It's good to have Runescape goals

Well, I've been laying low recently.  I just got back into my writing
after the last long break, when I decided maybe it was time to get
some things done in Runescape.  Firstly, to level up all skills
necessary for every Elite Achievement Task.  So I started making
Decorated Fishing Urns, then Decorated Cooking Urns, until my
Crafting was high enough for the Relleka requirements, if I take a
skill-boosting potion with it.  Once Crafting was high enough, that
left me with a stock of Cooking Urns in the bank.  I also had several
thousand uncooked Rocktail in the bank, so decided to cook them up
before continuing with the skills.
In the process of cooking the Rocktails, I made it to level 98
Cooking, then about 1/4 of the way to 99.  Figured, what the heck,
let's get the Cooking 99.  So I bought something like 4,000 raw
Rocktail, while at the same time selling 4000 from my stock of cooked
Rocktail.  By the time the new ones were cooked, my stocks were
replenished, and a small profit of a nearly 200k had been made.  It
was kind of an accidental 99, but I'll take it any way I can!
At that point, the only skills that still didn't meet the Elite
Achievement requirements were Agility and Slayer.  Slayer only needs
about 3 levels, no big deal.  It's fun, so I don't mind working on
it.  Agility, on the other hand, needed around 10 levels...  That's
going to be a LOT of running around the Ape Atoll course.  I'm
sticking with it because once you hit level 75, you quit falling. 
Otherwise I'd go do the Dorgesh-kun circuit.
Looking at all the agility running, I decided this might be a good
time to focus on Jad for the Fire Cape.  I truly, deeply, suck at
prayer switching.  If I didn't want the Elite Achievement rewards so
much, I just wouldn't mess with him.  But, I really want the Elite,
so Jad's been seeing me a lot recently.  I got him down to the
healers time before last.  Then the next time, he killed me before I
could even find him.
I've combed the net looking for ways to beat him.  With very high
combat stats, and a lot of luck, I might be able to dragon claw,
vengeance, and ancient curse him to death.  Maybe.  On the other
hand, if I get really good at prayer switching, Jad can be beat
entirely by Deflect prayers from the Ancient Curses.
In the meantime, it's Runescape's Extra Experience Weekend (their third one).  Monique and I have been grinding away at those skills that we hate.  For me, that's agility.

No pics right now, this is just a quick update.  I want to spend all the time I can getting my bonus experience from Runescape.  Even though at this point I'm down to the 1.1% bonus, it's still extra.
After the weekend's over, I'll update, with some pics too.  Hope you're making the best of it, too!

Runescape Grand Exchange: Bad flip makes money after all... and experience!

Recently I made a bad decision with my Runescape investments.  I'm a low-budget investor who likes to flip commodities.  Usually make between one million and three million profit a day.  Problem is, outside of the gold I have tied up in flipping my investments, I keep spending as fast as I'm making.  It started when I decided to go for 99 Construction.  I nickeled and dimed my construction skill, until Jagex started hinting about their 2nd extra-experience-weekend.  At that point, I decided to jump into merchanting.  Took a 10 million startup, and began flipping.  By the time the weekend arrived, I had over 100 million gold (this is Runescape now, not real cash!)
That was just barely enough to buy all the oak planks I needed to dungeon-door my way to 99 Construction.  After that, I was too broke to build my dream home, so I kept investing in the grand exchange.  But before I got very far, they announced the Elite Achievement Diaries.  Well, I think of myself as a high-level player.  At least, my character is level 138 and most skills are decent.  So as a point of pride, I want to get ALL the Elite achievement rewards.  I had the Ardougne elite already, and decided the next thing I wanted was the super-enhanced Excalibur from the Seers Village elite tasks.  Problem was, my herblore level was abysmal. (Not abyssal... abysmal!)
It took weeks to make enough money to raise my herblore.  And even then, I Evil-Daved a skill-boosting stew for the last 5 levels worth.  Then back to home-building.  Still flipping on the G.E., and I'd started fishing and cooking Rocktails. 
It was the Rocktails that did me in.  I saw how well they sold.  Decided to take my current spending money of 20 million, and buy 10,000 Rocktail to flip.  Everything went well, right up till the time to sell them.  They sat for days, then the price starting tanking.  I didn't want to lose that much money.  So I pulled them out of the GE, and started cooking.
By the time I'd cooked 10,000 Rocktail, I wound up making a small profit, using some money to invest in Death Runes for flipping, keeping a few Rocktail for myself.  And with my current gold of 14 million, today I bought back the Armadyl Chestplate I sold for Herblore money. 
Yay!... I'm broke again.  Okay, so starting over. 
Oh, and cooking 10k Rocktail?  My cooking skill went from 95 to 97!  I guess it worked out okay after all. 
Bit of quick advice... for a small and steady profit, without a lot of risk, flip Maple logs.  I buy 25,000 at 2 gold below median, and sell it at 2 gold above median.  I make 100k Runescape money every buy/sell flip.  It may not be much, but it's an easy way to get started.  The risk is low, and they usually sell quickly for me (bearing in mind the GE 4-hour buying and selling delay.)