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Hello and welcome to my personal homepage. I hope you aren't here looking for much in the way of current information. Because if you are, it is my duty to inform you that you won't find it here. I keep meaning to update this site on a regular basis, but I never quite find the time to do it. I leave it for you to decide if that's because I'm too busy or too lazy. | |
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I finally found some time to work on my webpage, but now I'm too tired to make a decent post. The only "new" thing is the projects page. I finally got around to adding it, and it even has some projects on it. If you want to know what's been going on in my life, check out Jenny's Site. You might even see me pretending to be a rock star.
I just finished Dreamfall yesterday. For me, the biggest problem by far was the complete lack of a challenge. There just
wasn't any. None. The action and stealth sequences were sub par, but not horrible. The lack of puzzles was, well, puzzling.
The 3d models were nice looking, but not superb. I think they could have benefited from more polygons, especially on the pc
version. I used a joypad in place of the keyboard+mouse combo, but that was just my personal preference. The characters were
solid. The story and environment were fantastic. The story in particular was phenomenal for a game. Overall, there was
nothing about this game that I would call "bad". It's a decent, but easy game, built around a well put together story and
nice looking graphics. If they could put a little more polish on the action parts, add some more puzzles, and maintain the
story quality, the next installment in this series should be fantastic.
As you can see, I finally got around to changing the ascetics of the site. This time, I'm fairly happy with the results. Over the next couple of days I'll be adding additional pages to go with the currently non-functional buttons on the right-hand side of the page. Of course, I also have to make it render properly when viewed using Internet Explorer.
Now, on to me. I've gotten a job with a local video game developer named Gorilla Systems Corp. Traditional wisdom says that you should work doing what you love. Well, this job has been a verification to me that I love game/graphics development. Which is another way of saying that I really enjoy my job. Of course, since I am now working full time, I am no longer in school. For right now, that is fine. I'll probably return to school at some point, but I'm not in any hurry.
Last, but not least, we have moved into our new house. It's nice to finally have a place that we can paint and otherwise alter as we see fit. If you want to see pictures, visit Jenny's website, she has tons of them.
Books
I haven't read many books since my last update. I've been doing jigsaw puzzles instead.-
The Bourne Ultimatum (Robert Ludlum)
When I read the first couple of books from the Bourne series, I really enjoyed them despite the somewhat low quality of the prose. With this installment, I've lost interest in the series. The story just didn't seem "right" to me for some reason and I had to force myself to plod through a lot of the middle chapters.
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Chainfire (Terry Goodkind)
Chainfire was a surprise to me. I had been waiting for it to be released in paperback form because I didn't want to spend my money on a hardback only to be disappointed. After reading it, I can say that I wouldn't have minded spending the extra money on a hardback. If you enjoyed the earlier Sword of Truth books, but were disappointed by The Pillars of Creation and Naked Empire, give Chainfire a chance. I'm guessing that you'll probably like it, I did.
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Feast for Crows (George R.R. Martin)
As with Martin's other books, I liked this one. However, that didn't stop me from feeling like I had been short-changed. For starters, only half of the characters are in this book since it was split into two separate books, the other to be released at a later time. I can deal with that. What I can't deal with is the lack of resolution for the characters that were in this one. Martin has said that these books are supposed to end the story lines for most of the original characters, but the way he does it leaves al ot to be desired. He sort of just tells you what will happen to the characters, and doesn't actually finish their stories. If he leaves the characters like that, then I will be very disappointed.
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Shaman's Crossing - The Soldier Son Trilogy, Book 1 (Robin Hobb)
This book is a solid first installment in a new trilogy from Robin Hobb. What it isn't, is anything special. Hobb's Farseer books enthralled me to the point where I rank them among my favorite books ever. Unfortunately, Shaman's Crossing doesn't hold a candle to those books. That's not to say that this book is bad, it isn't. I just mean that it isn't as good as some of her other books. Even so, I'm looking forward to the next entry in the trilogy.
I haven't made a post in a while, and even though a lot has happened I don't have much to say. In other words, I'm
delivering what I promised in the above introduction, infrequent updates and no useful information. The biggest thing going
on is that we're still waiting on our house to be completed. Apparently, the city needs to install a water
meter before we can move in and they are in no hurry to do it.
In other news, I've removed the background image from the website in yet another attempt to tweak its' appearance. The result makes it look like I ripped off the Patterson's website (for those of you that know them). This means you can expect to see yet another ascetic change in the future.
