War games in dark times....

So not only have both this blog and my entire voting state gone a bit dark politically, but they have both turned in the literal sense as well.

Do you have any idea why time it gets dark around here??

Well let me back up for a minute here, my non-commenting readers: it was back a month or two ago in a large team meeting when it happened. It all started innocent enough - a talk about our move to the new & improved HR building. Ahha, the new building has a parking deck that is a block away from the building. No biggie, right? Well....the walk to the parking deck is through a wooded pathway....so it is fine right now. But when the winter comes and it starts getting dark at 4...

"WHAAAAT?!?!?!?
IT STARTS GETTING DARK AT FOUUURRRRRR???????"

DOH!!! Was that out loud???

Immediately the other 20 people in the room start laughing hysterically at the young, naive southerner. Hahaha - she doesn't know about our Alaska-like seasons!! Teeheehee - she doesn't realize Seattle is simply L.A. - Lower Alaska!!! Haha folks, haha. My manager then says to the director in front of everyone: "Shhh - I wasn't planning to tell her that until our November one on one meeting!!"

Hilarious Seattle, friggin hilarious.

So you know what kids? It's November. And it's dark. REALLY dark. REALLY early. Apparently it's not the worst it's going to get - but I seriously left my office to walk to my bus stop a mere 3 days ago at 5pm...5 P.M. PEOPLE. Should be light, right??

WRONG. Here's what I'm immediately faced with - the picture to the right. I wish there were a time stamp on the pic so you would all believe me. 5:00 in the evening and it is already this dark!!!!

Crazy, eh??? Welcome to Seattle kids, it's dark.
...REALLY dark.
...Before 5pm.
...Seriously!!!

Now it's time for the war games...

The best part of moving to the new HR building: the new company store and visitor center are right there in my building!! Pretty cool! Not only can I shop when I need to stretch my legs, but I can also play with a Surface or see old computers and ancient pics of bill and the other original msft team anytime I want! Awesome!!

But, folks, it gets even better.

You see, Gears of War 2 just released on Friday, which apparently means that it pre-releases at 4pm the day before at our company store. AWESOME. Literally hundreds of gamers lined up for hours before and after 4pm to be the first to get the game (at less than half of retail, btw) and to get the opportunity to play it an extra 24 hours before their fellow gamers.

Hysterical folks :)

It was hard to keep working with this level of people watching around. I know it's hard to tell from this pic - but there were hundreds of them coiled around our newly established lobby and company store - and that's right people...JUST for you - I once again risk life and limb to position myself and snap pictures of these creatures in their natural habitat....

And yes, they saw me taking the pictures and cursed my documentation of the event. Or were they proud?? You be the judge.

ps-there was some cool stuff that happened lately too - I like to pretend we were not as lamo as the gamers or the early darkness, but Clay, Vanessa, Bill (aka Hey-suess), and I recently went to a comedy show that rocked my face off.

Judah Friedlander (aka Frank from "30 Rock" on the left) and Brian Posehn (aka the opera-singing mailman from "Just Shoot Me" on the right) were fabulous and they even hung around to chill with us peeps after the show.

Here are the pics to prove!

Loe and miss you all,

e. :)