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Showing results for tags 'personal'.
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Just a heads-up that I'll be out of town until Sunday evening with the possibility of limited internet, so I might be slower to respond to PMs and the like until then. In the event I really can't get on to BZP at all, an early happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans!
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Add me to the tally of BZPers who've voted. In the spirit of keeping things non-political on BZP (first person to make the oxymoron joke gets one right in the kisser), I'd rather not disclose my vote publicly, but it's one I was proud to make. (If you are madly curious for some reason, feel free to contact me privately.) If you're reading this, and you've yet to vote, and you're able to do so - do so. Even if you're not in a 'swing state', your support does matter - the electoral vote might decide the president, but the popular helps to understand the zeitgeist. And in any event, elections are about more than presidential/vice presidential. Sometimes the representative right at home has more effect on your life than the president thousands of miles away.
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It just reads what it wants. Oh my god, watch it write. Look at it: What's that in its hands? Oh, it's got a novel? Oh, it reads backwards? The book badger. (Awesome member title by Tolkien, courtesy of Hahli Husky, and awesome art by Bri Hermanson, courtesy of Google Image Search.)
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Hoo boy. Where to start? Well, last Wednesday sounds good. So as you may have heard, last week was my final week at Microsoft. This was all well and good, but there was also the slight issue that this meant I needed to present my summer's work to management on Thursday morning. (I actually wound up doing it twice at my boss' request, but more on that in a second.) As you might expect, I was pretty busy Wednesday revising and re-revising and practicing my presentation. When I did finally get home about 8 PST, I got a message from Valixia and Velox asking if I could sit for the ECC critic final interview. After I grabbed some dinner, we went ahead and did it - and it must have gone well, since I was hired immediately afterward. I was now an official ECC critic. Figuring that would conclude my major BZP business for the week, I retired for the night. In the morning I woke up and checked BZP to find a message waiting from me. Well, two, actually. The first was from Valixia asking if I could write up an ECC bio. The other was from Black Six asking if I would be a Forum Mentor. After shaking my head for a second to make sure I was actually fully awake (this was all at 7:45 in the morning, remember), I sent back my acceptance, albeit with a note that I'd be pretty busy the next few days. Still, it was a nice confidence booster going into my presentation... ...which couldn't have gone much better. I got through in the allotted time, fielded some questions from management, and managed to show off how my project would be legitimately helpful in the future. My boss apparently agreed; that afternoon we sat down for my final review, which to not bore you all on went well. I got home to see a response from B6 in my inbox about my acceptance. I relaxed a bit that evening - but not too much. I still had a second presentation to get through the next day. So, Friday. Woke up, got into work, gave the presentation to a different group, where it went over very well (though I can't say why without breaking several NDAs, haha.) That afternoon I had a meeting with my recruiter, who offered me a position next year as well. I tentatively accepted - the formal acceptance and all that will come later, after mountains of paperwork and talks with my family. That night I went out with some friends, then came home and packed. Saturday I was up early to catch my flight. Security and all that went as well as could be expected; the only problem was rather than the almost straight shot MS had originally booked for me, I was set to fly to Houston and then back up to Wisconsin. This is apparently cheaper for MS somehow. The flights consisted mostly of sleeping and A Game of Thrones, which I was rapidly finding more and more reasons to kick myself over not starting earlier. I got in pretty late Saturday and hit the hay before too long. Sunday was unfortunately not the day of rest I'd have liked. Since I'd be moving out Monday, I had to consolidate my stuff from Seattle and my stuff from college last year and get it all packed together. It was also raining like the dickens, which kind of precluded going out for much of anything. Monday, I finished up the packing and took off for my junior year of uni. This year I'm living with some friends in an apartment right near campus, rather than a dorm, so move-in was a little interesting. Unfortunately we got so sidetracked hanging out and stuff that we didn't actually put together my bed, so I crashed on the couch and was gently reminded of just how loud this town can get at night. I missed it. Tuesday was that time-honored tradition of running around campus figuring out where my classes actually are. At a uni this big, that is a concern, believe me. And here we are Wednesday, mostly settled in, my name now a shiny turquoise color and myself still moderately shell-shocked. Classes start in about a week (though I'll be getting out of town this weekend for a quick trip with my family), but until then I suppose I'm mostly just catching my breath before the semester starts. I do still have a good chunk of A Game of Thrones to get through, though, and a new internet job. Those seem to be keeping me busy enough for me to come up with blog title references mixing the two. (Oh, and guess who can't seem to grasp the concept of "blog posts are published on 24-hour time"? Here's a hint. It is me.)
