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This is pretty funny. Some of the stuff on the screen shots is, ahem, questionable. Just don't read too closely.

How I got here – Part 1

No, you don’t need to block this site from the kiddies.

As I think is clear from some of the other entries, I have the great privilege of working on Xbox 360 at Microsoft.
Now and then I just think about how I came to be where I am in life professionally. It’s been a bit of a twisting, but interesting, road.
I think I totaled up the money my parents spent on computers (not video games) and it was something like $5000 all together. Throw in another $50 in various change I didn’t return or swiped off the counter to buy floppy disks or magazines.
Hey, not a bad investment.
On the other hand, I remember saying something about video games to my Bishop when I was about 17 and he quoted me this verse from Paul:

1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

To be honest, I still struggle with that. Of course, who knew at the time that this was actually a way to make a living.
I had this conversation with a friend of mine the other day who is the head coach for a university golf team. He says his bishop told him the same thing once. <shrug>

But on with the show…

That first “console”
Stagflation. A lame Democrat president. Bad music. Worse clothes.
Nope! I’m not talking about 2009, I’m talking about the late 70s!
Sometime around maybe 1978 or so, our family got our first video game. This was a big deal at our house because my dad, like everyone’s dad at the time, was concerned that these games would ruin the TV and ruin their kids eyes. (The concerns that video games would make you rob liquor stores or turn into a dork would have to wait for Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft to be invented.) It was a Radio Shack/Tandy TV Scoreboard. We had the extra fancy model with the cool black gun and two shooting games in addition to four flavors of pong.
The knob on the left could detach from the main unit and was attached with a cord a few feet long for player 2.

I was about 10 at the time and this unit was a great choice as far as I was concerned because when we weren’t playing with it on the TV, I could play with the gun and use the game with all its knobs and switches as part of an imaginary airplane cockpit or some sort of space paraphernalia. The unit could run on batteries (the AC brick was optional) and the sounds came out of the game itself, not the TV. This made it all the better as a toy because it would happily beep and boop if you turned it on.

Not sure what ever happened to this thing.

Enter Atari
Christmas 1981. Reagan was president and the whole world was looking up. :-)
I wanted two things more than air that Christmas – an Atari 2600 and the Missile Command game.
Remember, wanting an Atari 2600 in 1981 was like wanting an Xbox 360 or PS3 now. They weren’t cheap.

I got up super early that Christmas morning and saw that Santa had indeed coughed up the goods. In the darkness I tried to connect it to the main TV, which was color. No joy! Not to be defeated, I went and got our little black and white “portable” TV and hooked it up there and that worked. (We did get the color TV hookup sorted out later on Christmas day.)

The 2600 “cyclops” version of Missile Command with it’s one silo in the middle seemed amazing.
I was thinking the other day about the cost of those games. Eventually I had quite a lot of them. While most of mine were bought on discount (go K-Mart!), I remember a couple that I got for full price of about $30 or so. Again, not that far from what you pay today, especially considering inflation.

One of my friends who also had an Atari got this crazy cartridge called BASIC Programming. It came with these little keypads with overlays and let you do things like flash colors on the screen. It didn’t seem very fun to me. Perhaps that was just my innate sense that this kid pronounced “GOTO” as “GOT OH” rather than “GO TO”.

One red letter event around the Atari 2600 for me was that in June 1983, 20th Century Fox shipped a rather lame game called “M*A*S*H”, based on the popular TV show. You see kids, even back then games based on TV and movie licenses were AWFUL.
Although I was a big MASH fan, I never had this game, but Fox, sensing they had just shipped a massive turkey, also announced the “$25,000 M*A*S*H video game design contest”. As a future Microsoft Program Manager, I set about designing the most amazing game – without realizing that it was light years beyond the capabilities of the hardware. I had diagrams and screenshots. I had about three pages of text describing the plot of “Radar’s Litter Jeep Rescue”. I boiled this all down to 50 words and dropped it in the mail on the last possible day. And I actually won something, though not quite $25,000. I won a Turmoil game cartridge. My prize came in the mail with a little orange photocopied strip of paper telling me I’d won 2nd prize. I still have that little strip of paper. Dude, that game would have been awesome.
I actually work with a guy who used to write games for Atari. It was sometimes a hellish place to work, and it was just a job for him, but I have to try hard not to have my eyes twinkle like a star-struck schoolgirl when he tells his war stories. I know. I know. I’m ashamed.

Unlike the Radio Shack game, I know what happened to this one. When I was married and lived in Spain (1990) I sold it to a Spanish dude at a garage sale with a bunch games. I didn’t really realize it at the time, but I sure hope he had a multi-system TV or it wouldn’t have worked at all.

