I finally got a chance to chat with Ken Rumsey from Kissimmee, FL. Have no idea who I'm talking about??? Then maybe the name Koding will ring a few bells! He's been a member of 360Voice for 2.5 years and is a parent/gamer/coder/teacher/ among other things. I won't spoil all the juicy details he disclosed to me, and give you a chance to read them for yourself!
Where do you work, and what do you do there, how long have you been doing it?I currently work at Valencia Community College where I am a Learning Assistant II, or in more understandable words, I'm a tutor. I tutor all levels of math from Elementary Mathematics up through Calculus III, and all computer programming, OS, and application classes. I have been doing it since June 2008 and plan to keep doing it while I attend classes at the University of Central Florida.
Family life?I am divorced and have 2 kids. Bryan (GT:
Lucien Vicious) is 21 and Ashley (GT:
QuadGlitch) is 19. Both are college students, Bryan at the University of Central Florida and Ashley at Valencia Community College. And both are pretty active gamers although with school and work, I know they don't get to play as much as they would like. Ashley owns her own 360 and Bryan, well, he's not big on the 360. He prefers his Wii and DS.
You currently live in Florida... are you next to a beach?? Even if you aren't... the weather must be nice right?I am very landlocked as I live just south of Orlando, but I'm still only an hour or so away from the beach on either coast. Right now the weather is great, low to mid 80s but in a few short weeks the heat will be back in full force and it won't be so nice. Thankfully, someone invented air conditioning! :)
How did you come up with your GamerTag?A while back I wanted to change my gamertag from Boardgameplayer (my original gamertag) to something a bit shorter. I like to program, you may have seen my
360vui web app, and was trying to think up a gamertag related to coding. Everything with "Code" in it seemed to be taken so I started looking at "Kode" instead. That's when I became Koding. Now, I'm thinking of changing it to something math related. Any ideas?
What brought you to 360voice?Honestly, I don't remember. It's hard to believe I've been a member here for 2 1/2 years. I'm sure it was probably a Google search I did right after I got my first 360. I was looking for interesting sites related to the 360..I found the best one!
What is your favorite part of 360voice?Well, it's very cool that my 360 can do a daily blog (something I myself have tried...twice...and failed at), but the best thing here is the forums and the community of people that populate it. While I don't currently have the time to roam the forums like I used to, I still try to get in the odd post here and there.
What is something you would like to see on 360voice?Hmmm...free MS points for every 100 forums posts? ;-) Honestly, I can't think of anything the site needs but I'm sure the guys will add something soon and I'll go "that's awesome...I wish I had thought of that!".
You have at this moment accumulated 3220 forum posts... can you believe that?Not really. In all the years I've been on the internet, I've never been this active on any forum. The fact that I have is yet another testament to the great community of mods and users there are in the 360voice forums.
If you had the chance, who would you like to meet in-person from 360voice?I don't think I could choose just one, although if I had to, she'd be single and over 6 feet tall. Better yet, I think we should do a 360voice Meet-Up (in Orlando would be nice) so I can meet all of you (including any single tall females). ;-)
You currently have a streak of 0 days... but used to have 153 days, what happened??Life, school, stuff like that keeps my streak pretty low right now. And, if I remember correctly, I lost the 153 day streak when my daughter came over one day and I forgot to play. With this semester, my time to play has been extremely limited. I'm hoping I have more time in the summer.
You are currently in Auto Challenge #27031, do you only participate in Auto Challenges? What do you think the outcome of this one will be?Not only in Auto Challenges but with my hectic work and school schedule this semester, I haven't tried to compete in any real challenges. And this one will end the way all of the other ones have, I will lose and most probably be in last place. However, when this semester is over, I'll be back in regular challenges...and I'll be doing my best to win them!
How long have you been gaming?32 years. Wow...that's a long time...
If you can remember, what was the first game you played?Pong, 1977. Back when a 'bleep', a 'bloop', and monochrome graphics were the things that made us "ooh" and "ahh" over games.
Why do you play videogames?Actually, this was the subject of a pretty recent forum posting. Here's what I said...
"Because it's fun... where else can I drive a NASCAR race car, jack another car and drive over pedestrians while shooting automatic weapons out the window, get involved in a street fight and punch the lights out of someone, and fight as a soldier (on all sides) of World War II...
...all in the same day...
...without going to jail...
Gaming...where do you want it to take you today?"
I think that pretty much sums it up.
You currently have a GamerScore of 68,739... are there any games you would like to point out that helped you achieve this impressive score?Avatar: The Last Airbender. :) OK, maybe not. No games really pop out at me. I've enjoyed playing most of the games on my list and don't (usually) play them just for the gamerscore. However, in the past, I have played games I've not really liked simply to get the gamerscore (*cough* Avatar *cough*), but I don't do that (much) anymore.