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Long story short: I got hired back for another summer at Microsoft next year. Now to get back to Wisconsin, get my stuff together for junior year, and move into my new apartment. Once things have settled down in a couple days, I'll probably make a blog post going into this crazy week in more detail. 'Till then, back to packing.
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I was going to post a funny gif here, but I can't think of any to represent "busybusybusybusybusywhyyyy" So yes. Second-to-last week here at MS, moving back on the 25th. Semester starts on the 2nd. This is probably going to be the first year I can say I'm less busy during school. On a somewhat more BZP-related note, I've actually got an epic idea that will probably get written. No, really! It's got protagonists (three of them, or four, or six, depending on how you count) and antagonists and drama and paradoxes and now all it needs is the other 50% of the plot. It would take place in the same canon continuity as my Spherus Magna short stories, though it wouldn't be a direct sequel to any of them. Though the real fun bit has been coming up with the original characters for it. I think I'm seeing why you BZRPGers get so into it. Oh! And I still need a member title. Any ideas? I'm partial to "Not Half Bad With Words, Apparently", but it's a tad long.
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Working at Microsoft has certain advantages. Today that advantage was gathering with about 90 other teams (for a total of about 950 interns) to take over campus in a massive puzzle hunt. This year's theme was video games; we gathered in one of the conference centers where we were greeted by a variety of costumed characters (including Vivi from FFIX; respect points for that, MS). After an intro video paying homage to a variety of villains old and new, we were provided with our swag (T-shirts) and puzzle sets and provided a conference room to take over. A few of the challenges we faced throughout the day: Solving a Katamari-based maze to get instructions to stop by Building 18... where we then had to roll a real Katamari around the building and pick up clues, which we then had to decode. (Answer? Carl Sagan, of course - who else would be the king of all Cosmos?) Real-life Angry Birds, via slingshot and water balloon. Using a set of clues to decode the preferred boss order for a hypothetical new Megaman X game, and then using that order to find a different message hidden within the physical attributes of the bosses. A few mad dashes across campus to find additional pieces of the main meta-puzzle. IDing/matching game soundtrack samples. To say I rocked this one would be an understatement. A truly diabolical game of minesweeper, the results of which provided code in semaphore. And, of course, plenty of free pizza. The objective was to use the answers and results from the puzzle set to solve a first metapuzzle which then lead to a second metapuzzle; while we solved most of the puzzles and the first metapuzzle, we regrettably missed the second metapuzzle answer by a few minutes. Still, we did pretty well points-wise, coming in about 25th out of the teams. All in all? Couldn't ask for a better way to spend a Saturday. (And Swert - if you read this, no telling your brother any of the details. The FTEs have their shot at it in a few weeks. )
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Man, this summer is just flying by, it feels like. Well, three interesting things happened/are happening this week: The good news about an internship: I seem to have landed one with the Epic Critics Club. Ought to be quite fun. The bad news about an internship: turned out yesterday during a team meeting that the method we've been using on my project at work is actually much more limited and less useful than we thought. Going to be fun explaining this to my boss. The other news: hiking (a small part of) Mount Rainier tomorrow. Looking forward to it like crazy, you have no idea. Oh, and I hear there's some game service with some sales going on or something like that. Yeah, I dunno what that's about. (For serious though, the entire Alan Wake franchise for $10? Amazing.)
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So I met these two weirdos named Dorek and Swert today. Yeah, I dunno what their deal was either. Nah, had a pretty awesomely chill time with two pretty cool guys (not cool dudes); many fun conversations were had Swert works at a place guaranteed to make anyone with even a passing interest in Lego jealous, and Dorek was awesome and provided me with a ride back to my apartment. Hopefully I'll get a chance to chill with them (and others?) again sometime.