Jon, meet programming. Programming, Jon
When I was in 6th grade, I was pulled into this “special class” of kids that was formed. We were going to have various enrichment experiences. The first one of these is that we went to Brigham Young University for several classes to learn about computers.
These weren’t just any computers, they were Commodore PETs. This was a mind-blowing acid trip of an experience for me and was clearly a formative experience.
I also remember my dad came to one of the classes because he was helping drive kids. My dad was a small businessman and he worked a lot. This wasn’t any kind of huggy kissy moment, but it stands out as one of the relatively few times he took time away from work to do something with me in the day.
Hey Payson Middle School your teachers all had big belt buckles, but good job on this program!!!!
In addition to, unknown to me at the time, defining my life’s work, it also set me up as definitely a “Commodore Man” for as long as that meant anything.
One of the things that made the Commodore’s cool is that they had game graphics right in their regular character set. This was good because this generation certainly didn’t have anything like bitmap graphics. But it was super easy to make a card game, a little spaceship or racecar going up or down the screen, etc.

A computer? At our house?
Sometime that summer, my dad combined with another kid’s dad who combined with some other people I don’t know and they bought a lot of Sinclair ZX-80 computers in some sort of auction. I guess I was about 12 at that time.
The Sinclair ZX-80 had 1k of RAM and no string arrays. Half of you are asleep now. Suffice it to say that it was tiny and it was crude. But it had BASIC and hooked up to a TV and tape recorder. This picture doesn’t show clearly how tiny it was. It was definitely smaller than this little Maxtor external hard drive I have sitting by my monitor right now.
I learned a ton on that machine, all in BASIC – including what it is like to run into the limits of memory or features like the no string arrays.
Wanting to impress my dad, I set about to create an inventory program for his business. This was my first stab at gathering and validating requirements, designing a solution for those requirements, cutting features, building demos, etc. Unfortunately, just based on the limits, I never got past the smoke-and-mirrors demo stage on that inventory program. (Again, setting me up for a career as a Program Manager - little joke there.)

Probably one of the strangest things I did with this computer was make music with it. How would you do that on a machine with no speaker and no audio output? Well, as it turned out, various instructions executing in the Sinclair changed the radio frequency interference it created. If you put a radio close enough to ZX-80, and then had a meaningless program just execute the right instructions in a fast series, you got some fuzzy, buzzy and yet FREAKIN’ AMAZING sound coming out of the radio. (Mind you I didn’t invent this. I read about it somewhere.)

Thanks Sir Clive!

We didn’t know it at the time, but, as we’ll see in part 2, this machine really paved the way for my future in an unexpected way.

It’s here!!! Halo Wars

OK, OK, I confess. I'm not a Halo guy. I'm more of a Ghost Recon guy. Maybe I just like shooting people more than aliens.

I think we have a copy of Halo 2 (limited edition no less) kicking around, but I haven't played it much, for a couple reasons.
First, I'm no blushing Betty, but the language...let's just say that I can't play it when the kids are around and I'd rather have my kids around than play Halo. Since I never played the single player and didn't know what was going on, I never got into the multi-player.
Second, I just don't buy the premise of all these disparate alien races teaming up to kick our butt. I mean you've got these big “Brutes” and these goofy little “Grunts”. I think about ten minutes after they left home the big guys would have killed the little annoying ones just for bouncing around in front of the TV on the spaceship. (And yes, I did research all these names just to write this blog entry…my dedication knows no bounds.)

Anyway, I got an advance copy of Halo Wars last Friday (have I mentioned today that MY JOB IS AWESOME?!?!?!) and it is a total hoot. Luckily, I had time to play it because my “chore” for Saturday was mainly sitting around waiting for house painters to come and do estimates, and the rest of the fam was out doing other things.

Halo Wars is the real time strategy (or “RTS” as the 30 year olds who live in the basement say) game based on the Halo storyline. Ensemble (rest in peace), the masters of the RTS with Age of Empires bring their magic to the Xbox 360.  Some reviewers have complained that the controls and the game overall are "dumbed down" to make it suitable for the console. I think they mean to say it has been "made FUN" for normal people who don't live in their mom's basement and buy special keyboards to play games on (Timber Wolf? Should be Lone Wolf – if you get me).

One of the coolest things is the attention to detail on the graphics. I upgraded my Hornet (little helicopter/airplane thing) to add two marines as additional gunners hanging off the sides. And there they were. You could zoom in and see their little legs dangling while they popped off enemies with their rifles. I know it seems lame to call out that the graphics are cool on an Xbox 360 game. It wouldn't have much of a chance if they weren't cool. But from the other RTS games I've played, I just wasn't quite expecting this level of "charm" in the little space marines dealing death from above.

The biggest problem I've had is, since I don't know what the heck all these characters are, when the computer voice warns me "The enemy is training Jackals." I just go, "Yikes! Sounds bad!"

I'm still just playing the skirmish levels on "Easy" and I'll probably never be any better at this than I am at Age of Empires, but I really don't care about that.

On another note entirely…

I saw this story about a proposal that went a bit awry. Of course, turns out it is an LDS couple. Just had to be.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29462344?GT1=43001
But I don’t want to give it away.

Is it just me, or does this Obama guy like to say “force” a lot?

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If it is free, is it really stealing?

Ah, KING 5 News, you never let me down!

