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From Zero To .. Stupid

From my last post, where i was devoid of any creativity, to stupid amounts of too much stuff.

It began with hanging out on the Gamedev mirc channel, as a lot of stuff does, when my interest was peaked about non-Clarion coding.

I downloaded and installed Visual C# Studio Express, along with XNA. Now, although there’s probably quite a lot of people who naysay XNA, but for me .. it’s gold. I like that it takes away a lot of the lame stuff (creating a window, directx, ..) .. and lets you get into action quickly. Now, this is coming from a guy who hasn’t programmed more than a half-baked hardly-started game or two.

Also, I’m becoming much more appreciative of GIMP, the GNU Manipulation Program. It’s good. Not as good as my trialling of Photoshop, but still .. it’s going to do me until i can afford Photoshop. Or maybe further than that. Depends how easy it becomes to churn out a comic or two. On the subject of comics, the next one is coming .. soon.

And finally, there’s Blender. I’ve raved about this puppy before, but now have spent some time learning the basics. It’s awesome. I’m gonna upload a little pong (really basic) game that was a tutorial for XNA. Blender took not long at all (minutes) to bash up a nice looking paddle and ball. Because it’s a modeller, it’s a lot easy to render something that looks like a ball than draw it (because i’m a newb .. ).

Looking forward to integrating Prototype and Rico into Dev Dawn. Should be able to clear up a lot of my lame ajax code and add some nice imaging. Although, am conscious of keeping the site lean.

‘Nuff for Now,

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A Slow Rebuilding

I’m not sure what to write. I’m experiencing a downtime in creativity, and i don’t know why (I guess a little more introspection might help). Maybe more a downtime in excitement. Not so much a downtime as a slow time. Ha ha .. enough changes there. I’m going through a period of slow creative motivational excitement. _Much_ better. Ha.

Really. Writer’s block sucks. Will be past it in a little while, but thought i’d share the pain.

Out.

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Weekend Clear

Left my laptop at work on Friday afternoon with the clear intention of picking it up later that evening. It’s now Monday morning, and the laptop never made it home.

Not sure if anyone else out there watched it, but there was an interesting game of rugby on early Sunday morning (our time). Australia played Wales. It ended up a draw.

It was a good game. Attacking rugby, great defence, and some amazing plays. Latham again demonstrated that he is without peer at the back of the field. He caught a ball on the 22 and made it through at least 4 defenders to score down the sideline. Very cool. He’s got better momentum (leg-pumping) than a lot of forwards, and the desire to never give in.

It was sad to see George Smith not even on the bench. I get that they are experimenting. And that Phil Waugh offers leadership. I hope he’ll be back for the next test.

‘Nuff about the rugby. I’ve got work todo.

Cheers,

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The Problem With Calling Them Out

One of the blogs I visit caused a fair amount of consternation this week. Paul Stamatiou posted on bloggers to retain their (me too i guess) blog’s integrity and reputation.

Parts of the post make a lot of sense. Paul usually does make sense. The message of the post is clear .. know your stuff. It has given me a kick in the pants, making me try and tighten up my posts.

However, it doesn’t stop me cringing a little upon reading the post. There’s a fair bit of arrogance behind it (arrogance isn’t bad). Not because of the statements themselves, but how they are delivered. Paul is an A-List blogger, in my opinion. He’s got a pretty large audience. Obviously, blogs are opinions. That’s cool. Paul’s entitled to his. I just think the message could have been delivered with a little more .. i guess .. meekness.

Some of his phrasing, particularly with reference to Robert Scoble, Donna Bogatin, and Steve Rubel, was pretty alienating. I’m not going to go into any theories as to why the post was written. Just that I think it could have been written differently. A general callout. Maybe some carefully pointed but disguised digs. A little tongue in cheek humor. But ..

BUT BUT BUT

Then we wouldn’t be talking about it. I probably wouldn’t be writing about it. It wouldn’t be news. So .. my opinion really matters squat in this.

It’s pretty easy to have a bad day. Lots of people have them I’m told. Maybe Paul was having one. I’ve had one once. Or twice.

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On a different note, today I was doing a bit more thinking about the social aspects of the web. Linking mostly. The linking of each other’s blogs.

Personally, I’m not into the swapping links like crazy, hardly speaking with people, just blinging them up. That’s got it’s advantages, sure. You get a lot of spider-webby networking going on. People visiting your site can visit ten other people’s etc etc. I’d rather have a few links, and those links are people I know, or have some tighter connection with than just .. TEH WEB AWESOMELY.

Haven’t been able to wrench myself away from work (ha ha) to get some comics up. I’ve got them in my drawing book, lots of them .. just getting it from there (or my brain) into the computer takes a while longer, even with the blessed Wacom.

Soon. But not yet. But soon.