So, who are you and what do you do? [Archive] - Page 2

Gunmetal

07-13-2003, 08:04 PM

I'm a 26 year old programmer at Silicon Knights. I enjoy buying games I'll play for 2 hours before shelving forever and acting embarrassed when someone asks me "So how's that game you bought?" :b

I also enjoy jumping into threads that are months old, but only because someone else resurrected it first, and I really wanted to add my 2 cents :)

Mike Cathcart

07-13-2003, 08:19 PM

I'm a 26 year old programmer at Silicon Knights.
You guys rule. Seriously.

I just realized I never replied to this thread. If anyone cares, I'm a 26 year old IT programmer who wishes he worked for Silicon Knights, but in an alternate universe where they're not in Canada.

Hey can you tell us what you're working on? Is it the awesome game we already know about, or the awesome game that we know about but hasn't been confirmed? Or another awesome game we don't even know about yet?

Rollory

07-13-2003, 08:22 PM

26-year-old currently unemployed QA guy and wannabe producer, formerly with Kesmai, only to see that last, best hope of the game industry submerge into the muck of EA. Battletech 3025 was mine, may it rest in peace.

I like AoW2 and dislike NWN.

Tyjenks

07-13-2003, 08:28 PM

This is wumpus' (long time Qt3er) favorite thread. He asks that we please keep it updated with changes of marital status, job, and number of kids. In fact, he wanted those of you who started the thread several months back who have not commented in a while to start a, "What's up with me" thread just to let him know where you are and what's going on in your lives.

He would have posted this himself, but he is too busy being obtuse* over in the E.E. forum. I wouldn't go in there if I were any of you. I think its gonna get ugly.

*People may want to substitute "a dick" in place of the word obtuse, but since wumpus and I go way back, I thought it might hurt his feelings.

Damien Falgoust

07-13-2003, 08:34 PM

30 year old corporate attorney.

Gaming cred: first PC game was Zork on the Commodore 64 (guess I must've been what, ten or eleven?); been playing ever since. And I'm not even counting the Coleco Telstar (four variants on Pong, IIRC) and the zillion Atari VCS games (2600? What's that?). Zero programming experience. You guys make the games, I'll play 'em.

extarbags

07-13-2003, 08:36 PM

I'm 20 years old and I do tech support for an ISP. I'm going to be a game developer someday.

Yeah. Someday....

I also bitch about things on my childish website (www.flagellum.net). Vapid indeed.

Phenomenon42

07-13-2003, 08:44 PM

Case

07-13-2003, 09:51 PM

I'm a 37-year-old gaming grrrrl who started with Pong when it first came out, then went on to the Atari 2600 and the Sega Master System, etc. I also spent a lot of time in the local arcades while growing up. I made the leap to PC gaming in the early 1980s and stayed true to the PC until the PS2 and GBA arrived; these days, I own every major console besides six PCs, a laptop and an iBook. "My name is Denice, and I have a problem." :wink: I volunteered my time at a small gaming site writing reviews for a year before getting hired by Jeff Green and Robert Coffey late last fall. Now I spend my days writing computer game reviews while dripping in diamonds. http://216.40.249.192/s/cwm/cwm/circle.gif

Oh yeah, and I have a habit of jumping into really long, really old Qt3 threads. :P

Are you at CGW full time? Where do you sit?

Chuck Jordan

07-14-2003, 01:46 AM

My name's Chuck, I'm 32 years old, and painfully single. I'm a displaced Georgian who's been forced to endure the SF Bay area for about 8 years now.

I'm currently working as a programmer for Maxis. Before that, I was at the ironically-named Infinite Machine, and before that I worked at LucasArts on The Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango.

My favorite games, in order of how I remember them: Sam & Max Hit the Road, Monkey Island 2, Jet Grind Radio, SimCity 2000, The Sims (honestly!), Diablo 2, Suikoden 2, Ico, Parappa the Rapper, and Dark Castle for the Macintosh. And the best game ever made, anywhere, for any platform, is Final Fantasy Tactics. Please make a note of it.

SpoofyChop

07-14-2003, 07:35 AM

What's the difference between SolGrundy and Solomon Grundy. Are you the same person?

DrCrypt

07-14-2003, 09:50 AM

Solomon Grundy is a cool ex-Looking-Glasser from Boston who I almost went out for beers with more times than I can count, but never did. I think the new SolGrundy needs to change his nick.

Denice Cook

07-14-2003, 10:04 AM

Are you at CGW full time? Where do you sit?

Uh, I sit in my fuzzy bunny slippers at home. :lol: I'm a freelancer-- I just do steady freelance reviewing for CGW. Sorry for not being more explicit.

Aw, I just realized I could've had all kinds of fun with you about this, too.

"Jeez, Lloyd! My desk is right there next to Scooter's! Can't you see it? It's the one with the 'Broken Sword Rules' plaque on it." Hee hee. :wink:

PeterGinsberg

07-14-2003, 10:22 AM

Sure, why not.

Recently delurked to start posting. I'm a self-employed freelance progammer/web guy who manages to keep scraping along with various small web site projects, mostly little content management systems and ecom sites.

I'm more gamer than game-maker, but I did at one time do some mods (I was one half of the team that created the little known HL mod Science and Industry -- long since handed off to folks with more time and talent), and lately have been making some craptacular web games: http://www.hbo.com/thewire/games/index.html (yes, its battleship... We tried to add some twists to their "game design", but shit, we only had 6 weeks... Give me a break! I'm sorry! *runs away crying*).

So, yeah, that's me.

Funkman

07-14-2003, 11:32 AM

I'm Daniel from Toronto, im gonna be 19 years old this August.

I wish I could say I had a cool job in the game industry, but I dont, I just play games on the platforms I have (GBA, GC and PC)

First computer was my trusted 286 Clone. My first real gaming experiences came when I played Civilization, The Secret of Monkey Island and eventually WarCraft 2.

Favourite games: StarCraft, Grim Fandango, Max Payne.

Skies

07-14-2003, 01:48 PM

Heck I'll jump in but it's boring. I'm a 49 year old , currently out of work, web applications developer 23 years of experience in PC's, Mac's, networks, routers, servers, blah, blah, blah.

Been gaming since 1969 (AH Stalingrad) and) been electronic gaming since the Magnovox Pong system. I own a Sega, Atari 800, Nintendo 64, seven PC's and two Mac's.

My wife and son are avid gamers while my daughter likes dancing more than she plays The Sims.

I'm currently watching my life go down the drain and fighting bouts of depression. Not exactly the feel good post of the year but I still have a good atitude. :D

Pie4Foo

07-14-2003, 01:51 PM

Top Ten Things You Didn't Know About Me:

1) I live in Atlanta.

2) I'm a Financial Analyst by day for a credit card processing company called NOVA (which competes with Jim F.'s First Data).

3) I'm the "Content Director" and general webmaster by night for Wargamer.com (http://www.wargamer.com/) - if it's on the web site, it's my fault.

4) I hold the position in #3 because I have yet to burn out after two (going on three) years.

5) I'm a simulation buff originally (Jane's!), but moved into realistic shooters like Rainbow Six and SWAT 3 in the late '90s. Now dabble in everything, especially the occassional wargame (Battlefront's).

6) Ran a couple of decent fansites for Rainbow Six/Rogue Spear/Ghost Recon (http://www.piestactics.com/) and SWAT 3 (http://www.10-david.com/) for a four, five years. Trying to resurrect the former and salvage the latter.

7) Ubi Soft doesn't much care for me. On the other hand, Sierra (I think) still likes me. Both because of #7.

8) Tennis is my #2 hobby after gaming.

9) I'm 24.

10) I drive an Audi S4 (weee!) and you can find me also lurking on audiworld.com

Chuck Jordan

07-14-2003, 02:42 PM

Solomon Grundy is a cool ex-Looking-Glasser from Boston who I almost went out for beers with more times than I can count, but never did. I think the new SolGrundy needs to change his nick.
I wasn't aware there was anyone on the boards with a similar nickname; this is the one I use on other message boards. But I'll probably lose interest long before there's any real confusion.

Skies

07-14-2003, 03:12 PM

I like that site, Pie4Foo.

Rob O'Boston

07-14-2003, 03:16 PM

But I'll probably lose interest long before there's any real confusion.

Freaking blasphemy. I thought Murph was the only one who could give this up.

Kalle

07-14-2003, 03:21 PM

XPav

07-14-2003, 03:25 PM

Top Ten Things You Didn't Know About Me:
10) I drive an Audi S4 (weee!) and you can find me also lurking on audiworld.com
I drive an A4.

What does everyone else drive?

Lando

07-14-2003, 03:27 PM

My wife.

Crazy.

Skies

07-14-2003, 03:35 PM

940SE

Dirt

07-14-2003, 04:00 PM

Hey, what's wrong with handles?

Skies

07-14-2003, 04:16 PM

Handles?

Denice Cook

07-14-2003, 04:27 PM

I have four handles-- all on the doors of my 1992 Chevy Astro minivan.

I call it the "A11" model for short. Does that count? (Actually, the 2004 cars are due out soon, at which time I shall have to rechristen it "A12" I guess.) :wink:

DennyA

07-14-2003, 04:35 PM

I already did a car thread (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2372) a while back.

That must have pissed Wumpus off to no end. We all know that nobody should give a flying rat's ass what anyone who they don't know in real life drives. :-)

quatoria

07-14-2003, 04:46 PM

PeterGinsberg

07-14-2003, 05:28 PM

Im 16 and i dont really do anything, no job, no girl. I know a decent amount of HTML and im learning Visual Basic, And thats about it.

Oh yeah, and me and two other guys own a site,Slugg.net. (www.slugg.net)

You might want to drop by the Real Names (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4694) thread. Because anonymous handles get old pretty fast, especially ones with numbers in them.

My thoughts on your suggestion (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=104820#104820).

Also, why pick on the young'un*? plenty of other handles here you can complain about "getting old".

*A curiousity: If you were in the U.S., I believe your request for a real name from a 16 year old would be a COPA violation. Thankfully, you are safe from Ashcroft's Cylons in Sweden.

bago

07-14-2003, 06:49 PM

24, SDET at microsoft, made mods for quake and HL.

I like C#, but am in the market for good code analyzation tools.

ElRavager

07-14-2003, 08:17 PM

Top Ten Things You Didn't Know About Me:

1) I live in Atlanta.

Cool, a bunch of gamer friends and I meet at Dragoncon in Atlanta every year, we hang out in Atlanta going to bars, etc, for the week until the weekend and rent a couple of rooms for the con. Let me know if you're interested in meeting up for a few..

2) I'm a Financial Analyst by day for a credit card processing company called NOVA (which competes with Jim F.'s First Data).

My best friend is in that area, he's got a masters from U. Chicago (and unemployed :( ).

6) Ran a couple of decent fansites for Rainbow Six/Rogue Spear/Ghost Recon (http://www.piestactics.com/) and SWAT 3 (http://www.10-david.com/) for a four, five years. Trying to resurrect the former and salvage the latter.

Great site, I went to piestactics quite a bit, I'm a huge fan of R6/RS/GR.. I'm kinda holding off on RavenShield since I heard that game is kinda buggy.

- elrav

Tortilla

07-15-2003, 07:55 AM

Nick Walter

Age 26

I'm a Computer Programmer. I do not do games, instead I do boring database and transactional programming stuff. This means I don't have the sex appeal of a game developer, but I do have an income above poverty level and enough free time for hobbies.

My gaming cred is woefully weak. I did once program a combat engine for a commercial MUD, which is when I discovered just how much it sucks to work on games.

I play mostly strategy games/RPG stuff. I think RTS games are a plague upon mankind and possibly a portent heralding the coming armageddon.

Jim F.

07-15-2003, 08:04 AM

Cool, a bunch of gamer friends and I meet at Dragoncon in Atlanta every year, we hang out in Atlanta going to bars, etc, for the week until the weekend and rent a couple of rooms for the con. Let me know if you're interested in meeting up for a few..

Cool... a bunch of us from my EQ guild are meeting at Dragoncon this year. This will be the first trip to Atlanta for me and the wife, so we're really looking forward to it.