Tonight I was treated to the story of dastardly thieves who made off with over hundreds of pounds of pet food from a charity in Yelm, Washington.
This group provides pet food for the poor to feed to their pets. I was pondering the notion of why poor people should have pets if they can’t afford them. After all, speaking as a reluctant dog owner, pets are a bit of a luxury – expensive in both time and treasure. I like my little doggy well enough, but make no mistake, if I ever had to wonder where my next meal was coming from we would by then have sold (or eaten) the dog.

Then, mid-ponder, this quote from 80 year old Wanda Bittner leapt from my fully HD enabled flat screen speakers in glorious 5.1 Dolby:

"I'm in shock... I can't believe it... Our food is free, no questions asked," she said. "Why would anyone take our pet food?"

Ummm…now I’m scratching my head. She has a charity operation where you come in and take the food you need - “no questions asked” – for free.

Sooooooooo…is this a crime or just someone availing themselves of this groups raison d'être?

I mean, this woman is 80 years old. Her house looks like what you would think someone’s house would look like if they spent their time collecting food for the pets of the poor. Maybe she just forgot where she put it.

“Next on KING 5, we confront a man who has always taken a penny, but never left a penny.”

And, just sayin’, does that tubby little pup on the right have an alibi?

Example #487 of how children keep you humble

I’m a sucker for old video games.
We’ve got an actual Genesis, which has migrated out to the garage now, but the kids are always wanting me to bring it back in the house and hook it up.
I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for Xbox 360. It came out yesterday, but when I went into GameStop after work they didn’t have it and said they’d be getting it today. They also asked if I’d like to pre-order it so I’d be sure to get a copy…to which I said “Ummm, I’m sure you will have a copy for me.”
So when I came home I mentioned it to my youngest daughter. I said, “It has all the best Genesis games on it.”
Daughter#3: “Does it have Marble Madness?”
Me: “No, but…”
Daughter#3: “Does it have Lion King?”
Me: “No, but…”
Daughter#3: “Does it have Aladdin?”
Me: “Well, no but…”
Daughter#3: “Jungle Strike?”
Me: “That’s not a Sega game.”
Daughter#3: “Well those are the best games. What does this have on it anyway?”

Ahhh yes, fatherhood.

I had a few minutes free before I was going to have lunch today so I popped in and got mine. Luckily, I managed to fight my way through the crowd of people who slept overnight in front of the store to get theirs. (not)

Full disclosure: some of what you are about to read may make it impossible for me to ever claim I had a “hard day” at work.

I ripped off the plastic at a stop light on the way back to my office. I popped my leftover spaghetti in the microwave and then took it into the game room at work.
You know, the game room. The room with all the flat screen TVs, two 360s, a PS3 and a Wii. You mean you don’t have one of those at your office? Bummer for you. How can you work under those conditions? 
I popped it in and did my best to look at a few of the games with one hand while shoveling pasta into my slobbering maw with my flimsy, bendy compostable fork in the other. (This doesn’t work very well actually.)
I finished my food and squeezed in a few minutes of “Streets of Rage” before heading off to my 1pm meeting.

I actually cut out of work a little early to come home and get in some playtime, but then I remembered I was in the middle of a long running battle in Advance Wars on my DS, so I thought I’d finish that first.

Before I knew it, it was time to head off to the Daddy-Daughter Dance with Daughters 2 & 3. We had a great time, although it is hard for one daddy to keep two delightful dance partners happy.

Then I came home and had to endure American Idol monopolizing the screen time. Now it is 10:30pm. I have to get up early tomorrow. The responsible thing to do would be to head off to bed.
Just a few minutes of Ecco the Dolphin first.

---

Enough fun and games.
Wondering about the notion of economic stimulus? Check out Stimulus: A history of Folly in Commentary Magazine.

It takes a federal government to raise a parking lot

Fresh on the heels of the senate's passage of their version of the "stimulus" plan comes this delightful piece at Newsbusters.org.
When Laura Ingraham pressed RINO Arlen Spector (R?-PA) on the job creating ability of the package, he included this little gem:

"And I talked to the mayor of a major city this morning that has a parking plot
going up, which is out of money and the work can go forward this afternoon."

There you have it folks. This is the kind of project that municipalities, states, and the private sector just can't handle alone. This is the kind of project that we can look toward to get Americans back to work. Building parking lots.

Nice one.

Now, you might say, "Hey, I know unemployed construction workers. Maybe this isn't so bad."
Aha! But remember that Robert Reich said at the Economic Recovery Plan Meeting in January:

"if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the
construction trades, many people who need jobs the most -- women, minorities,
and the poor and long-term unemployed -- will be shut out."

So we not only want to build a grand federal ediface of a parking garage, but we want to build it NOT with people who already know what they are doing, who already "dominate the construction trades", but with people who are not employed in the construction field today.

Honestly, I'd prefer to park my car in a building constructed by the people who "dominate the construction trades."

Lest anyone take the wrong emphasis from this, I'm scoffing at the idea of non-construction workers being first in line for construction jobs - regardless of race or whatever.

Hey, I've never dominated the brain surgery field. Will this stimulus plan make me first in line for a job in that trade?