The Mezzanine

1. My mom's birthday is next week and I've been meaning to get her some books but keep not thinking about it when I'm actually at the computer. Tonight I remembered and finally ordered them, and while I was at it, got myself a new wiimote and nunchuk, since I'll be sending the old Wii ones to Irene along with the Wii (she was going to take it in her luggage, but there ended up not being room).

2. Speaking of finallys, I also finally got my new iphone stand thingy set up. I have been wanting a stand for ages because I facetime with Irene several times a week and it gets really annoying to hold the phone the whole time (and sometimes my hand hurts), so now I will just be able to set it on the table and not worry! She had bought me one and brought it with her, but since I wasn't actually calling her while she was here and plugging it in involves getting under my desk, which I didn't want to do, I hadn't set it up yet.

3. TWO people called in sick today at work, both of them scheduled for the same shift (it's not so bad if one person calls in sick in the morning and one person in the evening, but both at the same time means there is only one person left). I called the three people who weren't working today, but my hopes weren't high, so I was resigned to spending my last several hours of work on the register once we were down to one cashier, but someone did call and say they could work! (And it was the person I almost didn't call because I thought it was so unlikely she'd say yes. She's an older lady who only wants to work like 15 hours a week and so far has said no every time she's been asked to work an extra day or stay even an hour or half hour extra.) So while I did have to spend more time than usual helping at the registers today, it wasn't as much as I'd feared and I did manage to get a fair amount of work done at my desk.

4. I've been playing Super Mario World tonight and wow, it looks so old! It's weird because even though it's a newer game than SMB 1, 2, and 3, for some reason I remember those better. Maybe I played them more? I remember being super excited about SMW when it came out and reading all these magazine articles before the SNES's release. I'm sure I played it a lot when it was first released, but I guess I didn't go back and play it much later? idk. Anyway, I don't remember anything. Also having just been playing New SMB Wii U means that I get confused about what I can and can't do a lot. ^_^;; Can't butt pound blocks. Can't flutter with Yoshi. Can't wall jump. Some of these things can be deadly when you think you can do them and then you can't. :p I also feel like I have no goal when there's not the three big coins to collect. I'm like, okay, I'm just going through the level, but not doing anything. Having the goal just be "get to the end" is weird. I'm not used to that anymore.

5. New SMB Wii U is also super awesome and fun, though. It's also really short and easy? I mean, Mario games generally are pretty short, but this seems easier than the Wii one. I beat the cloud world tonight, which means there's just Bowser land left, and while there are still coins to go back and get, there's not a ton. Most were easy to get the first time through. (I know for sure I've completely finished worlds 1 and 2.)