Steady As She Goes

It's been a really crazy time in my personal life, so I haven't gotten around to playing ACNL as much as I'd like, or blogging about it.

A lot of my free time was tied up with friends, in part because of a death in one of their families. On Sunday my family and I did our Easter thing (mountains of food) and watched Big Brother Canada. Since then my life's gone back to mostly normal and I've gotten back to my game and my badge collecting with renewed dedication!

If only there were; I'm sure I'd have the gold by now.

A lot of little things have been going on in Arcadia recently. I have now TT'd to mid-September, hoping to catch the last of my fish, etc.

I officially have only 4 bugs, 3 deep-sea creatures, and 2 fish left to catch in the game!

I have been having some mixed luck overall:

 In case you didn't notice from the previous pictures, I finally bought my (female) crown!
Which is apparently what put me over the line for my next shopper badge (although it started a weird rumour about me...?)

I dunno, dropping 1.2 mil on a crown seemed less-than-thrifty to me...

 I tried out working at Brewster's café, and used the guide to make sure I did it all right:

I continued working on the refurbishing badges:

"Someone already did a nice job on this."

Had a weird exchange between myself, Klaus, and Olaf:
(Olaf asked me for a cherry, then Klaus asked me for something and after I gave him a salmon, he gave me a cherry in exchange, which I passed on to Olaf.)

I got a couple badges (including the shopping one above):

And I now have both a (magical) white katana AND a black katana in my favourite room in my house:

Floating and glowing pink? NBD.

And that's what I've been up to! Not that much, but enough to have fun.
I also have another blog drafted, but I'm not ready to publish it yet, so I figured I'd just do a little update today.

Catch you on the flipside!

~ Mayor Blair

Mountains of Medals

One of the features of Animal Crossing New Leaf is that you get badges for accomplishing certain tasks.

I don't have any gold medals yet.   > .  >

This guy named Phineas (dressed a bit like a Boy Scout) comes around and doles them out as you earn them.

I wonder if he'd accept bribes?

They're sort of like achievement trophies that you find on other systems, etc.
For me, they're my main checklist for completion of the game.

There are 72 in all!

I just love Shrunk's reaction to TWO pears.

Here they are with the requirements for each:

Skilled Bug Catcher - Catch 500+ insects
Expert Bug Catcher - Catch 2,000+ insects
Master Bug Catcher - Catch 5000+ insects
Skilled Angler - Catch 500+ fish
Expert Angler - Catch 2,000+ fish
Master Angler - Catch 5,000+ fish
Skilled Diver - Catch 100+ dive items
Pro Diver - Catch 200+ dive items
Dive Master - Catch 1,000 dive items
Insect Maniac - Catch 50% of all types of insects
Insect Encyclopedia - Catch 80% of all types of insects
Prof. of Entomology - Catch all types of insects
Fish Maniac - Catch 50% of all types of fish
Fish Encyclopedia - Catch 80% of all types of fish
Prof. of Ichthyology - Catch all types of fish
Seafood Maniac - Catch 50% of all types of dive items
Seafood Encyclopedia - Catch 80% of all types of dive items
Prof. of Seafood - Catch all types of dive items
Balloon Hunter - Pop 30+ Balloons
Balloon Buster - Pop 100+ Balloons
Balloon Master - Pop 200+ Balloons
Bronze Medalist - Earn 300 medals from Island Tours
Silver Medalist - Earn 1,500 medals from Island Tours
Gold Medalist - Earn 5,000 medals from Island Tours
Backyard Gardener - Plant 100 items
Village Gardener - Plant 250 items
Gardening Specialist - Plant 500 items
Weed Hunter - Pull 500 Weeds
Weed Buster - Pull 2,000 Weeds
Weed Menace - Pull 5,000 Weeds
Avid Bell Saver - Put 1,000,000 Bells in Savings
Wealthy Bell Saver - Put 10,000,000 Bells in Savings
Tycoon Bell Saver - Put 100,000,000 Bells in Savings
Amateur Turnip Trader - Make 500,000 Bells on the Stalk Market
Pro Turnip Trader - Make 3,000,000 Bells on the Stalk Market
Master Turnip Trader - Make 10,000,000 Bells on the Stalk Market
Good Shopper Spend - 500,000 Bells in shops
Expert Shopper - Spend 2,000,000 Bells in shops
Master Shopper - Spend 5,000,000 Bells in shops
Refurbishing Beginner - Have Cyrus remake 30 things
Refurbishing Expert - Have Cyrus remake 100 things
Refurbishing Master - Have Cyrus remake 200 things
Catalog Maniac Bronze - Complete 20% of the catalog
Catalog Maniac Silver - Complete 50% of the catalog
Catalog Maniac Gold - Complete 80% of the catalog
Happy Homer Bronze - Earn 50,000 points with HHA
Happy Homer Silver - Earn 100,000 points with HHA
Happy Homer Gold - Earn 150,000 points with HHA
K.K. Slider Fan - See K.K. Slider live 20 times
K.K. Slider Fangirl - See K.K. Slider live 50 times
K.K. Slider Diehard - See K.K. Slider live 100 times
Good Samaritan - Fulfill 50 Villager Requests
Great Samaritan - Fulfill 100 Villager Requests
Town Concierge - Fulfill 200 Villager Requests
Letter Writer - Send 50 letters (*of 10+ characters)
Letter Author - Send 100 letters
Postmaster - Send 200 letters
StreetPass Beginner - StreetPass 100 times
StreetPass Expert - StreetPass 300 times
StreetPass Master - StreetPass 1000 times
Neighborhood Traveler - Visit other towns 100 times
World Traveler - Visit other towns 250 times
Space Traveler - Visit other towns 500 times
Good Hostess - Be visited by others 50 times
Great Hostess - Be visited by others 200 times
Goodwill Ambassador - Be visited by others 500 times
Dreamer - Visit 50 Dream Towns
Heavy Sleeper - Visit 200 Dream Towns
Mrs. Sandman - Visit 500 Dream Towns
Village Representative - Play for 50 hours
Village Leader - Play for 200 hours
Villager of Honor - Play for 500 hours

