The troubles of doing stuff you really can't do yet...

As I'm working on one of my projects for experience and knowledge (I've passed the MCTS exams, but any practicle application of what I've know is still far away), I find that I can think in theory a lot of different things that should be cool, but when it comes to actually implementing the ideas I have I run in to a huge amount of walls.
Probably me not writing down what I'm thinking and planning it out doesn't help and the fact that I have more new ideas running through my head then solutions to the troubles I'm facing with my current project doesn't either...

I also don't have any friends who are doing this, just know one guy and I don't get the idea he's actually practising at all and even if he is he's never available to talk with and look for things and stuff... Maybe I can send him some stuff on Pownce and see if he replies to that.
I would like to work with people on a team to create an awesome program, but I don't know anyone for it...

Anyway, I should continue looking for things to do, I should also write some stuff down.
I know a lot of people programming and also scripting don't write down what they want to do first because it's more fun to just write stuff.
If I can offer one piece of advise to everyone who doesn't write stuff down (including myself), start writing, I've tried it a few times in school and it really helps speed things up.

My Games

Since I've been on my vacation I've had lots of time to play games. And surprisingly also the energy and motivation to finish them!
I've always been one of those many people that play a game untill 90% or so and then get bored or nervous or whatever and then quit playing all together.

First off Riviera: The Promised Land. A friend of mine was always talking about it, how cool and special it was and stuff. And it is, it's very unique from what I've played.
This is the first RPG that I know I've played that has a kind of railed system. You can't really walk around yourself, just choose which exit you want to use and which things you want to look at and stuff.
The battles are pretty unique too. Gathering items and using them correctly in battle. Gaining stats through mastering items/weapons (thank god for practise!).
At first it's pretty easy, you walk around a little stressing over you overal score and not knowing what the hell you're doing and stuff. Then near the end it suddenly turns tough. Beasts get a lot stronger, weapons become somewhat of a short-supply. Of course it could just have been my personal mal-organization of items that caused them to become somewhat rare and the fact that I often screwed up the action sequences (which are awesome btw, like mini-games whenever a trap or something similar appears). But in the end if you keep your weapons with you and use the right weaknesses it will all work out.
Didn't die much all throughout the game, maybe once or twice before the final bosses and then once or twice more at the final bosses.
It was fun in the beginning, but in the end I only kept playing it because I didn't want to give up and get stupid and forgetfull and try it again later.
There's a special Chapter 8, but I haven't felt like playing it at all. I don't think I'll ever touch it again.

Second, I started playing Brave Story: New Traveler right after I finished Riviera. I'd seen screenshots and it looked awesome and my friend had played it for like 5 minutes and tried to convince me to play it before finishing Riviera. But when I started playing it I was stunned...
The graphics looked awesome, the animations look beautiful, the idea of the main hero's weapon is perfect (even though it gets kinda bad at lvl4 imo, but then cool again at lvl5), the monsters look cool, the fact that in some circumstances they go crazy (or get 'crazed') is excellent although later in the game sometimes quite fatal.
The story is pretty weak in my opinion, but not so much so that it interfere's in the enjoyment of the game. The other characters are pretty cool, the kitkin girl's ears flap like a cat's from time to time, very good, the waterkin looks just damn awesome, the highlander's dual-wielding capabilities look just damn amazing, the pankin really annoys me but gets better over time and the knight joins pretty late so I don't know if I think he's cool.
Again just like Riviera it starts out very easy and keeps being pretty easy through most of the game but then near the end it becomes a lot tougher. Sure you get pretty good armor if you look around a little, but they have big downsides (half healing effect, half speed).
It is fun though, if you haven't tried it... you should, NOW!

Anyway, now I have to wait for Dragoneer's Aria to come out and Guild Wars: Eye of the North.
Untill then I'll probably play some Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology.

CVs Suck

Everytime I have to make another CV it is a big hassle. I can never find my old ones and since I had a somewhat strange history with schools and stuff, since I quit school, then went to another school and then quit that, picked it back up again 2 years later and then finished it.
I've done some strange work in the time I wasn't in school. Strange as in that at some point I was officially doing 3 different things and still sitting on my ass at home.
And then every time I finish one I get nervous about how wrong it is. Since I've never actually needed any of them it's kind of silly all...

My fight with a freezer...

I had a fight with a freezer today...

There was a lot of ice stuck to the top drawer and it couldn't open, so my girlfriend asked me to open it up so that she could have some of the ice cubes that were in it.
I first faced my foe the freezer during the afternoon, when my girlfriend asked me to see if I could get it open. Some half-assed attempts to see if I could get it open quickly with a hammer and a screw-driver I had to retreat and regroup because food was coming.

After dinner I went to face my opponent one more time. This time I tried first to remove the 2nd drawer all together, but I think the ice on the first drawer blocked it.
This time I no longer had the disadvantage I had with my first attempt because this time my girlfriend's sister wasn't sleeping right down the hall behind very thin walls.
I took the hammer again and scraped some of the top icing off. My opponent did not like this and thus tried fiercely to freeze my fingers. I tried knocking on the ice again with the hammer with no real effect.
My fingers were by now being seriously hindered by the cold and I was getting annoyed, one last time I took my hammer and scraped the ice furiously until a piece fell off. I then thought that it might be enough to force the drawer open by pulling it out and as I tried this the freezer was doing everything it could to stop me (so, basically, standing there blowing cold air my way and still freezing my fingers). With one firm pull all the ice still hanging from the drawer broke into pieces and fell down with a thunderous gasp.
And thus, my enemy lay in ruin and I had won, I had opened the cursed drawer and was looking for the spoils only to discover that there were no ice cubes in the freezer to begin with.
Even though I had won I was still beaten... I was sent on a fruitless quest and my dear damsel in distress had still not gained what she had sought.
Alas, but thus is life...

Oh yeah, I also got to Chapter 5 with Riviera.

My Vacation (so far)

Well, having been offline for pretty much 2 days because my girlfriend had time off, which was a lot of fun, I'm glad to be sitting behind a computer again. Going to strange cities that we've been to a hundred times before and the ceramic shops with her older sister sure are fun, but my place is still behind my computer.

Since I've been here I've started a new project, mainly for practice, but also for my girlfriend's mom. She loves playing those silly games that are made for the stay-at-home women, games like Zuma, Treasures of Montezuma and all such things (popular distributors being BigFish games, Popcaps and such, also often bringing along virusses).
Whenever I install a new game for her she gets lost because often she can find them or she doesn't remember which she asked me to install. So I've started a simple program for her with just simple buttons for every game she has. Currently they're all hard-coded into the program, but once I've added them all I will start working on ways to improve that and let her add things herself and stuff.
Just had a nice idea that will allow her to ask me to get new games (currently she has a list next to her computer, but we can digitise that now can't we). So I will be adding that today.

The last 2 days had been fun. When I got here on friday my girlfriend's sister invited me to go to antwerp with her and her boyfriend, and since my girlfriend had to work that day I though, why not. It was fun. I think I may have scared/bored her boyfriend by talking too much like I usually do, after a while he just had to run after his girlfriend into the most boring clothing stores you can imagine (for men, not women).
But of course my girlfriend wanted to go to Antwerp aswell. Which was fine, she just wanted to go to some manga/comic shops and sadly at the end also to the Body Shop and women/health shops like it. Then yesterday she wanted to go with her older sister to some ceramic shop semi-near here and of course I had to come along even though I don't even have the slightest interest in ceramics. It was fun, they had some good looking stuff and I had a chair on which I could sit and play my game.

That's pretty much it so far...
Now I'm off to my programming again, I might make a 'Projects' section later today to show off both my apps!