Booya!

Hello! In do believe it is time for an Update of the Fun World of Matt Cook!

Look, it's got pictures and everything!



Birthdayz. w00t! ^^

On the 18th of this month, I hit the ripe old age of erm.. 29. The celebration of this event happenned a few days before at my good buddy Ceejays, where there was pizza, coffee and games.


To further make turning 29 awesome, I booked the week off, so I'm not back to work 'til next Monday by the look of it. Woo-ha! Thankies to all those who sent me cards and stuff. ^^

Car- no worries.

Yup, a car is in the bag and it'll be arriving about March time. The excitement is building.. ;)

Work

Well, as I've not been for three or four days, it's hard to write about it. But last time I was there it was all good. However today I've been catching up on home work' if you will, which entails trying to sort out the spare room, doing the dishes.. y'know, boring housey stuff. So far so good. I've blitzed the Dining room and Kitchen, but it's going to be a loooong time before the spare room is sorted. There's gotta be 2 years worth of junk in there, if not more. >.>

FFXI- A milestone

And by milestone, I mean a good one! My Beastmaster job has hit level 40! Oh yeah! Level wise, that's more than half way to the top level of 75. But it ain't over 'til it's over. However, my road to level 40 has left me a bit worried that I was getting too addicted.. Whenever that happens I stop playing for a few days. Haven't played since Monday. But then.. I did get The Orange Box for my PS3 so it could be argued I swapped one addiction for another. It's my plan to use the Orange Box as an opposition to FF to keep my addictions in check. But I digress.

With Beastmaster at 40, my sub job now need work, so it's back to White Mage for a little while. But the sub job I use for White Mage, Summoner, is now in need of work. /sigh. This will also help to kerb my addiction. Summoner I can Solo, but a White Mage only really shines in a party. Since the job is past the horrible teen levels it'll be better this time around. I'll have to take some more snaps and post 'em here.

Astris: Bandit

With this week off it's time to play catch up. I should be posting it up sometime soon. I should be plonking something on Journey of the Christian Gamer soon too. Busy Busy!

Well, that's me for now. I'll post something again soonish.

Me again.

Wow, time off!!

Yup, you heard me. As I write this I'm on day #2 of a 2 days off. Nice. Yesterday I spent all day on FFXI, today I've spent cleaning the house, planning the revival of JOTCG, adding the finishing touches to Astris Bandit, which I'll post sometime today, jotting down a few notes for a potential book I want to write... later I'm going shopping.. busy day.

Carz

No car yet. But working on it. Soon...

The Awareness Course

Still going. ^^ I tend to spend my time not saying much, as I've seen a lot of this sort of thing at college, but it's still good to go as a refresher to the ol' memory is not a bad thing. Plus, it's good to see where some of my fellow Church Alive brothers and Sisters sit on some of the issues. Myself.. I'm kind of in the middle on a lot of the issues. It's still cool though, as I am learning stuff. Most of my knowledge of the way Christians have dealt with other faiths has been to do with the early Church, so it's nice to get a modern spin on things.

For those wot wanted to know (Kawaii lol) , the course was designed by a Catholic Priest guy. The course is quite biased toward the Middle East because that's where his interests lie, but that's not too bad a thing because it seems most of the tensions that seem to crop up are between the West and the Middle east.

Work

Is also still there. There may be a few changes as I've heard some folks may be leaving. I'm quite content to stay there for now, as I said earlier. I looked at my posts for this time last year about work. Boy, was I unhappy! Well, I'm glad that changed. I've no desire to leave right now, but I don't want to be there forever. But considering I've given no thought to where I'd go, I can't see the status quo changing for some time.

FFXI

Back to Beastmaster as I got White Mage to level 20. Currently at level 32 and saving up my in-game pennies for some things I've had my eye on. Plus, with every level things get more expensive. I'm considering taking a break from experience points hunting and working on a craft in order to make some dosh.

JOTCG

I've re-jigged the site to become a site about gaming issues and Christianity. I might do some reviews of games, but I definitely want to pick topics as I go along and see how my Christianity affects them. And yes, Kawaii, Girl Gamers are on that list. ;)

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...

Some more insights into the life of Redlac, also known as Matt.

Whoo-sha!

It's finally confirmed that our rodent problem is over, so I can go about filling up holes, tidying up, and returning the house back to the way we wanted it in the first place!! This ol' place of ours has needed some work before we moved in, and now I can get around to doing something about it.

