I don't use spell check

It's a toaster.  Get it?

Okay so that's not entirely true, but for the most part I don't spell check, I just write right into the blog.  Luckily I'm an avid firefox user and it usually does the spell-checking for me.  Fact of the matter is, I'm absolutely terrible at spelling and have been for a very long time.  From about the time I learned how to spell (or rather, what spelling was and not necessarily how to preform it well)
I don't use spell check.

I rely on spell check.

Two very different concepts there.

Its rather similar to what I do when I code (at least for now, before I take all of my higher-level classes)
I look at something, don't understand it and play around with it until I either a: understand it, or b: get it to work like I want and then pray that it holds together.
I did that on a final last quarter working with my friends David (you've heard of him before, awesome, bearded man) and Brian (also awesome, not so much bearded though) on a game that wanted to do more than use standard FPS (first-person-shooter, or first person perspective in this case) controls so I set about trying to figure our what made the camera tick.  Turns out the camera used a mathematical concept called Quaternions, which to this day I still have no real idea what it is.  I googled them, read the Wikipeida entry (thoroughly) but am only more confused than I was originally.  I know it involves sets of four points, and imaginary numbers.

(If anyone is a mathematician or math major, I'd really appreciate if you could bestow understanding upon me!  I'm only in Calc. 1!)

Anyway, I had to figure out how to control the camera using math I had no clue about, and I managed to do so (with some rough patches here/there) and as it would turn out our professor was so impressed with our attempt at camera control (apparently nobody thought to ditch the first-person-perspective before, or at least with as great a degree as we did) that he went back and, understanding Quaternions, overhauled his game engine for the next class to come along based, somewhat, on what we had done!
That's good, right?

Sidenote: we did our games last quarter in Iridel, if you have XNA and wish to tinker around with it, by all means go ahead, the documentation isn't to bad!

I still base segments of my game's code on how our professor set up the engine.  Goes back to that idea of relying on spell checker instead of using it.  I rely on the core Iridel components to conceptualize how to achieve a certain goal in my games sometimes.

But it's as good a way as any to learn, I guess, if nobody else is teaching you at the moment.  Another great way to learn, as I have come to see, is to teach others.  Even if you don't entirely understand it, try to teach it to others, and you may come out with a better concept of what you are trying to accomplish on your own end.

I do it for Judo, I still suck but I can see where a throw goes wrong, and apply it to my own throws.  At least in theory, I still get slammed every once and a while.
Ah, yes, I forgot to mention, I'm an avid martial artist.  Please don't try and find me and challenge me to a ninja fight, I'm no Bruce Lee, I just happen to love martial arts!  Side note about my self, hope you didn't mind.

Look ma!  GIGANTE EXTRANJERIA!

I don't know why I included that, I was just going through my old stuff seeing if there were any game screens I wanted to post of any of my old projects.  Internet, I still don't know if we are friends enough to run the embarrassment of seeing my old games (nah, I just couldn't find any screens) so here's a 3d rendering I did a while back instead.  I just like pictures!  Probably a side-effect of my hard core addiction to the Chive. Check it.  I may have just made you Chivers.  Its awesome, don't look back.

Well, I think that about does it for today.  I just ate half a can of peanuts.  I probably shouldn't have done that, I meant to eat in moderation today... nuts.

Well hopefully I can work that off tomorrow.  Well see...

So long, and farewell my internet-based friends,

- Kev

P.S. - DAVID CLEANED UP SOME OF MY CODE AND IT LOOKS SO MUCH BETTER!
100+ lines have been removed.  If you code, you know that's kindof a big deal.

You don't code? Why are you even here?