As you might have guessed from the highlighting I currently have 23 out of 72 medals (about 32%).  

Right now I've got a strategy in place for a few of them as well.

I've been tracking my uses of the Dream Suite (as mentioned in this post) and I've taken to writing letters as much as I remember to (usually I'll buy the two paper sets and send off 8 in one day). 

IMHO my letters are pretty hilarious in their own right, often including messages like "You could move away now." or other extra-friendly things (though I try to send good ones the first time, in case they pull them out later).

I've developed a strategy for the Turnips/Stalk Market that I'll write about in another post soon, and some of the others will sort of happen organically (play time, favors/villager requests, planting).

Most of them will probably require very dedicated effort (like the bug/fish/dive catches, weeding, balloons), but I'm up for the challenge!

WISH ME LUCK! :)

~Mayor Blair

Arcadia Update April 7th, 2014

Hello, hi!

I've decided to post periodic updates about Arcadia (and maybe TirNaNog in the future).

Today I haven't been feeling well, so I stayed home from work. I played for a bit in the morning but then I slept for several hours. Running around town was making me feel queasy as well. >.>

It has been a good day in Arcadia.

We got visited by Gracie, who made me change into a "totally iconic" outfit.
I visited my closet (one of the exhibits on the museum's 2nd Floor) to pick a perfect outfit out.

She was pleased with my work and gave me a table.

I also did some shopping and selling.

 Sable's a fan of soap operas, apparently.


I thought now might be a good time to give you the first tour of my house, so here's a rundown!

I'm almost done expanding it, but I haven't settled on a final theme for each room yet, so it's a bit boring inside.

The main room is almost my favourite. I think it's essentially done, but I'll tweak it over time to perfection. Or completely re-design it when I start caring about the Happy Home Academy ratings.

The room on the left is a work-in-progress. It's the only room not fully expanded.
Note Resetti. :)

The back room started off as a tiny posh room for my trophies and harp, etc.
Now that it's full-size, I'm not sure what to do with it.

I'll probably keep the floor but change the walls when I find one I like for it. That katana is weird and glows when you touch it.

The room on the right is my favourite. Depending on what lamps you have on, it's either extra-blue or extra-pink, and I like to play KK. Milonga in there.

The basement used to be my storage of all the Nintendo-themed items you get from fortune cookies, but I've since dedicated a museum exhibit to that. So now it's a weird room with a fireplace, a stove, a furnace, and other random things I haven't let go of yet.

What house doesn't have a crane game in the basement?

Finally the top floor, which started as a humble bedroom, is sort of in a weird in-between phase where I sort of know what I want to do with it, but haven't put any effort into it. Mostly I have several benches and a bed. The focal point of the room is a green table with shells. Oooh. >.>

And that's my house!

After touring my place, I decided that I wanted to change out of that "totally iconic" outfit.

Back to the museum/closet:

When I was done with that, I remembered that Isabelle probably wanted to celebrate the new lighthouse, so I obliged.

Hooray for having a rich mayor who funds everything!

I popped in to Re-Tail and convinced Olaf to buy one of my overpriced Flea Market items, then got Cyrus to refurbish a "Lovely Table" for me. There's a badge for that, so I plan to keep refurbishing it indefinitely.

Give me your money!

Reese doesn't like it when you talk to her husband.

Then Hazel asked me to catch her a bug and got weird about it.

Finally, Eloise, who is always on the ball, let me know that Gracie was in town.
Thanks, E. What would I do without you?

I ran around a while catching bugs, but soon got bored and queasy.
And that's the update!

Catch y'all later!

~ Mayor Blair