Pie4Foo

07-15-2003, 08:17 AM

Cool, a bunch of gamer friends and I meet at Dragoncon in Atlanta every year, we hang out in Atlanta going to bars, etc, for the week until the weekend and rent a couple of rooms for the con. Let me know if you're interested in meeting up for a few..
Myself and one of our editors might be in attendance at this year's show - it's more his thing than mine, but sometimes there are some gems there. Be sure to post up when it comes time.

My best friend is in that area, he's got a masters from U. Chicago (and unemployed :( ).
I was likewise unemployed for some time last year - it's a competitive market, and really the only reason I was able to get back in was thanks to some fortunate networking.

Machfive

08-19-2003, 12:45 AM

I made an ass of myself my first time around on these boards. I'd like to think I've matured and mellowed a little since then.

nutsak

08-19-2003, 01:21 AM

my real name's wayne (eggh).
I actually prefer to be called by my handle ... even even you don't like to use the full word, just call me Sak, Nut, Nutter, Nutty or even Sakker...

I'm a Taswegian (erm, Tasmanian.. in .. uh. .Australia)
I'm currently forcing my brain to melt by learning C++ , but I prefer the art side of things.. I one-day hope to make it into the insomnia inducing industry of games creation... I want to be the first to create the game that makes its players cry... I think I might call in "ONIONS"... oh.. I'm 22 ... (like it matters).

yeh.. that'll do.

JeffL

08-19-2003, 06:47 AM

I want to be the first to create the game that makes its players cry

Heh - that was the tag line from the very first EA magazine ads, so many many years ago - "Can a computer game make you cry?"

Tyrion Lannister

08-19-2003, 06:57 AM

I want to be the first to create the game that makes its players cry

Heh - that was the tag line from the very first EA magazine ads, so many many years ago - "Can a computer game make you cry?"

Yeah, every damn one I work on makes me cry with frustration at some point. And then disappointment.

AlexxKay

08-19-2003, 02:36 PM

I want to be the first to create the game that makes its players cry...
I cried when Floyd died in Planetfall, as did many others.

Tyjenks

08-19-2003, 02:51 PM

I want to be the first to create the game that makes its players cry...
I cried when Floyd died in Planetfall, as did many others.

My eyes watered in heated fury after playing 30 mins. of Empire of Magic. Does that count?

Peter Olafson

08-19-2003, 03:31 PM

I want to be the first to create the game that makes its players cry...
I cried when Floyd died in Planetfall, as did many others.

I got a little misty in A Mind Forever Voyaging.

Peter

RepoMan

08-19-2003, 06:14 PM

Sanitarium.

The kids.

Almost wept!

Back to the original purpose of this thread (HAH! doomed endeavor!): just turned 34, been living in San Francisco area since 1990, professional programmer (mostly Internet apps, doing a lot with SVG lately (SVG is cool!)).

My wife (married 2 years) is also a gamer; she got hooked on KOTOR when she realized you could talk to lots of people and you didn't have to have good reflexes! We're playing through separately now... she's a good-hearted scoundrel and I'm an upstanding priest type.

Two minor brushes with gaming fame: my name is in Uncle Albert's Catalog (and Catalog 2) for Car Wars, for inventing the Heavy Duty Transmission and the Bollix. And I met (and briefly interviewed) John Carmack when he came to SF in 1998 or so. Aside from that, I'm just a plain gamer, always have been... was playing Paranoia with high school buddies, and these days we have a little gaming group that mostly plays Illuminati, Hills Rise Wild, or various Cheapass games.

Own an XBox and a GameCube, and a couple of PCs. First computer was an Apple ][+ (even got the 16K add-in card and the Microsoft Softcard Z80 coprocessor so I could run Microsoft MuLisp! yes, this was 1980 :-) ).

Cheers!
Rob

Chuck Jordan

08-19-2003, 08:41 PM

Cool... a bunch of us from my EQ guild are meeting at Dragoncon this year. This will be the first trip to Atlanta for me and the wife, so we're really looking forward to it.
Go to the Varsity near GA Tech. Get 2 (chili) dogs, rings, and a coke. As you're enjoying them, think about those of us marooned on the Left Coast who can no longer enjoy the simple pleasures like Varsity dogs and Chick-fil-a.

XPav

08-19-2003, 09:37 PM

Which is amply made up for due to the lack of In'n'Out burger anywhere west of Arizona.

Machfive

08-19-2003, 11:13 PM

....brushes with gaming fame

I also have but a few.

In chronological order (because I'm still drunk, and I feel like doing it like this)

1. Worked my way up in the Counter-Strike community, becoming a moderator in the general forums by Beta 5, and making it onto the alpha team during testing for Beta 7.0. I highly criticized what I percieved to be Beta 7's flaws, right to Minh (Gooseman), subsequently getting kicked off the alpha team, my mod status stripped, and giving me reason to leave the forums shortly thereafter.

2. What helped facilitate my vacation of the forums was working my way into the good graces of the gentlemen developing Hostile Intent, formerly known as "The Sherman Project." Within a week or two of showing up on their forums, I'd weaseled my way onto the dev team, under the title of "Advisor," and I put the seed in their heads to implement an aiming system that, as of even today, has not been fully realized - True iron sights.

After 6 or 8 months, during which I wasted a lot of my time thinking of ideas for the game, and seeing the game progress little, I left their team thinking the game would never be made.

It's currently almost finished, and I hear the implementation of my iron sights method is, quote, "Fucking awesome."

*sigh*

I coulda been a contenda.

3. Finally, I was mentioned on Penny Arcade's front page once or twice. That made me jump with glee.

That's about it, really. I've sort of eliminated all hopes of making "Mach Five" a household name from my system, at this point. I've stopped holding onto silly false hopes.

I'm off to pass out now. The Grey Goose is a wicked mistress.

Supertanker

08-20-2003, 12:16 AM

As you're enjoying them, think about those of us marooned on the Left Coast who can no longer enjoy the simple pleasures like Varsity dogs and Chick-fil-a.

If you think there are no Chick-fil-a in California, you aren't looking hard enough (and XPav is right about In-N-Out):

1. Westfield Shoppingtown Solano
Mark Benish - Unit # 293
1350 Travis Blvd.
Fairfield, CA 94533
707/427-3317

2. California Polytechnic State University
Dan Chatman - Unit # 80035
Call for directions, menu and hours of operation
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
805/756-1175

3. South Bay Galleria
Ben Gray - Unit # 225
1815 Hawthorne Boulevard
Redondo Beach, CA 90278
310/214-5488

4. Del Amo Fashion Center
Erwin Arevalo - Unit # 77
214 Del Amo Fashion Center
Torrance, CA 90503
310/542-4636

5. Los Cerritos Center
Dan Chatman - Unit # 156
123 Los Cerritos Center
Cerritos, CA 90703
562/402-1113

John Many Jars

08-20-2003, 06:12 AM

I want to be the first to create the game that makes its players cry...
I cried when Floyd died in Planetfall, as did many others.

I came pretty close. And when he came back to life at the end I cried out "Yayyyyyy!"

If the punks at the mall had witnessed either, I'd have lost all cred as a suburban teen scumbag and would have had to spend the rest of the 80s in my room. :D

Bub, Andrew

08-20-2003, 06:30 AM

Which is amply made up for due to the lack of In'n'Out burger anywhere west of Arizona.

Fuck you for reminding me of that. Aargh. So hungry now.

Aleck

08-20-2003, 07:54 AM

Which is amply made up for due to the lack of In'n'Out burger anywhere west of Arizona.

Fuck you for reminding me of that. Aargh. So hungry now.

Amazing how a Double Double even sounds good at 8:00 in the morning. *sigh*

XPav

08-20-2003, 08:30 AM

There's one In N Out easily available to me and every other schmuck in Sonoma county. Its always full. Always.

Trixie

08-20-2003, 09:00 AM

My name is Carrie and I'm 23 years old.

I worked in QA and Eval in the game industry for a few years when I should have been finishing college. And now I've returned to the DC area to finish up college when I want to be working in the game industry.

The only thing I do related at the moment is write for Frictionless Insight (http://www.frictionlessinsight.com) and work part time in video game retail, which I'm discovering is completely exhausting.

I'll play a mediocre action/adventure game over almost any other type of genre, that combined with shooters, platformers, and RPGs and you have pretty much all that I play. My pride and joy is my video game system collection which is around 30 at the moment (including repeats).

I like reading classic novels and playing piano, but I seem to waste all my time staring at random webpages and messing with my personal site. While I personally am more math oriented, I have a strong respect for good journalism, and that is why I'm here.

Rob O'Boston

08-20-2003, 09:47 AM

Screw all you and your good fast food joints. Here in New England we have zippo, no In and Out, no chick-whatever, nothing. Its like Dunken Donuts bought up every empty commercial zone available. The first Krispy Kreme opened in the State and it was like the opening of the Cancer Cure Institute. The Massholes were standing in 2 hour lines during the first week. (I'm originally a Mainer, so I can say that). You know where we go for fast food? Fricking McDonalds, Wendys, or Burger King.

Murph

08-20-2003, 09:56 AM

Thierry Nguyen

08-20-2003, 10:59 AM

Amazing how a Double Double even sounds good at 8:00 in the morning. *sigh*

Tsk, real men start with a 3x3. I hope that someday, before I die, I either witness, or eat, a 10x10.

Thierry Nguyen

08-20-2003, 11:02 AM

There's one In N Out easily available to me and every other schmuck in Sonoma county. Its always full. Always.

One time, I was in an In-And-Out in LA, and they managed to go from Order number 1 all the way to order number 1 again when I finally left. Basically, they went through 100 orders in 40 minutes.

Bub, Andrew

08-20-2003, 11:02 AM

Boil some lard. Add a bag of sugar. Take any donut and dip it in there and you've got ... Krispy Kreme. We only have one in Milwaukee too, but they sell the donuts at all the grocery stores now.

Rywill

08-20-2003, 11:05 AM

The first Krispy Kreme opened in the State and it was like the opening of the Cancer Cure Institute.

You should've seen when we got our first (and to date, only) one in Tulsa. It was amazing how long people were willing to wait for donuts. Sure, they're really good donuts, but still.
The same thing happened when they opened one in Burbank--despite the fact that there was already a Krispy Kreme in Van Nuys, just fifteen minutes away. It's crazy. And they recently opened a Wendy's in Burbank as well, and it had lines out the door for months. I like Wendy's, and sometimes I'd drive by there thinking I'd get a cheeseburger, and there'd be this enormous line snaking into the parking lot. I wanted to get a bullhorn: "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? IT'S JUST WENDY'S, FOR CHRISSAKES!"

Bub, Andrew

08-20-2003, 11:08 AM

Does El Pollo Loco still exist out there?

Lando

08-20-2003, 11:08 AM

Ok, I like In-n-Out, but The Habit (Newbury Park and other locations) is far superior. It sounds good just about now....

Supertanker

08-20-2003, 11:25 AM

And they recently opened a Wendy's in Burbank as well, and it had lines out the door for months. I like Wendy's, and sometimes I'd drive by there thinking I'd get a cheeseburger, and there'd be this enormous line snaking into the parking lot. I wanted to get a bullhorn: "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? IT'S JUST WENDY'S, FOR CHRISSAKES!"

Is that the one at Empire Center (off I-5 on the old Lockheed site*)? It might just be people starving after walking miles while shopping and having few food alternatives. That place has 900,000 square feet of retail space. My kids always want to go to the Panda Express there, and it is always insanely crowded. Can I borrow your megaphone to yell about mediocre chinese food?

Wendy's is weird in SoCal, though. In some places, you can't find one at all. Up here in Santa Clarita, I think we have three now. I can't figure out how they decide on new locations.

*They paid tribute to the site's past by putting pictures of Lockheed planes on the tops of the four huge freeway-oriented store signs - P-38, P-80, SR-71, and a Constellation. I think of it as another sign of the final victory of capitalism, even over the defense industry.

