Fake hot chocolate isn't so bad

On mornings like this (when I'm dead, dead, dead tired) I usually had nice hot chocolate (made with two packets of powder and a healthy slug of half-and-half). Man, that was soooo sweet and so rich, it helped me wake up and feel somewhat better about being alive. With my sugar ban, that wasn't a fix I could have this morning. However, we have sugar free hot chocolate mix in our company kitchen, so I figured I'd give it a try. If it really was as bad as I thought it would be, I could just throw it out.

It's really not bad at all! It's no where near as sweet as the real version, but it's nice. Chocolate-y(-ish). Not bad at all.

I ate something crappy Thursday night last week, so I hadn't wanted to weigh myself Friday morning and skipped it. This morning I recalled that I didn't check my weight yet, so I did. Lost three more pounds (in a week and a half, I guess we'll call it.) Yay!

Actually, I ate pretty crappy last night, too. Pizza Hut is some of the worst food on the planet, right down there with McDonalds and BK. Nothing but grease and low quality food... yet sometimes I crave it. Last night I drooled at the thought of their breadsticks, so I went. Happily, for the first time in a long long time, their food didn't make me sick all night.

Speaking of all night, know how sometimes you have a dream, wake up, then go back to sleep and continue the dream? Something sort of like that happened last night, only worse. When I finally fell asleep (sometime after 1 AM), I had a nightmare. People were trying to kill me, and the small group who were supposed to defend me weren't skilled/fast enough, and the people who wanted to kill me succeeded (stabbed me in the chest with a knife). I woke up gasping. Then I went back to sleep, and had the same exact dream, other than how they killed me (this time it was being stabbed in the throat with a pen). Woke up gasping. Went back to sleep. Same exact dream, just with a new way (they forced me to drink poison out of a little plastic jug). Woke up, fell asleep, same thing (burned me to death). Over and over, every 15 minutes I had that same damned nightmare, just with a new way of me being killed. It's not bad enough that I got about four hours of sleep for the third night in a row, the sleep has to be filled with such bad dreams? Bah. I must have died twenty different (horrible) ways last night!

I didn't walk this morning, and I don't even really feel guilty about it. This is also the first time I haven't walked because I was too tired. Maybe I'll go at lunchtime, or maybe I'll just skip it today. (Going once a day instead of twice is really working out a lot better. I almost never hurt or pull anything, and I'm walking longer and faster.) I still need to start using my handweights though, I don't know why I can't make a habit of that. The doctor said weight resistance training was as important as walking (I think it makes your bones stronger?).

Seven and a half hours left of work... The amount of XP needed to get to my next level in FFXI is more than I expected. (I thought it would go up by 200, so be 2,800. Instead it's 3,000.) What a pain! Maybe instead of waiting to be invited into a party, I can make my own. Grab maybe two fighting-types and let them kill things while I heal them. ...I don't know. I like working on my own better than with random strangers, but making 3,000 XP when I get (at most) 20/kill will take a long, long time. *does the math* That's 150 kills at 20 XP per kill. Do-able, I suppose, but... slow. Oh well. Suppose I'll run down to that Tomb tonight and see how that goes.

Zzzz.

Fake hot chocolate isn't so bad

On mornings like this (when I'm dead, dead, dead tired) I usually had nice hot chocolate (made with two packets of powder and a healthy slug of half-and-half). Man, that was soooo sweet and so rich, it helped me wake up and feel somewhat better about being alive. With my sugar ban, that wasn't a fix I could have this morning. However, we have sugar free hot chocolate mix in our company kitchen, so I figured I'd give it a try. If it really was as bad as I thought it would be, I could just throw it out.

It's really not bad at all! It's no where near as sweet as the real version, but it's nice. Chocolate-y(-ish). Not bad at all.

I ate something crappy Thursday night last week, so I hadn't wanted to weigh myself Friday morning and skipped it. This morning I recalled that I didn't check my weight yet, so I did. Lost three more pounds (in a week and a half, I guess we'll call it.) Yay!

Actually, I ate pretty crappy last night, too. Pizza Hut is some of the worst food on the planet, right down there with McDonalds and BK. Nothing but grease and low quality food... yet sometimes I crave it. Last night I drooled at the thought of their breadsticks, so I went. Happily, for the first time in a long long time, their food didn't make me sick all night.

