It's interesting to see how many folks ask me if my choice of "Ozymandias" as my gamertag or domain name refers to the Watchmen character. In actuality, I'm a reformed ex-English major and I was originally drawn to the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley - it appears that poem, in turn, inspired the creators of Watchmen (and for good reason).
I registered the domain in 1997 - almost the pre-history of the internet, really. I'm actually quite glad I did as it's amazing to see how many other people use Ozymandias as a nom de plume today - there are something like 10 "Ozymandias" variants for Gamertags alone on LIVE, and what appear to be hundreds of other similar screen names across the net.
Anyway, today I realized I had never posted or linked to the original poem. Hope you take a moment to read and enjoy it!
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Funny, but some people (including friends) don't believe I picked up a PS3. A couple of emails suggest I'm just saying I picked one up, and that it can't be that easy (it was). And some wonder why I picked one up at all?
Short answer - I've always said I'd get a PS3, and that I believe there will eventually be a couple of games (probably platform exclusives) that will eventually make it worth having (especially at a lower price). I don't think that time is now for most people - $600 is a lot of money to basically do nothing but play Resistance. But you have to remember that this is also part of my job, and keeping hands-on as the system evolves has value as well.
Should you read this as a recommendation? No, no, and no. The system is just not done. I can easily recommend the Wii, however. (But good luck finding one!)
And just for grins, here's my PS3 (you'll actually see two PS3s as the Japanese unit was still installed, but I'm down to just the US one now). You may have to click the image to see any details - black on black doesn't seem to pop as well as one might hope. Oh, and mind the security, aka "Mocha" (this is Seattle, after all.) 
Had the following comment made:
"Now also this site is a PR move on MS part so expect it to cast a positive light on their products. I am also less than happy that only every 3rd post of mine doesn't make it here but, this is a MS blog written by somone involved on the 360 project."
I'm still amused to see some people think this is PR driven. Simply put, it's not - nothing I have ever posted has been seen, filtered, or approved by PR or Marketing at Microsoft. I can safely state this as it's a simple fact. Microsoft just happens to be very progressive in its thinking around blogs. I know that my stating this won't change some people's minds, and frankly, there's nothing that will. But I did want to state that for the record.
More important in my mind, the comment above implies a belief that I filter or censor comments. This isn't the case, and there may be a technical issue happening that I want to explore with your help.
For the record, I do not filter or approve comments. I just don't have the time, and frankly, don't care to. So when you type a comment and hit "Submit" it should just appear (after a few minutes - the site is slow to process). Period.
I also do not delete comments unless it's A) requested (ie, "I posted this in the wrong thread"), B) offensive (swearing, racial slurs, etc), or C) spam (link farming, porn keywords, etc.) If it's just a comment calling me, my opinions, or Microsoft flaming idiots they stay; I'm not that thin-skinned. 
So please test this - submit comments, say what you want. Have an opinion, and if something doesn't appear after a few minutes (the site takes a bit of time to process), please let me know. There's no censoring going on here.
My Wii code is 1257 8366 1810 0392. Please feel free to add me and send your little Mii's on over to visit!
You probably already know my Gamertag.
And for what it's worth, I just picked up my own US PS3, and indeed, will forever be known as Ozymandias in the land of the Playstation network (or at least as long as my account doesn't disappear under mysterious circumstances). Still nothing to play on it except Resistance, but hey - Motorstorm isn't that far off. I'm not convinced it's $600 of goodness, but it's worth it for me to keep an eye on the system's evolution.
Some of you might have noticed a short downtime this morning - with thanks to Letskilldave, we upgraded Ozymandias.com to the latest version of Community Server 2.1 this morning. You should notice some speed improvements as well as other nice little features. In addition, Spam filtering for comments should also be a lot better. Let me know what you think!
I've had some requests to have a way for folks to ask questions or email thoughts or articles to me, and I'm pleased to say that you can now send email to ozymandias@ozymandias.com. (Clever, no? All right... no.) 
I've also added this contact email to the About section.
In general, I'd much prefer you post comments to articles here on the site so the whole community can be engaged in conversations together. However, if you think there's something that might be good to share with everyone (and isn't appropriate to share in the comments for whatever reason), please feel free to drop me some mail.
Also note that I'm trying to post articles on topics I might be able to add some insight or potentially useful thoughts on. This isn't a hard rule - I'm also posting things I just think are cool, interesting, or relevent about the gaming industry. However, I want to make the point that there will likely be plenty of things I won't post simply because I won't see a way to add value to them. Simply put, I'm not trying to be a daily news site. There are plenty of those out there who do a great job!
Finally, please understand that while I'll read everything I receive, I can't promise to respond to every mail. I hope you understand!
Hello, and welcome to Ozymandias.com!
My name’s Andre Vrignaud, and I work here at Microsoft in the Game Technology Group where I help manage our overall gaming platform strategy for Xbox and Windows. This basically means my job is to look out ahead one to two years and try to project where we, our competition, and the game industry in general will be. I take that thinking, the work many other folks do internally, and coalesce it into a roadmap that we take out to our game developers and publishers. Of equal importance, I also help take feedback we hear from those partners and make sure the right teams internally have it so we can react appropriately.
Why Ozymandias.com? Simply put, I often see a lot of speculation and uninformed commentary on the video game industry, game platforms, and technology on the web. While I will obviously never share anything confidential, just by nature of the fact that I’m paid to think about this stuff daily, my hope is that I’ll be able to shed light on some of the reasons things happen in the industry and spark some interesting conversations. Frankly, I also hope to learn more about what you want to see in the future of our gaming industry so I might be able to help make it happen.
As you might have guessed, I’m an Xbox and Xbox Live fan, and won’t pretend otherwise. My respect for those platforms is based upon years of working on similar attempts, as well as a huge appreciation of what Xbox has been able to deliver to the gaming community. That said, I’m also a gamer, and I’m not going to pretend I won’t have any of the other gaming platforms. I’ll be first in line to pick up a Nintendo Revol… <sigh> Wii, and will likely pickup a Playstation 3 as soon as there are games worth having. (I’m not convinced there will be anything at launch, and am even more skeptical as to the quality of Sony’s proposed online gaming network – more about that later. Besides, I’ll likely be picking up any multi-platform titles on the Xbox 360 to feed my achievement addiction.)
I run this blog on my own time and at my own cost. Anything I say on this blog is my own personal opinion, and is not read or approved by anyone before it is posted. Even though I work for Microsoft, not everything posted accurately reflects the views of my company, my management, partners, affiliates, or even my mother. I will do my best to ensure everything I post is accurate, but all posts are provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confer no rights.
Please note that I cannot and will not comment on rumors, unreleased details, confidential data, or anything that is covered by my Microsoft NDA. Simply put, I love my job and this industry too much to ever betray that trust. Just want to be super-clear on that upfront as I’ll simply ignore any posts or emails seeking this sort of information.
That’s about it! I’m definitely interested in hearing your thoughts, so please feel free to comment on posts, and I’ll be sure to respond as appropriate. Thanks for reading, and good gaming! Oh, and feel free to look me up on Xbox Live, where I'm cleverly known as...
-Ozymandias