DennyA

08-20-2003, 01:17 PM

Jason Levine

08-20-2003, 01:24 PM

Stupid Vermont. No In-n-Out. No Chic-fil-A. No Krystal. No Krispy Kreme. 40 minute drive to the closest Wendy's, even.

But hey, no traffic jams. No random murders. No giant lines at the movie theaters. I guess it evens out.

But this place would be heaven if they'd just add a Popeyes, a Krispy Kreme, and an In-N-Out.

(Oh, and install a giant space heater in geosynchronous orbit over the state that would activate between December and March.)

Here in Chicagoland, we have more Wendy's than you can shake a stick at, and Popeye's (which I don't care all that much for since we have a local outfit here in the southwestern suburbs called White Fence Farm, which is much better, even if it is owned by Dennis Hastert's family), and, Praise the Lord, we have a Krispy Kreme less than 15 minutes from my house. We don't have Krystal's, however, and I don't know what that is.

We also don't have In-N-Out, for which I'm sure the reality is nowhere near as interesting as my imaginiation tells me it is, based on that name. :D

DennyA

08-20-2003, 01:38 PM

Boil some lard. Add a bag of sugar. Take any donut and dip it in there and you've got ... Krispy Kreme. We only have one in Milwaukee too, but they sell the donuts at all the grocery stores now.
You must be one of those freaks who thinks Dunkin sells donuts. :-)

Anyone who'd compare grocery store Krispy Kremes to the ones you get when the "Hot Donuts Now" sign is flashing obviously doesn't get it.

Funny to see KK as the big rage, though. I grew up in Savannah, GA, where they had 'em all the way back in the late 60s. Krispy Kreme was just "the donut shop." Course, it spoils you -- I can't eat those dry, processed, cakey glazed donuts these Dunkin-eating-yankees seem to thrive on.

Xaroc

08-20-2003, 01:42 PM

There is a bakery in Annapolis if you don't get there before 9am you aren't getting any of their heavenly donuts. I like KKs but nothing beats Carlson's for me.

-- Xaroc

Jason Cross

08-20-2003, 01:49 PM

Oh yeah I guess I should update my entry here. I hinted at this in the other forum...

I'm moving to San Francisco, where I'll work with Loyd and Dave (hi guys!) at ExtremeTech. I'll also pester Jeff Green from time to time (hi Jeff!) and maybe do the occasional review or preview for them, seeing as how I'll still be addicted to games. I also plan to make time in my schedule to personally annoy Sparky, Lars, and Eric Wolpaw.

Before you ask: yes the hardware coverage will continue at CGM, it'll be in good shape. It's an amicable departure...I loved it here, but the opportunity came unexpectedly and I had to jump on it.

XPav

08-20-2003, 01:52 PM

On my vacation to Tennessee I had the "pleasure" of trying out some fast food places that I hadn't experienced before. Krystal was one of them. The little 'hamburgers' are interesting. Also hit a Sonic, as well as had dinner at a Cracker Barrel one night.

The west coast has none of them, and well, I'll still take In N Out.

Here's the In N Out menu by the way: http://www.in-n-out.com/html/frm_b3.html

Nothing fancy, just good.

Jason Levine

08-20-2003, 01:54 PM

Anyone who'd compare grocery store Krispy Kremes to the ones you get when the "Hot Donuts Now" sign is flashing obviously doesn't get it.

Exactly. It's like the difference between grinding the coffee beans, brewing it and drinking freshly made and filling your cup from the pot that's been sitting there on the office hot plate all day.

Bub, Andrew

08-20-2003, 03:07 PM

I didn't compare them. I compared dipping low quality donuts in boiling lard and a bag of sugar and Krispy Kreme. I just mentioned that they sell Krispy Kreme's at the local supermarket, and also mentioned that they have the real deal (with the sign and everything). Hard to believe one of you is a journalist and the other is a lawyer... I'm betting you're both fat though. :)

Seriously though, Krispy Kreme, fresh or not, usually makes me feel like a diabetic after I eat them. They're hardly gourmet, unless extra fat and sugar counts as gourmet. And that coffee analogy is just damn offensive to anyone with taste buds. At least fresh coffee depends on something other than "more" to be better than the competition.

Bub, Andrew

08-20-2003, 03:12 PM

Oh yeah I guess I should update my entry here. I hinted at this in the other forum...

Congratulations Jason. You'll like San Francisco and I'm sure you'll like Loyd's LAN setup.

Chris K

08-20-2003, 03:21 PM

Hi, I'm Chris, I'm 23. I just graduated from the University of Utah, where I freelanced for Gamespot for two years and wrote for the school paper in between sluffing classes and playing Counter-Strike.

Now I'm a information designer (glorified technical writer) at McKinnon-Mulherin, a company that creates training, marketing materials, and does proposal writing for evil government projects. It's turned me off to the corporate world so quickly, I'm planning on joining the Peace Corps next year.

Anyway, my favorite genre is FPS. I just bought three of them, JKII, NOLF2, and Aliens vs. Predator 2 for a combined $50 new and am having a blast with all three.

By the way, Crown Burger in good old Salt Lake City is tops in my book for quick and fast fatty eats. Everything is cooked to order, and the Crown Burger (a massive hamburger stuffed with pastrami) destroys all comers. Drop by and have a bite to eat between tours of the Mormon Temple, won't you?

Jason Levine

08-20-2003, 03:27 PM

Seriously though, Krispy Kreme, fresh or not, usually makes me feel like a diabetic after I eat them. They're hardly gourmet, unless extra fat and sugar counts as gourmet. And that coffee analogy is just damn offensive to anyone with taste buds. At least fresh coffee depends on something other than "more" to be better than the competition.

The coffee analogy was comparing fresh, gooey, hot-out-of-the-lard Krispy Kremes with the dried-out fat ones you get at the supermarket, not with the competition. So I think it's a good analogy. :P As for the extra fat and sugar making a better donut, well, what IS a glazed donut besides fat and sugar? So, yes, I'd say extra fat and sugar do make a better glazed donut. And, hey, what's this with a brat-eating Cheesehead criticizing other people's eating habits? :wink: Which reminds me, Bub, what ARE they going to do with the Receiver statue? I know some Bears fans down here that have a few suggestions.

bago

08-20-2003, 04:07 PM

At the issiquah Krispy Kreme there were solid hour-long lines, 24 hours a day, for a month. Cops were directing traffic around there non-stop for a while..

But I'm sure that was to be expected.

Tom Chick

08-20-2003, 04:18 PM

They're hardly gourmet, unless extra fat and sugar counts as gourmet.

You don't know what you're talking about. This is telling:

Boil some lard. Add a bag of sugar. Take any donut and dip it in there and you've got ... Krispy Kreme.

Here's some advice: don't start a DonutDads web site. :)

Krispy Kream uses a particular batter. I actually did a story on them last year and got a tour through the process. Their batter, their cooking process, and the way they glaze things under that little waterfall makes them very different from other donuts.

And I should know. I've eaten enough of the damn things.

-Tom

DennyA

08-20-2003, 04:22 PM

unless extra fat and sugar counts as gourmet.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is yet another statement to add to our "how to spot a yankee" list.

PS: Coffee sucks.

Mark Asher

08-20-2003, 04:23 PM

The Krispy Kreme donuts are hard to beat. They get my vote.

Jason, you're already annoying "Eric" Wolpaw by misspelling his name. Good start!

Machfive

08-20-2003, 04:33 PM

You can have your KK's.

I'll take a batch of hot cake donuts, dipped in milk, when fall comes around and the cider mills start baking them in all their glory.

Everything else is just too froo-froo. I love me my sugar, but too much of a good thing is NOT always wonderful. Mae West needed a qualifier for her statement.

Case

08-20-2003, 05:33 PM

Anyone who'd compare grocery store Krispy Kremes to the ones you get when the "Hot Donuts Now" sign is flashing obviously doesn't get it.

Funny to see KK as the big rage, though. I grew up in Savannah, GA, where they had 'em all the way back in the late 60s. Krispy Kreme was just "the donut shop." Course, it spoils you -- I can't eat those dry, processed, cakey glazed donuts these Dunkin-eating-yankees seem to thrive on.

Krispy Kremes are just sugar pills, even fresh from the store.

My frame of reference is a little place in Santa Clara, CA, called Stan's Donuts. They've won just about every award you can imagine, although the proprieter's getting old enough that I don't know if they'll be around much longer.

You can go there and watch them cook up the dough in the deep fat fryer. More fat than two slices of bacon ;-)

But man, are they good. KK's are a pale imitation by comparison.

Sparky

08-20-2003, 05:56 PM

I'm moving to San Francisco, where...I also plan to make time in my schedule to personally annoy Sparky, Lars, and Erik Wolpaw.
D00D! Five minutes away from us, there's an In & Out AND a Krispy Kreme, right on the same parking lot. And the hospital's on the same street, so you can rush right over for the requisite quadruple bypass.

KK's are just sugar pills, Case? You say that like it's a bad thing.

Bub, Andrew

08-20-2003, 06:02 PM

Krispy Kream uses a particular batter. I actually did a story on them last year and got a tour through the process. Their batter, their cooking process, and the way they glaze things under that little waterfall makes them very different from other donuts.

And I should know. I've eaten enough of the damn things.
-Tom

Did you do a story at home to see if boiled lard and a bag of sugar won't yield the same result? (This sounds silly but Slate would have done it.) If not, I'm not convinced! Anyway it doesn't matter, I seriously get a bad reaction when I eat one. I speed up and then crash with a massive headache. No other confection or sugar product does this to me and I've checked out fine on all doctor visits. So I blame the Kreme! or the Krispy! Or maybe it's Pop. One of those damn elves.

Peter Frazier

08-20-2003, 06:17 PM

Can someone rename this thread to 'Who are you and what do you eat?'.

It's funny but down here, franchise food is regarded as crap. I guess we only get the hyper-succesful ones which appeal to the (huge) masses with bland offerings sprinkled with sugar. Wait, that's a donut, isn't it? :wink:

Of course, were a KK to open nearby I would feel obliged to check out their produce to confirm my opinions. Of course.

balut

08-20-2003, 06:26 PM

Around central Jersey, for the people I know, anyway, it's all about the White Castle. Get a sack of burgers, a bag of chicken rings, and you're good to go.

I visited some friends in North Carolina a few weeks ago, and stopped for a bite to eat at a Quizno's down there. Now it's spoiled me, and I can't stand Subway or Blimpie's anymore for fast-food subs. There's just no comparison to Quizno's menu and quality.

balut

08-20-2003, 06:29 PM

Addendum: At least in Jersey, we have the best pizza in the country. Thin-crust, greasy as hell, and you have to fold the slices to eat them properly. None of that deep-dish Chicago "pizza" or that godawful mess that California seems to think is pizza.

Case

08-20-2003, 06:58 PM

Around central Jersey, for the people I know, anyway, it's all about the White Castle. Get a sack of burgers, a bag of chicken rings, and you're good to go.

I had a really bad experience with a White Castle somewhere near the Jersey shore many years ago -- made me sick as a dog. So I've avoided them ever since. That was no doubt a fluke, but my memory of the way they tasted doesn't hold a candle to an In-N-Out cheeseburger.

I visited some friends in North Carolina a few weeks ago, and stopped for a bite to eat at a Quizno's down there. Now it's spoiled me, and I can't stand Subway or Blimpie's anymore for fast-food subs. There's just no comparison to Quizno's menu and quality.

Quiznos is pretty decent for a chain, but there's a local chain in the SF Bay Area called Togo's. I'm addicted to a Togo's number nine on whole wheat (Hot Pastrami for those who don't know).

Jason Levine

08-20-2003, 07:04 PM

I had a really bad experience with a White Castle somewhere near the Jersey shore many years ago -- made me sick as a dog. So I've avoided them ever since. That was no doubt a fluke, but my memory of the way they tasted doesn't hold a candle to an In-N-Out cheeseburger.

No doubt a fluke? Lloyd, they don't call 'em Sliders and Belly Bombers for nuthin. :P

Bub, Andrew

08-20-2003, 07:04 PM

We have White Castle here in Wisconsin... and it's horrible. Maybe if you grew up on it but... come on. The burgers are steamed. Steamed burgers. Steamed tiny burgers. In a sack. Yum.

