A mixture of thoughts.
I still have a lot on my mind it seems. I thought i'd managed to clear my thoughts somewhat, and set aside the things that aren't imminently important, so i could actually concentrate on what is going on in the now. But alas i appear mistaken. Today was a mixture of, hope, frustration, disappointment, anxiety, confusion and annoyance. Yes, and i wonder how i ever thought my head was clear! hehe.
So let's start with disappointment, as it's a fairly trivial issue really, it feels better to get it out of the way. I've been researching into buying a new HD LCD TV. Done my homework, studied the specs, the opinions, the prices and formulated what, in my mind seemed like a reasonable plan. See the issue with the new HD tvs, is that the picture quality of the non HD content is worse than that of a regular TV. Can't be that bad surely? yeah right, looked at some stuff running on TVs in comet and currys this afternoon, it's diabolical! it's not even worth the effort! How anyone could buy one of those things and put up with such poor image quality is beyond me. Of course the HD showcases look fantastic, and i'm damn well certain the 360 would look spanky on it. But the majority of viewings on our TV is non HD content. Now there are some much better quality HD tvs that don't look half bad, but i dont want 'half-bad' i want fricken at LEAST half-decent. why not buy one of the good HD tvs? yes thats right, i'd have to sell my soul (maybe the cat as well) to afford one, £1500-£2000 for anything resembling good. So looks like we'll be sticking with our regular CRT for a while, which is a shame i was really looking forward to having a nice new TV to sit in our nice new house with.
Anxiety, confusion and annoyance somewhat tie in together. Went went to see Jeni and Lee today, had dinner there etc talked about various things, games, films, watched a bit of TV, generally a pleasure to be in their company. Until the issue (yet again) arises of why i am yet to hold their new born baby Benjamin. Not by Jeni and lee, they've been really good about it. Every time it's Sarah mentioning it. I've talked with Sarah about this several times and i get the same reasons why i should be wanting to hold him. "Warm", "Squidgy", "cute", "soft" various other words that don't sound like they are describing a person, more like a puppy or a kitten or some other such newly born animal. Why? Why, why, why? Why is it so important for people to 'hold' babies? babies are just small people that do not yet have the ability to repel advances on their fragile frame by cooing females that require to 'hold' them for no apparent reason other than the words described above.
I honestly don't get it. Don't get me wrong, i want kids, i want to raise my children to be proper upstanding members of society and help them achieve whatever they set their hearts on. But that doesn't mean i want to hold every baby i come across. Sarah has said she worries that i don't want children. If not holding babies is a significant factor in determining whether a man wants to father children, then i would imagine most men in the country fail this exam. If my holding a baby will make her feel at ease then i will do it. But it somehow feels wrong, it's not because i want to hold a baby, or Jeni and Lee's baby or anyone elses for that matter. The thought really doesn't appeal that much to me. It's like i have to do it to prove a point, Ben isn't a certificate of fatherhood, that by holding i gain by default. This is someone elses life i would hold in my hands, someone elses dreams. Babies aren't toys you pass round a circle of friends so they can 'have a go' because they are yet to acquire one.
If i were cute, cuddly, soft and squidgy (1 out of 4 aint bad!) people would not scramble to hold me every time they saw me. I mean aside from the issue of how much heavier i am than a baby =P Why are babies any different? They're all soft. They're all squidgy, most of them are cute and all of them are cuddly. I just dont get this whole need to smother and coo over every single cute thing on the planet. I mean that's sort of rhetorical. I know why. If it's to help out, fair enough. Sarah was feeding and burping Ben today, i'm sure thats a nice break for Jeni and Lee that do it several times a day, 7 days a week. But just holding, for the sake of holding, not for me i'm afraid. How i'm supposed to decide when i want kids, if i dont have a penchant for cute things or the whole female-brooding instinct thing going on?
OK. On to the frustration and hope. Talking to Lee this afternoon about the GameMaker tool he's been using at University. He showed me his first little assignment, which was to create a game based around the theme of collecting. Which was pretty good i have to say. The tool has a lot more depth than i expected. It became more apparent that the act of designing and scripting a gaming experience, would be more important to learn than any programming language. Just as knowing the principles of programming and the development life-cycle is more important than the syntax of a language.
I downloaded the free version when i got home, and to begin with just opened a few of the example games to look at how the structure of the tool works. I like it. I think it's a really clever. The concept of objects i use every day, great, i can do that. All the rules and events, actions etc. No problem, looks fairly intuitive with enough depth if i want it. Creating my own sprites and animations? Painful. There are plenty of sprites out there i know. But i always find myself looking at a .gif or a set of sprites thinking....what if it looked a little less...a little more...changed the colour...nothing is ever quite how i want it lol.
I especially liked the idea of creating a FFTactics type game using it, but i'm a long way off that sort of complexity. The game Lee had done didn't have moving sprites, pretty much because it's not included in the brief. So for now i don't suppose it's too important. I need to get this thought process out of my head. Yes i can program software. but that doesn't mean i should be trying to do the most complex polished looking thing i can, straight off the bat. Start small and build up. The difficulty i'm having is going from the stuff i do at work, which is quite complex, to doing much simpler things at home because i'm at an earlier point of learning. It's the switch of mindset that i'm having a challenge with. Frustrating, but at least i have a more structured direction to go in, rather than simply learning C++, which is daunting enough in itself.
