Retro Saturday: Final Fantasy 5 Four Job Fiesta Highlights

The Fiesta is winding down now, and I'm trying to get as many runs finished as I can before the curtain closes on September 1st. After my marathon stream of Run 5, I wanted to relax a bit and take Run 6 at my own pace, with fewer videos and photos.

I registered for a Team 750 run, meaning that all of my jobs would be of the "more mage-y, less tank-y" type. I rolled Blue Mage, Time Mage, Geomancer, and Dancer. What a powerful party! The Geomancer would be mostly worthless, but everyone else would be senselessly overpowered. Nice!

Blue Mages learn enemy skills when they are targeted by certain spells and abilities. Among these are several game-breaking abilities that allow the smart player to one-hit KO or render harmless many game bosses. World 1 and 2 were incredibly easy with this combo. Having access to Time spells helped me pile up the damage or fire off my OHKO Blue spells.

Let's go to the highlights, picking up in World 3...

@FF5ForFutures #up Snagging Mighty Guard/Big Guard en route to the Cleft! pic.twitter.com/mPDr63vj5u
— Cory Hanson (@HansonCory1) August 9, 2014

@FF5ForFutures #up #FF5FJF2014 Another Omega Quickleak. I don't feel bad at all. Setup Video : http://t.co/TsdSU6oLjB pic.twitter.com/55mK1v7RJd
— Cory Hanson (@HansonCory1) August 9, 2014

@FF5ForFutures #up #FF5FJF2014 Berserk from Wonder Rod/Quick-Meteor-Meteor Combo takes down Shinryu! pic.twitter.com/Dl0xxsS2qa
— Cory Hanson (@HansonCory1) August 9, 2014

@FF5ForFutures #up #FF5FJF2014 Azulmagia learned L3 Flare from me, but I wasn't a level multiple of 3!! pic.twitter.com/qtnsnS2hq0
— Cory Hanson (@HansonCory1) August 9, 2014

@FF5ForFutures #up #FF5FJF2014 Patience until Twintaina starts charging, then... L5 Death!! pic.twitter.com/bWxwCrfG8F
— Cory Hanson (@HansonCory1) August 9, 2014

@FF5ForFutures #up #FF5FJF2014 Second try on Neo Exdeath. Mighty Guard and Quick/Meteor/Meteor proves to be too much. pic.twitter.com/JAFdOq7Pth
— Cory Hanson (@HansonCory1) August 9, 2014

All in all an easy run. Let's see if I can get to ten runs before the end of Fiesta 2014!

As per usual, find my video game action on the following networks:

• Follow me on Twitter
• Subscribe to my YouTube channel
• Follow me on Twitch.tv
• Check my Four Job Fiesta player profile

New eBook Guide: Dublin's Southside Museum Row

I finished and published the next guide in my still-unnamed Free Dublin eBook. This guide takes the reader around the block that I call Museum Row. It begins at the Natural History Museum, works around the corner to the National Gallery, and around the next corner to the National Gallery and Archaeology Museum.

Conveniently, the walk can start at the end of Dublin's Urban Park Scramble if time and endurance permit. The guide briefly describes each museum, but isn't meant to be comprehensive or a replacement for the interpretive materials provided at each museum.

This guide includes maps and very specific walking directions to the entrance of each museum. I feel this necessary because so many free printed tourist maps and online map applications fail to guide the reader correctly to the entrance of these museums. For example, the National Gallery is currently under long-term renovations, and the normal front entrance will be closed for several years. Tourist maps don't reflect this, so it would be easy to miss the very understated side door around the block that currently serves as the main entrance to this wonderful gallery.

View and download the guide here or on the Free Dublin eBook page. As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated as I continue this crazy project!

This work by Cory Hanson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Homemade Apple and Cranberry Hard Cider

When I returned to Dublin from New York, I needed something to keep me busy between blogging and writing sessions. Luckily, I knew just the thing to help keep me awake during my jetlag recovery.

A new experimental cider!

Off I went to the store, and was shocked to see that my usual brand of 85-cent-per-liter apple juice was sold out! I had to step up to the next-tier (but still not name brand) juice at a full Euro per liter! That's an eighteen percent increase in raw materials cost!

To help cut the gouging of the store prices, I grabbed a cheap jug of cranberry juice drink (otherwise known as drank) to flesh out this extravagant beverage. Until I can get a rapper to endorse my brand and spray cider on exploited women (or men, wouldn't a woman rapper in a hooded sweatshirt splashing sticky Champagne on Speedo-clad men be nice payback!?), I simply can't afford the Euro-per-liter Pimp Juice.