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Today is, as you've probably heard, Ninjo day. Ninjo was, for those of you who weren't around way back then, a super nice, helpful staff member here on BZP. The years have dulled my memory of him a bit, but the fact I remember that much just from his username should tell you something about how awesome he was. And then today I found out his name was Matt. It's crazy, you know? The way the universe kind of piles up coincidences. Let me explain. Around the time I left BZP in '04, I joined a little Advance Wars forum that, though now defunct, I'd rather not name since the domain has been squatted on and repurposed to advertise. For the next few years, I was a pretty active member of the site; frankly speaking, it's probably part of the reason I never really went back to BZP much. I made a lot of friends, made a few horrible comics, ran some contests, I think even RPed from time to time. So, that probably sounds familiar to a lot of you. One of those friends was a brilliant guy who went by Shade. Shade was funny, helpful, nice, and just an all-around great guy to hang with. I won't say everyone liked him, because there's always internet drama and grudges, but for the most part he was well-loved by the community, even though he held no staff position. In late 2006, the admin of the forum vanished. Nobody could get in touch with him, and to this day I don't think anyone really knows where he went. The bills for the site of course quickly piled up, and it was looking like our little community was going to vanish. Until Shade stepped in. He and another member, JoJo (who would later become his girlfriend), pooled their money and opened a new forum for us. Shade was a fine admin - he didn't put up with trouble, but he was still the same awesome guy as always. I have fond, fond memories of playing Blockland with him. On September 19, 2008, Matt, alias Shade, my friend, was murdered in his flat. Jo discovered his body. He was 20 years old. I can't explain what those next few weeks were like for those of us who were still around. Without going into details, a few more seedy members of the British press tried to paint it as another "videogames cause violence" case. I cannot describe the way I feel about those journalists without losing several proto points. Fill in the blanks yourselves. All of us were beyond blindsided. If you do your homework here, it won't be too hard to find our site, still running with a few members. You can find our tribute page to Matt; it does better to explain how much he meant to us than I could. I myself don't really go there much these days; I believe its active members are largely RPers, and that was a group I never really got all that much into. But I haven't forgotten all the good days back then, and I haven't stopped being a little bitter over the fact such a wonderful guy was taken from us so early. Rest in peace, Matt. And Ninjo - Matt - wherever you are, I hope you know how important someone like a good admin can be to his forum's members, even years later.
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All things considered? Today? Pretty cool. First off, it was my first pay day at Microsoft. Corporate policy and social etiquette prohibit me from saying how much I made, but I can provide a visual analogy for you to draw your own conclusions from. Second, speaking of Microsoft, work went pretty well. Things are getting done, commitments are getting sent off, the whole nine NDA'd yards. Couldn't ask for a much better summer job. Third, I've started to put together some ideas for a trip this summer to go see the studio Swert works at. Any other BZPers in the area interested in joining in and making a day of it, shoot me a message! Fourth, an idea for an epic I had in the back of my mind got much more solidified with the sudden presentation of a good villain. Good lord, does that make things easier. Finally, Prometheus. On the biggest IMAX screen in Seattle. For six bucks. Bless corporate discounts.
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Finally got to find out the specifics of what I'll be working on. It'll be a lot of fun to [NDA] while comparing it to the old version of [NDA], though I imagine it'll take a while to get used to [NDA]. (The setup they give you as an intern is incredible, though. Puts my desktop at home to shame.)
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Turns out employee orientation is much the same wherever you go. (Good swag, though.)
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A few entries ago I mentioned I'd tell you all when it sunk in that I was going to move across the country to work for Microsoft. Having just moved across the country to work for Microsoft, I can inform you all it has yet to sink in. (Apartment's quite nice, though.)
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Until I'm moved in on the West Coast (give or take an hour). Tomorrow will be spent packing, Saturday will be spent flying. I'll let you all know if I ever manage to actually wrap my head around the fact I'm moving across the country to work for Microsoft. (As an aside: 28 notifications while I was gone, most of them the Mass Effect topic. I really ought to check out the new multiplayer stuff.)
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Just a heads up that I'll be out of town from now until next Thursday in order to get bitten by bugs, rained on, and generally have a very good time, with particularly limited Internet access from Monday to Thursday. I'll try to log in at least once a day on the off chance anyone really needs to get in touch with me, but, uh, let's just say it would not be the best time to ask me deep philosophical questions requiring a two-page response.
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I have just acquired an HTC 7 Pro. It is beautiful. We are now phonebros.
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We're back (again!) Which is a good thing, since lately stuff has been happening! Whoa! Exciting! Thrills! Exclamation marks! But seriously... First of all, the Sam minifig that the ever-awesome Nuju Metru made came in the mail thanks to the efforts of also-ever-awesome xccj. He's already making friends with the Dalek figure on my desk. Second, I finished my sophomore year of college! As far as I know, all my classes went pretty well grade-wise, and I'm already looking forward to next year. In the meantime, I'm leaving for Seattle in just over two weeks for my internship working on Windows 8. I don't have details yet (and even if I did, I'm guessing there'd be an NDA), but I do know I'll be working on something related to drivers and driver development (which is super cool if you're a CS major and probably a nightmare if you aren't.) Lastly, hints have been dropped that a particular puzzle-and-courtroom game is getting a localization announcement at E3. If this turns out to be true, Sigma and Phi are going to have to vacate my sig (at least until October). Much as I love 999 and VLR, I'm still hyped like crazy for PLvsAA, and we've gotten maybe two minutes of gameplay and ten screenshots since it was announced in 2010. And now to pass out, because, well, summer.