So, no gaming tonight. I couldn't have my nightly porridge because we dont have enough milk either. bleh. So i had an apple pie that Sarah had attempted to bribe me with to hold Ben earlier. Porridge would have been better =P
So let's start with disappointment, as it's a fairly trivial issue really, it feels better to get it out of the way. I've been researching into buying a new HD LCD TV. Done my homework, studied the specs, the opinions, the prices and formulated what, in my mind seemed like a reasonable plan. See the issue with the new HD tvs, is that the picture quality of the non HD content is worse than that of a regular TV. Can't be that bad surely? yeah right, looked at some stuff running on TVs in comet and currys this afternoon, it's diabolical! it's not even worth the effort! How anyone could buy one of those things and put up with such poor image quality is beyond me. Of course the HD showcases look fantastic, and i'm damn well certain the 360 would look spanky on it. But the majority of viewings on our TV is non HD content. Now there are some much better quality HD tvs that don't look half bad, but i dont want 'half-bad' i want fricken at LEAST half-decent. why not buy one of the good HD tvs? yes thats right, i'd have to sell my soul (maybe the cat as well) to afford one, £1500-£2000 for anything resembling good. So looks like we'll be sticking with our regular CRT for a while, which is a shame i was really looking forward to having a nice new TV to sit in our nice new house with.
Anxiety, confusion and annoyance somewhat tie in together. Went went to see Jeni and Lee today, had dinner there etc talked about various things, games, films, watched a bit of TV, generally a pleasure to be in their company. Until the issue (yet again) arises of why i am yet to hold their new born baby Benjamin. Not by Jeni and lee, they've been really good about it. Every time it's Sarah mentioning it. I've talked with Sarah about this several times and i get the same reasons why i should be wanting to hold him. "Warm", "Squidgy", "cute", "soft" various other words that don't sound like they are describing a person, more like a puppy or a kitten or some other such newly born animal. Why? Why, why, why? Why is it so important for people to 'hold' babies? babies are just small people that do not yet have the ability to repel advances on their fragile frame by cooing females that require to 'hold' them for no apparent reason other than the words described above.
I honestly don't get it. Don't get me wrong, i want kids, i want to raise my children to be proper upstanding members of society and help them achieve whatever they set their hearts on. But that doesn't mean i want to hold every baby i come across. Sarah has said she worries that i don't want children. If not holding babies is a significant factor in determining whether a man wants to father children, then i would imagine most men in the country fail this exam. If my holding a baby will make her feel at ease then i will do it. But it somehow feels wrong, it's not because i want to hold a baby, or Jeni and Lee's baby or anyone elses for that matter. The thought really doesn't appeal that much to me. It's like i have to do it to prove a point, Ben isn't a certificate of fatherhood, that by holding i gain by default. This is someone elses life i would hold in my hands, someone elses dreams. Babies aren't toys you pass round a circle of friends so they can 'have a go' because they are yet to acquire one.
If i were cute, cuddly, soft and squidgy (1 out of 4 aint bad!) people would not scramble to hold me every time they saw me. I mean aside from the issue of how much heavier i am than a baby =P Why are babies any different? They're all soft. They're all squidgy, most of them are cute and all of them are cuddly. I just dont get this whole need to smother and coo over every single cute thing on the planet. I mean that's sort of rhetorical. I know why. If it's to help out, fair enough. Sarah was feeding and burping Ben today, i'm sure thats a nice break for Jeni and Lee that do it several times a day, 7 days a week. But just holding, for the sake of holding, not for me i'm afraid. How i'm supposed to decide when i want kids, if i dont have a penchant for cute things or the whole female-brooding instinct thing going on?
OK. On to the frustration and hope. Talking to Lee this afternoon about the GameMaker tool he's been using at University. He showed me his first little assignment, which was to create a game based around the theme of collecting. Which was pretty good i have to say. The tool has a lot more depth than i expected. It became more apparent that the act of designing and scripting a gaming experience, would be more important to learn than any programming language. Just as knowing the principles of programming and the development life-cycle is more important than the syntax of a language.
I downloaded the free version when i got home, and to begin with just opened a few of the example games to look at how the structure of the tool works. I like it. I think it's a really clever. The concept of objects i use every day, great, i can do that. All the rules and events, actions etc. No problem, looks fairly intuitive with enough depth if i want it. Creating my own sprites and animations? Painful. There are plenty of sprites out there i know. But i always find myself looking at a .gif or a set of sprites thinking....what if it looked a little less...a little more...changed the colour...nothing is ever quite how i want it lol.
I especially liked the idea of creating a FFTactics type game using it, but i'm a long way off that sort of complexity. The game Lee had done didn't have moving sprites, pretty much because it's not included in the brief. So for now i don't suppose it's too important. I need to get this thought process out of my head. Yes i can program software. but that doesn't mean i should be trying to do the most complex polished looking thing i can, straight off the bat. Start small and build up. The difficulty i'm having is going from the stuff i do at work, which is quite complex, to doing much simpler things at home because i'm at an earlier point of learning. It's the switch of mindset that i'm having a challenge with. Frustrating, but at least i have a more structured direction to go in, rather than simply learning C++, which is daunting enough in itself.
So, no gaming tonight. I couldn't have my nightly porridge because we dont have enough milk either. bleh. So i had an apple pie that Sarah had attempted to bribe me with to hold Ben earlier. Porridge would have been better =P