Fake hot chocolate isn't so bad

[thistlechaser]

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.

Comments

[batratblue.livejournal.com]

One cup half-and-half
One half-cup Bailey's Irish Cream
One quarter-cup Ghirardhelli unsweetened dark chocolate, grated fine
One tbsp butter
Two tbsp Chaucer's Raspberry Wine


For sometime when your diet and exercise are going well and you're willing and able to enjoy it.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

*dies* Ohhh, that sounds so good! Mmm, thanks!

ok i lik XP it is god YAY

[peppygrowlithe.livejournal.com]

How is experience handled in that game? Does every enemy give the exact same amount of experience, or is it that each enemy gives you slightly (or significantly) less experience with each level you go up?

I may not play the game, but on a "high" level, if XP remains constant, 3,000 seems like a cakewalk. ;)

On my MUD, the last level requires 400 million experience points. Hard enemies give one million. -That's- a bother! ;)

Re: ok i lik XP it is god YAY

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I think XP is somewhat complex. You have a level, and I believe the monster has a level. Somehow the XP is calculated by looking at the difference between the two levels. 12 is the minimum you can get (after that, zero). From what I've seen so far, the max is a hundred or two (that's for killing things way way way above your level, with help from others).

Eek! 400 million! I'd die RL first. :p

Re: ok i lik XP it is god YAY

[peppygrowlithe.livejournal.com]

Huh, that is an interesting (and effective) way of doing it.

Is there imbalance? For example, if I'm level one and you're level 50, and we go out and kill a level 40 monster (so easy for you, impossible for me), will I get complete and full XP and level up 20 times, or does each level have a cap for XP you can earn (or do you get significantly less experience when the other group members are higher than you)?

(If you're bored, you don't have to read this, but I want to see when I get home!) What classes are there? I *could* go to gamefaqs.com, but I'd rather bug you. ;) Heck, if you're bored and wanna talk FFXI, maybe you'll draw some enjoyment from it!

... See you when I get home! Maybe. Probably. ... Maybe.

(Adult Swim is showing Wolf's Rain now, by the way.)

Re: ok i lik XP it is god YAY

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

The people who made FFXI were pretty smart. If a level 1 and a level 50 person party and kill something together, the level 50 person will get all of the XP. Even one or two levels make a big difference in what people get (so you really want to make a party of people at the same level or at most one level apart).

Classes are called jobs in this game, and they are white/black/red mage, warrior, monk, thief, um... I guess that's all of them.

And yeah, I saw Wolf's Rain is coming. *snicker* Poor people are going to watch it. Suckers!

Re: ok i lik XP it is god YAY

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

Jobs are fairly classic FF fare.

The basics are warrior, thief, monk, black/white/red mage.

The jobs that require special quests are bard, ranger, samurai, dark knight, paladin, dragoon, beastmaster, summoner, and ninja. That's assuming I didn't forget anything.

Re: ok i lik XP it is god YAY

[eilonwey.livejournal.com]

The most I've gotten off an incredibly tough monster is 200 xp.

I've heard that the xp curve goes up more steeply at higher levels. Not really looking forward to that...I think at 36th level we're into 6000 and some odd xp per level?

Anyway, that's why after a certain point soloing becomes incredibly painful. You can get 100-200 xp per monster in a good group, versus 12-30 or so xp per monster soloing easy and decent prey. (Most people can't fight even, tough, very tough, or incredibly tough monsters on their own after a certain point.)

And thistle is right - xp is based on the relative levels of you and the monster. In a group, it is based on the relative levels of the monster and the highest level member of your party. So being more than a few levels away from the highest level member of your party is going to hurt your xp pretty badly.

Re: ok i lik XP it is god YAY

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah and yeah. I was hoping/expecting the XP needed curve to remain the same, but I guess it makes sense that it doesn't. Also, it seems odd that it doesn't keep a running total of all the XP that you have earned! (Unless it does and I haven't found where yet.) I know it'd be "useless" to know that, but it would be interesting.

[chrysoula.livejournal.com]

Right, this is just me showing off, but go check out the finalfantasy.dreamfarmer.net site! I posted something new, and I'd love for you to see it.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Hm. It mostly didn't play for me (I heard the music for much of the time, but no video at all. Twice a screenshot-type picture showed, but for the rest of the time it was black.) It's probably something my work machine is lacking, so I'll check it again from home!

Thanks for the link!

[chrysoula.livejournal.com]

You almost certainly need the current DivX Codec. You can get that here http://download.divx.com/divx/DivX511.exe

You probably also want to save target as, rather than playing in the viewer, which can mess things up.

The bright side of getting the divx codec is that you'll probably not have to do it again for quite some time and can view all my other experiments!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yep, I always do the 'save as' thing -- it saves you (and me) bandwidth if I want to view it again.

I don't want to install new stuff onto my work machine, but since I have my home one set up to watch most anything, I bet it'll work from there.

Thanks!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yep, it worked from home. Totally cool! That was great to see, thanks for sharing it!

[istarion.livejournal.com]

O.o; That dream thing really sucks... I've have times where I deliberately go back to sleep and continue my dream if it's good but to die that many times in one night.. X.x; *eek*

Last night I dreamed that me n Ed were trapped in this miniature town and we were running around a fighting people ^^;;;;

(Ed: who're you calling 'miniature'!?! ¬ ¬;)
No, Ed-o, I didn't call YOU miniature.. I said the TOWN was miniature.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, with good dreams that rocks! :)

[istarion.livejournal.com]

I think I've developed an affinity for letting my good dreams go on XD I think I've overslept multiple times on the weekends, even if my dream was interrupted 3 times, just to go back ^^;;;

So much for being 'firmly grounded in reality', eh? _XD

[fealu-bryne.livejournal.com]

Gah, dreams scary. I hate those ones you get trapped in... and can't get out.

Like last night? I had this really bizarre one where this bright red and blue snake was talking to me, telling me all my bad qualities and such, kept biting me all over (I've gotten bit by snakes before, but this hurt), and then raped me.

*shudders* Every time I woke up I kept seeing this horrible snake.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ack! That's an awful dream. I hate snakes. ...and the last part? *twitch!*

[loneguardian.livejournal.com]

Yep, you guys have pretty much covered the Exp thing. :3 As a mage, you're gonna -have- to party soon to get Exp, simple as that. The 'easy prey' are no longer easy about halfway into your teens in leveling, and you'll have a hell of a time getting any Exp on your own outside of a group.

Only two jobs are an exception to this rule that I know of. Red Mage and Beastmaster. I have a 23 Red Mage right now, and I'm making 120-140xp a kill with Worms in Korroloka Tunnel. Of course, my downtime sucks and I go through a lot of food and stuff, but it's fun to solo Tough monsters. :3 Beastmasters can 'cheat' 'cause they charm another monster into helping them fight, so they're sharing the damage with something else, but they can take tough monsters too. :D

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

3 As a mage, you're gonna -have- to party soon to get Exp, simple as that. The 'easy prey' are no longer easy about halfway into your teens in leveling, and you'll have a hell of a time getting any Exp on your own outside of a group.

I feel that coming, yeah. It's a pain in the butt to have to struggle to kill something, for it to land hits against me and have it do damage to me... then get no XP for it because it was too "easy".