General: Holiday Vacation

Happy New Year's everyone! It's been awhile since I last updated my blog, but between being busy at work and then taking 2 weeks of vacation time, I haven't really had time. I played quite a bit of FFXI during my vacation, but since I'd rather be playing than writing about playing, my blog got a bit neglected.

I've also decided to move back to my old blog at Modblog.com, as I've really missed some of the features they have available. Sorry to be so inconsistent, but hopefully I won't regret this decision and have to go back to Blogger.com. Of course, now that I've made that decision, the images seem broken again. :-(

I'll have more detailed entries for some of the things Kiki did over the holidays, but here's a quick rundown: BCNMs for Mannequin parts, Starlight Festival and the search for the Dream Robe +1s, the Low Level Static is well into level 65 (and Itera is 66), Kuftal Tunnel map, a level on woodworking (64.8), a level on fishing (52.0), BLM is now 31, quested for a Mermaid's Ring, did a KS30 Desert Swarm with a group of 4 73+ BLMs and a BRD, RNG is now 12, NPC is 51 (Grym's is 50), completed Wild Card and A Test of True Love quests, All-Dragoon Trio is level 7, we did the fortune teller/free food quest a bunch of times, and RDM is now 60 (it's so weird to see Kiki in RDM AF).

The economy on Lakshmi went nuts over Christmas, possibly as a result of a flood of ill-gotten gil. Many items jumped 100% in just one sale (Byrnies went from 5.2 million to 12 million - bought by the person who listed it, but settled firmly at 11 million after that), while others jumped 200k-500k per sale until they doubled (HQ staves for example). Tree cuttings went from 10-15k for a single to 15-20k, while tree saplings jumped from 270K a stack to 400K. Tuna sushi leapt from 25k to 50k. I think sole sushi is now 90k a stack. Not all of the raw materials have gone up as dramatically, though some fish has. We've found that at least for Bream Sushi, we make quite a bit more having Qiara make sushi out of the bream we catch rather than selling the Bream alone.

The rich just keep getting richer, while we struggle to get the items we think we need. Since we have tended to keep a lot of gil on hand rather than "invest" in items, our net worth seems a whole lot lower now than it did. If we were to liquidate our items we do have, I'm sure a lot of them are worth a lot more than we originally paid, but since they are things we use for different jobs/levels, there's not really anything we'd want to sell. I could theoretically sell my Lu Shang's for 11-13 million now, but I need that rod for ongoing income, so it would be foolish to sell it.

Kiki has been planning to upgrade her shield to a Diamond Shield when she hits level 66 on her Paladin, and has been checking the Jeuno AH frequently over the past week or so, hoping to find one. She missed one on the 28th, but that was the only one listed since she started actively seeking one. Now I'm afraid that the person who next puts one up for sale will think they can double the price or something, despite it being a steady 2 million for the entire auction history. She did get her Espadon +1 (sword) for 66 already, but there's a better supply of those.