In n' Out, I really thought I loved it because of nostalgia and then I went to the one at Fisherman's Wharf when I was out in SF and it was sublime.

Sparky

08-20-2003, 07:08 PM

None of that deep-dish Chicago "pizza" or that godawful mess that California seems to think is pizza.
I agree...there is no actual pizza here in California. Zachary's in Berkeley is pretty good, but it's not East Coast pizza. Don't get me started on the nasty Round Table pineapple/ham monstrosity my husband eats. He's a native Californian and doesn't know any better.

Case

08-20-2003, 07:20 PM

I agree...there is no actual pizza here in California. Zachary's in Berkeley is pretty good, but it's not East Coast pizza. Don't get me started on the nasty Round Table pineapple/ham monstrosity my husband eats. He's a native Californian and doesn't know any better.

Recoils in horror.

You mean you don't like a Chicken and Garlic Gourmet,
or the Italian Garlic Supreme??

:D

If you want really weird (but oddly tasty) pizza, try the Applewood Inn in Menlo Park (CA) sometime.

DennyA

08-20-2003, 07:28 PM

Yep, East Coast pizza rules. Oddly, Burlington only has one really good Pizza place. I was hoping it'd be like Jersey and Connecticut, where even shopping mall pizza (no, not Sbarro) is good.

As for White Castles, they can't hold a candle to Krystals. White Castles have no aftertaste. Krystals stick AROUND, my friends. Ah, those college memories. "Dude, like, what did we do last night after Cash McCool's closed?" "Uh... <brrrp> Oh yeah, we musta done a Krystal run."

No better way to sober up than a nice pile of six Krystal cheeseburgers. Mmmmm...

Tyrion Lannister

08-20-2003, 08:07 PM

http://www.roundrockdonuts.com/

You can order them on line and get them delivered anywhere in the world...

Apekid

08-20-2003, 08:09 PM

I'm going to try to get this thread back on its original track.

I am Steve. I'm 35, married with two kids (both girls). I have a spastic corgi mix dog, fish, a leopard gecko and two cockatiels. I used to have a hedgehog named Spiny Norman, but he died.

I've been in the game industry for 12 years. Several pages back in this thread, Kevin Perry made mention of Computer Game Review. I was one of the original reviewers on that mag, and edited it from issue 9 to just before it closed shop.

I now write strategy guides. I usually do 4-6 per year. I'm currently working on the Zero Hour expansion for Command & Conquer: Generals. The preceeding sentence will be hopelessly out of date past Aug. 25th.

If you own a strategy guide for a game made by what used to be Westwood Studios any time in the last five years, the chances are extremely good that I wrote it. If the guide sucks, it's my damn fault, even if it really isn't (although it probably is).

In other news, I'm working on a MA in the most obscure (but real) subject you've never heard of. I am a major game geek off the PC as well--my current total of Steve Jackson Games GURPS titles is hovering near the 75 mark.

Oh, and I really like sushi.

Rywill

08-20-2003, 09:26 PM

Nice try, Apekid, but I'm veering it right back over the cliff again.

CONGRATS JASON!

Quizno's is damn good. Better than Togos (which is not a local chain unless you consider it all local for being in the same state--you can't throw a dead weasel in the Valley without hitting a Togos).

Supertanker: Yeah, I was talking about the Wendy's in the Empire Center. I mean, Wendy's, great, it's a lot closer than the one by Magic Mountain, but who would honestly wait in line an hour for Wendy's? I'd sooner starve. Or drive into downtown Burbank and get food there. Jesus Christ, people.

And I don't like Krispy Kremes. Just way too sweet and yuck for me. I eat one, I feel kind of sick. In N Out, OTOH, is some of the best fast food you'll ever eat. Great burgers, great shakes. Only mediocre fries, though.

Apekid

08-20-2003, 10:00 PM

Nice try, Apekid, but I'm veering it right back over the cliff again.

Okay. Fine.

The best fast food fries on the planet are, hands down, from Portillos, a Chicago-area hot dog chain. Just the right amount of salt, tender yet firm. Nubile, almost. Not unlike a new-to-school coed.

Portillos also makes a staggeringly good chili dog.

Worst fries--Steak 'N' Shake. Like shoestring potatoes with more grease.

Am I the only one who has had the turkey BLT from Culver's? Now that's a sammich!

Tyjenks

08-20-2003, 10:04 PM

XPav

08-20-2003, 10:05 PM

Geez we've got enough people up here to have a Shoot Club North.

Rywill

08-20-2003, 10:24 PM

You're nuts. I remember in High School the cheerleaders would sell them, I would by a dozen after school, and half would be gone by the time I got home.
My brother would do the same thing when he lived out here. He'd buy a dozen donuts on Saturday, and I'd maybe eat one, and by Monday they'd all be gone. *shiver*

EDIT: Initially, I referred to Rywill's nuts: "Your nuts". That was I thought I wished to have never had.
Christ, you and me both, Tyler.

voltaic

08-20-2003, 11:21 PM

Togos, Quiznos, and Subway all have exceptionally good veggie subs of their various ilks. Togos has the best guac, Quiznos has the best bread, and subway has the best variety of veggies.

Wendy's has the best Spicy Chicken sandwhich of all time! And are certianly in the top two for the fries category.

In-N-Out is good if you get a double-double or "3x3, animal style, ketchup and mustard instead" (order it exactly as it appears in those quotes). INO also has just about the best damn shakes in the fast food biz.

Sparky

08-20-2003, 11:28 PM

I am Steve. I'm 35.
And, lest we forget, he was a card-carrying member of the Dick's Insider Club!

Lunch of Kong

08-21-2003, 12:12 AM

In other news, I'm working on a MA in the most obscure (but real) subject you've never heard of.

Come on, then. Spill the legumes.

my current total of Steve Jackson Games GURPS titles is hovering near the 75 mark.

That's a lot of GURPS. I'm playing a system right now I'd never heard of until a week ago: RuneQuest, 3rd edition. Our party includes a sentient baboon and a vampire duckling (or rather, a vampireling duck).

Rywill

08-21-2003, 07:13 AM

Don't tell Cathcart.

Case

08-21-2003, 07:16 AM

Geez we've got enough people up here to have a Shoot Club North

I have a LAN party every Friday night, in the basement of the Case house in the South Bay. I currently max out at around 8 players, though. Alan Au shows up for most of the sessions. We mostly play co-op, but go through a variety of games, ranging from Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, through Rise of Nations, Raven Shield and Battlefield 1942. Generally, our group is 5-6, but with a little effort, we can go to 12.

See my "Friday Night Follies" in a recent CGW. (No, I'm not trying to replicate Tom's angst-filled column. Mine was about tech stuff, of course).

If we plan ahead, and people bring some of their own systems, we could have a bigger session. My house is fairly large.

Nellie

08-21-2003, 07:59 AM

Time to join in late again with an annoying on topic post ;)

30 years old, based in blighty, no pets, no kids. One time IT Spod specialising in Voice Recording/analysis and IVR platforms currently sat back on the phones for a mobile phone company talking people through GPRS.

Tenuous amatuer link to gaming through a couple of websites (DF3.net being the one people most likely to have heard of) as moderator/reviewer etc and work behind the scenes developing/writing RP storylines on an MMPORG.

Case

08-21-2003, 08:10 AM

based in blighty

Blighty?

:?:

Nellie

08-21-2003, 08:21 AM

Blighty = England.

Old Soldier slang from WWI and WWII. No idea what its origins are.

quatoria

08-21-2003, 08:56 AM

Thierry Nguyen

08-21-2003, 09:03 AM

Only mediocre fries, though.

Have you tried ordering them well-done? Their normal fries are too undercooked for me, and "fries well-done" usually solves that problem.

Tyjenks

08-21-2003, 09:04 AM

And I don't like Krispy Kremes. Just way too sweet and yuck for me. I eat one, I feel kind of sick.

You're nuts. I remember in High School the cheerleaders would sell them, I would by a dozen after school, and half would be gone by the time I got home. They melt in your mouth when fresh (The donuts, that is).

EDIT: Initially, I referred to Rywill's nuts: "Your nuts". That was I thought I wished to have never had.

Particularly when you follow it up with a fawning discussion of how they melt in your mouth....

Hey, I clarified it was the donuts. Although, initially, I was thinking the confusion would be betwwen the donuts and the cheerleaders melting in your mouth.

I'm 34 and married with one 2.5 year old girl.

I like basketball, videogames and lesbian porn.

Yet another futile attempt at thread re-alignment.

John Reynolds

08-21-2003, 09:05 AM

Another late and annoyingly on topic post: http://www.simhq.com/_aboutus/reynolds.html

Rywill

08-21-2003, 11:18 AM

Only mediocre fries, though.

Have you tried ordering them well-done? Their normal fries are too undercooked for me, and "fries well-done" usually solves that problem.
Sadly, this is probably the most useful thing I've ever learned on this board. Thanks! I'll try that next time.

Case

08-21-2003, 12:46 PM

Sadly, this is probably the most useful thing I've ever learned on this board. Thanks! I'll try that next time.

You frequent this board to learn useful things???

:lol: :lol: :lol:

JessicaM

08-21-2003, 01:34 PM

OK, my 2 cents:

Best Hamburgers: The small Miller's chain in Houston or In n' Out on the West Coast.

Best Subs: The Viking chain in SF/Bay Area. The chicken teriyaki is to die for.

Best Pizza: Pizzaria Uno

Jason Cross

08-21-2003, 01:44 PM

And I don't like Krispy Kremes.

Okay, I feel I should chime in on this Krispy Kreme thing. See, now that they've grown real big and you can buy them in grocery stores and airports and stuff, people are getting wrong idea.

If you buy a Krispy Kreme out of some case or something, you are not, my friend, eating an actual Kripsy Kreme. True Krispy Kreme doughnuts are only available at the shop when the "HOT!" neon sign is lit, indicating that they're just rolling out of whatever contraption makes them (I'm guessing a big bucket of boilion lard).

You bite into the velvety softness with the hot glaze and it just totally dissolves in your mouth.

Once they've cooled down and hardened, it's like a totally different thing. There's nothing specail about THOSE doughnuts at all.

Bub, Andrew

08-21-2003, 01:50 PM

(I'm guessing a big bucket of boilion lard).

Ha! See? Bucket of lard and a bags worth of melted sugar. Pour the sugar through a waterfall contraption and take Tom Chick on a tour (tell him the batter is "special") and you've got Krispy Kreme manufactury in your house! :)

Dirt

08-21-2003, 01:50 PM

I don't get Krispy Kremes. A doughnut is a doughnut is a doughnut.

Tyjenks

08-21-2003, 02:08 PM

I don't get Krispy Kremes. A doughnut is a doughnut is a doughnut.

Blasphemy!

Mr. Cross is right. KK is not the same donut in the grocery store or even with the kids who pick them up that day and sell them at schools or door to door. Picking them up at Krispy Kreme fresh outta the donut factory and digging in is like eating fluffy while clouds in heaven. Not to oversell it, of course.

Jason Cross

08-21-2003, 02:09 PM

Jason, you're already annoying "Eric" Wolpaw by misspelling his name. Good start!

I was WONDERING when someone would catch that! :)

I have a LAN party every Friday night, in the basement of the Case house in the South Bay. I currently max out at around 8 players, though.

I'm going to try to make a lot of those Friday night LAN parties. It'll be a bit harder without a car, though. BART doesn't go as far south as you, I don't think...

Brian3DGPU

08-21-2003, 02:27 PM

I have a LAN party every Friday night, in the basement of the Case house in the South Bay.

I can regrettably say that I missed one of those LAN parties to go out drinking. Back when Loyd was a the evil "N", some of the websites flew out to check out an upcoming card. (I bet Loyd remembers which) And he extended the offer. Instead I went out drinking with some of the PR goobs, which wasn't too bad since they paid!

Back to eating, I bet Loyd can remember that Brazilian Steakhouse in Vegas we ate at during Comdex one time. God, I ate so much meat cooked on a spit I felt like a damn caveman.