Speaking of all night, know how sometimes you have a dream, wake up, then go back to sleep and continue the dream? Something sort of like that happened last night, only worse. When I finally fell asleep (sometime after 1 AM), I had a nightmare. People were trying to kill me, and the small group who were supposed to defend me weren't skilled/fast enough, and the people who wanted to kill me succeeded (stabbed me in the chest with a knife). I woke up gasping. Then I went back to sleep, and had the same exact dream, other than how they killed me (this time it was being stabbed in the throat with a pen). Woke up gasping. Went back to sleep. Same exact dream, just with a new way (they forced me to drink poison out of a little plastic jug). Woke up, fell asleep, same thing (burned me to death). Over and over, every 15 minutes I had that same damned nightmare, just with a new way of me being killed. It's not bad enough that I got about four hours of sleep for the third night in a row, the sleep has to be filled with such bad dreams? Bah. I must have died twenty different (horrible) ways last night!

I didn't walk this morning, and I don't even really feel guilty about it. This is also the first time I haven't walked because I was too tired. Maybe I'll go at lunchtime, or maybe I'll just skip it today. (Going once a day instead of twice is really working out a lot better. I almost never hurt or pull anything, and I'm walking longer and faster.) I still need to start using my handweights though, I don't know why I can't make a habit of that. The doctor said weight resistance training was as important as walking (I think it makes your bones stronger?).

Seven and a half hours left of work... The amount of XP needed to get to my next level in FFXI is more than I expected. (I thought it would go up by 200, so be 2,800. Instead it's 3,000.) What a pain! Maybe instead of waiting to be invited into a party, I can make my own. Grab maybe two fighting-types and let them kill things while I heal them. ...I don't know. I like working on my own better than with random strangers, but making 3,000 XP when I get (at most) 20/kill will take a long, long time. *does the math* That's 150 kills at 20 XP per kill. Do-able, I suppose, but... slow. Oh well. Suppose I'll run down to that Tomb tonight and see how that goes.

Zzzz.

Yes, please!

I really need to play the older Final Fantasy games... Who is this person and why is he not in my bed yet?

---

I watched FMA 27 at lunch today. (I think 27 is the right ep number? Whichever was released yesterday.)

( That was a really unfair trick to pull, guys... (spoilers) )

---

I ended up forgetting to eat breakfast (I had fruit, but I forgot that I hadn't eaten it yet and was surprised to see it still next to me when it was time to go to lunch). Oddly, I wasn't hungry for lunch, but I ate some peanut butter on toast because I hadn't eaten all day. Semi-hungry now, so I need to ponder dinner... Eating is such a pain. Seriously.

By the way, did you know that when you stop eating something, you apparently get more sensitive to that thing? Fruit now tastes sooooo sweet. Apples are like candy! Fruit used to be so blah and boring to me, but now it's like candy/a treat. Odd.

Edit: Tell me this isn't a Fruits Basket cake! Eeee!

Yes, please!

I really need to play the older Final Fantasy games... Who is this person and why is he not in my bed yet?

---

I watched FMA 27 at lunch today. (I think 27 is the right ep number? Whichever was released yesterday.)

( That was a really unfair trick to pull, guys... (spoilers) )

---

I ended up forgetting to eat breakfast (I had fruit, but I forgot that I hadn't eaten it yet and was surprised to see it still next to me when it was time to go to lunch). Oddly, I wasn't hungry for lunch, but I ate some peanut butter on toast because I hadn't eaten all day. Semi-hungry now, so I need to ponder dinner... Eating is such a pain. Seriously.

By the way, did you know that when you stop eating something, you apparently get more sensitive to that thing? Fruit now tastes sooooo sweet. Apples are like candy! Fruit used to be so blah and boring to me, but now it's like candy/a treat. Odd.

Edit: Tell me this isn't a Fruits Basket cake! Eeee!

Can you feel the love tonight? (FFXI)

Being a white mage, I feel it's part of my job to bring a little more love to the in-character world of FFXI. So to that end, I decided to start hugging monsters instead of hitting them. What a wonderful idea! And it went over so well!

I started in what seemed the least likely place to start: With an orc. To my surprise, he came running to me with open arms! I couldn't get a good shot of the bear hug which followed, but I bet you can imagine it! *lub*lub*

The undead need love, too! There, there, just because you have no flesh doesn't mean I won't hug you!

Some monsters gave off signals of not wanting to be hugged. This tainted hound (So cool! So cool!) was one of them. He was more of a high-five type.

