Situation Diffused and Do I have some Time for stuff?

I'm going to be a busy person over the Memorial Day weekend.
Work, Work, Work, Work!

Working on finishing some school stuff yippee! It's been hectic. Software Development has become the nuclear fallout retainer of classes, as the atom bomb was dropped there over the past three weeks. I (as well as the other teammate) have came to the fact that one of the team members has been narrow-minded, argrumentative for the sake of getting his way and not compromise, and generally has left a bad rapport with instructors and teammates. Instead of cutting the problem (which we can't... It's a "group" school project), we have already had our areas assigned, so I just plan to do mine, have them functionable and have them to show and ready to implement. I already know he's gonna try to do his own, we'll see where that lands him.

So after that blood-pressure riser of a situation, I'm left to think: I need to find time for my side projects. HA! Time is a luxury I cannot afford, after school work and the dealings of that debacle of a class, I have to take a load off or I'm gonna go off the rails of the crazy train. That really doesn't leave much time between that and the other daily functions I must carry out to sustain my own life. But if I find a few moments every now and then I try to utilize them as much as possible. I'm about to start developing my DLLs that will serve as the base of some of my early portfolio work.
I'm also planning to get ideas for my final project and for other ideas that I shall shell out. I'm going to be making a warp-speed jump into the third-dimension around the end of October, as I'll start to move my development into learning that trade.

Saw Star Wars Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith. Best prequel I feel, Ties everything together. But as far as the state of Star Wars I decline to comment. Bring me my phaser and beam me up Scotty!

So until I have more interesting and juicy gossip about my life, sit back and pop a fart. It won't be much longer.

Rantings: Trip to Dallas, Six Flags, G4TV, general.

*This is the first post with the words 'the beginning' NOT appearing in the title line*

Just got back from a weekend in Dallas, took some time to relax from the stresses of everyday life. Enjoyed a few days at my brother's house and it was quite peaceful. Until we went to Six Flags and the rollercoaster section was approached! :P.

It was hotter than hell, it felt like an amusement park that was built on the surface of the sun. It was so hot, that the turkey leg dealers were cooking them on their tin roofs. Not really but you can get my vision of how hot it was. (Temperature wise it was high 90s, but felt like 100+)

The rides were great, it was my first time to the park (out of all the time I've spent in Texas), and I was genuinely pleased and will be back again (I have a season pass). It was a wonder I went on the parachutes, I have a heightened sense of acrophobia and it just kept going, then I was hoping that the carriage wouldn't fall at 9.8m/s.

One thing I refused to go on, based on height, was the observation tower. My brother went up the thing and according to him and his wife, he sat down almost half way up and did not get anywhere near the windows at the top.

It was great to have alittle fun, though I have to say that I took at least 3 mini showers underneath the water sprayers strewened throughout the park. I didn't like the fact it was overly crowded, but that's with all theme parks.

Beside that, we spent most of the time at my brothers house, where I caught some of G4TV. What a tragic waste of a good TV channel. Gone is the intellectual stimulus and in it's place is crap like 'The Whip Set.' How many more of these silly-arse car modification shows could you subject people to? I watched some of the repeat E3 coverage and its easy to spot sham reporting.

The roundtable panel consisted of the Xplay team (which I normally have no problem with, as they are the least slanted of the panel), the editor of IGN (who showed his true colors, green with $'s imprinted, offered the biased fanboy POV. Which I dispise). Then they had another guy, this is the first time I've ever seen him (though I rarely watch G4TV because it's gone to crap, this guy was the monkey in the middle but it was painfully obvious when he'd lean one side or another).

So I watched, at first with open mindedness. Adam and Morgan successfully gave me an at least honest view of what they saw, the guy from IGN I will not get started on, all he could do is seethe and drool over the Xbox. The third guy he was just the guy you know who always tries to add his two cents and it's so skeptical that you put him on ignore after the first few attempts.
The reason I bring this up, is the reason why crap has gone so slanted with coverage of games. To have a 'good' game, it seems you better have money to tool with the media, otherwise your game is as good as the 10 buck bargain bin. Reguardless of the game. They debated the rendering/real-time issues of PS3 games. Some of the Xbox 360 games looked like the belonged on the Xbox. This and their 'speeches' left them open for alot of criticism, though fanboys would disagree. I personally think Revolution did the right thing, keep a lid on it until the cement has dried a bit more. I think the Xbox 360 is too premature for it's projected release date and there's extensive debate on what the PS3 will be able to do come time to be placed on the shelf.

