I handed in my resignation at work today. I've worked at Toys 'R' Us for just over three years now, and it was time to call it quits. Fortunately, I do have a new job to go to, so it's not like every other job I've left where I just quit to be an unemployed bum. Also, it's a really good new job! So no more retail/fast food for ol' Ryan!
The weird part that even with all the anxiety all the interviewing and waiting and worrying about being able to do this new job, I think I was most nervous about leaving TRU. Not because I especially love it or anything. It's not a bad job, but after three years, it's more than worn on me. Anyway, what I believe the butterflies in my tummy were all about was leaving my safe place. Like I said, I've been there three years now, and it's something I can do. I might be so brash as to say that I'm really good at it. It's not great pay, but it gets me by, and I know they may not say it all the time, but they do value my hard work. And now I'm cutting away that wonderful little safety net, and taking a plunge, hoping that there's a bigger, comfier one somewhere farther down the gorge. Or wherever that metaphor was going.
I'm sure everything will work out okay, and if somehow I'm just awful at the new job (highly unlikely) I suppose they won't mind taking me back. At severely reduced pay of course, but at least I'll have a job. It's been many, many years since I've been this scared, since about the time I got my first job at Tim Horton's. I'm playing in a whole different league now, and while I'm sure I'm up to the challenge, I'm having a very hard time convincing myself of it.
Oh, and if you're my new employer and are reading this, disregard that whole lack of self-confidence thing. That's just for show.
Having spent a little bit more time with Wii Fit Plus, I can safely say that my first-night impressions were pretty spot-on. I've played all the new games now, and they range from totally rad to pretty fun. The obstacle course is the clear winner, being an adrenaline-fueled race to the end of a curiously Mario-esque course of platforms and hazards. The sonwball fight and skateboarding are pretty awesome too, and even the hip-shaking math game is a blast (particularly when watching others flail around wildly). Yeah, best $20 I spent last week.
Or, well, maybe not so much. It's hard to say. The girlfriend and I also went to see "Zombieland" last week, and it was mind-blowingly epic. Everything about the movie was totally lovable, from the slow-motion zombie mania intro credits to the special guest cameo (who I will not spoil if you haven't seen it yet). It was a barrel of laughs from start to finish, and it didn't get all serious and depressing at the end like "Shaun of the Dead". I mean, tensions did reach a height at the climax (durrr), but the laughs didn't leave to make room for drama. They shared. And I think that's the lesson that the movie wants to teach us. Sharing is neat.
The thing that kind of threw me off for a bit though, is that I could swear that when I saw the trailer it had Michael Cera. And then I started watching the movie and I was all like "hey, that's a different dude!" And I'm not saying I'm disappointed or anything, because honestly I think Jesse Eisenberg did a better job than Cera would have. I'm just a bit surprised that I could confuse the two like that. They're maybe a little similar-looking I guess, but I'm pretty sure my brain is missing and/or replacing bits of information here and there on purpose lately. Oh well.
Basicaly, what I have to say is this: go see "Zombieland". If you like funny things, you won't be disappointed. Unless you're the kind of person who thought "Land of the Lost" was hilarious, in which case I'm going to punch you in the throat.
I haven't owned Wii Fit Plus for even six hours yet, and I'm already smitten with it. I haven't even played any of the new games, which are mostly what I bought it for. You might think that I've finally snapped, but wait a couple paragraphs before you pass judgement.
The original Wii Fit was a neat little application that definitely made me want to work out a little and improve my overall health, but it was very directionless. My only real goal, besides making sure to play every once in a while, was to achieve a number of Fit Credits at the end of the day that ended in a 5 or a 0, to keep my tally even. Having to choose a few random exercises a day was not super-motivating, as it didn't really give me a great idea of what I was even working toward. To that end, my goal of playing every day or two quickly fell flat, and I only picked it up for a handful of days at a time every couple months.
Where Wii Fit Plus really shines is not in all the fancy new screens or games or that wonderful feeling of playing a new game for the first time (though that was really nice!), but rather that it lets you customize a workout of your own that you can easily repeat each day to target specific parts of your body. The game even has a reasonably-sized selection of pre-made workout routines that only take a couple minutes to complete and make it easy to figure out what you want to use the game for. This alone is worth the $20 expansion pack. Also nice is that the game imports all of your Wii Fit data so that you don't have to start from scratch. This was kind of a no-brainer, but we've seen many games omit much more obvious/necessary features.
This is not only great for giving yourself a focused goal, but it also makes the game a million times more convenient. Making a workout routine saves a huge amount of time by not forcing you to navigate the menus every time you do something. Not to mention you don't have to sit and consider what you want to do next. That was my biggest issue. I could never decide what yoga pose/workout/game I wanted to do once I was finished with my rhythmic boxing.
In other gaming news, I finished Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story last week, and could not have been more satisfied. The battles seem to last a little longer than I'm totally comfortable with, but they never got tedious or boring, as the active battle system forces you to be on your toes and paying attention at all times. And now that I'm done with that, it's back to burning my way through Final Fantasy VIII, which I think I've definitely broken.
Now that I've taken the time to really obsess over the mechanics of the game, my characters are much more powerful than they probably should be. When I got the Tonberry King GF on my first run through the game several years ago, it was an extremely long and dangerous process, but this time it was... really easy. The King, with his hundreds of thousands of HPs, stood against me for over half an hour last time, but this time I struck him down in about ten minutes. Funny what a few years and a lot of experimentation with the junction system can do for you. Of course, this miraculous victory was also a product of hours of grinding to max out my strongest magics and earning enemy cards which I could refine into useful and/or rare items. But I totally broke it and now the game is mine to simply coast to the end of. Also, that's exactly why I wanted to replay the game in the first place, so yeah. I'm awesome.