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Game Faces All Around in 25 & Willows

Vacation fever is running rampant on the Microsoft campus -- as people are gearing up to take some time off, schedules seem to be jam packed with "meetings" and "priorities" and other unjustifiable excuses for not joining the Cafeteria Tour. Good golly people, you need to occasionally focus on things that are irrelevant and unimportant, or your heads might burst!

Tour Stop #20: Yesterday's visit to the Building 25 cafeteria was nice -- as you can see in the picture to the left, John and Ryan were fully engaged in game console war stories, with John chatting about possibly taking advantage of the employee offer on the Xbox Live, and Ryan telling his sad tale of buying almost the exact same package -- a couple weeks before the employee offer. Ouch. Retail always hurts. Mike and I pretended to be interested, but mostly just stared at John's half-eaten pesto cheese stick things. Mmmm...poly-unsaturated fats.

The highlights of the conversation were the flagrant slams against the fresh-off-the-trucks PS3 game console, which also seems to be getting kicked around a bit in the press, such as this New York Times review. Here's a video of the exchange at our table:

Video: cafeteria 25

And it was all caught on video. That's right. woo.

Tour Stop #21: Today's visit to the Willows cafeteria started off with some game system chatter, but quickly moved into the work-related aspects of Xbox, since Doug was in the house. Doug did have a fun story about the Nintendo Wii and their faulty wrist-bands -- apparently there's some video floating around of a guy playing a bowling game and the wrist band breaking, slamming the motion wand into his plasma television. Need to find and post that video.

Having never been to the Willows building (which is easy to miss because its detached from all Redmond campus life way out in the hinterlands of Redmond), Mike and I were impressed with the overall vibe of the place, although the cafeteria was not as impressive as some of the others on the main campus. WARNING: Willows is one of two locations (the other  being 41)  that practice the pagan art of nuking their boca burgers. It's disgusting, folks. Chewy nuked boca = evil boca. I asked -- nay, demanded (nicely) -- that he throw my boca onto the grill for a couple minutes so that I could get a healthy dose of carcinogens before hitting the road.

As we were wrapping up our visit, it was also nice to see some friendly faces. Christian Matsumori (Product Manager, Casual MCG....whatever that is) and Chad Long (SDET, X Arcade) both passed through and said hello. Plus there were those masks by the front door which Mike and I had to try on for size. Two minutes of pure self-entertainment. Good times.

                         

I'm out.  www.buckleyplanet.com

Xbox Tragedy?

We were walking across the street between Buildings 11 and 9 and noticed that both the Windows and the Xbox flags were flying at half-staff. What happened? Did someone die (actually or figuratively)? Or maybe a release date slipped? We just thought it was odd.

                             

Someone's not meeting their commitments....

Glorified Salad Bar in 109

                       

Wow, there is nothing inspiring to say about the cafeteria in building 109. And I thought Eastpointe was small. At least Eastpointe offers stir fry (and a fireplace to warm the toes on a cold day). Now I understand why everyone from 109 wanders up to the cafeteria in 112....no grill, nothing hot whatsoever. Well, you can nuke a burrito or hot pocket. Yummy.

Mike and I ventured into 109 alone this time, and for a brief moment discussed rescheduling the event to get better attendance....but there's nothing to come back to. I decided to part with my hard earned cash on an uninspiring salad, while Mike went for a bland sandwich.

We went, we ate, we left. That's it. MSCT2k6 Tour Stop #19 whimpers into the annals of history, and I'm bored even writing about the experience.

Being a tad bit disappointed by the lackluster attendance, we decided to walk over to 115 and pester David Weiss, who had "claimed" he was going to participate. Just as we were about to enter, David exited the building. Apparently he got held up in a late-running meeting (oh David, where are your priorities?). If it weren't for the lame-ness of the tour stop, we would have given him a hard time. Instead, we snapped a picture and headed back to afternoon meetings.

                              

I am sure looking forward to Building 25 today. I need my boca burger fix.

One, Two Punch

Hey folks, its a short week due to Thanksgiving, but a heavy-hitter as far as the sooon-to-be-completed Microsoft Cafeteria Tour 2006 (MSCT2k6). We're venturing into Green Badge Territory today as we invade Building 25 and see what lunchtime life is like with the greenies. Tomorrow we make our way into the hinterlands to visit the lessor-known Redmond building over at Willows. No idea where that is? Neither do I....yet. Somewhere out on the Redmond outer banks.

Both tour stops are at high noon. Look for the camera flashes. And as always, we welcome all willing/unwilling participants to join the fray. Only FOUR tour stops left, folks! To be followed by the press event and t-shirt signing, of course...

