We was funny behind the scenes as well.
A company in my home town Calgary called Voodoo PC's used to build a pretty high end and well known set of gaming systems back in the late 90's to early 2000s. They were bought by HP I think, and Rahul, the owner who I knew from a Calgary based gaming website I worked for, wrote on his facebook today about how Robin Williams was a celebrity endorser for VOodoo PC. Voodoo used to have large back page color adds in all the major magazines like PC Gamer and PCXL back in the day. Williams even wrote some reviews and did interviews about gaming and Voodoo Computers where he did business for years, getting new systems for himself and his kids constantly.
Anyhow, Rahul, who now is running Razer gaming components and working for Microsoft gaming, said today that in his old shop in Calgary whenever Williams called that there were fights over who would answer the call, as he constantly joked with the techs and sales people. Rahul said today that he often had a sore stomach after long calls with Williams.
Another guy I know delivered furniture in San Fran to one of Williams home once. I'll post the quote from his FB page -
Mark E. Gong
about an hour ago
I'm sadden to hear about Robin Williams death. I remember when I used to work for a crating company I was asked to deliver some furniture to a house in Noe Valley in San Francisco. When I delivered the furniture I was asked to wait in the dining room. In the dining room the chairs consisted of Jokers, Queens & Kings as the back rest for the chairs. I told my boss whoever lives here must be a joker! Down came Robin Williams and he said to me well yes I am. We chatted and he made us both laugh. He also said you want one more good laugh... He said your not getting a tip! Lol. He tipped us both $50.00. What a nice guy he was. RIP Robin Williams the comedy club on Clement Street where you got your start will always remember you.
Robin Williams was a huge online gamer back in those days - Here is a quote from an article from a celeb magazine talking to him about his recent writing in PC Gamer. He was really into the Second World War and games about it. I don't want to say anything here due to confidentiality and rules and such, but rumor has it that he liked online flying games back then as well, and bandied about trying several that were around back then.
The 50-year-old Oscar winner, who won Best Supporting Actor for "Good Will Hunting" confesses, "I play games, I'm not going to lie about it, and when you play online against someone else, it's the best. Especially when you're playing against a 12-year-old kid who's been playing the game for a year and knows all the secrets. I'm fascinated by military games."
His favorite games include First Person Shooter, and Half-Life, and War Craft 3.
"There are a million games and there are mods with these games," Williams says, getting into the lingo. "The mods are taking these games and basically redesigning it and doing it on their own thing. There's a game called Half-Life and these guys made up a total different take on it using the engine to make a World War II engine called Day of Defeat with Germans and Americans doing kind of like a Normandy beach type thing. But these guys made it on their own and the company basically kind of gave them their blessing."
"It's amazing. It's a world. It has it's own mythology, plus clans and groups," Williams says.