*twitch*twitch*

[thistlechaser]

For the past two days, my left eye has been twitching. The "amusing" thing is that it's actually started happening more at times I'm really stressed/annoyed. I feel like a cartoon character about to explode!

Life hasn't been too cheery the last couple of days, building up to last night which was the worst night I've had in a while.

Part of it is my own fault. On top of not sleeping nearly enough all week (5 hours a night of broken sleep just does not cut it, nor do the nightmares I've been having all week), my eating is going downhill fast! Yesterday I had oatmeal for breakfast, noodles for lunch, and (get this) tatertots for dinner! Welcome to the all-carb diet! I'm the Anti-Atkins! Not one bit of protein in sight! I suck. While I lost a pound last week when I thought I wouldn't, I'm betting this week will be a weight-gained week. Sigh. So annoying! And I'm so so so very sick of watching what I eat! And guess what, I have YEARS of it ahead of me! Heck, it's a lifestyle, not a diet, so I get to do this till the day I die! (Oh yay!)

I have a new thing on my list of "Signs I'm PMSing": Being ready to quit FFXI. Last night I put 330K into leathercrafting... and got a total of .2 skill increase. (Apparently 85 is another one of those "walls" where skillups slow down.) As if that's not bad enough, check this out: To get past level 90 of leathercrafting, I have to skill on items that use one of these three hides:

1) A hide that costs a million for one piece. (There are usually a couple for sale at any given time.)
2) A hide that costs about 50K for one piece. (Rarely at the AH.)
3) A hide that costs about 40-50K at the AH for one piece. (Almost never for sale.)

Now, add onto that that I need to do maybe 25-30 synths for a .1 skillup and what do you get? SE has made it impossible for an honest player (or at least a player not in a HNM LS) to get higher than 90. I do not cheat, I give SE ALL of my free time, I give SE extra money (non-players: you have to pay for each character you have. I have four total.). I do everything in this game "right", and yet it's impossible for me to reach the highest level of crafting. I thought about this last night. Know the only way for me to get past 90? Bot fish. That's right, the very only way I will ever "win" is to cheat. SE has to know that. How can they twist my arm into cheating? How can they make me pick between "play honest and fail, or cheat and win"? I'm not looking for an easy way! I Am Not Being Lazy! I have put as much time and money into this game as they could ask, and yet I can still only level higher than 90 by cheating! That makes me so mad and so sad! And what's worse? So many other people cheat, and SE does nothing to stop it!

I cannot believe the stress this game brings into my life. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: I have to stop crafting in it. But even if I stop, that doesn't end the unfairness of it. I hate the game so very much.

---

Lost: I (of course) have my Tivo set to record Lost. While watching it last night, I noticed Tivo wasn't recording it, so I tried to start it myself. It said it was full. (WTF?) So on a commercial, I checked what it had saved. Nine Lost eps and two other half-hour shows. What the hell? I thought the drive was like 20 or 40 hours, how could it be full with only 10 hours of stuff? (Maybe because it records them in high quality?)

But whatever. I deleted all the old Lost eps off Tivo and started downloading them onto my computer. I'd much rather have them on Tivo, but whatever. (At least the copies were made from high def showings of the eps, so the quality will be really high.)

So anyway, last night's ep. Even though I logged off FFXI, I can't say I enjoyed Lost. I was too angry and too ready to cry. I'm sure lots of info and hints were dropped, but I'm going to have to do my usual thing of re-watching it over the weekend and see.

And now back to work, which is just horrible this week. (Hi twitching eye! So nice of you to join us for this post!) The worst part is that once I'm done with the bad work stuff, it's not like I can go "yay, it's over and done!" because we have to repeat it over and over and over again. Literally, it never ends. It's never finished. As soon as you're done, you get maybe a half-day "break" to do "just" support stuff, then it's back to this damned extra crap. I swear, if anything extra bad happens today, I'm going to quit and walk out. And ha ha! Now I'm almost crying! PMS sucks. Stupid tears, go away.

Comments

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

I love the anti-atkins diet, heheh =) Noodles, YUM. That's one of the 4 food groups, isn't it?

for protien, you can add milk, cream or soy milk to your oatmeal; alternatively, or in addition to that, some sprinkled on chopped up sunflowerseeds or nuts (esp walnuts if you add some chopped apple or a spoonful of applesauce or dried cranberries). And a little melted cheese is great on potato anything (inc tater tots).

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I don't like milk in my oatmeal, but wow, those other things sound like good ideas! Especially the apple and walnut one. Mmmm.

And a little melted cheese is great on potato anything (inc tater tots).

You know, that thought never even crossed my mind. I bet that would have been good! I need to start being more creative.

Thanks for the ideas!

[metron-ariston.livejournal.com]

<3 Please don't take offense to this, but sometimes I can't help but grin at your food posts, because it means there is someone out there who is smart and has a pretty together life but is even more clueless about cooking than I am. *g*

My problem is that I put cheese on /everything/.

There's nothing wrong with carbs as long as they're not consisting entirely of refined flour and sugar. I've taken to eating this bread... it's made by some company and branded Ezekiel Blah Blah and is wheat-free and made from organic grains. Tons of fiber, doesn't taste icky like wheat bread does to me. You keep it in the freezer so it doesn't go bad in a week. I love it toasted to defrost it and dry it out a bit, then stuck in the oven with some smushed up black beans and a thin slice of cheddar or pepper jack (or, okay, /any/) cheese on it.