Think you will reach 100,000 GS by the end of the year? Or do you not think about GS milestones?It's possible but not highly probable. It really depends on how many, if any, classes I take during the summer. If I take the summer off, the probably goes up a bit. Still...I don't think it will happen.
Do you enjoy single-player more, or multiplayer, or does it depend entirely on the game?Usually I prefer the single-player as that's where the story primarily is. For some games, the Call of Duty's for instance, I enjoy the multiplayer more because the single-player campaign is so short.
Seems like every game nowadays is having some form of Co-Op, what are your feelings on that?I'm all for it. Well, as long as they give us both local co-op and co-op over Live. I've local co-op'd a few games with my son and I started co-op'ing Halo 3 over Live. Actually, that reminds me...I need to finish Halo 3.
What is your favorite food/drink when gaming?Just water, Coke Zero, or DMD. No food. I don't need Cheetos dust on my controllers. :-)
What is your current gaming set-up?360: I have an Xbox Premium with a 120 gig hard drive and HD-DVD player. It's connected to a 61" Samsung DLP HDTV for video and a Sony Home Theater Dream System 5.1 channel speaker setup for the audio.
PC: Intel quad-core 2.4 GHz on an eVGA 780i mainboard, 2 gig RAM, eVGA 8800GTX video card, Creative Labs Fatal1ty Platinum Champion Series audio card, 2.5 TB hard drive space, Antec 900 gaming case, 24" Dell LCD monitor displaying 1920x1200 resolution
Yeah, I know, you probably don't want to hear about my PC setup but I do play some games on it and some of them are Games For Windows games that 360voice tracks. :-)
How many xbox360 games do you currently own, including XBLA?52 retail and around 45 XBLA.
It says on your blog you have played a total of 297 games... what do you think your 300th game will be??Puzzle Quest Galactrix
Do you have a subscription to GameFly? If so, how many games do you think you "rent" a month?Not anymore. I'm on and off with GameFly. If I don't take any classes during the summer, I'll probably rejoin until my fall classes start. When I had the service, I usually got between 6 and 10 games each month.
What other consoles do you own?Sony PS2, Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo DSi, and Sony PSP. I also have a Sega Genesis (with Sega CD and 32X) and a Sega Master System boxed up somewhere but I haven't seen them in a while. I'm thinking about getting a PS3 but haven't convinced myself I really want one yet.
When did you join Xbox Live, and why?The day I got my first 360. At the time, I did it so I would be able to play Gears of War online. I never had an original Xbox so I wasn't exactly sure of what the Xbox Live service provided to me. I was pleasantly surprised.
Do you think you get your money's worth paying for a gold xbox live subscription?Absolutely. For only a few bucks a month, I get a quality online experience. If there was something similar to it on the PC, I'd sign up in a second.
What are your current top 5 favorite games for Xbox360?GTA IV, Saints Row 2, Call of Duty 4/World at War, Puzzle Quest (and Galactrix), Burnout Paradise
What are your current top 5 most hated (Read: made you want to throw your controllerout the window) achievements you have earned?30 year franchise achievement in Madden '06, beating all the time trials in Forza 2 (I had a lot of trouble with Nurburgring), any collection achievements (such as the CD's in Saints Row), and any from Devil May Cry 4.
Are you an achievement whore, completionist, or neither?OK...I admit it, I used to be a big-time whore. For instance, I hate football, baseball, basketball, etc. but went out of my way to get, play, and beat those games simply because most were easy 1000's. However lately I haven't had time to play games I enjoy, let alone ones I don't just for their score. And I am definitely not a completionist as the short list of games I have completed vs how many I have played can attest to.
What are 5 of your current achievements you are most proud of?Beating all of the time trials in Forza 2 (like I said above, Nurburgring gave me a lot of grief), getting all of the driver badges in NASCAR 08 (that one took a while), and ... hmmm, that's the only ones that come to mind.
If you could change one thing about Xbox Live, what would it be?Increase (or remove totally) the cap on how many friends you can have. I'm always near the 100 friends limit and find myself constantly deleting people so I can add new friends.
What games are you looking forward to releasing in the near future?Splinter Cell: Conviction, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Prototype. And a little bit further down the road, Bioshock 2 and Assassin's Creed 2.
Is there anything you would like to share with everyone, or give any shout-outs?To my kids, Lucien Vicious and QuadGlitch: Hey, look at me! I'm the Member of the Moment!! To my math students: do your homework and study! To everyone else: Thanks for reading this far. I'm honored to have been chosen at the Member of the Moment and hope everyone learned a little something about me.
Defendit numerus!!!