I realized that I had used the email address about 5 years ago while setting up an account so that I could apply for work at Microsoft.  I never completed the application because the web based application running on IIS kept crashing and I couldn’t complete it.  Then I couldn’t log in and recover my work, so I created another login and the same thing happened.  I gave up on the process.

I reset the password today and signed up for the free Xbox Live account.  This is the one that lets you do things like create and avatar.  You know, things that are part of the Nintendo Wii straight out of the box.  That’s right.  In order to do things on the Xbox that one can do on a Nintendo Wii, you need to sign up for an account at Microsoft and make sure you don’t take the standard options, both of which will generate more marketing emails (as if you needed more of those).

Then I got the first sign-in window and I saw this:

You can change your gamertag once (this is one that was automatically created for me, without my option of input).  And I can change it once.  After that, I will need to upgrade to the ‘Gold’ account of around $5 per month (at the annual rate).

Dealing with Microsoft is like dealing with someone I don’t trust.  Dealing with them is like living in a third world country where everyone is working to separate you from your money and once the money leaves your hand, you are on your own.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Let’s assume that is true.  The devil went down to Haiti looking to make a deal.  For their freedom, the devil got the country?  Hmmm.  I wonder what kind of deal I can strike to get Pat Robertson to shut up.  How about I make a deal to give the devil Kirkland?  Would that be too much?  Or too little?  I wonder if the devil would want all of Kirkland, or just the water front.

How about Redmond?  Maybe the devil wants Redmond.  Wait, Microsoft is already there.  I’m too late.

For a quick recap of Haiti’s history, check this link.

Haiti’s chronic impoverishment began at its birth in 1804, when, having overthrown its French rulers in a bloody, 12-year slave revolt, the newborn nation was subjected to crippling blockades and embargoes. This economic strangulation continued until 1825, when France offered to lift embargoes and recognize the Haitian Republic if the latter would pay restitution to France—for loss of property in Haiti, including slaves—of 150 million gold francs. The sum, about five times Haiti’s export revenue for 1825, was brutal, but Haiti had no choice: Pay up or perish over many more years of economic embargo, not to mention face French threats of invasion and reconquest. To pay, Haiti borrowed money at usurious rates from France, and did not finish paying off its debt until 1947, by which time its fate as the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country had been well and truly sealed.

But hey, if you know the devil, let him know that I’m prepared to deal.

• Samuel Chow Radakovitz, (Redmond, WA, US)
• Adam Michael Buerman,  (Bellevue, WA, US)
• Anupam Garg,  (Redmond, WA, US)
• Matthew John Androski,  (Bellevue, WA, US)
• Matthew Kevin Becker,  (Kirkland, WA, US)
• Brian S. Ruble,  (Bellevue, WA, US)

Sparklines were invented by Edward Tufte.  Like was posted on an MSDN blog:

For Excel 2010 we’ve implemented sparklines, “intense, simple, word-sized graphics”, as their inventor Edward Tufte describes them in his book Beautiful Evidence.  Sparklines help bring meaning and context to numbers being reported and, unlike a chart, are meant to be embedded into what they are describing.

Douchebags.