XPav

08-21-2003, 02:49 PM

Case

08-21-2003, 02:58 PM

I'm going to try to make a lot of those Friday night LAN parties. It'll be a bit harder without a car, though. BART doesn't go as far south as you, I don't think...

You can take the train! Then you'll have fun train stories!

Xpav's right. Caltrain, baby. You can either get off at Mountain View or Sunnyvale. Either one is about a ten minute drive from my house, and we can arrange pickup and dropoff. The only potential problem is that the trains may stop running around 11PM (I forget), so you might have to crash here until morning.

Apekid

08-21-2003, 05:34 PM

In other news, I'm working on a MA in the most obscure (but real) subject you've never heard of.

Come on, then. Spill the legumes.

Linguistic anthropology, focusing on the languages of Micronesia.

Back to eating, I bet Loyd can remember that Brazilian Steakhouse in Vegas we ate at during Comdex one time. God, I ate so much meat cooked on a spit I felt like a damn caveman.

Yolie's?

Jason McCullough

08-21-2003, 06:15 PM

Jesus, that *is* obscure.

voltaic

08-21-2003, 10:32 PM

Apekid

08-21-2003, 10:40 PM

What is bad-ass about studies like that, though, is one day we will see Apekid (under his real name, I presume) on History Channel and PBS specials. He is GUARANTEED status as the go-to-guy if anyone ever needs help studying the development of language in micronesia. Booyah!

You mean you wouldn't want to see my goofy mug on camera with

Apekid
Micronesian Expert

sitting in the bottom right of the screen?

(The current go-to guy on all linguistic things Austronesian (of which Micronesian is a micro-part) is Robert Blust at U-Hawaii.)

Jason Cross

08-22-2003, 01:27 PM

Xpav's right. Caltrain, baby. You can either get off at Mountain View or Sunnyvale. Either one is about a ten minute drive from my house, and we can arrange pickup and dropoff. The only potential problem is that the trains may stop running around 11PM (I forget), so you might have to crash here until morning.

I figured we'd just be gaming until they start running again the next morning... I mean what kinda crappy LAN party do you throw, anyway? :)

(yeah yeah, kids and wife, I know...)

I took a Linguistic Anthropology class in college and found it terribly fascinating. If I ever go back, linguistics (though maybe not athropology) is one of the things I'm interested in studying. Languages fascinate me, once I learn things like why people sound like they do, word etymology, etc.

Bub, Andrew

08-22-2003, 01:44 PM

What precentage of linguistic Majors come into the program already knowing how to speak Sindarin, Klingon, and Esperonto?

Just curious.

And yes, I do think linguistics is a pretty cool course of study.

Case

08-22-2003, 02:14 PM

I figured we'd just be gaming until they start running again the next morning... I mean what kinda crappy LAN party do you throw, anyway? :)

(yeah yeah, kids and wife, I know...)

That's actually close to the truth. It's not that Jan cares whether or not I game late -- she's actually incredibly tolerant of the Follies follies. But it's that I get up at 6AM during the school year, so staying up late becomes difficult at my, uh, advanced age.

But quite a number of sessions do get past the Qt3 barrier. In fact, the sessions often go on even after I toddle off to bed...

Brian3DGPU

08-22-2003, 02:25 PM

Yolie's?

BINGO! That was great....unless your a vegetarian I guess ;)

Case

08-22-2003, 02:34 PM

Yolie's?

BINGO! That was great....unless your a vegetarian I guess ;)

Unfortunately, Yolie's seems to have gone downhill due to its popularity. My last visit there was less than satisfying, sad to say.

DennyA

03-18-2004, 10:21 PM

{BUMP}

It's been over six months since anyone posted here, and some prolific posters have appeared in the meantime, so I thought I'd bump this back up to the topic.

Updated recap:
Denny Atkin
Dad of an amazing 1.5-year-old kid and still happily married after darn near a decade.
Author of a "Dummies" book coming soon to a Barnes & Noble near you.
Former editorial type at Handheld Computing, Computer Games mag, and Computer Gaming World. Now a rogue writer for hire. (Think Han Solo with PDA instead of a blaster, and way less cool.)

TimElhajj

03-18-2004, 11:30 PM

Congratulaions on the book, Denny. What is it PDA's for Dummies?

Here is my update: Dad, Technical writer, playing lots of LOMAC right now.

Wow, look how big this thread is! I've got thread envy. :)

Jason McMaster

03-19-2004, 06:00 AM

My Update:

Freelance Writer, Married 6 months ago, playing lots of Planetside, Silent Storm and City of Heroes.

DennyA

03-19-2004, 07:00 AM

Congratulaions on the book, Denny. What is it PDA's for Dummies?[/size]
Yep. Specifically, it's Sony CLIE for Dummies. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764571990/datkinnet-20?creative=125581&camp=2321&link_code=as1) I'm about three chapters from being done. So I guess I should close this browser window and get back to work....

CJ Martin

03-19-2004, 07:38 AM

Me:

Former news group hatemonger and game designer for EA

Currently working for the Department of the Navy, supporting F/A-18 flight test and fleet support efforts.

Just rolled the big 4-0 last month. Blah.

-CJ a.k.a. Smut

Case

03-19-2004, 08:01 AM

Update: Now technical Director at Extremetech (where I can now make even bigger mistakes).

Still have the basement lab, which is also the site of our Friday Night Follies LAN parties.

http://home.comcast.net/~loyd_case/office_wide_tiny.jpg

If any of y'all are in the Silicon Valley area, whether you live here or are visiting, let me know. Love to have you over for some gaming action.

balut

03-19-2004, 08:03 AM

*sniff* That room is beautiful, man.

Jason McMaster

03-19-2004, 08:28 AM

I think I just pissed my pants.

balut

03-19-2004, 08:43 AM

Oh man, I just thought about playing Steel Battalion on that TV, and my head almost imploded.

Jason McMaster

03-19-2004, 08:47 AM

I may move to the Valley so I can be near that room.

Rob O'Boston

03-19-2004, 08:48 AM

I don't think I ever did this, so here goes.

Although O'Boston would be a really cool last name, it's just a carry over from the old message boards. We could post any user name back then (ah, the good old days), and there were a bunch of Robs, so I would use Rob of Boston back then. When the Entity (tm) had us register, I just adopted the old practice with a slight modification.

My real last name has helped me through 20 years of small talk with receptionists, nurses, dental assistants, coworkers, and anybody else who watched MTV in the 80s: Palmer.

My particulars are that I've been a gamer since I was 10. I'm 34 now. I am an accountant in Boston My wife and I are ready to move Maine, but our jobs and lives here are still fun and enjoyable so its hard to decide when to go.

I've been playing a lot of Planetside, Dom2, and UT2k4's demo. What I want more than anything is for Mark Asher to post his freaking City of Heros impressions on the front page.

Case

03-19-2004, 08:55 AM

Oh man, I just thought about playing Steel Battalion on that TV, and my head almost imploded.

Don't get too excited -- that's just a screen. When I test projectors, it's mostly for DVD movie playback. I do now have a basic cable feed coming into the office, though.

However, in the upstairs family room is a Samsung 50" RPTV. I just got Steel Battalion.... oooohhh.

:D

balut

03-19-2004, 08:57 AM

Case

03-19-2004, 09:31 AM

Oh man. So, are you looking for a professional Kato-Kaelin-style freeloader to sleep on your couch and eat your food? If so, I'm willing to relocate. :D

Well, let's see, if you're willing to:

Get up at 6AM, take my daughters to school
Clean and organize my office daily
Pick up my daughters and chauffer them to all their various events
Take care of our two miniature Dachshunds
Handle all my Fedex, UPS and Airborne shipments
Run all my benchmark testing on as many as six different systems

Every single day, for just food and gaming time.

:wink:

balut

03-19-2004, 09:40 AM

Hey now, I said Kato-Kaelin-style freeloader, not a freeloader that does chores. :roll:

Case

03-19-2004, 09:43 AM

Hey now, I said Kato-Kaelin-style freeloader, not a freeloader that does chores. :roll:

:lol:

Bub, Andrew

03-19-2004, 09:56 AM

Name: Julian
Job: Student, Silver Style
Hobbies: movies, soccer, games (duh), GWJ

Ephraim

03-19-2004, 02:19 PM

Other Aliases: FriarCoop, Friar Ephraim, Eph, Coppertone

Age: 32

Current Occupation: Project Manager at a reasonably cool Web design shop called Fuel Industries (www.fuelindustries.com). We also do online games in Flash and Director, just launched our new site that has some samples. Feel free to poke around it (www.fuelindustries.com) and its game subsite Cowboys & Engines (www.cowboysandengines.com).

Gaming Relating Links: Previously worked at a company that created a "call home" technology that allowed for game rental (Channelware/NetActive). There was a pilot project with Blockbuster. It flopped. Life went on, but at least I got to go to E3 and GDC a couple of times... Oh, and I also wrote most of the chapter on duelling for the DAoC: Shrouded Isles Prima Guide. Including that mini-booklet exerpt that actually got included in the DAoC: SI box. That may have been my proudest gaming moment :)

Games I'm Currently Enjoying: Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, SOCOM II, Champions of Norrath

Game I Hope To Be Enjoying Soon: Steel Battalion: Line of Contact, World of Warcraft Beta Phase 2

Games I Used to Obsess Over: Myth, DAoC, Shadowbane, Thief 1 & 2, Freedom Force (remember when you could 'buy game names' for $20 over at OMM? I bought Freedom Force), Halo.

/Eph

_Fury_

03-19-2004, 02:46 PM

Name: Aaron Hill
Occupation: Just some guy with a wife and some kids and stuff. Oh, and games.

Naked

03-19-2004, 03:16 PM

Name: Julian
Job: Student, Silver Style
Hobbies: movies, soccer, games (duh), GWJ

[/lurk]Hi Spunior![lurk]

DennyA

03-19-2004, 03:58 PM

Yep. Specifically, it's Sony CLIE for Dummies. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764571990/datkinnet-20?creative=125581&camp=2321&link_code=as1) I'm about three chapters from being done. So I guess I should close this browser window and get back to work....
Congratulations Denny! Is this your first book length work?
Thanks!

Nope, third. There was also Denny Atkin's Best Amiga Tips and Secrets, (1993), which I still get occasional kudos on from fellow ex-Amiga geeks, and Computer Gaming World's Why Won't This $#%@ Game Work? (1999), coauthored with Terry Coleman, which would have been a good book had the publisher not sat on it for over six months because they didn't know how to market it. It had all kinds of cool info on how to deal with problems with the early versions of DirectX, and how to get DOS games running on Win95. By the time they finally printed it, MS had come out with a decent rev of DirectX and people had stopped caring about running their DOS games... :sigh:

As I wrap this one, I begin to remember why I only write books every five years or so. :-)

Actually, now that I'm unempl.. er, a freelancer... I may do another one this year. But I'm going to be a bit more assertive on asking for a longer deadline. A toddler missing a lot of day care because of an unusually virus-laden winter has made this a pretty exhausting experience.

Thomas Wilde

03-19-2004, 04:56 PM

I'm twenty-five, single, and I work as a freelancer. I was born near Chicago, but have spent the last few years in Missouri working on my English degree.

Due to a weird situation where I turned a plagarized FAQ into a job interview, I do a lot of work in the UK, for OXM, Tip Station, and Station Gamer. In the US, I write for Worth Playing and Game Over Online (Seth Kleinberg told me about this place; what convinced me to register was the fact that this was the only sane board I saw, with regard to Fallout:BoS), and I'm a licensing specialist for DoubleJump Publishing.

Shadari

03-19-2004, 07:52 PM

Woulda replied earlier but I was in the midst of moving back out east and didn't really have access to a computer aside from the one at my new workplace but I didn't feel right playing around on the Internet being a new employee... :wink:

Anyway, I'm a 33 year old software engineer currently working on mortgage software. Worked at one game company (Vicarious Visions) and at Intel (doing Shockwave 3D {yes, that's Intel, not Macromedia}) for a few years.

