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April 30, 2007
My how time flies...in your face...
It was April 30, 1990 when I started my first day at Origin...a computer game company here in Austin known for the Ultima and Wing Commander series...There were 4 of us in Customer Service, and we had to pull multi duties like answering the reception phones, answering letters (there was no internet as we know it today, although we did all work on Mac SE computers and had the most awesome email capability to one another inhouse...once, a co worker sent me a Simpsons sound file and brought the entire email system crashing to its knees...sweet), answering CS phones (due to no phone system, this was a much bigger nightmare than you can imagine), taking care of replacing disks (a 4 months backlog when I first arrived, this task was assigned to me and I would spend full weekends there, off-clock, trying to get caught up)...
It was a hellacious job and a fantastic job...we made no money, which was tough, but we all had a good time while we were there...We participated in the Haunted House that the owner, Richard Garriott would produce at his mega-house (recently featured on HGTV for his secret passageways)...People from NY and CA would fly in just to take a tour...people would camp out for a week in his driveway/street (he lives out in the Hill Country, so it was like a massive picnic for these guys) just to get into the house...I worked there for 8 years, in various capacities, eventually taking my 7 week sabbatical and realizing there was nothing left for me there...so I moved on...the company no longer exists, it was purchased by EA (Electronic
Arts, perhaps you've heard of them) and they were good bosses, but eventually things went haywire and things fell apart...On a related note, we had a really good audio system where musicians wrote the music, made sound effects and recorded voices for the games...(I did some really bad voices once, and they were never used, thank god..professionals were hired shortly afterward..heh)...One of the musicians that worked for us was in a part time band, that he eventually left Origin to try and make it in the big leagues...So far he and his band have been doing pretty well, he's not a house hold name, but there are many people who do know who he is...so last night Brian and I are watching one of the Season 2 Veronica Mars discs and at the coffeehouse where she works (also a karaoke house), a musician comes on stage to sing the Elvis Costello song 'Veronica'...they are calling to him 'Britt, Britt' and I think 'Geez, is that Britt Daniel from Spoon?'...sure enough...the little musician we worked with years ago at Origin is on Veronica Mars, singing...I think that means we are 2 degrees of separation from Kristin Bell (Veronica on the show) because we worked with Britt, who worked with her...Stephen King (yes, that one) said his fave song of 2005 was Spoon's "I Summon You"...how cool is that?...
rock on...
Posted by Donner at April 30, 2007 08:27 AM