Welp, we killed Thirsty his dragon. We were actually 3 seconds shy of a record too. We had 4 monks, 1 samurai, and a RDM. I think had we had 5 monks and a sole WHM we could easily take the record. Basically, 2 monks 2 hour the eye, the other 3 monks 2 hour the dragon. The WHM does nothing except watch every's HP. If anyone's HP dips too low, the WHM does Bene. Doing that, you could easily beat the dragon faster than any other combination. Anyway, the fight was over so fast for us, I didn't get any screenies. But here's one of us victorious.

Now, I am a big fan of the party system in FFXI. Some people bitch and moan about how you are punished EXP-wise for soloing, but I personally find it can be quite elegant (I love the strategy of a well-trained party). Well, Thirsty apparently soloed THF to 17. I made fun of him for this because it took him like 3 weeks, but when I learned he earned nearly half a million gil in the process I quickly shut up. I guess as a tool for earning gil, it's hard to beat. So, I've gone out and started soloing THF. I doubt very much I'll solo to 17, but I may very well get it to 15 before I consider taking the job more serious.

BTW, this is just wrong.

During the Xmas break, Trix took Kyler and me out to Ordelle's to do the new Tapestry quest. If you haven't done it yet, it is well worth it. I earned approximately 43k gil and had a great time doing it. We even tried hunting Archer's Rings for money while we were at it... but that turned out to be way too frustrating what with all the gil sellers.

The New Years Mog quests are pretty cool. Thus far I've enjoyed them. Here is a Goblin Rider, which honestly freaked me out when I first saw one. While looking for the cards for the Mog quest we encountered (and several were killed by) good ol' Bloodtear Baldruf. We watched as a high level PLD/NIN totally kicked his ass.

We got our cards, and Maior became a cute bun-bun! We then tried another of Trix's quests (since the last one was so fun and profitable) and got killed. It basically sucked, but I did get to work on my singing.

Due to budgetary constraints (sniper's rings tripled in cost on Phoenix during the weeks I was moving) I have been levelling Samurai to save money. Basically, SAM uses all the same armor (except for belts and a few gloves) as MNK did, so I can level it having only to buy Great Katanas. Thus far I have made it up to 26 and had some very non-traditional levelling areas (like 24-26 in Batallia Downs!) I have actually learned a lot about SAM that most people don't know, and now realize that, as a job, when it's done right SAM can truly school the enemy. It just so happens to be a hard job to do right, and chances are, you've never met a good SAM (I know I never did before I started playing it... Now I've found a whole community of them ;-) I really should write something up on it...

Anyway, Stinky didn't get what she wanted for Christmas, instead she got Rock Salt, so she was very sad.