Work is, well, work and I'm not particularly bothered by it at the moment, although the amount of hours I'm doing is starting to grate a bit. I could do with a holiday, a week off where I can just play games, catch up on stuff and generally rest up and take a week off. Looks like I'll be having the week off alone as Bexs has used up her holidays on an upcoming trip to her parents in a few weeks. Today I went on a fun training course to learn about range cookers. I cooked some cakey things, went on a tour of the factory and even won a branded apron. Even got a mug too. Gotta love freebees. Shame I had to get up at 6:30am for this thing.

Talking of said holiday involving in-laws, it looks like I'll be joining Bexs for the last part of the week in order to wish her mum a happy birthday. Oh, and while I'm at it, a happy birthday to my sister Sarah!!

Gameage!

My Online shenanigans are going quite well. I've not played Phantasy Star Universe much, as it's begun to get a bit stale. I'm hoping the release of the new expansion pack in the next few months will stir it up a bit. It looks good and it seems all the bad points of PSU are being cleared up. Well, only time will tell.

Now Final Fantasy, that is a different story. Since my last post I'm now a level 34 Samurai. I've been working on making a bit of cash with a spot of Crafting, or for the uninitiated, making things and selling them. To this end, I've created a mule, or storage character, where I can store resource materials and finished products and so on.

The other big news regarding Final Fantasy is a) that there is also another expansion set coming out for it in November and more importantly b) That I achieved rank 4.
So what? You ask. Well, in Final Fantasy you can become famous in two ways. The first is to do odd jobs for the citizens of the cities which will give you a good reputation amongst the common folk, who will in turn give you discounts at stores and will trust you with more taxing errands. The second way is to raise your Rank. Rank is to do with you're actions on the Political scene, and is determined by doing missions for your country. These missions are usually quite tricky and can require help from other adventurous folk. Raising your Rank can bring some sweet rewards. For instance, if I raise myself to Rank 5, I'll receive an Airship Pass which will allow me to travel from city to city in minutes, not hours.

Anyways, I teamed up with my two Linkshell pals Leelu and Mantra, and together we stormed a monster infested tower to find a missing ambassador. It wasn't difficult but was time consuming, so thanks to those two for sticking with me for the three or so hours it took. >.>

On another note, my clan has returned from their hols and whatnot and it's time to return to them. Tonight will be the first night we've met up in a few weeks, and I'm looking forward to it. On tonight's agenda: Shooting things and making them explode. Also, some light Bad Guy exterminating. Nice.

Updating stuff

As mentioned above, I've had some trouble updating stuff. Astris: Bandit has taken an unfortunate back seat and I'm hoping I can get that updated as soon as possible. I'll probably put some work into my gaming blog too.

Where have I been?

Life

Great biscuits, it's been a while since I updated this! Well, I'd best fill you all in. Basically I've been working a heck of a lot due to the loss of a few members of staff at work. It hasn't been too bad actually, but it has robbed me of valuable free time with which to live my crazy life in. However, there is light at the end of this heavy workload tunnel- me and Bexs are off to Lincoln this weekend to celebrate her dad's birthday, which will be cool. I anticipate drinking. And fun. Bexs is currently more hyper than a kid that's eaten 300 blue smarties.

Some things that have taken heavy blows thanks to my long hours are my Astris Bandit comic and my Journey of the Christian Gamer blog, both of which I've been meaning to update but have been too tired or busy to do. Now we have a new sales guy on our team at work I might be able to give them some much needed attention.

Love

My church has recently been painting our only building, a small office space. Me and Bexs helped out tonight, and it was cool to see everyone again. It kinda sucks that I can only get the occasional Sunday off nowadays, and it's usually for a wedding, christening or some other thing like it. One of the reasons I'm looking forward to going to Bex's parents for the weekend is that I'll actually get to go to a 'proper' church service.

Videogames

Cutbacks. Meh. I've knocked Final Fantasy XI Online on the head this month due to a lack of available funds. I've played a bit of Phantasy Star Universe though and made some good progress thanks to the event quest going on at the moment. Incidentally, did you know it was Sonic the Hedgehogs 16th birthday this year? Scary. Stuff likes that makes me feel old. O.o

Anywhoo, hopefully after this weekend I'll be aiming to update stuff a bit more, including my Journey of the Christian Gamer blog. I'm already working on updating my Astris: Bandit cartoon and trying to get ahead of myself. ^_^