playstation 3: Cojirofoxfur

Wii: Ask me and I'll get it.

Life is full of busy things.

There is a minute chance that I may have an impromptu paid vacation all of next week. Delightful! My vacation was supposed to be this week, provided they accepted it. But due to a change in job, it had been too hectic to get this week off. As such, I'm no longer with toys; I now deal in electronics. It has been a surprisingly un-stressful transition.

Yesterday's stress doesn't so much count- as I was kind of far gone after having a strange series of nightmares in the wee morning hours. I've been remembering my "nightmares" more and more recently. This morning's was especially strange. But yesterday's was pretty disturbing in that I was pretty convinced that all the light in the world was gone. Like... not just "power outage" sort of thing. There was no moon and there was no sun. And this affected me for the rest of the day, I guess.

I have had a lot of things on my mind recently. Mostly things to do with the past and people. Honestly, I have no idea why. These people's opinions shouldn't matter anymore. Things are a lot different now than they were way back then. I'm older, living elsewhere and doing things on my own. I acknowledge the fact that I probably make a terrible friend, and that I am a pain in the ass to get in contact with at times.

If there was anything I regret, it's how I have trouble opening up around most people. And the more I would hang around wishing I could join the fun without feeling so awkward, the more saddened by it I would be. Well, that's part of the reason. The other reason is I'm just plain quiet.

The only person I talk to regularly online are my neices. I have sit down sessions where I poke at online people occasionally, but not as often. I'm just not at my computer most of the time, and this makes some people mad. Or I get the couple weeks later message from someone who added me: "Who the hell are you"?

Well, hell if I know, you're the one who added me.

The reason I leave my computer on most of the time, messengers included, is because I hate having to wait for the computer to boot up when I want to google something, poke around a forum for a few minutes, look up a recipe or any number of internet whatevers. Not to mention, I leave music playing alot. Yes, I know these are terrible excuses.

As far as messengers go, I like to leave it open in case my neices or anyone else in the world wants to shoot me a message. Less of a pain then E-mail, thats for sure. And at least if I'm actually there I can poke back.

My time is usually spent tinkering with other things. Lately, I am playing Devil May Cry 4 on the PS3. Drawing. Writing. Watching a movie on cable. Doing general housework. Hanging out with my friend who likes to bring anime over. Chillin with work buddies. And, of course, working.

My life is hardly interesting enough to write about!

Regarding Final Fantasy XI.

I haven't actually spoken about it to anyone other than two people? Yes, my account is down right now. I didn't have the money to dump into it last month, so I deactivated my characters for the time being. Yes, it's next month now. But I see no reason for logging on just yet.

If I am given a reason, I'll come back.

And I'm not one of these attention whores who make a huge deal out of going away. I just slipped off. It makes no difference. I wasn't even playing that much before I deactivated to begin with. Only difference is now I'm not logging on once every couple days to sell things and I'm not attending Saturday night dynamises. Two things that I'm not solely going to reactivate for.

My friends are dissipating. I understand that most of the old Merlinsmagic crew seemed to have been under the impression that I sold my character. Other close friends grew apart. And once again, I'm not feeling the same degree of tightness with the more recent bunch of friends. I have no community to fall back on, and the people who are very important to me I don't hang out with in game. I talk to them in person, on the phone, or via messengers.

So why bother? I have no goals. Joining a group of five strangers to level a job isn't appealing. When I find a reason to return, I will do so. For now, I'm indulging other whims.

Regarding Final Fantasy XIV: Yes, I have plans to get it and play it. Although, the way its looking now... it seems like it's going to be a clean break from the Final Fantasy XI community. Most of my current close friends in the game don't plan on playing it. My old tight communities don't really interact anymore. So, aside from people I know IRL- Firekiss, Luster, Lifesbreeze, Shibbie, Drew... and perhaps a few work folk who plan to pick it up. And maybe some old faces (Morph!? Or maybe Aritrea if it comes out on Xbox360 eventually!). It's looking like as far as the internet community goes- it's gonna be a clean reboot.

This isn't to say that if any of the old MM folk... or my long lost close friends... asked if I'd want to get together in the new game that I wouldn't be thrilled. I totally would. It's just not something that I anticipate.

Anyway, I have work soon. So I had better get on to eating my Instant Lunch.

TL;DR: I go to work, I suck at being social, and I play video game.

Much love!