*gasp* A post that only has tangentially to do with Shining Force 2! Shock! Horror! Raijin3!

... okay, now that those things are out of the way, a question towards those more developmentally or graphically inclined.

I've decided that, with some of my so-called "free time", I'm going to start coding again. My not-so-1337 coding 'skills' are getting rusty. Really rusty.
So, I've been kicking around a couple of development projects for me to do for some time now, and I think I'll work on one of them. Probably two.

The projects, thus far (and feel free to suggest more, as long as they are simple; don't need another like #2 there):

1) Diebot.: Ye gods he needs a makeover. Right now, the poor evil chap is running on mIRC with a compatibility layer slapped over him (Wine) to run under Linux. What does that mean? My poor diebot, originally smaller than half a meg and ran in the same amount of memory now takes up 206 MB of RAM and uses up half of the CPU time being used on that computer.
This is simply unacceptable. I'm working on porting him over to the scripting language for irssi - perl. A real version of perl, not the hack that mIRC has. irssi even runs on toasters, so I shouldn't ever have to port him again after that. This should be relatively quick once I learn more perl. Problem is that I know next to nothing in perl. :P Diebot should take less than 200 lines of code, so I could do this in a week if I actually sat down and tried, so it would obviously be this and something else to work on.
I don't really need help on this one other than encouragement and someone giving me ideas on what to add/take away from him. This portion more pertains to the #asr crowd reading this.
EDIT: It just dawned on me. I have everything needed to make Diebot work under multiple protocols thanks to bitlbee - including MSN, Y!M, Google Talk, and Skype. Oh hell yeah.

2) A Strategy RPG (well, the engine at least): This is the one that I'd need a metric ton of help on. Simply put, I want to make a Strategy RPG for the PC that runs under both Linux and Windows, and not just one that uses a command line to play. Something in the vein of Vandal Hearts / Shining Force (told you, tangentially related. :P). The algorithms to make things work and the AI, I can probably handle. Problem is, I suck with graphics. Horribly. Not just the graphics themselves (that I could probably get something up to ShF1 levels, but I know lots of other people reading this could do better), but also graphical programming. I'm not as worried about the plot and storyline, I just want an engine to start with. Due to the languages I have experience with and what I have available, it'll probably be done in C++ and the graphics using some universal library like Qt or GTK+. OpenGL would be awesome, but I don't know of anyone that is capable of that (including myself). Maybe I'll pick up a book on that one.
In short, I need help with the graphics for sure, graphical programming for sure, and probably some help in other areas.


3) My website: I know, technically not programming, but still along the same lines. My website has been neglected for who knows how many years, and I'm extremely far behind in CSS knowledge (and PHP, and practically anything not XHTML or HTML). Really though, I'm at a loss for what to put up there. I already have the Sharna Wiki and my Photos - I did little to nothing to work with the backbone behind those pages, and those are the parts of my website more important to me. My journal is here, and I'd rather not have to deal with three locations where my journal goes (two is bad enough). I could write about computer stuff, start up a computer part review site (I certainly buy enough parts between my computers and the computers I work on) or an old video game review site. Seriously, I have 5 terabytes of bandwidth per month and I think I'm using less than 50 megabytes right now. I need to use my site for *something*.
In this case, I need more help with ideas (and a flow of ideas, not just an initial idea) rather than the site itself; I could always use help with writing content, of course, and help from someone more familiar with CSS and PHP would be of great use.
EDIT: Forgot to mention. Chances are, I'm changing the name of my site and keeping the old domain name as a redirect, so don't think it has to be related to the current name. :P


That's all I have so far. Hell, it looks like I could use some ideas on ideas on projects even. *sweatdrop*
Any help/advice/suggestions?