Won Oh Nein

Just a reminder to everyone that the MSCT2k6 tour bus will be pulling into the Building 109 cafeteria tomorrow at noon-ish. Of course, between the parking situation around 109 and the construction chaos between 112/115 and 117, I think we're going to have to use one of the airport parking services. Valet service / Park N Ride = same difference.

(The picture is a dramatization of the Microsoft valet parking experience. We wanted to get the guy from the Mac/PC commercials to pose in the shot, but apparently he's a MOVIE guy now, not a COMMERCIAL guy. Sheesh. A guy gets a b-slot in a couple bad movies and suddenly he gets an attitude)

Rumored to be participating tomorrow are David Weiss from the MacBu, Preston Green from MSN Advertising Ops (new addition to the tour), John Durant from VisualStudio, Mike Watson from MMS, and me. Joel is off in Barcelona working or something. Drew usually just magically appears. We'll see who else shows up.

By the way, I thought I'd do a little self-promotion here for a new Squidoo lens I created last weekend which embodies everything that we stand for here at BlueBadgeMojo.com -- check it out at www.squidoo.com/cheesefuel

I'm out.  www.buckleyplanet.com

From Here to Eastpointe

Mike: Where is this place? And what is it called again?
Christian: Eastpointe. I don't know - somewhere down by the Sammamish campus somewhere. I think it's near the roundabout.
     [After searching for buildings near to the roundabout, and a
      short drive up into Newcastle]
Mike: Do you have a map?
Christian: No. I figured we'd just drive around until we found it.
     [Another 20 minutes of driving around]
Christian: Maybe we should head over to the Sammamish buildings and ask.
Mike: Good idea.

Good thing we booked a little extra time last Friday, because the building wasn't where we thought it was. Mike and I ventured over to the Sammamish campus and asked for directions -- turns out, the Eastpointe building is a stone's throw from the Sammamish campus, up on the hill.

                             

As we quickly made our way into the building with a cold drizzle coming down, the first thing we noticed about the Eastpointe cafeteria was the nice fireplace outside the main door. LisaB, please accept this as my formal request to put a fireplace in every single cafeteria on campus. Think of the team bonding opportunities! Team smores activities. Team jiffy pop sessions. Standing next to teammates as you warm your toes after wearing sandals on the 1 day a year when it snows outside. I'm telling you, these are quality team functions!

                   

Our host for this event was our primary Sammamish contact, Ryan Jenkins, who, even though we got lost and arrived well past the anticipated time, was fashionably late, as well....so everything worked out. The Eastpointe cafeteria is, well....dinky. No grill, hence no boca burger. Limited options on food, but I must admit that the place is quaint. The back room expanded dining reminded me of a Motel 6 / Moose Lodge-type setup, so we kept things real out in the cafe section. I went with some spicy stir fry concoction (chicken cashew, I think), and just about choked when I inhaled some rice. A rice. A single piece of rice. What a wuss I am. 

Now that we've crossed Eastpointe off the list, I don't know that we'll ever have a work-related need to go back. Of course, the same is true with most Microsoft buildings - but that's the whole point of the Microsoft Cafeteria Tour 2006: to say that we've been there, done that. That's it.

There are five more tour stops, folks. Climb onboard this train while you can!

Last Leg of the MSCT2k6 Tour

We're quickly approaching the end of the calendar year -- and with it, the end of the Microsoft Cafeteria Tour 2006. When we started this project, our goal was simple: eat lunch at each and every cafeteria at Microsoft headquarters. We're 6 tour stops away from achieving that goal (I get all misty-eyed when I think about it).

The upcoming MSCT2k6 schedule:

• Eastpointe (Sammmammmish) -- Friday, Nov 10th
• Building 109 -- Friday, Nov 17th
• Building 25 -- Monday, Nov 20th
• Willows -- Tuesday, Nov 21st
• Redmond Town Center and Bear Creek -- Thursday, Dec 7th
  (no cafeteria, but hey, we didn't want to leave them out)
• Building 35 -- Tuesday, Dec 12th

As always, we'd love to have other people participate. If we're heading your way, drop us a line and let us know. Or if you notice us in your midst, c'mon over.

Halloween on Campus

              

I was expecting a grand display of Halloween celebration, but was sadly disappointed. Maybe I'm just hanging around in the wrong buildings, but people just weren't dressing up. What's up with that? Then again, I love Halloween and always tend to go a bit overboard. Last year I was the weird mullet guy -- I wore a skin tight turtle neck sweater, gray slacks pulled up over my belly, and big brown shoes. With a mullet. I wasn't trying to "be" anything. My goal was just to make people feel uncomfortable around me, and I achieved that goal.

This year I borrowed a friends pimp/disco outfit and wig, and turned my windowless office into a discotech, with fog machine, two pulsating/spinning light effets, and blaring BeeGees/ABBA tunes throughout the day. You know it, baby.

Video: Halloween at Microsoft