Blake

I can vote for bad dell, bad Mac, good acer, good Lenovo.

Met up with The_Gabe for dinner tonight, always fun meeting people you've known online for a while irl. Also, I got a new kitten :wub: there's pictures in the Pets thread. First day of class today, a couple of them are looking pretty interesting.

I got a new kitten today :) She's one year old. She's really playful and cuddly. If you're sitting on the ground, she'll run up to you and put her feet on your shoulder, and lick your cheeks for attention haha. Also, to drink water, she bats at it with her paw, and then licks it off!

I have to use gel or something similar, or my hair turns into an afro. I use something called styling crème, I think.

Wow, that's crazy. Why'd you do it? My high school was pretty bad (2nd lowest in the state or something), and I wasn't getting challenged. Also, I didn't really care for the whole 'high school experience' thing, and I didn't have any lifelong friends that I would miss. Because of my stepdad's job, I went to a different school every two-ish years. My freshman year was at one high school, sophomore at another. Minnesota has a program where if you can apply and get accepted to a college, you can go there instead of high school. The credits would fufill your highschool credits, and obviously count for college too. I'd love to get a Masters, MBA, and PhD, but after I start full-time, Microsoft will pay for it :) So, I'll get them in a couple of years at the University of Washington.

Impressive sounding. What are the requirements? The internship is pretty hard to get in to. I know they have a less than 1% accept rate, with about 170k applicants. These are the reqs from the Microsoft jobs site... [hide] Qualifications: Pursuing a B.S./M.S. or Ph.D. degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or related field Experience with object oriented programming languages. C, C++ and/or C# experience preferred Familiarity with data structures and algorithms Ability to solve complex problems with consideration of customer experience Excellent verbal and written communications skills; ability to communicate with a variety of audiences [/hide] Basically, you have to have technical skills to design software, and communication/management skills to manage a team. I know I didn't really give you a lot of concrete requirements, but they really decide in the interview. There's an initial interview, then a 1hr phone interview, and then they fly you to Seattle for about 6hrs of interviews in one day. For reference - I have a 3.4GPA, 4 years of college, started college at 16, a previous software engineer internship, 1 year of software engineering work (during school), and my college is ranked #29 in the world. Not gloating, just saying my stats that got me in. I wouldn't have gotten in without my 1 year job experience, because it was very Program manager-y. The hire rate of interns to full time is pretty high, like 80% or something. They can have it that high, because the selection process for the internship is so rigorous. That is definitely a benefit of a MS internship, not dying :P

Will be missed :,(

Oh good. Now every time I have to fix a friend's computer problems I can complain to you for the issue not being fixed. Really though, congrats man. Well, I did get hired to IT haha :P It's not traditional IT at all though, I'll still be building tools and applications the whole time. Well, at least leading a team to do it for me haha

My internship is over tomorrow, but I got a full time job offer at Microsoft :D

Oh haha, I knew about the teleport, but couldn't figure out the helm :P

What's the deal with pouches and tyras helm?

Right now i'm drinking watermelon vodka with cran-raspberry juice, and it tastes like a Popsicle.

The new sentra is nice, big upgrade from an echo :)

I ate like a king, but now I'm back home and eating pasta and ramen for dinner every day :P Just in case you wanted to go, Champion, its Pearl steakhouse in downtown Bellevue, under the Westin. They have some cheaper ~40 steaks if you dont want to go all out. Or, you can go to John Howies next door, which is one of the top 10 steakhouses in the US, and spend 200 on one! Tim - Nice blog post :)

It was actually a lot of meat, about an inch and a half thick. 12oz filet.

I was too lazy to find the other posts about it earlier, but here's some of the food pictures from the $75/day allowance I got in Seattle - [hide=Of course had to try a Cappuccino or Machiato at every Seattle coffee shop I could] [/hide] [hide=Two dinners this night :) Salmon, with a pesto pasta.] [/hide] [hide=Affogato (best desert NA), gelato with a shot of espresso to pour over and turn into creamy goodness] [/hide] [hide= $60 filet from one of the best steakhouses in Seattle. It was the best steak I've ever had.] [/hide] [hide= Unlimited sushi bar, no explanation needed :)] [/hide]

It is really great, I've had some of the best food of my life this week. I'll post pics later :)

It was incredibly awesome :) I'm not huge into rap or whatever Macklemore is classified as, but it was a really good concert. Even the people who didn't know who deadmau5 was loved it, super energetic concert. They had a brand new 787 kind of wrapped around the stage, with the stage inbetween the wing and the plane chasse. The wings were lit up with all of deadmau5's effects. About the One - It was at a large internal (loud) product fair, so no voice commands. The controller was absolutely amazing, especially with the vibrate effects. They had a whole station set up just for that. Motion was perfect too. Microsoft Fargo is the second biggest MS campus - about 3000 people. It's super nice, on par with the Seattle one. I'd definitely want to work in Seattle though, I love it here. About the food - they don't give you 75, they reimburse you for up to 75. So, you can't keep the change. Makes it easier to live it up in Seattle and go to the best places :)

Microsoft had its signature week for the interns this week. There's about 1800 interns. It is really awesome - they fly all of the interns to Seattle (most are there, I'm in Fargo), paying for hotel/flight/car. Also, we get $75/day for food. John Howie steakhouse every night! There were a few events over the week - a product fair, where I got to do stuff like play an Xbox One and do other things I can't show pictures of/talk about, tour the campus, and have a private Steve Ballmer keynote. The highlight of the event was yesterday though... Every year they have an event they call the Signature Event. It's super secret, on the same security level as the Xbox One was. You don't know what it's going to be until you're there. This year, they loaded us up on coach busses. It ended up that the venue was the Boeing Factory in Everett, Washington. It's the biggest building in the world, by volume. It was really cool, we got tours to see plane manufacturing and testing. We saw 737s up to the prototype 797s in various build stages. The view was great too, with Mt Rainier and other large mountains circling the place. There was also unlimited food and free alcohol. During this, there was a huge stage, with a new 787 wrapped around it. There was a famous DJ from Las Vegas, can't remember from which casino/hotel. At 8, everyone gathered around the stage. After the coordinators talked for a bit, Macklemore came out on stage to give us a private convert. Everyone got floor seats, as there was only 1700 people there. I was in the fifth row or something. An hour later, Macklemore went off stage, and there was this huge cube thing draped in black cloth in the back. The rolled it up, took off the cloth, and DeadMau5 came up and played for an hour and a half. It was the most amazing convert, I never would've imagined they'd get Macklemore and DeadMau5. At the end, DeadMau5 and the coordinators went on stage. Everyone thanked everyone else for things - DeadMau5 thanked us for making the software and hardware that allows him to make music, Macklemore thanked us for making the softwares that run the world. Then, the coordinators gave DeadMau5 a gift - an unreleased Surface Pro with a type cover. After that, DeadMau5 said that we should all get them - and we did! Really sweet. We were guesstimating the whole ordeal was about $3M to do, not including the rest of the week.

I am noticing this too and it makes me sad :( Oh well, keeps me from betting big I guess.

The second paragraph has two lines repeated :P

Terraria is also $4.

I got Antechamber and Dark Souls pack :)

Why, thank you.

Kinda looks like amaterclam :P