Journal: Hello World!

Well, it's about time I started recording my thoughts somewhere. I never had a livejournal, nor a blog of any kind, but I knew I could count on /. I guess this journal update is for personal use only seeing as how there is nothing to discuss.

To start my /. journal I guess I should probably state why I am drawn to this site. Frankly, I'm a geek, god bless. I only really discovered it once I moved to Austin and met some geek friends that classified me as being geeky. I am only 15(a month away from 16), and I don't really think too much about the layers of social interaction.

I don't know as much as I should about some of the more important things in life(A+ certification type things(I need to learn more about hardware if I want to code properly after all)), but I do know a couple things about C++. I am self taught in the language of C++ and I have written a couple 3(or 2 depending on if a port from DOS to WIN32 counts) games. My first 2 games were just a clone of tetris, called tetrus and tetrus32. My 3rd game, which uses DirectX functionality for 2D graphics, is called eXtreme Pong. In case you haven't guessed it, it's based off of the classic video game, Pong. So what is so eXtreme about this Pong might you ask? Well the cool part is that each ball doubles everytime it hits the paddle. Okay, so it's not quite that extreme or even that hard to code, but I'm working on it.

Currently I am reading up on 'Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus' by Andre LaMothe. It is quite a wonderful book so far and is recommended for anyone that wants to learn about coding their own software 3D engine. I've always had a passion for games(seeing as how I grew up around them).

My father was a programmer and played Doom when I was but a mere 7 years old. I was always amazed at being able to control an object on screen with only the press of a button. I was even more delighted to find many a challenge in the games I used to play on my dad's old DOS operated system. Games like Commander Keen gave me much in terms of inpiration.

Back to me currently... Right now It looks as though I will be off to college soon. Thanks to the wonders of the Texas Academy of Math and Science(TAMS for short), I will be receiving 2 years of college credit whilst I earn my high school deploma. Not too shabby considering I get to do things that I enjoy. Currently I home school(proud member of the home school community since Jan. 2004). Okay, so I've only been home schooled for a short period of time, big deal. The reason I quit public schooling however is a different story(more along the lines of having to go to school with unappreciative 'kids' while getting bored with standard curriculum).

Now I have no clue where the At vector for this post is pointing to. Hopefully it's normalized and pointing to (0,0,1). That is, using the left handed system of course. Oh, now I remember... At the TAMS, I plan on writing games with my friend Alan. He codes a bit in Java, but he's more into 3D art so he will be my artist and I will be his coder. Together I hope that we can get better at making games and forge our way into the game industry. I have some ideas for some games that seem like they would be a lot of fun to play. To get a picture of what I would like to make, check out www.savage.com and read up about their new genre of games. I see that genre as being positive for growth, and I think some cool games could come out of it.

Oh well, I think I shall retire now that I have spewed my thoughts onto this digitized realm.

return 0;