Hi, I'd like to take this opportunity to note that game programming kicks ass. It is exponentially more challenging and fun than any systems administration, text parsing, and other tedious programming. Where else can you combine advanced physics, graphics, and artificial intelligence in one project?

You won't find too many resources on this site for it though, I recommend you check out gamedev and the hundreds of other game development sites out there. A couple searches in google turn up tonnes of results. Make sure to learn OpenGL first, stay away from that directx crud. Programming for open systems and releasing the games under open source licenses is a great way to gain input. Also make sure to check out existing open source games, you can learn a lot from them.

Best of luck, and remember to have fun :-)