It's been a while since I last posted, but it doesn't feel like it.. The weeks have been flying by recently, perhaps i'm getting old.. :/

The main consumer of my time outside work recently has been GTA: San Andreas, which was released for the PC (Windows - bah) on the 10th. Having preordered my copy from Play last month, I received my copy on the 9th. The basic gameplay is similar to GTA3, and Vice City. You run around, pick up guns, steal cars, run people over, crash, burn, and basically cause havoc. Rockstar have added much more detail than in the previous incarnations of the game. The game world is HUGE compared to Vice City, and those annoying area transition screens are gone. You can also choose how your character will look - if you eat lots of junk food you get fat, if you go to the gym and do lots of weights you build up muscles. You can choose your clothes and haircut too. If anyone enjoyed GTA3 or Vice City, and hasn't bought San Andreas yet, i'd recommend that you waste no more time.

Things have been going well at work, and despite having to force myself out of bad in the mornings, MS Word being the most horrific piece of software conceived, and a certain e-Commerce site being the bane of my existence, I'm enjoying the variety in the projects i'm working on. So far I've played with managed DirectX (C#/MS SQL Server), converted Word documents to PDF using wvWare and LaTeX (C), debugged and repaired chunks of LiteCommerce (PHP/MySQL), started work on a tool to help with a large web localisation project (Java/MySQL), and started work on a Content Management System that will run several sites that we will be building soon (PHP/MySQL/Smarty). An aspect that I especially like is that within the bounds of practicality, I get to choose what I use to implement stuff. It's also quite satisfying to be paid for doing something that I enjoy.

Following on from idea of getting old, Cat and I are looking to rent a flat together. If anyone knows of flats going in the West End (Glasgow) around August/September time, let me know.

I'm off to play some more San Andreas before bed. Mmm GTA.

Woo. This'll be my first post since my birthday. Nothing's really been happening, except for the party on Friday 28th. Much Jack was consumed, and all concerned appeared to have a good time.

I'm settling into work, getting my hands dirty with some managed DirectX using C#. There's plenty to do, and I can always go off and do some PHP, C, C++, or Java for a while if I get pissed off with DirectX. Life is good, and I get to choose what I code in. I also have a really geeky desk - two 20" Sony TFT monitors, a cool Sony VAIO desktop, and an evil genius style black chair. I may post pictures at some point..

I have also aquired a new toy - an O2 XDA, which is basically just a PDA with some phone bits added in. It's a bit of a silly size to use as a phone, and definately too fragile to go anywhere near the pub, so I'm just using it for games right now. I've found a fun bubble game, and I've installed SCUMMVM.

Mmm toys.

It's a bit depressing that I'm sitting up at quarter past 11 at night, and thinking that I should go to bed soon. Dear me.