As far as actual game playing goes... I started electronic gaming with the old handhelds by Mattel and Coleco, et al. Moved to the 2600, then 5200 and Colecovision. Went to VIC-20/C64 (kinda skipped the Amiga timeframe for various reasons) then moved to the PC and have never really looked back I guess. I still mess around with the consoles a little here and there.

For the past few years I've been primarily an RPG addict... which is kinda ironic seeing how the genre is a bit stale right now. I was really big into shooters a few years back, but kinda burned out on them. Actually at one time or another, I've been pretty hardcore into just about every genre with the possible exception of racing games.

Shadari

03-19-2004, 08:44 PM

-Live in Wilsonville, Oregon

I hope you get bottled water!

Haha, two Oregonians. I just left the Portland area a few weeks back. I already miss Oregon. I'll probably return one day. I said that about TN and I'm back here.

03-20-2004, 07:48 AM

Name: Julian
Job: Student, Silver Style
Hobbies: movies, soccer, games (duh), GWJ

[/lurk]Hi Spunior![lurk]

Who? 8)

That said, hi Sam!

Dirt

01-27-2005, 01:04 PM

Ah ha! Page 3, Tim says he's 40! Okay, so I was off by a few years.

McCrank

01-27-2005, 01:17 PM

Ooooo, a cool post resurrected. Think I'll reply...

26 years old, live in Tampa, Florida, project manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Been PC gaming since '91 (my first gaming experience ever was Super Mario Bros. for NES), my first PC game was Monkey Island 2. To this day, remain a serious strategy game fan, mostly turn-based, with some RTS interest, strictly PC though, dont own any consoles. I like going out and getting drunk on the weekends.

Dirt

01-27-2005, 01:24 PM

I went to Tampa on a business trip just a few days before the Super Bowl there a few years back. Tampa is a small city.

Jinsai

01-27-2005, 01:59 PM

Name: Anu Kirk

What I Do: Design Internet music services. I was the primary designer of something called Rhapsody (now owned by RealNetworks and called RealRhapsody). Now I work for Liquid Digital Media, primarily on digital music projects for Wal-Mart.

I also made games - I worked for Mad Doc Software and shipped the Dungeon Siege expansion pack "Legends of Aranna" - I actually ended up doing a surprising amount of work on this in various areas.

Digital music and videogames have a lot in common, actually. I can't decide which one is more fun. I am tempted to get back into games again.

Erik J.

01-27-2005, 02:33 PM

UMBC student. Graphic design fanboy. Lurker. 23, Annapolis MD. Always something interesting to read here. Mostly entertain myself with gaming, soccer, and revelling in horribly bad movies.

Erik J.

Brian Reynolds

01-27-2005, 03:33 PM

Okay, taking the plunge...

37-year-old Game Designer/Programmer.

Lead Designer for Rise of Nations, Alpha Centauri, Civ 2. Lead Programmer for several before that.

Educated as a philosopher and historian, go figure.

Married, father of two boys ages 7 and 9 as of this post (hereafter referred to for WoW purposes as "The Warrior" and "The Mage").

Random hobbies like Harmonica playing, Wine, Swimming, Bridge, reading History as well as sci-fi, also Eurogames of all sorts, particularly Amun Re and Princes of Florence.

Random addictions like WoW and reality TV.

Greg Vederman

01-27-2005, 04:01 PM

Name: Anu Kirk

What I Do: Design Internet music services. I was the primary designer of something called Rhapsody.

You are my hero. I LOVE Rhapsody. Been paying my $9.95 a month for a long while now. :D

-Vede

TimElhajj

01-27-2005, 04:07 PM

Ah ha! Page 3, Tim says he's 40! Okay, so I was off by a few years.

Wait, but that was three years ago! I am the oldest mofo, by far (behind mirimon, who is actually a bad mofo and not just a plain mofo)

Bub, Andrew

01-27-2005, 04:24 PM

Lead Designer for Rise of Nations, Alpha Centauri, Civ 2. Lead Programmer for several before that.

Brian is being modest. He's actually best known for "Rex Nubular and the Cosmic Gender Bender."

EFlannum

01-27-2005, 04:45 PM

Timemaster Tim

01-27-2005, 05:13 PM

Lead Designer for Rise of Nations, Alpha Centauri, Civ 2. Lead Programmer for several before that.

I've got Dragonsphere kicking around somewhere in my pile of games!

shift6

01-27-2005, 06:44 PM

Lead Designer for Rise of Nations, Alpha Centauri, Civ 2. Lead Programmer for several before that.
Brian is being modest. He's actually best known for "Rex Nubular and the Cosmic Gender Bender."
Wow I remember that game... didn't know Brian worked on it though.

Who says QT3 isn't educational?
You wanna talk about clout? Brian is developer ID #1 on Moby Games:
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId=1/

http://shift6.com/brianreynolds.jpg

extarbags

01-27-2005, 07:00 PM

Interestingly enough, you only have to go to developer id 4 to start seeing auto-generated bios.

Calistas

01-27-2005, 07:08 PM

Peter Tyson
29
Ba (Hons) Politics

Was: Community Liaison Manager for Dragon Empires - a project canned by Codemasters late last year.
Was was: Previously a market analyst for Datamonitor

Is: In Auckland, NZ and about to stop work at a neat little internet company www.netconcepts.com

Will be: Doing something interesting in Wellington, NZ in a few months. Until then, enjoying summer.

EFlannum

01-27-2005, 11:50 PM

That's really cool I think I could have done without the pic though... its going to make me chuckle whenever I think of Rise of Nations now.

krayzkrok

01-28-2005, 12:40 AM

In an attempt to win the prize for most bizarre off-topic occupation...

Age: 33 (for another 3 weeks at least)

Occupation: Zoologist - Senior Researcher for a wildlife management company in Darwin, northern Australia, where I specialise on crocodilian biology, behaviour and management. Also do a lot of TVand film work, and occasionally I write and pubish electronic music (using Music-X on the Amiga... was that a former project, Anu Kirk???)

What the hell am I doing here: I've been playing games since I first discovered ancient Star Trek mainframe games at a UK university computer fair in 1976 (at the tender age of 5), and despite my zoological leanings such early exposure created enough neural connections that gaming became an integral part of my psyche.

Do games and crocodiles mix: Hell no, but I still find time to play them (games, that is). Get very annoyed with games like "Croc: Legend of the Gobbos" where clearly insufficient research into croc behaviour has been done!

What games, then: Usually RPG, strategy (turn-based, if I can find any of the damn things), FPS, space sim (ha!) and lots of retro stuff. Last game I really, really enjoyed... POP: Sands of Time.

Favourite game ever: Chaos - Battle of the Wizards.

McCrank

01-28-2005, 03:59 AM

Lead Designer for Rise of Nations, Alpha Centauri, Civ 2. Lead Programmer for several before that.

Brian is being modest. He's actually best known for "Rex Nubular and the Cosmic Gender Bender."

Man, not to derail the thread, but I still own that game in it's originality... Didnt know he was involved in it, simply one of the funniest adventure games ever, I look at it as kinda an adult version of Space Quest...

quatoria

01-28-2005, 05:38 AM

I'm virtually certain I don't have it anymore, but I, too, had that game - for a while kept next to my 'leather godesses of phobos'. Good to see you back on QT3, Brian.

JPR

01-28-2005, 06:51 AM

John Roberdeau

I'm 26. Married for a few months with an 18 month old daughter.

Education is programming, but I'm currently working in tech support at "a major computer manufacturer" based in Round Rock, TX.

I've only been here a couple of months and didn't know about Round Rock Donuts (being a staunch Krispy Kreme supporter). I'll have to try that out.

Somebody who posted earlier lives in Nashville. If you haven't already, you should try Fat Mo's for the second best cheeseburger in my experience (with Five Guys' in DC being the best).

I have no brushes with the Game industry aside from a friend and I coding half of a Dr. Mario clone called Dr. Ferret in college. I play most everything except simulations, but TBS, RTS, and RPG tend to be my favorites.

DeepT

01-28-2005, 07:28 AM

Where is Chet's bio? Thats the one I want to read.

Anyway for me:
Mark Walter
Age 36
Lives in Orlando Florida

Grew up with a Trs-80 making my first games and playing my first games. Got my computer science degree from the University of Centeral florida in 1998 (Or somewhere around then).

Worked at a small developer in orlando making games for the PS, PC, PS2, and GC. I did Die Hard Trilogy II, and a bunch of kids games (dont laugh) Rugrats Studio Tour, MaryKate and Ashleys: Magical Mystery Mall, Crush Course, and Sweet 16. I got laid off when I was half way done with a dexters lab giant robot fighting game when our publisher went under.

Now I work for a company unrealted to games making a network management system.

Future asperations: Maybe get back into game programming, but would really like a game design job although I think this is a wish that will remain unfufilled.

Games I like: RTS games, Strategy games, Adventure games, and MMOGs. Currently I spend most of my time catassing in WoW on Skullcrusher.

Brian Reynolds

01-28-2005, 07:43 AM

That's really cool I think I could have done without the pic though... its going to make me chuckle whenever I think of Rise of Nations now.

ROFL, it was a shot for PC Gamer, I was standing with Bruce Shelley and Andy Hollis and they had us "sing" like for a barbershop quartet kind of deal.

quatoria

01-28-2005, 10:34 AM

DeepT

01-28-2005, 11:07 AM

Maybe, i was on the 5 year plan. Who were your professors? The main ones I had were:
Dr. Parsons
Dr. Lobo
Dr. Sulu (not his real name, but you will know who I mean)
Leason
Dr. Fredricks
and a few others not worth mentioning.

fire

01-28-2005, 11:22 AM

Occupation: Zoologist - Senior Researcher for a wildlife management company in Darwin, northern Australia, where I specialise on crocodilian biology, behaviour and management.
We got to sex a baby crocodile a few months ago. Poor thing must have felt violated with tongs stuck in his belly like that, to separate the flesh. Luckily it wasn't that necessary because the little fella was getting all excited to be held.

Hans Lauring

01-28-2005, 01:18 PM

Hans Lauring
Age 34
Father of one (daughter) and one on the way.

Subeditor/newseditor and sometimes gadget-reviewer for large(ish compared to the US) general pc magazine published in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland (so some of my writing is published in a language I have no hope of understanding... I think it's still my writing)

We don't cover games to any great extent, but I've been gaming since I wrote my first Basic game on the ZX81. My final 'paper' in journalism school was a multimedia project about mmogs, so I guess I had to end up here.

SorenJohnson

02-28-2005, 07:06 PM

so, this is where everybody is...

I'm 28, live in Cockeysville, MD (no, not a typo), and work as a designer/programmer at Firaxis.

I was co-designer of Civ3 and also wrote much of the game and AI code. Am currently lead designer of Civ4. Good thing I grew up playing Sid's games!

Games I miss most: Seven Cities of Gold, Legacy of the Ancients, Faery Tale Adventure, and M.U.L.E. Wow, EA used to publish some really great stuff....

mouselock

02-28-2005, 07:34 PM

so, this is where everybody is...

I'm 28, live in Cockeysville, MD (no, not a typo), and work as a designer/programmer at Firaxis.

...

Games I miss most: ..., Legacy of the Ancients, Faery Tale Adventure, and M.U.L.E. ...

The solution seems obvious. ;)

SorenJohnson

02-28-2005, 07:55 PM

Mr Nash

02-28-2005, 08:12 PM

I've been running the Armchair Empire with Omni for going on five years now (well, trying to give a sense I know what I'm doing anyway :p ). Before that, I did freelance work for the Electric Playground.

In my spare time, I enjoy chasing people with sticks, and exposing myself to unsuspecting passersby. Good times... :)

Alan Au

02-28-2005, 08:20 PM

In my spare time, I enjoy chasing people with sticks, and exposing myself to unsuspecting passersby. Good times... :)
I understand it's much safer to chase people who don't have sticks. 8)

- Alan

Mr Nash

02-28-2005, 08:22 PM

In my spare time, I enjoy chasing people with sticks, and exposing myself to unsuspecting passersby. Good times... :)
I understand it's much safer to chase people who don't have sticks. 8)

- Alan

But not nearly as fun. ;)

Kevin J Baird

02-28-2005, 10:39 PM

I'll bore you with information about myself...

