Yup, I'm still around. Time to let you know what little has been going on in my world.

Life

Well, first up, there's still not much happening in my life. I'm still working a lot of hours, still trying to save for a car, and me and Bexs are preparing for the onslaught that is Christmas shopping. The best bit about work right now is that my shifts have been fixed to 9-5 for most days to help my boss organise Christmas rotas easily. I'm not complaining! Does kind of suck that I have to get out of bed earlier. At the very least I see the appeal of the 9-5 routine. It's all part of the Cook master plan, which God doesn't seem to object to. Although we're open to him destroying all our debts overnight for us and giving us a car. I don't really see that happening though Haha!

Videogames

Been playing a bit of both my PS3 and FFXI recently. I have one or two games I'm borrowing form my good bud Ceej, so I've been shooting a lot of stuff. There's still a few PS2 games I'm playing through as well. Glad I got the 60gig version so I can play my PS2 games on my shiny wonder machine.. otherwise I'd be reduced to only a few shooty games. :(

When not killing monsters with a 12-gauge, I've been running around the fantasy world of Vana'diel a fair bit. I've mostly been working on a few things. Firstly, I've been working on 'Crafting'. Crafting for the uninitiated is making stuff out of the raw materials you get from killing monsters or finding out in the big wide world. I've been working on being a Blacksmith and doing a spot of Fishing on the side. This is in aid of making money, of which I need a fair bit of at the moment. I've hit level 37 as a Samurai, which is halfway to the top level of 75. Those that have the tenacity to go on past level 37 soon find that things start getting pretty expensive if you haven't the time to do a lengthy quest or invest a lot of time in crafting. So, since I've reached a sticky point I've decided to invest in a few crafts that will help me raise cash to buy all the new gear I'll need from 37 to 75.

Also, my Linkshell buddies Leelu, Ladywisk, Lande and Levvin have been helping me achieve Rank 5 this week. Rank 5 is a big deal for an FFXI player.. because when you hit Rank 5, you get to use the Airships to travel the world, cutting down a lot of travelling. If all goes well, I'll finish it tonight.

There's also been a bit of a buzz in the FFXI community recently. The new expansion disc, Wings of the Goddess came out this week. They've added all sorts of new areas, missions, items, and monsters. Might be a while before I see any of it, I haven't seen much of the other expansions discs yet. Still, I expect I'll get there slowly but surely.

Love

There's been a lot of birthdays and stuff recently. First was my friend Helen, who had an awesome party at Quasar. We shot lasers at each other for an hour, great fun! Then me and Bexs celebrated our second wedding anniversary with a pizza and a movie. We'll do something special later. It was my sisters birthday the day after. Shame I wasn't able to go and see her but I gave her a call to wish her well. Up and coming is Bexs birthday in a week or so. We're having friends visit and throwing a wee shindig. Hmm.. I should really pop out and buy Bexs a gift...