How are we all? how all is well.
I am a newbie yay me. i have just signed up to this site and thought i would say hi

so a little about me and history...
I've just recently turned 30 and live in Brisbane Australia.
When i was 10 my father came home with a massive box, inside? a commodore 64, oh how i smiled.
One day my father made a new friend, it turns out he knew programming and i guess to get me out of the house my father organized for me to have lessons. i made a game where you were a scuba diver and had to retrieve the treasure. there was an octopus guarding the treasure and a ship dropping torpedos.
after that game i didn't touch anymore coding until i got my first job as a receptionist when i was 17 or so. the guy next to me was an IT guy and worked with Vb all day. when the managers were not looking we would make silly rpg's and horse racing games in Vb3 (or6 i can't remember).
after this i found beer! and wasted my time until i was about 23 / 24. it was then i discovered that anyone could make websites (previous to this i thought it was done in some company somewhere with expensive equipment or something). i taught myself html, css and PHP and fell in love with web development. then i found "Macromedia" flash MX.. WOW! i can make animations!!... later, OMG i can make games!!.. i made a r-type style game with baaaad graphics, then i creaped a fly swatting game. i then joined a collab and make a "don't whizz on the electric fence" game.
i found more beer and wasted a few more years.
about 2 years ago i sat at work and thought.. "really!? this is my life? staring at a spreadsheet all day long!??" Badda Bing badda boom i joined University. the first year was nothing, i knew everything they were teaching so much to the point that i was just logging in getting assignment completing and gaining HD.. i started getting bored, then came the Java unit.. at first i hated it.
i lost interest in uni about 5 months ago and left. i have been working one day a week in our online services team where i did a web dev role. then one day they asked how i would go making a flash game.
i gave it my best go, i was able to finish this game and debug it to no bugs (so far)
the client loved this game and my confidence boosted.
i started learning more java and Actionscript3 until about 2 weeks ago i thought.. i think i would like to make games.
i then found Ludum Dare and thought WOW this sounds awesome so now i'm frantically trying to learn game programming so i can participate
i am kind of starting with Actionscript as i find it easier to learn so hopefully i can learn the core concepts of game development and then head into java with it.
but now i'm starting to think i should just dive right in with pong and Java.. i tried searching for tutorials but they were all different so i was confused on the correct way of doing things. then in found this site and here i am.. im going to go through your threads and see if i can find a good beginner start to Game programming in java

i'm also have way through Buckys (the new boston) java tutorials

alot of fun , some thigns i find wrong, some confuse me alot (interfances and enums)
so anyway hope to stay and have fun here and learn alot

cheers