I'm 33...
I live in the Cleveland area, and worked with both Chet and Erik for a number of years. Both of their bios would be extensive and utterly hard to believe, but true...
I helped "discover" Seanbaby. (Basically I said, "Hey Erik, check out this dude's website.." back when he was hosted on one of those Geocities type sites, that took his site down for foul language use.)

I run VideoGameNews.com, and VGNRadio.com The focus is now on the radio show, as I'm just tired of writing about games.

I'm a .NET programmer, I have a degree from a crappy college, so crappy I won't mention it here. And I'm too stupid to ever get a job in video games, but the way you people make it sound, I suppose that's a good thing.

I own 145 consoles, most of which you can see in the museum section of VGN.

Chet "discovered" me when I worked at a strip joint (Tiffany's, now known as Christies) in Cleveland, and offered me a real job making less money, but with shiney 386 computers in the heart of the ghetto. I took it, and the rest is history...

K

EviLore

02-28-2005, 11:42 PM

20 years old, on/off college student (with on/off retail jobs) in NY since early 2002.

I've owned and helped to maintain the Gaming-Age Forum (ga-forum.com) since it officially became a separate entity last year. Lately I can be seen contributing to the gaming-age.com main site in order to further develop my writing skills. To what end I don't know, but it's early yet.

I fall into pretty standard geek hobbies that include screaming wildly at George R R Martin's semiannual "when it's done" site updates, convincing myself to cancel my WoW subscription on a daily basis, and of course arguing with certain QT3 parties on the supposed faults of Kohan 2. Rarely a dull moment.

Jason Cross

03-01-2005, 12:10 AM

I'm one of the editors at Computer Games Magazine. I'm the Hardware Editor by title, though as with everyone else here I have many duties. The Hardware section is my chief responsibility though.

Since this thread is resurrected, I figured I should update mine.

Used to be the hardware guy at CGM, but about a year and a half ago (so long already?) I moved out to San Francisco to work with Loyd Case and Dave Salvator on Extremtech.com (you may recognize those names from CGW of years gone by). Now I'm a "Technology Analyst" for ExtremeTech and PC Magazine.

Anyone else here in the SF area, feel free to message me if you want to go grab a beer or something.

Edit: huh, guess I updated this way back before I moved. Nevermind, or something.

EFlannum

03-01-2005, 12:27 AM

Eric Flannum - game designer, professional geek.

33 years old, I just recently moved up to the Seattle area specifically Bellevue, before that I was a California (north and south) native for my entire existence. Married with no kids unless you count the two Beagles. Desperately hoping George RR Martin doesn't die before he finishes his series.

Dave Weinstein

03-01-2005, 05:05 AM

I suppose I should update this.

In a few short weeks (i.e. just after GDC), I'm leaving the game industry and headed off to Microsoft and the greater Seattle area.

--Dave

Kenny Yap

03-03-2005, 06:27 PM

Kenny Yap - Software Project Lead, commercial (transportation sector)

29 years old
Born in Malaysia, working in Singapore.
Married.

Am in the middle of trying to migrate to Canada, but am uncertain of the job situation over there. Been wanting to break into the gaming industry but just don't have the guts to quit and start from bottom again. Gaming industry in Singapore is tragically small, but going in the right direction it seems.

Malderi

03-03-2005, 06:55 PM

deccan

03-03-2005, 11:33 PM

Kenny Yap

03-04-2005, 12:16 AM

Equis

03-04-2005, 03:25 AM

Interesting, I read an article in The Straits Times about how Koei and LucasArts are planning to open development studios in Singapore.

I heard about the Koei recuitment some time back. In fact my ex-colleague was hired (lucky bastard). From what I hear, they may have another round of recuitment later on.

Hmm, can't find any openings from LucasArts other than this (http://gamesindustry.biz/news.php?aid=4339). Seems to be more for animation though.

Don't know where you were, but they (lucasarts) held a round of interviews recently. Basically, they are looking for administrators and/or 3-d animators. I'm not sure though, I'm not trained at either.

Grapevine though, (which means it highly untrustworthy) is that our beloved government enticed them here with a set amount of money. Basically, if that investment aid runs dry and they find that Singapore ain't such a great place after all, they move out.

Good news is that you can still rely on that Shrek 2/Matrix guy. Can't remember his name though. Ergh...

Slo

03-04-2005, 07:23 AM

I'm a 30 year old database administrator in Reading, PA (yes, like the railroad). I work with something called Essbase and IBM's DB2 OLAP Server which you've probably never heard of and probably never will again on these boards. It's cool technology, though.

--Dave

:shock: Ever heard of SPSS/ShowCase?

quatoria

03-04-2005, 07:28 AM

Where is Chet's bio? Thats the one I want to read.

Anyway for me:
Mark Walter
Age 36
Lives in Orlando Florida

Grew up with a Trs-80 making my first games and playing my first games. Got my computer science degree from the University of Centeral florida in 1998 (Or somewhere around then).

1998? Jesus, I was in the computer science department at UCF that year. Wonder if we met. Probably not, if you were an upperclassman, but still, hunh.

Damn, I'm in the CS department at UCF now. ;-) Working over at the Institute for Simulation and Training on UCF's Research Park. I do stuff for Army training simulations... so, yeah, I make games, but I make the cool realistic virtual reality ones...

That is, again, an amusing coincidence. I had a friend who worked there, back when I was a UCF student. Gave him some copies of the discs for Planescape Torment, as I recall. How is the CS department now, if you don't mind my asking? It was pretty fucking awful back then, in a lot of ways - they were still using PASCAL as the official 'training language' for new students. What a waste of brainspace that ended up being.

DeepT

03-04-2005, 08:33 AM

I do not think the language matters. UCF was in the top 40 CS schools in the world and was aiming to become in the top 20. CS is about problem solving and understanding how to develop algorithms. Wether or not its in Pascal, C++, or Java doesn't matter. In my final year at UCF, all my stuff was in abrtact greek symbols and logical contructs, no computer language was even used.

roguefrog

03-04-2005, 12:35 PM

20 years old living in San Marcos, California. Work in Quality Assuarance as a game tester. (SCEA, San Diego)

PC Gamer and role-player. Casual movie watcher.

Simpilot

03-04-2005, 01:36 PM

Simpilot

03-04-2005, 01:36 PM

Malderi

03-04-2005, 04:54 PM

The CS department is actually rather nice, although it's about 40% Java, 40% C, and 20% C++/other at the moment - that's just for the programming classes, though. Those are themselves about 60% of required courses, the others are either a) math or b) theoretical classes like Discrete Structures.

I like it a lot, though. IST is awesome. Who was your friend that worked there? Probably heard his name at one point. PM me if you want.

And, by the way, in top CS schools - MIT recently hosted a worldwide programming tournament over the internet. MIT, Stanford, and UCF were the only American schools invited, I believe. We did okay... not great because it had to start at 8:00AM our time so that Russian schools could participate it without it going past midnight for them. Our practices normally start at 11:30 AM, so we're not used to getting up early on Saturdays for 'em. =)

Dirt

12-20-2005, 04:49 PM

My life remains the same after 3 and a half years.

Michael Fortson

12-20-2005, 05:22 PM

I can't remember if I've posted in this thread :P ... but then I have to look at the calendar to remember my age, so that's not surprising. Anyway, I'm sure my job info is out of date regardless.

Michael Fortson, 36
Developer, currently at YackPack (www.yackpack.com) (which is an unusual little asynchronous voice messaging app, for easily keeping in touch with people you're close to). I'm responsible for a bunch of the Flash client coding and all of the voip / streaming work.
No kids, though we have cats and a dog (Norwegian Lundehund... aka 6-toed freak dog :)). We're just north of S.F., and my wife works in the city as an IA.

tim edwards

12-20-2005, 06:11 PM

Hey,

I'm Tim, and work for PC Gamer in the UK. I'm 25 and live in Bath with a girlfriend and too many noisy electrical appliances. The two, it appears, are not compatible.

Jose Liz

12-20-2005, 07:09 PM

Union Carbide

12-20-2005, 07:45 PM

Update: I no longer work for Maxis or EA, I'm working with a small company called Pure Digital, that makes single use digital camcorders and cameras for a variety of retailers.

It's not as cool as working in video games, but the hours don't suck and the pay is waaay better.

Bill Dungsroman

12-20-2005, 08:09 PM

Hey,

I'm Tim, and work for PC Gamer in the UK. I'm 25 and live in Bath with a girlfriend and too many noisy electrical appliances. The two, it appears, are not compatible.

Bath and electrical appliances? Hell no!

Justin Fletcher

12-20-2005, 08:44 PM

Cool thread; it should be a sticky. Makes it much easier to update the Mission: Impossible-esque files that I keep on each of you. Especially since the damn things keep self-destructing.

Charles

12-20-2005, 08:46 PM

i make violent video games

the last game i worked on was a horrible flop. and a horrible game.

Fugitive

12-20-2005, 09:01 PM

Since this was bumped anyways...

I'm a developer, but of boring business software rather than games. We "provide enterprise-wide solutions for data storage and management," which is fancy talk for backup and restore.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be a game dev, but fortunately there are guys like you to crush my dreams and bring me back to reality. :) I still like hearing about the industry, though.

Damien Neil

12-20-2005, 09:13 PM

Holy necromancy, Batman!

I am: Damien Neil, 31, living in the SFBA. I'm a developer working on a high-performance DHCP server. There's a very good chance that you've used some device that got an IP address courtesy of software I maintain...but if I said more, our lawyers would have to kill us. :>

My only games industry experience is a brief tour at Segasoft, which left me scarred for life.

Gladguy

12-20-2005, 10:38 PM

Ha! I must win something as the OP on this thread, no?

Anyways, to update my info... no longer in the game business :( , now "Marketing Team Leader" (WETFTM) at Hasbro Canada. So, no more Battlefield at lunch in the name of "competitive research" but I do get to play with Transformers at my desk, so that's ok.

extarbags

12-20-2005, 10:41 PM

i make violent video games

the last game i worked on was a horrible flop. and a horrible game.

Oooooh what was it?

extarbags

12-20-2005, 10:42 PM

Hey,

I'm Jose. I'm 18 years old and am currently an undergraduate at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. I want to concentrate in Finance and Marketing and minor in Psychology. I want to go into consulting of investment banking. Also, I run a games website as a hobby on the side.

The notion that there might have been someone here who didn't know this is hilarious.

Unicorn McGriddle

12-20-2005, 11:09 PM

YOU FORGOT PODIUMS

roguefrog

12-20-2005, 11:10 PM

Update: I'm now 21 and have since become a home owner in ghetto ass Oceanside. I can kiss Frys Electronics only being two blocks away good bye. :(

I'm a naturaly born game stack locking genius. I have the highest bug count in twelve bays. (think giant cubicles, some include steel bars)

Brad Grenz

12-21-2005, 02:19 AM

Update:

This fall I quit my job and enrolled full time as an undergraduate student at Willamette University here in Salem, Oregon. At the age of 25, I am embarrassingly old for a sophomore. I am hoping to parley my liquor-buying capabilities into a string of devestatingly exploitative sexual relationships with impressionable female classmates. I am considering a double major in Philosophy and English. Currently I have no credible strategy for paying back the 60 grand or so I am borrowing to complete my BA. I hope to do my graduate work abroad.

Hans Lauring

12-21-2005, 02:20 AM

I'm Hans, the reviews editor of a fairly large cross Scandinavian pc-mag called Komputer for alle (computers for all)... at least in Denmark.
I'm 35 and just bought my first house.

I like games more than my editor in chief and our core readers, which is why I frequent this board - mostly I review hardware or edit hardware reviews.

shang

12-21-2005, 02:48 AM

I don't think I posted on this thread the last time around, so here goes.

I just turned 27 and have been working as a bussiness software developer for six years now. I think my current title is "software specialist", but it's your standard design & code drill. Currently, I mostly develop server side stuff in Java, that communicates with various mobile devices, but my work should get more Python-centric soon (fingers crossed!).

I'm about halfway through with my master's, but studying has unfortunately stalled a lot after being hired full time.