Finally, you'll notice that this update contains an image. It's an image of the poster for movie Serenity. If you haven't seen it, you should. It's everything the new Star Wars should have been. Go see it!
Books
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The Tale of the Body Thief - Vampire Chronicles, Book 4 (Anne Rice)
Memnoch The Devil - Vampire Chronicles, Book 5 (Anne Rice)
As promised, I've finished the next couple of books in the Vampire Chronicles. I found both of them to be enjoyable, although book 5 is by far the more intriguing one. In fact, I've discovered that there is/was some controversy surrounding the book because of its' subject matter; which is God, the Devil, vampires, and the Christian faith. All I can say is, some people get worked up about anything. Look at all the people decrying Harry Potter for instance.
Well, school has started up again this week and this will be my first "real" semester as a graduate student. So far, so good.
I suppose that I should mention that my brother is no longer in Iraq. He's safely in Colorado and is currently enjoying his new duty as a painter. He and a few of his closest friends get to roll a new coat of paint on every building of the Army base where he is stationed. Lucky him :)Books
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Interview with the Vampire - Vampire Chronicles, Book 1 (Anne Rice)
The Vampire Lestat - Vampire Chronicles, Book 2 (Anne Rice)
The Queen of the Damned - Vampire Chronicles, Book 3 (Anne Rice)
I read Interview with the Vampire because I liked the movie. However, it wasn't my first Anne Rice book. That honor goes to, "The Mummy or Ramses the Damned", which I read a couple of years ago. The Mummy was an entertaining, if not spectacular novel. So I expected Interview with the Vampire to be along along the same lines of quality. It wasn't. In fact, it smashed my expectations and proved itself to be a superb accomplishment for Anne Rice. The second book in the series also proved to be a worthy novel. But when I got to "Queen of the Damned", the writing began to lose it's luster. It's not that the third book wasn't good, it was. It's just that it wasn't on par with its' two predecessors. It was more akin to The Mummy in terms on quality. Which is to say that it was entertaining, but not great. Regardless, I have high hopes for the next volume in the series and I'll post a blurb about it here when I finish it.
I've been messing around with the page layout again. It's almost impossible for me to refrain from doing so. In fact, I'm beginning to think that programming ability and OCD are more closely related than I'd like to think. Not that html design is anything like real programming, but the same temptation to fiddle with things is there. I also got tired of people asking me why I chose to place an image of trees on the top of the page. the only real answer to that question was, "why not?", and that never seemed to satisfy anyone.
Books
I've read quite a few novels since my last post. I doubt I can remember them all, but I'll try anyway.
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Harry Potter: The Half Blood Prince (J.K. Rowling)
Overall, a decent book. Maybe a tad-bit disapointing. This book basically fills in some gaps, and leaves Harry impotent seeming at the end. There is supposedly only one more book to be written in the series. However, I don't see how that's possible as I feel that the story doesn't have that "nearly finished" quality to it.
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Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
Speaker for the Dead (Orson Scott Card)
Xenocide (Orson Scott Card)
Children of the Mind (Orson Scott Card)
These four books comprise the Ender Quartet. They're good books and are well worth checking out.
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Interlopers
(Alan Dean Foster)
I grabbed this book purely to test-drive a new author. The story was entertaining, but ultimetely it was just a pulp sci-fi/fantasy novel.
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Storm Front - The Dresden Files, Book 1 (Jim Butcher)
Fool Moon - The Dresden Files, Book 2 (Jim Butcher)
Grave Peril - The Dresden Files, Book 3 (Jim Butcher)
Summer Knight - The Dresden Files, Book 4 (Jim Butcher)
Death Masks - The Dresden Files, Book 5 (Jim Butcher)
Blood Rites - The Dresden Files, Book 6 (Jim Butcher)
Dead Beat - The Dresden Files, Book 7 (Jim Butcher)
The Dresden Files is a series of books in which the main character is a professional wizard working as a consultant in today's society. The stories are simple, the plot-lines are of the who-done-it variety, and the good guy always wins. That doesn't stop the stories from being immensly fun to read. I'd reccomend these books to anyone, and I am looking forward to reading the next installment in the series.
I've reached the point where my laziness will not allow me to continue to type. I'll fill you in on the other stuff I've been up to in my next post.
I've decided that I'm going to make this site into a blog. I admit that I'm doing this out of laziness. After all, what sane person has the time to maintain the database of books, games, movies, and so on that I had originally planned for this site. I'll still talk about those things, but in a much less formal way.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I've finished my undergraduate degree and I'm now working on a Master's in computer science. Yeah me!