You could also look into getting whole wheat pasta and stuff like that. It's not /as/ good, but better than the regular kind... especially when you tend to eat a ton of it in one go, like I do. *sigh*

And, *hugs*, I'm glad your day is going better!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Please don't take offense to this, but sometimes I can't help but grin at your food posts, because it means there is someone out there who is smart and has a pretty together life but is even more clueless about cooking than I am.

*laughs* No offense taken at all! When it comes to food/cooking, I believe I am one of the most clueless people around. If it doesn't come out of a box and need to be microwaved for a few minutes, I'm lost! Sometimes I just wander around the supermarket, befuddled by all the different things you're supposed to know how to use.

Thanks for the info! That sounds good!

[kwolfhard.livejournal.com]

I shudder to think of carbs or meat being bad.

I've never been on a diet either, don't plan on it either. I walk three miles or so every day, so diets have been the farthest from my mind.

And, regarding FFXI... I say stop playing for a while. If only to IM me so we can talk real-time about Lost. *hees*

And, regarding Lost, I've decided the best episodes are written by Fury. Last night and the Locke episode are two of the best episodes thus far, no doubt. What'd you think of my first fanfic?

And, I'm going to write another one, now that I'm hooked. This one'll be about Sayid and Nadia during one of the interrogations (in between Nor's first and last).

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I shudder to think of carbs or meat being bad.

Agreed, but an excess of either (or anything!) is.

What'd you think of my first fanfic?

A fun read, thanks for sharing it!

[kwolfhard.livejournal.com]

Whee. Thanks. :)

[jakflak.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, I've had a twitch in my left eye for 2 days too. Left eye, on the bottom.

Weird. We've become such good friends our eyes are twitching together.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Even better than Blood Brothers, we're Twitch Twins!

[tersa.livejournal.com]

What the hell? I thought the drive was like 20 or 40 hours, how could it be full with only 10 hours of stuff? (Maybe because it records them in high quality?)

That's exactly why. The 40 hours of space is if the shows are watched in Basic Quality. You get less space if you TiVo them at Medium, High, or Best.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ah, I suspected it was like a VCR that way, but now I know. I'll have to go change my options now! Oh well, that's better than running out of space!

Thanks!

[2515049.livejournal.com]

I don't think I could survive with the relatively few hours of storage available on a stock TiVo. But, yeah, the hours listed are for basic quality, which I can rarely abide. In general, for shows I watch obsessively, as soon as they're on, and then discard, I choose Best, since it's not going to fill up space for very long.

For a sitcom or drama, Medium is fine. For science-fiction or action, I do High or Best. But, well, I'm spoiled; I threw 2 120g drives into mine.

[wanderingscribe.livejournal.com]

Heh, I thought I was just weird for having my left eye twitch when I'm upset. It's comforting to know I'm not alone. (eye twitchers unite!)

And I'm sorry you're having such a crappy time with everything. I hope things will get better, but if not, that they can be coped with a little easier. Hang in there, okay?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

We can form an eye-twitching club! :p

And thanks. Things are somewhat better this afternoon (luckily!).

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

Sign me up for the Eye-twitch Club. And definitely watch The Sayid Show when steam's not shooting out of your ears; it's a great episode.

As for FFXI, I have my own issues (referring to the philosophical, not practical ones here) that would prevent me from ever playing it, at least for longer than a week. I was totally with you in your bitch until you got to the part about 'winning.' That's actually a major problem with online games...You have some people looking to just have fun, or RP, or whatever, but you always have the others that are looking to win. In a MassMorg, as in a tabletop RPG, you can't really ever win. It's just not what the game is about, and if people try, not only does it hurt their enjoyment, but that of those around them. Now, I'm not calling you a powergamer by any stretch of the imagination, your mention of winning just moved me to comment on the problem. Sometimes, it's not even intentional on the part of the players. Many game systems, impossible though they may be to win, seem to encourage, or, as in the case of some MUDs or d20 systems, require players to try. Game mechanics at odds with game philosophy leads, obviously, to problems. People who, under normal circumstances, are as far from powergamers as can be, can sometimes be turned into min-maxing cheesemonkeys by the game system. I've noticed it happening to myself from time to time.

Hmmm, this comment's getting long. End transmission.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I was totally with you in your bitch until you got to the part about 'winning.' That's actually a major problem with online games...You have some people looking to just have fun, or RP, or whatever, but you always have the others that are looking to win. In

A few weeks/months ago, I would have agreed with you. However, I now want this game to be finite; I need some point at which I can say "Okay, I win, I'm satisfied, I can walk away now". Winning could be a number of things, but for me it was to be one of the best leathercrafters. (Being THE best is impossible, I accept that. Japanese players had a whole year before the game ever came out here. Without buying massive amounts of gil with RL money, I will never ever beat them.)

you can't really ever win. It's just not what the game is about, and if people try, not only does it hurt their enjoyment

Yeah. But if you don't try to be the best, what's left? There is no RP. You can be social with your friends (which I do), but you need goals and to be able to reach them.

I don't know. I guess I'm just jaded on the whole game.

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

But if you don't try to be the best, what's left? There is no RP.

There are probably those who would contest that, but that's one of the main reasons I'll never play the game.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

There are probably those who would contest that

Eh. They're the same people who think RPing is:

Joe sits.
Mike smiles.
Joe says, "lol".

That's about the level of "RP" there is there. Thus I would not RP.

but that's one of the main reasons I'll never play the game.

A good reason, yeah.