Just recently moved into a fancy new apartment that's like two minutes walk away from work. Yay!

Matthew Gallant

12-21-2005, 03:58 AM

Kalle

12-21-2005, 04:13 AM

Hey,

I'm Jose. I'm 18 years old and am currently an undergraduate at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. I want to concentrate in Finance and Marketing and minor in Psychology. I want to go into consulting of investment banking. Also, I run a games website as a hobby on the side.

I'm really looking for someone like Freddie Prinze Jr., but if you have a nice podium I'll take you under consideration.

Love, Jose

metta

12-21-2005, 05:56 AM

Hello

I'm 38, and a writer who got sidetracked into a job at a game developer back in 1993. I started out writing dialogue and readmes but I tend to chew my food with my mouth closed so was put onto game design and shortly after that producing.

It was fun and engaging until one of the prop heads came up with some fancy new gizmo that they thought could make everyone wads of fat cash. Then we got tangled up with VC sharks, expanded at a geometric rate and supernova'd.

The experience of watching my friends and colleagues behaviour altered by the promise of fuck you money soured me so that I decided I couldn't work for an organisation that was in business for profit. So I joined an environmental agency as a writer/editor and (again with the polite chewing) eventually was given the website to maintain as well.

Ennui has set in like damp in the walls and I'm looking for other work.

I'm married to a linguistics prof, who is both the smartest person I've ever met and a gamer; two great tastes :o

Jason McMaster

12-21-2005, 06:51 AM

I posted in this thing a while back but as an update I work for a large tech company in Cincinnati and review games/write editorials on the side. I'm 28 and married. We bought a big, 100 year old house earlier this year and now I build arcade games to make my wife angry. Life is good.

ElGuapo

12-21-2005, 08:10 AM

Hmmm. A bit awkward to throw your life story out there, but since everyone else has done it . . . when in Rome.

I'm Jason, and live in the DC metro area. I'm 30 and just got married, just bought a house made for troops coming home from Doubleya Doubleya Two. I work at the United States Supreme Court and will have been there 3 years coming up soon. Actually, to be more accurate I have a contract there, I actually own a small IT consulting company in the area and the SC is our main fish right now.

I've been gaming since Hangman on the Cybervision 1001 (with touchpads instead of a keyboard) and self programmed games on the Tandy MC 10 (where I learned to do collision detection and had to save programs by wrtiting them down in a notebook because the computer did not have secondary storage).

Anyway, my career has been all over the place but mostly with computers/programming/IT. Now I'm getting more into just the business side of things and entrepreneurship. Frankly I'm tired of spending 4 hours looking at why a piece of code is not working, then finding out I forgot a semicolon.

ElGuapo

12-21-2005, 08:12 AM

Hey Jason McMaster, by the way .. this hundred year old house, it's not in Clifton, is it? I used to live in 'natti. I used to pay good money for friends to ship me cans Skyline, before they were widely available. I lived a few places but mostly at The Forum apartments, off MLK atop a hill.

Jason McMaster

12-21-2005, 08:16 AM

hah, no. It's in Northside.

Skyline rules.

Kareem

12-21-2005, 08:33 AM

I'm 20 years old, live in a Middle Eastern cosmopolitan (oxymoron?) city called Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. In college at the moment, doing a double major in electrical engineering and mass communications (journalism concentration) because I realized well into my junior year that I didn't want to spend my life designing ICs, but would rather be a professional (preferably sports) journalist.

Blizzard and Valve fanboy, World of Warcraft addict, soccer fanatic.

Jose Liz

12-21-2005, 08:45 AM

Kalle, please stop projecting your homosexual desires. Thank you.

extarbags, while I'm sure that the average Qt3er did in fact know what I did, I don't think anyone knew what I wanted to do in the future.

Unicorn McGriddle

12-21-2005, 09:12 AM

Kalle is GAY. For YOU.

Ah, that one's overused. I like the Limp Bizkit one better. There's just something about J. Jonah Jameson. "Help me light this poop I found" is pretty good too.

Hans Lauring

12-21-2005, 10:58 AM

I'm Hans, the reviews editor of a fairly large cross Scandinavian pc-mag called Komputer for alle (computers for all)
http://img.epinions.com/images/opti/7f/c5/204941-movie.jpg-movie-resized200.jpg
Now that's socialism.

I'm sure that's not what I meant... but I'm not sure if I didn't bring it on myself for trying to translate the title - lets just stick with the Finnish title KotiMikro which I can't translate even though I contribute content.

Jason McMaster

12-21-2005, 11:07 AM

http://jaypinkerton.com/spiderman/15.jpg

cliffski

12-21-2005, 11:42 AM

Cliffski, british game developer from the ZX81 generation. Ex Elixir, Ex Lionhead, proud indie developer:

http://www.positech.co.uk

Most popular offspring is this Civ-ish political strategy gem:

http://www.democracygame.com

so there

Robert Sharp

12-21-2005, 11:50 AM

Where did you get that, Jason?

Equis

12-21-2005, 11:58 AM

I work in a non-gaming related field. I crew for independent film productions when I'm not going to grad school in New York, (which is more often than not and has old antique podiums. Podiums with the very wisdom of the ages seeped into them. Not the soulless new age kind) at the age of 24. Grip, gaff, camera, edit, produce, bitch, moan, cry, not eat, etc etc.

If anyone wants to shoot a film, let me know.

Jack Black

12-21-2005, 12:00 PM

Bah.

26, Married. I have a pair of twin (fraternal) girls who are 2 1/2. MSc in Chemistry from UNLV that I dont use. Owner/CEO of a Marketing and Advertising firm for 3 years now. Been playing games ever since I was a kid.

dannimal

12-21-2005, 12:09 PM

32, married, have 10 year old daughter (from previous marrige). Work at University of Michigan as IT. Our group does contract work for campus, so I'm all over the place. Been doing this since 4 months after graduating (which I did in 3.5 years at one of the best engineering colleges in the country. That probably seems like bush-league bragging when compared to the likes of Jose, but such is my lot).

I get stupid amounts of vacation (24 days/yr) and sick time (15 days/yr) and then there's the 7 paid holidays and the 4 season days (making sure we don't work between xmas and new year's), and they match retirement $$ 2 for 1 (capped at 5% on my side). If the benefits weren't so orgasm-inducingly sweet, I'd go somewhere else. But I'm lazy, I hate interviewing, and I like the low pressure environs.

Jason McMaster

12-21-2005, 12:11 PM

Where did you get that, Jason?

Here ya go (http://www.jaypinkerton.com/blog/archives/001161.html)

Kalle

12-21-2005, 12:14 PM

Now that's socialism.

I'm sure that's not what I meant... but I'm not sure if I didn't bring it on myself for trying to translate the title - lets just stick with the Finnish title KotiMikro which I can't translate even though I contribute content.

A literal translation doesn't really get the meaning across. It's more like "Computers for dummies".

Dave Weinstein

12-21-2005, 12:22 PM

Hmmmnnn, I can't find an update, which would mean, I didn't update it.

Ex-game-developer (11 years), married (14 years as of today), now living in the foothills of the cascades working in computer security...

MatthewF

12-21-2005, 12:23 PM

26, own an independent games company (http://www.pandora-studios.com) and also work full time at a major publisher/developer, which isn't quite as interesting. Used to be involved in modding (http://www.frag-ops.com) for UT2004, but moved on to bigger and better things last year. Currently producing an independent single player FPS/RPG and a seperate independent non-MMO multiplayer FPS/RPG (one of the first of its kind, I think). My time is nil.

Kalle

12-21-2005, 12:23 PM

Kalle, please stop projecting your homosexual desires. Thank you.

Jose, denial is a natural step but you can't stay in the closet (or would that be the podium) your whole life. At some point you and Freddie Prinze Jr. have to face reality.

pms

12-21-2005, 12:26 PM

39.
Live in Seattle.
I run POE Hosting with Chet.
I lurk a lot.

Arioch

12-21-2005, 12:32 PM

Hm, I was damn sure I wrote in this thread before.

Anyway, 26, student of english literature for far too long in Hamburg, Germany. I work in the warehouse of a logistics company. I spend way too much of my time playing, and finally I operate a small german gaming website.

Marcus

12-21-2005, 12:37 PM

26 Used to live in Seattle and worked as a Purchasing Manager but moved back down to CA and now work in Sales ( sales blows IRL ) and am currently waiting for the date to go in to the LAPD academy. Yay moving to LA!

EDIT: Oh yeah and I was in the Navy and was in Iraq and all that shit too.

DivDevlin

12-21-2005, 12:56 PM

Hmmm... I think I'm like 36. Born and raised South Side Chicago.
My daughter just turned 14 and is a freshman in HS.

Been an avid gamer since in my teens. Started with Paper RPG's in 7th grade, and still have my Chainmail edition of D&D along with my Black Box for Traveller. I have 1000's of lead mini-figs.

Started running a website dedicated to covering MMO games as a hobby a buncha years ago, but my passion has pretty much burned out, plus due to a change in employers, I just don't have the time anymore. My daughter enjoys MMO games as well, and we often try to new games to play together. She is a mini-me much to the hatred of her mother.

I work in IT, and was with a bank in until we got outsourced this year to IBM.

Yes, I am a gamer.

Juste

12-21-2005, 01:27 PM

I'm 35 and live in Oslo, Norway (Yes it's cold up here).

Been in the entertainment business all my working life, started out in the music industry working in sales and marketing for a few years, then did a stint in the games industry working first for Funcom doing licensing work worldwide then as head of Atari's Norwegian office. This last year i have been working with marketing comics at the biggest publisher in Norway. My philosophy is why grow up when there is so many cool things to work with :P I'll probably end up working with movies in the future, completing all my hobbies in my resume.

I've been a gamer since forever, going through colecovision, C64, Amiga, PC, PS1, PS2, GBA, Xbox and PSP. I'm undecided on the 360 until i get a HD TV. Besides, with 2 daughters under 3 years of age i have little to no time for gaming these days.

I'm mostly into FPS and strategy type games, although i'll play anything not Nintendo (not a fan). Currently playing Civ4 and Football Manager 2006 on the PC and Pro Evo Soccer 5 (Winning Eleven for you yanks) on the Xbox. I try to play most of the new games coming out but time is limited so i rarely have time to immerse myself totally in games like i could a few years ago.

Fun thread BTW.

:Juste

skyride

12-21-2005, 02:31 PM

Dunno who dug this up but may as well since I'm new to QT3 (come here from GG).

I'm 30 and living in Toronto, Canada. (And I don't mind the cold even though I'm originally from balmy Bangladesh).

I am a programmer at Airmiles (Canadian loyalty points company but now owned by an American company: Alliance Data).

I am a gaming fanboy; I like all genres and platforms. While far from a game developer, I have been writing silly little games mostly for myself ever since I got my hand on a BASIC compiler about 15 years ago. My current hobby is Poker. When I'm not worshipping Daniel Negreanu (who is also from TO) I'm working on a poker calculator written in Java. That's almost complete so I am currently in the design phase of a poker game that doesn't suck. I'm using Python to develop it just to get familiar with the language. Thankfully I actually have time to do this because I'm not addicted to any MMOG atm (part of The Wanderers crew when I do play 'em).

Currently I'm playing Xbox 360 games, Civ 4, BF 2, CoD 2 and PS:T. I'm also trying to finish reading some poker books and Geore RR Martins Game of Thrones books.

Hans Lauring

12-21-2005, 02:48 PM

A literal translation doesn't really get the meaning across. It's more like "Computers for dummies".

See, we try not to call our core readers for dummies - especially not in public :wink:
But yes, we don't write for the hardcore (which is good business sense - the hardcore are a minority and likes to get stuff for free on the internet)

Glenn

12-21-2005, 02:49 PM

Bachelor's in Biochemistry, working at a Biotech in San Diego while thinking about grad school.

Grew up in a white trashy town called Atascadero in central California. Never been out of California for more than two weeks at a time.

When I'm not wasting time in my cube, I enjoy rock climbing, hiking, and watching Jose Liz slowly come to grips with his homosexuality.