Lettuce Fairies

Air Conditioning Saga

The last several day have been interesting to say the least, but in ways I have not really talked about in my blog.  We moved into our house in 1999 and at that time the air conditioning unit was original to the house circa 1980.  So the fact that our unit would fail has been this weight hanging over us for well over a decade.  For at least a decade it has had a slow leak which meant that roughly once a season it would freeze up solid, and the service folks would come out and top off the Freon and get us up and going again.  Each and every service guy has said essentially the same thing… keep the unit going as long as we can because “they don’t build them like this anymore”.  A few weeks ago we finally reached the endgame with our unit as something rattled loose and started trying to vibrate it to death.  The actual fix was going to cost over $1000 and that was simply something I could not in good conscious do given that the unit as a whole would still eventually fail sooner rather than later regardless of said fix.  I did however come up with a hedge fix that held us until them… which was essentially placing a huge sandstone rock on top of the unit which dampened the rattling enough to keep things going for a bit while we sorted out options for a replacement unit.

Lettuce Fairies
Old Unit vs New Unit

Now in some parts of the country air conditioning might be an optional thing… but in Oklahoma with our regular over one hundred degree fahrenheit days it is an absolute necessity.  So Monday and Tuesday we had workers in the house installing the new unit, and the last several days we have been trying to get used to the way it works.  Traditionally AC units are either on or off, meaning you either get 100% power or nothing at all.  This new one has a stepper motor that goes from 35% to 100% in 1% increments, which is really odd to get used to because it rarely ever shuts off completely.  It just sort of cycles down to next to nothing at times, but essentially tries to maintain a stable temperature at all times.  The other thing this unit has is a built in dehumidifier, which means we have been going through this adjustment period when we are trying to figure out what the new norm is.  Previously we kept the house around 73 degrees, but that is honestly way too cold now… so for the last bit we’ve landed somewhere around 75 degrees and that seems to be working out okay.  Finally the unit has a built in hospital filtration system, which means all of the air in the house is almost completely allergen free…. which was almost immediately noticeable the first time I stepped foot outside of the house after sleeping a night under the new system.  I was like walking out and hitting a wall of pollen and humidity.

Goobbue Rider

Lettuce Fairies
Chompy Teeth Monster FTW!

Needless to say the last several days this has taken most of my energy, and as a result my gaming has been extremely scattered consisting of some Pokemon Go and a bunch of logging into various things and doing maintenance type tasks and then logging out again.  One of those tasks that I have been trying to do religiously however is the Sylph quests in Final Fantasy XIV… or as we usually call them the “Lettuce Fairies”.  Since the moment I saw that there was a Goobbue mount I have wanted one, but the Slyphlands in general and the daily quests they offer are probably the most annoying set to grind.  So during the 2.0 content I nibbled away at them but never really made a concerted effort to work on them.  However at level 60 they are insanely easy and actually when everything is not aggroing out… the Sylphlands are rather charming.  So over the last bit I have been focused on pushing through the reputation grind so that I could be a tiny Lalafell on a giant monster.  Last night I managed to complete the last of the quests and now I am riding tall on my big buddy.  Next up I am working on the Sahagin quests for no particular reason other than the fact that they were the next highest.  I really did not know how much faster the quests go when you hit the rank three quests and can start doing nine a day.  If nothing else this gives me a solid purpose to be in game and see folks every night even if I am not necessarily running complicated content.

Descending Further

Lettuce Fairies

Last night I also played quite a bit more Necropolis, and I think I finally get the comparison to Dark Souls.  Both are games that when you encounter a completely new type of monster, you are likely going to die a lot.  A number of my deaths have been caused by me learning how to properly battle a specific type of critter, and since my attacks are rather slow and deliberate it is not like I can simply spam my attack key and pray for the best.  I’ve also found myself needing to bait monsters to keep them from swarming me at the same time.  So those Everquest/DAoC body pulling skills are coming in handy.  All of this said I am still not terribly far into the game.  Last night I made it through the first floor and managed to transition to the second floor… where the mocked me for this achievement.  Then moments later I encountered a brand new type of monster and died horribly within moments.  I think the worst thing about restarting each time is going back to the original crappy starter weapon.  I wish I could somehow carry my loadout into the next life, but I guess scavenging usable equipment is a large part of the game play.  I think this is very much going to be one of those “play a bit each night” type of games for me, because I cannot really see grinding my face against it.