It's not hard to spot a render, though a fanboy of a system will automatically accept it as real-time.

But things in general, life is good, I've been working more towards getting alot of things done, and done within due time. I have alot of reading to do, but that's never a bad thing, unless I'm buried in it :P.

So until the next time, it's off to the batcave!

New Semester, The Beginning of Things to Come!

A new semester dawned for me this past Monday. After this one I will be in my final semester at college. It has been a long and winding trip. I'm still learning to the day, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

OpenGL is going great on the first week, I already feel confident enough that I could write a missile command type game in it already (and this is after my first day of lectures). In fact I probably will go ahead and do it this weekend, The homework won't be too much this weekend, I have virtually a 4 day weekend during the summer. Writing the base for it would only take me a small hour, I think I shall do so. Hot Diggity Dog! (Those last three words was TOTALLY not myself).

Linear Algebra is promising, I think the key is turning to my future and I smell the 3rd Dimension calling my name. After this class there should be nothing to stop me from getting medieval on it.

Software Development is going to be, well... Interesting. 3 of us are in there, and we've got over our first little speed bump. One of the members of the group, Joey, has created a very neat PHP area to record our ideas for a game, the pros and cons and add comments to them. The other person, Robert, has not been too warm with the idea. For myself I'm hoping we can create a good, admirable game out of this, one that has a fun factor to it. It will require planning and I sure as hell hope that we can work this out without someone's feelings getting hurt. All 3 of us are going to have to sacrafice, compromise and give alittle when it comes to the collective goal of the team. I hope the others share that sentiment :).

But on another front, I'm starting my first project outside of school, and this is going to be a game (no, really, what did you think it'd be????) that I have been conceptualizing for roughly the time span of a semester. Yes it will be 2 dimensional, and it will have levels. I plan to show what I'm capable of with this project. Some realtively new stuff I've learned will come into play here (been reading some "read this and take away what you get from this" type articles, I'm broadening my horizons). I cannot go into great detail, but I will tell you its a platformer, and I have been having fun coming up with gameplay concepts, storylines and the little game details.

It looks like this is the start of something great. If I do plunk down to make the Missile Command type game, that's one more for the books. If this team project works out well, another plus. If my game idea gets conceptualized and finished by the end of the semester, I will buy some parachute pants and publically humiliate myself by doing the "Can't Touch This" dance. Oh how much of a dork I am :) (It makes me who I am).

The Beginning

I have joined the darkside...

So I decided to make a Blog for me, As this will serve as my public ramblings about my life, programming, college, and my future profession.... It will have my musings, offbeat humor and everything else you could say about my life. Now for alittle about me.

My name is Patrick Johnson Jr., for those who haven't gathered that yet :). I'm big into music, games, guitars and programming. I'm 21 and a current student in the field of Computer Science with a major in Graphics and Simulations Programming at Texas State Technical College. I am graduating in December 2005 :D. I've always been passionate about games, ever since I played my first games on the Apple ][ way back when (It was a game where you'd hop a spy across these platforms and try not to get smashed by pistons).

The first system I ever owned was the Nintendo Entertainment System when I got it for Christmas in 89. That did it... It started me wanting to make games, and so I set out to do that. In junior high I started getting into programming and got more into it with the years. I got into TSTC with aspirations for game making and I've been working towards that goal. I'm currently one of the two slated to graduate in December (out of the many that started out with us).

What This Blog is about...
This blog will accentuate my website that holds my portfolio. In here you'll here my musings, ramblings and amazement of went right and what went wrong with my projects, updates to my life, and my ideas.

What This Blog isn't about...
This blog isn't about my ideas for games, If there is a game I want to make you'll see it in form and not in text. As soon as that happens, I'll talk about it here with discretion. Then when it's done, I'll talk freely like someone taking the duct tape off my mouth (better not do that, I'd hurt like hell seeing facial hair hurts when pulled).

I hope to have a fun, fruitful and prosperous area to speak on my little soapbox on the web. Here's to the start of something :).