Extravagant Juices

I was so upset about the high cost of materials, I didn't even measure the sugar, tea, sultanas, and yeast nutrient. I've made so many little batches of cider (and cider-like beverages) that I could mix this up in my sleep.

The resulting mix is ruby red and off to a good fermenting start. I was a bit worried, smiles aside, because the cranberry was not 100% juice. New brewers, be mindful of ingredients including the word "drink." These can be cut with other juices, refined sugars, and preservatives. 

The ingredients list on this particular jug only listed juice, sugar, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), and some artificial colors. As long as there isn't too much acid concentration, the yeast should work fine. I would have stayed away had I seen anything in the line of sulphites or other stronger preservatives which, by definition, inhibit microbial (i.e. yeast) activity.

Pimp Juice Jug

I was also finally able to try my strange apple and prune juice drink. After a month, it still hadn't fully cleared, but I attributed that to the large quantity of solids and pulp in the prune juice. This stuff will probably take months to clear out... if I let it.

Apple and Prune Juice Hard Cider

 ...After all, the pulp and solids in prune juice are the fiber that any healthy adult (or yeast cell) needs to stay regular, right? Any homebrewer worth his or her yeast isn't bothered by sediment. I think of it like the lumps in homemade mashed potatoes. Unavoidable in a hand-made, finely-crafted product.

The taste was actually very nice. I can taste the plums and the apples. Because it's had a full month to mellow out, it is quite smooth. Some residual sugars (and probably those fruit solids) give it a nice body. As strange as prune juice sounds as an ingredient, I would absolutely make this again.

...And no, nine-year-olds out there, no digestive irregularities to report, one way or the other.

Dublin Castle Sand Scupltures

This August, Dublin Castle is displaying the work of talented sand sculptors in its historic courtyard. For a week from July 29-August 4, teams of sand artists built and carved these large and detailed pieces publicly in the Dublin Castle courtyard. They will be on display until August 27.

I found a great article about the work of the artists and their process here.

Irish television RTE published a short news piece of the artists at work.

I went through about a week after the pieces went on display and took some characteristically clumsy photos of the works on the courtyard that day. I tried to catch some of the intricate detail of these huge pieces, especially in the eyes and faces of the human figures. The best look, of course, is the works in person! If you can, swing through Dublin Castle this month and take a look for yourself.

Larger-than-Life Face

Detailed Eyes Closeup

That's Sand!?

Wide Look

Intricate Scrollwork

Notice the Triangular Gap in the Center

Opera in the Open

Every Thursday in August this year, Dublin City Council is working with Opera in the Open to provide free lunchtime opera performances in the amphitheater behind the city offices at Wood Quay. I saw the announcement in my weekly standby the Dublin Event Guide and had to check it out. The first performance was Gluck's Orphee et Eurydice, a French language opera of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Euridice.

I wasn't sure how early to arrive- free event and all- so I showed up about 90 minutes before the show. I had my pick of seats in the round theater between the city offices and Christ Church Cathedral. The stage set was simple and tasteful, and I saw the small cast and crew making preparations.

Great turnout at #operaintheopen today. Don't miss next Thursday! http://t.co/ZC0ZHNFP2x (Photos Jason Clarke) pic.twitter.com/A6PMAszr6M

— Dublin City Council (@DubCityCouncil) August 7, 2014

I had been wondering what kind of performance this would be. Opera productions are no simple matter! The show was compact and perfect for the casual lunchtime crowd. Orphee et Eurydice was condensed to one hour, requiring three main characters, a narrator, a four-voice chorus, and a troupe of dancers. Music was provided by a keyboardist behind the round stage.

Many opera productions use an English translation screen or marquee somewhere on the stage, but this story was simple enough to be verbally explained between scenes.

I didn't need to arrive as early as I had, but the crowd filled out the raised amphitheater  seating and had overflowed into the grass. Outdoor opera veterans were prepared with seating pads for the stone amphitheater seats and folding chairs and blankets for the grass.

Opera in the Open! Orphée et Euridice by Gluck. Perfect weather too! @DubCityCouncil #operaintheopen pic.twitter.com/YcYVYVCSCV

— Luke Lesage (@lukelesage) August 7, 2014

It was a great show, this team knows how to put together a lunchtime opera concert. I can't wait to see the rest of the performances this August. Speaking of...

August 14: Mozart, The Magic Flute
Ausust 21: Puccini, La Rondine
August 28: Rossini, Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville)
All shows at 1 p.m.

More information on each show can be found at the Dublin City Council announcement here. Hope to see you at the opera!

Let's leave with the classic shaving scene from The Rabbit of Seville. Take it away, Bugs!