Roger M., beloved friend and fellow member of the ol’ Corona del Sol Clan, celebrated his 23rd birthday this week. Perhaps you are familiar with Roger under one of his alternate identities which include but are not limited to: Boeja, Boejer, Boej, Boger, Bog, Boge, Doge, Doger, Rogelio Ramirez, CEO of Boge Boge Industries, The President of the Danny Gans Club, or Wrinkles 2000.
Of course, I could never introduce Roger in a public forum without mentioning his life’s work, Sim City 2000, which he began developing senior year in high school. I remember the early stages of this project very well because I sat right next to him during Mr. Johnson’s Computer Programming 5-6 class. While Pejman and I were creating the “Power Organizer” and Brandon was coding his “Power Calculator” and Josh was copying Eric Hendrick’s programs like they were going out of fashion, Roger was hard at work on his masterpiece. It’s funny that at the time learning Pascal and its “object oriented programming” and “pointers” was such an enormous challenge. Pejman and I struggled with such simple problems like saving addresses and phone numbers. Brandon’s calculator was wonderful for adding integers, but high level computations like subtraction and division were completely out of the question. Yet, somehow, Roger managed to create a fully functional version of Sim City 2000 with stunning black and white graphics, interactive menus, and even a running point total. It was really quite amazing given the tools we had to work with. The player could build a city by budgeting money toward energy sources, commercial and residential areas, and transportation. That is, until a randomly generated natural disaster entered the screen and systematically destroyed every inch of your city until there was nothing left. Eventually, the entire screen was filled with tornadoes, and while the game was completely unplayable, time continued to run for an eternity. In the end, it seemed Mr. Johnson wasn’t too impressed with Roger or my work because at the end of the year, we were the only two students who had to take the final exam.
Once again, Happy Birthday Boej! And, now, I leave you all with The Official Boeja Theme Song. Feel free to sing along if you can keep up!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Verse 1:
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Verse 2:
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Verse 3:
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
Boeja Boeja HEY!
* Roger M. Quote of the Day: “You know how in relationships sometimes people say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me’? Well, in this case, it is you.”
* Movie Quote of the Day: “Oh no! Not again!”
October 31, 2003
Arizona, friends and family