I used to work at Pathmark, a regional grocery store chain in the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia corridor of about some 140 stores. The last... oh, 10 years or so, the company has been looking for someone to buy them. Royal Ahold almost did, but the deal fell through when regulators wanted them to dump about half of the store base because of competition concerns.

Well, they recently got invested in by Yucaipa Cos. And supposedly, one of the first things these guys want to do is buy out another chain to make Pathmark bigger. (I won't mention anything about how this is essentially how Kroger now owns Fred Meyer, QFC, Ralphs, and Fry's Food out on the west coast)

But for the love of Bob... one of the chains that's come up in rumors is Weis Markets. As in, the grocery store chain that ostensibly helped me name my character in FFXI. Somehow, I find that ironically funny. Pointless too, but what the hell.

I think I'm off to craft some more Insect Paste to bazaar overnight... got to make gil somehow, eh?

Ok, so... I decided to head to Jeuno (with 31,967 gil in my pockets), to finally finish up my Chocobo License (sorry Jen!) and to trade in my four Tarut Cards to the fortune telling Taru. Accomplished both of those, and then sat about in Lower Jeuno for a short while. Figured that while I was there, I would check out the Auction House, and see how some of the items I want are doing.

Of course, I go straight for the Armor section. And scroll my way down through the Head armor to a certain Baron's Chapeau. The low-leveled players pimp hat. 150K - ouch. Check the Trader's Chapeau (the regular version), and that's going for 60K from the looks of it. Except that the last 5 sold had come down consistently from 80K. On a whim, I decide to throw up a bid of 30K, seeing as that's what I had. 3 /shouts for random skill-up parties happen, and then I see the magic words:

You buy the trader's chapeau for 30,000 gil.

I'm like "Oh shit, yeah! Wooo!!! YEAAAAHH!!!" And immediately equip it. And so damn proud of it. ^_^;;

( screen caps! )

In better news, the rest of the Trader's set won't take much more to get. I think I priced the other 4 pieces at about 90K total (was too in shock to be completely accurate). That's only like 3 nights (6-9 hours) of farming near Bastok. Maybe less time if I logged in Ghelsba for Elm Logs and sold them instead of skilling up with them. Or about 30 batches (where 1 batch is 12 stacks) of Insect Paste.

( Jack )