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Things are finally starting to wrap up around here. I've got a meeting with one of the faculty in the CS department tomorrow, a pair of midterms Wednesday and Thursday, and a whole lot of stuff to pack up before I move out on Friday. After that, I've got about two weeks at home to get everything together, and then I'm off to Seattle for the summer. I haven't got the faintest idea who my roommates are going to be, or even where exactly I'll be living, but I'm excited. I've spent my whole life in Wisconsin, save for a few family vacations, so this is going to be big for me. But I'm looking forward to it - tons of new people to meet, interesting projects to work on at Microsoft, a totally new city to explore (and then some, thanks to Washington's apparently quite nice public transit systems.) It's a shame I'll be getting in a day or so too late to try and stop by Bricks Cascade, but such is life, I suppose. Heaven help me, I'm going to have to be semi-responsible. When did that happen?
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Good to see things are all sorted out. I've seen plenty of forum hackings in my time, and I followed the pattern with this one that I've learned works best - just ignore the hacker and leave it to the staff. It's an attention game. ...Granted, that was made easier by the fact it's darn near impossible for me to contact other BZPers outside of here. Which I really ought to remedy, so for future reference you can find me on Twitter as BoltGSR. In other news, life continues as normal, with the added bonus of finals just around the corner. I also found out the specific Windows 8 team I'll be working for this summer, so I'm looking forward to that (even if it's going to involve some really, really fast learning on my part.) It's good to be back.
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Got to see Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett (the Rifftrax/MST3K guys) riff a pair of old 70's school-education films live, followed shortly by John Hodgman hitting me in the shoulder with a 5-Hour Energy. Milwaukee, you ain't half bad sometimes. EDIT: ohmygod and new Toonami was on. New Toonami. Actual new skits with Tom. They reviewed Mass Effect 3. Is this real life?
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Draft of my SSC9 entry is done; hopefully I'll have time to give it some polish tomorrow and/or Sunday. I could try and revise now, but I've found it always helps to wait a day or two between draft and revision. It's rather different from the previous two fics I've put up; for one thing, it actually follows the perspective of just one character. Imagine that! Still needs a title, though; I always wind up doing those late. In other news, logging plenty of time into Mass Effect 3, though I'm going fairly slowly through the single-player. I'm enjoying it a lot, though there are a few issues I have with the game (coughcoughthatjournalsystemcoughcough). And, of course, schoolwork is schoolwork. Still waiting for more details on the Microsoft internship (I start in June). Regrettably, no further inspiration (all right, no further BZP-rules-friendly inspiration) has struck with regards to Kate Beaton edits. Fear not! Someday my muse will return.
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...not using a VPN to unlock your copy of Mass Effect 3 at 9 AM tomorrow, but rather attending classes until 5 PM and then studying for midterms until 11 PM. (ps: being a responsible member of society sucks)
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First month of 2012 is on it's way out. Dunno about the rest of you, but for me it was pretty good for a couple different reasons. On the gaming side of things, we got so much Ace Attorney news this month that I could jump for joy. The live-action movie got good reviews and is slated for international release at some point; Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney has a very high-quality studio doing its animation; and of course Ace Attorney 5 was finally announced. I remember the leadup to Apollo Justice 5 years ago, and I can't wait to see what's in store for AA5. Now if only they'd get around to localizing Ace Attorney Investigations 2... Television-wise, we were treated to a wonderful second season of Sherlock. All of the episodes were excellent, but "The Reichenbach Fall" was some of the best television in a long while. Oh, that last twenty minutes. Everything about it was just pitch-perfect. I just wish the fangirls of the internet would stop insisting John and Sherlock are gay for each other. (Obligatory disclaimer: I don't mind gay relationships, I just don't see John and Sherlock as gay. Extremely close friends, practically family? Yes. Lovers? No.) More grounded in reality, my fourth semester's off to a good start. Busy, but good. My classes are all interesting (if time-consuming), and the programming team I'm on is making good progress. The big thing is a job interview I've got in a couple weeks; I'll need to buckle down and prep for that, because it would make my year if I got it. At least it's a second-round interview, so I know I must have done something they liked. Finally, I'd like to plug a friend's story to those of you still reading Bionicle fics. It's called "Frustration", over on that big fanfiction site which shall not be named, by a guy called C-Unknown. It's a Tahu/Gali story, but it's pretty decently written and, in my opinion, feels decently realistic in its handling of their relationship. For some reason he doesn't want to post it on BZP (he tells me he used to be a member here but left some time ago; I didn't pry), but I figure he'd appreciate the extra readers, even if he doesn't like the site they're from.
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And the new semester is underway. My classes all interest me (computer engineering, MATLAB, C++, algorithms, Japanese, neurobiology in communication), but it looks like I'm going to be busy, especially since I've got a big opportunity coming up next month I've got to prepare for. (This has been your cool story of the day.)