---

The night was split into two halves, one bad and a waste, the other good and productive. I started out by running down to the Tomb area to see how I'd do there. That was a poor decision. While I could handle the monsters fine there, I could not handle four or five of them at one time. After killing a bunch of bats, I left. It took me about an hour to get there and back, hide from the groups of things, and kill what I did, and I only made about 100 XP total.

In my continuing run of poor ideas, I decided to go to the orc camp again. I signed up for the Save the Children quest a second time, so I needed to complete it. (The stupid party which was going with me died -- that was a couple days back.) So I got there, only to notice that I had the same problem: I could take on one, maybe two, orcs at a time, but not three to five of them. To make matters worse, I got lost in the camp/tunnels. Two folks invited me into their party (red mage one level above me, and warrior two levels below me), and we tried to exit together. (This is where the story gets "good".) We got cornered by three(?) orcs and two bats, and though I was healing as fast as I could, the warrior died. Seconds later, while the other mage and I were still trying to save our asses, the warrior starts yelling at me on the party channel. "YOU LET ME DIE!" "DON'T YOU HAVE ANY MACROS?" "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" Bah. I healed as fast as I could, but the orcs were hitting *me*, too! Bah. I felt really bad, but I had done the best I could. Anyway, the red mage and I escaped, killing things on the way... but because of the level difference, I got about 10 XP a kill. BAH! Bah, bah, bah. Another hour wasted, with >50 XP to show for it!

In the second half of the night I went back to killing sheep and goblins on my own. Made over 1,000 XP in just a couple hours! (Plus tons of loot!) If I had done that the first half of the night as well, I'd be well over half way to level 13 now. (Even with some other mage who kept stealing my sheep. Hello? It's smart to cast Dia *before* you run up and attack! But no, every time I got ready to cast, you ran up and stole my sheep! My weapon was out! Rude, rude, rude!)

Oh well, it's late. Bedtime. Night, folks!

Can you feel the love tonight? (FFXI)

Being a white mage, I feel it's part of my job to bring a little more love to the in-character world of FFXI. So to that end, I decided to start hugging monsters instead of hitting them. What a wonderful idea! And it went over so well!

I started in what seemed the least likely place to start: With an orc. To my surprise, he came running to me with open arms! I couldn't get a good shot of the bear hug which followed, but I bet you can imagine it! *lub*lub*

The undead need love, too! There, there, just because you have no flesh doesn't mean I won't hug you!

Some monsters gave off signals of not wanting to be hugged. This tainted hound (So cool! So cool!) was one of them. He was more of a high-five type.

---

The night was split into two halves, one bad and a waste, the other good and productive. I started out by running down to the Tomb area to see how I'd do there. That was a poor decision. While I could handle the monsters fine there, I could not handle four or five of them at one time. After killing a bunch of bats, I left. It took me about an hour to get there and back, hide from the groups of things, and kill what I did, and I only made about 100 XP total.

In my continuing run of poor ideas, I decided to go to the orc camp again. I signed up for the Save the Children quest a second time, so I needed to complete it. (The stupid party which was going with me died -- that was a couple days back.) So I got there, only to notice that I had the same problem: I could take on one, maybe two, orcs at a time, but not three to five of them. To make matters worse, I got lost in the camp/tunnels. Two folks invited me into their party (red mage one level above me, and warrior two levels below me), and we tried to exit together. (This is where the story gets "good".) We got cornered by three(?) orcs and two bats, and though I was healing as fast as I could, the warrior died. Seconds later, while the other mage and I were still trying to save our asses, the warrior starts yelling at me on the party channel. "YOU LET ME DIE!" "DON'T YOU HAVE ANY MACROS?" "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" Bah. I healed as fast as I could, but the orcs were hitting *me*, too! Bah. I felt really bad, but I had done the best I could. Anyway, the red mage and I escaped, killing things on the way... but because of the level difference, I got about 10 XP a kill. BAH! Bah, bah, bah. Another hour wasted, with >50 XP to show for it!

In the second half of the night I went back to killing sheep and goblins on my own. Made over 1,000 XP in just a couple hours! (Plus tons of loot!) If I had done that the first half of the night as well, I'd be well over half way to level 13 now. (Even with some other mage who kept stealing my sheep. Hello? It's smart to cast Dia *before* you run up and attack! But no, every time I got ready to cast, you ran up and stole my sheep! My weapon was out! Rude, rude, rude!)

Oh well, it's late. Bedtime. Night, folks!