Soar Above the Clouds

Lots of cool stuff happening for me lately.

First, last month I got an ODROID-S. It’s a really powerful device running Android 2.1 meant specifically for games, which leads to my next point…

My game is coming along very smoothly. The Replica Island source code was released some odd months ago, but development is ramping up now because I’ve got an artist doing the sprites and stuff, and his brother could possibly be doing the music, too. Recently, the design doc has fallen into place, and I’m about 1/3 done designing all the levels. The mechanics are 99% finalized and things are moving along at a brisk pace. I should be able to post some of his concept art soon.

Version 3 of my website, Project Gforum is also coming along great. I just posted a new preview of it on YouTube. It’s really light and slim, and takes cues from Google, Digg, Facebook, and Twitter for a highly polished UX. The open beta starts this Friday the 23rd, and if all goes well we might be looking at an August final launch.

Lastly, yesterday I just got a fantastic new camera, the Fujifilm FinePix S2550HD. It’s 12.2 megapixels, with 18x optical zoom (plus 6x or so digital zoom), with 720p HD recording capability. I got it because for the past two years or so, I’ve started to become really infatuated with certain views of nature. Almost every sunset, I get an excited feeling in my stomach just looking at it. Ditto for sunny days with blue sky and billowing clouds above green grass and trees. It’s really unexplainable I suppose, but I just really appreciate these sights. And I decided it was time that I find a way to preserve them.

I love all the options, although my favorites so far are the panoramic, landscape, and sunset modes. Flower mode is great, too. I opened a Flickr although the storage for free acounts really stinks and the uploader is mediocre, so I may just stick with Picasa. The above is one of the shots I took last night.

Lots of exciting things happening lately. Strangely, they’re not making me feel any more fulfilled, but they are making me happier. And that’s all I can ask for.
-Andrew