So I sometimes can almost run into Bill Gates at work in the mornings. I work in the same building as him, Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie... all those dudes. I have absolutely nothing to do with any of them, of course: I'm at the total BOTTOM of the Microsoft food chain. But I see them and their entourage gathered in their main conference room every other day or so. it's kind of surreal. I feel smarter just being nearby

Anyhow, this morning, he and a film crew was shooting a commercial outside the front door of the building as i was going in to work. i was directed around the side of their staging area by some security guy (i assume: no uniform). This was pretty new for me, so i stopped and watched for a minute.

the scene had Bill driving a little blue car that looked like a Dodge Neon or Mazda something or other. he had a cardboard box on the roof of the car that looked like personal junk just cleared out an office.: several books, a desk lamp, a football... he drives off, and the box falls off the roof of the car and spills all over the ground. Bill G stops the car and backs up and gets out to gather the stuff up.

the film guys are all around with the big camera, and microphone on the boom, Bill says something (i cant hear, im like 30 feet away) ... they cut the shoot, laugh and get ready to do something else. I figure i ought not to stand there for more than a minute, so i move along inside, swipe my card and go upstairs to work.

But I'm wondering what the commercial will be. no one i talk to knows. i was thinking maybe it was a spoof of his imminent departure from MSFT (he's still chairman, but is supposedly retiring *someday*) someone else said something about some sort of "Unified" product or other that MSFT is coming out with.

I'm still so new here I dont know anything. I just recently learned how to get to one of three nearby employee cafeterias. I still dont know exactly where the company store is.

maybe someone here knows something.

12/12/2007 2:18:07 AM

I doubt it's for a commercial.

It's probably just for some internal video they're shooting for.

You should hit him in the face with a cream pie.

12/12/2007 2:35:51 AM

pics or it didn't happen.

but still, pretty neat

12/12/2007 3:46:09 AM

i couldn't have stood around that for more than a minute without doing some career-jeopardizing heckling


Really, how often do you get to heckle bill gates and throw a pie in his face? Word has it that he hates human contact/

[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 4:28 AM. Reason : asdf]

12/12/2007 4:27:48 AM

cool to the story

12/12/2007 6:50:33 AM

[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 8:16 AM. Reason : lolol]

12/12/2007 8:13:58 AM

You should hit him in the face with a cream pie.

12/12/2007 9:18:28 AM

^you carry cream pies to work also?

12/12/2007 4:28:09 PM

this is some really good technical news here

A+++++ would read again

12/12/2007 4:32:30 PM

step off my blog, homeslice.




[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 4:47 PM. Reason : ]

12/12/2007 4:46:01 PM

If you had any balls, you would have yelled, "I'm a mac!" at the top of your lungs.

12/12/2007 4:48:05 PM

So you saw Bill Gates, and you just decided not to snap a pic of him.


Let me guess, you are one of the .00001% of Americans that dont have a camera phone.

How convinient.

12/12/2007 5:57:59 PM

they don't allow camera phones at MS. security and all that

12/12/2007 6:38:00 PM

I was walking back from Building 41 one day and his damn helicopters were all parked on the soccer fields with these security guards all around. It was pretty dope.

Joe, we should catch lunch one day, im over in 25

^yea, they do, actually

[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 6:58 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2007 6:56:44 PM

balmer zune add had me rollin

12/12/2007 7:18:14 PM

i thought about using my camera phone to snap a pic.

but my camera sucks balls. its like 0.5 Mpixel

but more than that, i didnt want to

(1) look like a total noob

and

(2) get fired for violating some non-disclosure / non-dumbass agreement

...

yeah Noen lets do that. shoot me a PM with your alias and i'll holler at you on the MS Communicator




[Edited on December 12, 2007 at 10:47 PM. Reason : ]

12/12/2007 10:46:09 PM

prolly on his way to buy a mac

12/14/2007 6:00:15 PM

Was this it?

1/7/2008 12:47:02 PM

ITISPRETTYOBVIOUSTHATITIS

1/7/2008 12:53:22 PM

It's pretty obvious that I didn't watch it before I posted that OK!

1/7/2008 12:57:59 PM

When steve jobs makes his last day video, it will no doubt upstage this.

1/7/2008 6:22:40 PM

one of these days I gotta goto ces

1/7/2008 10:12:52 PM

I'm assuming this is the one:

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080107/bill-gates-last-day-microsoft-video/

1/8/2008 6:48:16 PM

^ Look 6 posts up

1/8/2008 7:01:08 PM

for all that star power it was pretty weak on the laughs.

reminded me of the clinton exit video, but not as good.

[Edited on January 8, 2008 at 11:58 PM. Reason : asdf]

1/8/2008 11:57:25 PM

^3, ^8

Yeah, that's the video

the first and last sequences, with Gates driving his blue Ford Focus and stuff on top of it.... I was standing right in front of the building (Bldg 34) about 20 feet away, watching him shoot those parts. then i went in back to my desk job analyzing Internet Porn.



... for those keeping score at home, I've just given my 2 weeks notice. Fighting the "Spam Wars" is a lot fun and all, but I have to get back to actually using my EE degree and experience like i should be.... so, if anyone wants a contract SDE job on the Anti-Spam team at Microsoft... I know where one is opening up







[Edited on January 9, 2008 at 1:22 AM. Reason : ]

1/9/2008 1:05:29 AM

Quote :

"my desk job analyzing Internet Porn."

You mean I can get paid for this??? And all this time I've been doing it for free....

1/9/2008 9:22:07 AM

for serious.

but to be honest, penis enlargement spams have overwhelmed pornography ... so it's not as fun as it once was

1/9/2008 9:30:55 AM