Nazeeh’s Little Corner on the Web

So… after a while of inactivity, busy at work, got a new baby girl, I am back with yet another team interview! This one is a bit different though. You see, this interview is not with an actual team member, but with a legend that lives within our environment. A legend that I’ve come to HATE. Shawn Hargreaves, one of our developers, owns a cat. He loves this cat. So naturally, he puts that DAMN cat in every sample he possibly can. I’ve seen that cat so many times, I can’t stand to see it anymore. That’s when he added her to his Audio3D sample with sound. Today… we talk to that cat.

Shawn sent me this interview that he had with his cat on my behalf…

Look… this is silly I know, but if I had to live with seeing that cat EVERYDAY at work in some form of a picture or sound, you’re gonna experience some of this with me!

Who are you and what do you do at XNA GS team?

I’m Rhys. I’m a cat. I like to purr.

I don’t actually know what the “XNA GS team” is. I did hear Shawn talking about XNA once, and I thought he said it was for hobbits, but I later figured out he really said hobbyists.

I like hobbits. They are fat and lazy and they eat a lot. Like me.

What did you work on before joining XNA GS team?

I don’t much like to talk about this, but I used to be homeless. I had a bit of an alcohol problem, so I lost my job, and then they repossessed my house. I’ve been clean and sober for over two years now.

How did you join the XNA GS team? Tell the story!

Oh, that’s a funny story. I was in a pretty bad way, thanks to living on the streets. I had tapeworm, and lungworm, and toxoplasmosis, and also I have FIV, and I had a nasty cold at the time too, and my hair was falling out. I was a poorly kitty, but those MEAN NASTY people at the animal shelter PUT ME IN A CAGE and then they were too cheap to run proper tests on me, so they didn’t even know about all my parasites. When Shawn and Tracy came to visit, I purred and purred until they decided to rescue me. It wasn’t until later when they took me to their vet that they found out how much medicine I needed. SUCKERS! I’m all better now though.

What features did you work on for XNA GS 1.0 and 2.0?

In GS 1.0, I mainly contributed my photo for Shawn to use in the Sprite Effects sample. Since then he put it in lots of other samples, and Eli started using it too, so I’m everywhere now.

For 2.0, I was supposed to provide some sound effects for the Audio 3D sample, but I got stage fright, so my friend Boo (Tracy’s cat) had to step in at the last moment.

What were some of the problems faced when developing your feature?

Some of the samples on the creators.xna.com site do not include my photo. I’m really not happy about that.

What’s your favorite part of XNA Game Studio, and why?

I love the Content Pipeline. It makes it so easy to drop my photo into Visual Studio and have it automatically built into an .xnb file, so you can put me into all kinds of different games and samples!

What is your favorite Xbox 360 game?

What’s an Xbox 360?

My favorite game is fighting with Boo. First I pretend to be gentle and lick his head, but then I bite his neck, and when he swats at me I jump down and look innocent, like nothing happened.

Share some tips and tricks for using XNA GS

I don’t like it when people use XNA GS. They should be petting me instead! Sometimes just meowing is enough to distract them from the computer. Other times I have to stretch up and lean my paws on their leg, or if that doesn’t work, I might jump up into their lap.

Last words?

Purrrr.

Note: This was Shawn’s idea :) Flame him!

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Team Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.