I. am freaking psyched.

Thanks to BemaniStyle, I now have the following songs to DDR to:

Du Hast.
Dragosta Din Tei. (aka "Numa Numa") (Which, I have happily discovered, I still know all the words to.)
Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" (Which is one of Tom's favorite songs to sing.)
Ievan Polkka. Sung by a Japanese chick. Retro video game-y music. And a flash-style animation of a little chibi anime girl waving a leek. IT IS AMAZING.

Also Tunak Tunak Tun, White and Nerdy, and You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record), which I am holding off on trying out 'til tomorrow, as motivation to play.

OH! AND! "It's the End of the World as We Know It". Which is pure fun on a 5, and more of the high-speed crazy spurts you'd expect on a 7. I really do enjoy spazzy high-pitched Jpop for DDR'ing, but, well-done tracks for things like U2 and R.E.M. and other things I love dearly are feeeew and far between.

All of the ones I've played so far, are FUN, and PLAYABLE, and not 13-feet or stupidly high bpms or anything obnoxious. ("Girlfriend" is a bit bland, mainly following the lyrics, but that works for that song.)


//end spazz


In other news! When Tom was finally able to drag himself back into work yesterday (his stomach is still easily disturbed, he wasn't hungry at all for dinner tonight), he found a message waiting for him.

One of the California WalMarts ACTUALLY GOT BACK TO HIM. !!!!! The guy said they had a few openings... one of which was the same shitty shift in the same department he's in now, go figure. But other options as well - mainly they were just calling to see if he was still interested.

As awesome as that is, what made me even happier, I think, was hearing Tom's bosses' reactions. Tom told his immediate boss that he'd call them back on his lunch break - and his boss pretty much dragged him bodily into a private office, and placed a store-to-store call, and while he was on hold for the guy who'd called Tom, he handed the phone to Tom and said "here ya go!". (Tom commented that a kick in the ass was exactly what he'd needed - and I was really happy to see that he realized that on his own, I've been thinking that for, oh, months? and I'm not really good at ass-kicking.)

Tom's mega-boss, I want to say he's an assistant manager? something higher-up, anyway. Took Tom aside and told him, very seriously, "I don't want to see you get screwed over." If, while looking into the California store, the offer, whatever, he had any concerns, any questions, this guy offered to talk to anyone in that store to make sure things would be good for Tom. He basically said, in almost as many words, that Tom's too good of a worker to get screwed over by WalMart. While this is something that we know...it's really reassuring to see that his bosses see it too. From what Tom told me, they're willing to go WAY out of their way to help Tom out, even if it means losing him in their own store.

...despite the inevitable evil of a chain-store's bureaucracy, I think Tom's got some pretty good people around him. (It's a little more obvious in my case, I think, I work right alongside the owners just about every day.)

Tom did make sure to tell them he'd need at LEAST a month's notice to make the move - on talking to me later, he said he'll push for a month and a half. Which has me *very* relieved, that spazzy chaos back in the fall was pretty terrifying for me.


In my own little world... never did hear back on the Photoshop tutoring thing. Pretty sure the girl's mom talked the dad out of it, he seemed like the kind of guy to jump waaaaay overboard before things have a chance to get thought through. I'm a little sad, inasmuch as I think it would've been really, really fun to work with the girl, but setting it all up would've been a decent enough hassle that I'm not heartbroken.

And I'm having enough design-fun on my own lately. This week, I learned how to print up lettering onto adhesive vinyl, and have our printer cut them out, and stick it onto plasticore sign-stuff - though the actual sticking-letters-onto-sign bit, I wimped out and just watched Chad do it, since I know full well I am awful at lining things up nicely. (Meanwhile *he* can freaking eyeball things, and line it up within like an eighth of an inch. gahh.) BUT! I also got commissioned to make brand-new labels for all the paper we repackage and sell in smaller amounts. Chad wanted a *total* overhaul on the labels, a much cleaner look, like the type used by other companies. Something we could adapt to all the stationary. I need to snag a jpg of it when I have a chance and post it, because I am seriously proud of what I came up with. Very simple, very elegant, very clean, black and white, readable, very usable - but with pretty little toile-esque swirls and flourishes in a thin border around the edge. It is so freaking pretty, it makes me so happy to look at it.

God I am such a nerd.

I have also been drawing, mainly on my days off, because once I get into Photoshop, I pretty much disappear for a few hours. Three works-in-progress, in varying stages of completion... really, I have no idea how close I am to finished with any of them. The naiad, I thought I had a long way to go, BUT, in playing around with my bajillion different layers... I found a much more stripped-down look that I really, really like. So it might go in that direction and be done a lot sooner. We'll see. These are me-projects, things I am doing entirely for myself, starting with something totally random that popped into my head, and finding out what happens when I put it into Photoshop.

I still don't have a real style to my drawing+Photoshop. I have two very different ideas of what I want, which is half of my problem.


...aaaand so much for getting to bed early tonight! Time to drag the eyeballs away from the ol' glowing screen.