Crash and burn, I hate you.

Its been roughly eight years since my last update and for that I apologize. (Insert generic work excuse here.)

So I get home Friday to find my computer off. I almost never turn it off so this surprised me. I pressed the little gray 'On' button, and went to make some dinner, expecting to see my bitchin' '300' wallpaper on my monitor when I returned.

Instead of seeing scantily-clad Spartans stabbing savage scoundrels, I was greeted with a black screen with some white text and a little blinking line at the bottom. Confused and scared, I waited to see what would happen.

15 minutes later, as I sat with a plate of now cold chicken, I realized this screen was not going to change. I went into a panic. I had too much stuff on that hard drive that I didn't want to lose.

I tried everything to get the computer to start up: Swearing, kicking, hugging, swearing, restarting while swearing, and kicking and hugging at the same time (that one was a little tough).

Finally I gave up and went to pick up a new hard drive. I spent a sizable amount of the drive to Best Buy silent, even though the radio was blasting my favorite Cake cd.

On my way home, I stopped by work and ganked a copy of Vista from a big box in our IT dept. (Stealing is wrong, kids, unless you're in a bad mood.)

After spending some time putting in my new hard drive and installing Vista, I stated to reinstall FFXI. Seven hours later I was good to go, aside from the fact I no longer possessed a CoP disk. (Luckily I found it at my brother's place, or I woulda murdered someone.)

I logged in yesterday and was immediately killed. For a second, I couldn't remember why I was standing in the middle of an area full of Puks and other pain-inducing mobs, but then it hit me:

My last login, I hit 62 on my SMN. I hadn't hit a level on my SMN in a long time so it felt good. That good feeling quickly passed, as I was dead the next fight. PLDs who don't provoke are pretty much jerks. I got a raise and wasn't too discouraged. It would only take a few fights to get my exp back, so no worries.

Before my 'weakened' wears off, our puller grabs another Puk, who, as he was flying past me resting, used one of his AoE moves which instantly re-killed our hero. Needless to say I was furious, so I found myself a replacement and I logged there. A taru SMN has seriously 50 hp when weakened you asshole. (Even though I was pissed, I still replaced myself before I logged, because I'm a gentleman like that.)

So after logging in and dying yesterday, I HP'd back to town and was about to throw my flag up when i noticed all my macros were gone because I had to reinstall everything. I didn't feel like re-typing everything, so I switched jobs again, this time to DRK.

At the ripe young level of 10, I found myself wailing on ep/dec mobs around Spiny's camp. I was hoping for a crack at him, because frankly its been a while, and I miss him.

Sure enough, about an hour into my levelling, he spawns, and yet another epic battle occurs.

Pasquale misses Spiny Spiri.
Pasquale misses Spiny Spiri.
Pasquale misses Spiny Spiri.

Friggin dark knight. While I was using my Scythe to cool off Spiny, he was using his face to beat me to a pulp. I had to 2-hour to get my health back, but afterwards the fight started to turn in my favor.

A few minutes later, he was dead and I was dying. His poison wore before it killed me, but not before I got to see the drops:

Pasquale finds a Spool of Silk Thread.

I believe that puts me at 0/16? I hate him. I hate him so much.