SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : Should God be replaced?

 Public ReplyPrvt ReplyMark as Last ReadFilePrevious 10Next 10PreviousNext  
To: epicure who wrote (11015)2/21/2002 6:55:08 AM
From: Andy Thomas  Read Replies (3) of 28931
 
... In my Super Bowl everyone would get a ring..

it's a guy thing... 'winners' and 'losers' and all of that...just give them their games then make them do things for you the rest of the time... hopefully everyone will be happy...

men love their games... it's never really personal from what i can tell...

when i played competitively in the MSFT flag football league, i thought i was going to be a good player, until i found out that there were ex-nfl people and such in the league.

still, i was a good pass rusher. one guy called me an 'animal' once as i scored about the 9th or 10th sack of the game. we won that one 90-7 or something... we were trying to get to 100 and it really upset them.

we lost in the semifinals. our ace qb had to go to comdex and the great wr he always threw to played qb... things didn't work out. it was like the championship - the raptors against hammertime - hammertime who went on to win easily in the championship game.

we were the raptors. they finally won the whole thing a couple of years after i'd left the team.

i should have stayed with my original team - the blazing maniacos.

they were bad but i would have gotten a lot more playing time. as it was i later left the raptors due to lack of playing time and the coach's unwillingness to pull the linemen on running plays... i played offensive guard that year... not so much defensive line.

the rule in that league was that you had to have one female on your team. this was supposed to 'mellow it out.' it was very intense - much more so than i'd thought it would be.

there was a team from 'canyon park' - the plant where they shipped the cds and diskettes from at the time. they were mostly black and had a lot of team speed and moxy.

by the way... that was how affirmative action worked at MSFT at the time - most blacks worked out at the media shipping facilities in bothell (probably 10 or 20 miles from redmond). the ones in the hallways back at hq in redmond had to really know their stuff because there were a lot of 'white' people sitting around at meetings thinking 'aa' whenever they would speak. oh the latinos were outside doing the gardening or inside doing the janitorial.

i'm proud to say that i'm a janitor now. it is very humbling. it helps me that way. my boss is latino with a house and a family and everything. he was very sad the day of the wtc. he didn't understand why *anyone* would want to kill regular working people. our company - abm - lost about 20 people in those attacks.

anyhow the raptors had some really good players. there was this one safety - a slower white dude - he had to cover a wideout from hammertime in the regular season game. he was all over that guy - basically brawling with him from the line of scrimmage every down. i thought it was a little wild but i wasn't the one out there brawling so i said nothing. our db ended up with no shirt on his back... it was ripped to shreds by hammertime's wideout. the guy didn't catch any passes though...

anyhow... this 'football' and stuff seems to be a 'guy thing'... just let them have their games then boss them around the rest of the time...

oh... the thing about it not being personal... when i was in that league at msft things on the field were intense, but it lightened up a lot afterwards. it always did in every game i was ever in.

one time my brother and i went down to husky stadium with some friends and ended up in a game against some kids from blanchet - the private catholic school. we were sticking those guys hard and they were bigger than us. they started hitting us back though. man sometimes a person could be sore for days after a game like that! hardly able to walk even!

or in the game, knocked into another time zone by bigger kid!

i guess that was our way of trying to become 'men'....

what do you think of paintball? i should have 'taken' that one woman who loved both paintball and dressing me up as a 'woman'... sometimes i wonder where she is now...

we were on the same team in a 5-'man' tournament. we came in 2nd or 3rd or something.

man we had some great games though. it was outdoors, in the woods. there was a good amound of ground cover - fallen logs and piles of wood and patches of deep bushes.

one time the rest of the team sacrificed themselves in a frontal assault while i crept up the side. in the end i was behind the other team and easily picked their last 2 guys off.

it was only paint. that is the beauty of paintball. all of that adrenaline without the death. i met a special forces veteran who didn't play paintball because it was 'too realistic.'

outdoors it is a real blast. 200 rounds in the hopper and as fast as you can pull the trigger - some of these 'guys' are popping off 5 rounds per second and more.

anyway, i guess that's just stream-of-consciousness...

oh... one last thing... you know about msft... that place corrupted a lot of people... that's just my opinion of course.

maybe 'corrupted' is not the right word. i think everyone who went through there in the first 20 years ('75-'95) or so had a 'special' experience of one sort or another.

that place was a trip...

what was weird about it was that all of the employees were weird... all of those bizarre minds working together. l

later the middle-management-suckups weaseled in and it was all over as far as i was concerned.

msft was a great company to work for. any more i'm not so sure.

they lost a lot of really weird veteran people.

maybe if they hired me back they would have good fortune again.

a legend in my own mind...
Report TOU ViolationShare This Post
 Public ReplyPrvt ReplyMark as Last ReadFilePrevious 10Next 10PreviousNext