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© Copyright 2008 Richard Turner

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 Monday, September 24, 2007
Halo 3 - Master Chief is waiting for you!

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For anyone who's played and/or followed the previous two Halo games, tomorrow marks the release of one of the hottest entertainment releases to date. Halo3, the final chapter in the Halo trilogy is on general release tomorrow.

If you can't wait until tomorrow to begin the final saga, then you might want to attend one of the Midnight Madness events at one of the 10,000 retail outlets across North America who are opening early for Halo 3 fans! In particular, the following four special events will enjoy live coverage on SpikeTV and G4 cable networks:

  • Best Buy, 457 120th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA -- Seattle fans are invited to join the celebrations at Bellevue's Best Buy, which will open its doors at 12:01 am on September 25. To commemorate the release of Halo 3 in the game's hometown, fans will be able to celebrate the occasion with product giveaways. People in line may also get a chance to play against Bungie team members and local professional athletes.
  • Best Buy, 529 5th Ave, New York, NY -- Located in the heart of 5th Ave. and only a few blocks from Times Square, the Best Buy store on the corner of 5th and 44th Ave. will be the first to provide consumers in the U.S. with Halo 3.
  • GameStop, 1000 Universal Studios Blvd, Universal City, CA -- From the entertainment capital of the world, GameStop's flagship store at Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles will host the Halo 3 West Coast launch.
  • Circuit City, 8575 Northwest 13th Terrace, Miami, FL -- Hosted by Circuit City, Miami's Midnight Madness event of choice will feature product giveaways and contests.

Go checkout http://www.halo3.com for more details.

... And when you play Halo3 online, if you get attacked by someone called BitCrazed, you know who it is! ;)

Posted: Monday, September 24, 2007 8:28:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] -
Games

And now for something completely different!

Do you TRULY LOVE what you do? If not, why do you do it?

This are two of the most important questions we should all (regularly) ask ourselves and have the courage to answer honestly. If you hear yourself answer "no" or "not really" too often, then you know it's time for some change.

For those that don't know me, I work at Microsoft. I was, up until a few weeks ago, Product Manager for Windows CardSpace - an incredibly exciting product that will revolutionize how we authenticate ourselves and exchange sensitive information online. Before that, I was a Product Manager for Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and before that was a Program Manager for WCF. Before that I worked as a Principal Consultant and then Solution Architect at Microsoft UK. Before Microsoft, I formed and ran my own specialist software consulting business and built some pretty hard-core systems for customers throughout Europe. More on this in another post.

I asked myself the questions at the beginning of this post several times this last year and I heard my replies go from "yep, sure" to "yes, but ..." and then "no, because ..." too often. I began to ask myself "when am I happy?" and "what do I love to do?". The answer was always "I am happiest when I am designing and building great software".

Time then for a change!

It turns out that, whilst I am a little rusty, I still have the chops ;)

Following my first developer interview for over 10 years, I recently started my new role as a Software Development Engineer for (get ready for "Product Name Gone Wild" ) Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals ... or "DataDudes" as we prefer to call ourselves! :)

It's only been a few weeks now, but I can't even begin to express how excited I am now to wake up and get into work in the morning. I even look forward to Monday mornings now, eager to get in and create an elegant solution for another pressing problem.

I'll be posting more about this transformation in role from marketing to developer over the next few weeks while I settle in to the role and learn to navigate the huge amount of code in this powerful product we're building!

So I ask you once again: Do you TRULY LOVE what you do? If not, why do you do it?

Answer yourself honestly now!

Posted: Monday, September 24, 2007 6:38:59 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] -


All content (unless otherwise specified) is © Copyright 2008 Richard Turner.