I had the chance to read both Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" as well as Michael Moore's "Dude, Where's My Country?"  as I was winging back from NY to Seattle.  I enjoyed them both, but found Al's book more enjoyable.  I have always enjoyed Michael's biting attacks on Corporate America and our Government, but felt he was trying too hard in this book to state the obvious: That the people running our country right now are lying to us on multiple levels, EXCEPT about who they have sex with.  Of course, you can disagree with me (that's what the comments section is for), and I don't mind.  Hell, sometimes I find myself disagreeing with myself   And I must admit that I don't agree with everything Michael says (he sometimes seems overly eager to stretch facts to make a point)... but you have to admire his principles.  Most folks, for instance, are only familiar with his controversial acceptance speech at the 75th Academy Awards, but I would encourage you to watch his Red Carpet Q&A session (click on "Documentary Feature") that was done immediately after his award.  It's quite interesting (even if you disagree with his viewpoints).

OK, enough politics, this is also supposed to be a little technical.  For those of you wanting to learn more about Managed DirectX, I would encourage you to look at Craig Andera's tutorials on the managed (.NET) verison of Direct3D.  If you want to get a quick overview of some the features of Managed DirectX and why you might want to consider using it, have a peek at this slide deck, primarily written by Tom Miller, Managed DirectX - IGDA.ppt (1.16 MB).  And for those of you wanting to see a simple deck on what it takes to be a Game Programmer, check this one out: Game Development.ppt (73 KB) (It needs some updating, but I need to finish my book first).

Oh, stay tuned for really cool posts this coming week on all sorts of new technologies coming from Microsoft.  PDC kicks off tomorrow and we will FINALLY be able to start talking about some of the new innovation we've been working on over the last few years!