Forgive me if this post is a bit sporadic.

Barring the necessities of breathing, eating, drinking, et cetera, I have done five things in the past two days. I went to my chiropractor appointment this morning, which is one of those five things, and is the one I don’t plan to talk about further (not that it was bad, so much as that it was a non-event).

I have, in fact, been working on my schoolwork, at least a little bit each day. I’ve been reading through the Kitab-i-Aqdas, and feeling very sluggardly about my progress. We’ll see if I kick up the pace some more in the next few days. Something that is interesting about the Aqdas is that (after the introductory remarks), a great deal of the first part of the book is updates to the Laws of God declared by previous dispensations. I don’t know why, but I do find this somewhat humorous, looking back at some of the things that had been forbidden previously. Less humorous but interesting is the part where he addresses the leaders of various countries, and pretty much foretells World War I.

I’ve also been working on getting the site redesign ready for a smooth transition. If I stay on task, it should be ready by the end of the week, like I said before. Basically, what’s been keeping me is the minor variations that I have between the different sections. For instance, the visual gallery is currently set up to show 2, sometimes even 3 images across, assuming they were all posted on the same day. Also, the layout of the archives is slightly different, so I need to make sure I don’t break anything when I implement things there.

The last two things I’ve done in the past two days were more “fun” related. I got an email from my friend Robert, inviting me down to the local Lanwerx for some Soul Caliber 2 fun. I had a ball, and got to shmooze a bit. Also got some favorable news for UberCon, but I won’t say anymore until I’ve gotten it finalized. I’m still a newbie when it comes to Soul Caliber, so I think I might have been a bit of a button-masher… hopefully it didn’t piss anybody off. I can only hope that if it did, they would have said something.

And finally, I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XI some more. I think it is reasonable to say that it is the best MMORPG currently on the market. There have been some complaints about the PlayOnline interface being clunky (and in some ways it is), but overall, it’s great. I’ve taken a screenshot, if you want to see (looks better in game).

Visually, the game is stunning. Anarchy Online has better sunrises, sure, but I’ve yet to see a better dawn. The light shining through the mist-shrouded trees is just spectacular… the best representation of that special light (The Lord’s Light… Lux Ducis) that I’ve seen in any game to date. If I’ve been out hunting bats and orcs in West Ronfaure, I generally try to find a safe place and just sit back and watch the dawn for a moment before continuing the hunt.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen when my free month is up, whether or not I’ll feel it’s worth it to continue the subscription. It’s not that I’m a cheapskate, but I am VERY aware of what else that money could be going to. I suppose the question will be, am I spending less on games in general because I’m playing just one? If I average even a game every three months, then just doing the MMORPG is more cost effective. Final Fantasy X-2 is coming out shortly, yes, but after that, I don’t have any game on my “need to buy” list until Xenosaga: Episode 2. That’s not until late 2004 by the EARLIEST estimate, so even taking into account the cost of FFX-2, it’d still be more cost effective to just spend the money on the MMORPG.

I’m just rambling at this point, so I’ll leave it here. It WOULD be nice to have more friends playing it, but I can’t reasonably expect people to have the time, money, or inclination to come play. Which reminds me in a lot of ways of how I was when I first started playing Avatar.