Name: Harry Teasley

Age: 40 (although this was mostly written when I was 25 or so, with infrequent detail updates)

Blob Quotient: used to be 23.73, now it's probably something more sinister

Occupation: Computer & Video Game Artist/Designer

Hobbies: Languidly wasting my copious free time.

Harry: The Story of The Man

I was born in Atlanta and bear the scars to prove it. I was raised by two completely brilliant parents but I managed to avoid the bulk of the influence, ha ha. I began studying the ancient art of Art at an early age, doing ersatz cave paintings with markers on my walls. As my persistence in this activity grew, my parents gave in and decided to pay a large institution several thousand dollars a year to let me draw on their walls. After four years of this they kicked me out and called me a Bachelor, the rats.

After freelancing enough to discover that nothing's free, least of all lances, I got a job at MicroProse Software, drawing on a little computer monitor. At night they scrubbed my monitor clean and I came in the following morning and drew on it again. Some time later someone turned all that scribbling into a game, and the company made lots of money. But I left, and a scant decade later? MicroProse went out of business. Coincidence? You be the judge.

While at MicroProse, I chanced to look at a map and discovered I had been living in Baltimore. Aghast, I promptly secured a job in San Diego at Leland Interactive Media (was Williams Entertainment for a while, but it's now Midway Home Entertainment, I suppose to convince folks that it's a different, better place), doing essentially the same thing I had been doing in Baltimore, only I was getting paid more. The down side was of course that waitresses in San Diego don't call you "hon".

In May in the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Ninety-Six, I bade farewell to Williams after about two and a half years, in an effort to try enjoying my chosen career again. I went freelance again, but this time folks were handing me lances right and left. I contracted with Shiny Entertainment for a bit (great bunch of guys at Shiny), but LoCal life had lost its appeal; I'm really not a beach monkey at the core, even if I did buy a surfboard. So all the while, I had been sniffing around for another place to hang my Monarchs cap. Many cool companies offered to give me paychecks in exchange for my immortal soul. Finally Satan approached me in the form of Valve Software, and in the dark of night I did acquiesce, name writ in blood, to move to Seattle, where I transformed my surfboard into a snowboard with the help of a credit card and a consignment shop. My Monarchs cap evolved into a Mariners cap while living in Seattle, as rooting for a baseball team that actually exists during my lifetime seemed like an Idea Whose Time Has Come. Go M's.

Now I'm at Turbine Entertainment Software, as Art Director for Lord of the Rings Online, an MMO that everyone should be subscribing to and playing. (Well, you don't have to play, but give us your monthly subscription fee anyway.) We're in Massachusetts, for Bog's sake: I grew up in the South, dammit, weather like this is what happens to Other, Less Divinely Favored, People. And I refuse to become a fan of the Red Sox, and their rabid, whiny fanbase. Go M's. Anyway, I could get a job in Florida someday and I will have covered every corner of the great 48.

Jobs are wonderful and all, but they can't hold a candle to getting married. The victim's name is Yatsze Mark (pronounced"Mark"), and we met at work in San Diego while waiting for the coffee pot to finish brewing. We decided to get married and forge a relationship based on a mutual addiction to caffeine, which, considering some of the messes I've found myself in over the years, is about the best rationale for life-long commitment I've discovered. It has been nothing if not amazingly stupendous.

I made an honest woman out of her on June 2nd 1996 (how she ended up the deceitful, venomous Borgia that she is today I'll never know) at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and rumor has it that it was fairly tolerable. We spent two weeks honeymooning in France and London, where we had a lovely time except for the Paris bits; we both agree that Paris does not deserve one more chance, despite what Jonathan Richman might think. OK, OK, maybe Paris isn't all that bad... we were only there for a couple of days, and everything was closed. Also, a woman at the Louvre yelled at me. As far as I'm concerned, Paris can bite me.

Of course, the dire news for folks not watching me closely (that is, out of touch with me for several years) is that my threat to the gene pool has been realized, thrice over now: I'm a dad, father to the Lovely and Talented Linda Isabel Teasley, the Equally Stunning Mona Mark Teasley, and the Quite Small Sadie Patrick Teasley. And I say "thrice over now", which used to read "twice over and we're done", but Things Happen, and People Decide To Have More Kids. With more kids than parents, you move from a man-to-man to a zone defense, and yeah, that's working out better than I had feared. Incidentally, I recommend fatherhood highly, but catch up on your sleep before you start.

The het3 logo to the left will take you back to the main page.