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So discuss the amazing video games series here. Yanno, if you think about it, Halo 4 is the Eighth game of the series, not the Seventh (if you count the CE anniversary as one of the games). Surprised this wasn't slammed up immediately... and I swear I didn't see any Halo topics anywhere in CoT. -Skar
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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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No, no, not building with Lego. Building with code! Microsoft announced their BUILD developers conference today. I also get a significant amount of money to go to a conference for work of my choosing. Guess I may be in Seattle the week of Halloween. (Please give me a free Surface tablet, please?)
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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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...I did not have any early knowledge of the Microsoft Surface. But I believe I am not alone when I call it incredibly cool.
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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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I have just acquired an HTC 7 Pro. It is beautiful. We are now phonebros.
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Searched the last five pages, found nothing with the Zune specifically, so I figured I'd give a shot at this. Discuss Microsoft's answer to the iPod, the Zune.Me, I'm probably going be getting an HD at Christmas from eBay for cheap; sure, it isn't as good as a iTouch, but it'll do everything I want. Debating between the 32 and 64 gig though; I don't know if it's worth the extra money.
