In the past year, AMD seems to have been taking a sort of “strategy du jour” approach. We ship low cost processors! We do low power CPUs! Our parts are great for overclockers! We love home theater PCs!

Those messages weren’t really different from anything Intel, the 900 pound velociraptor in the CPU  business, would offer up, but there was always a tinge of desperation. This became more noticeable as Intel slowly and methodically stripped away whatever technology edge AMD had. Intel’s Nehalem was really the last straw: AMD couldn’t even claim “true quad core” any longer.

The exception to this has been the company’s graphics division.

Since most of the projects and jobs I work on are online, that’s where I tend to pick up the most feedback. About a week ago, I came across a blog post where the author was musing on whether or not I was abandoning one of my shows, and I chimed in on the comments to clear the air. To my surprise, some of the other people who commented started pontificating on if I had “Googled” myself to find the blog post. Wait, haven’t we moved past that stigma? I mean, who doesn’t Google themselves these days?

That last question is a little unfair; clearly there are people in the world who haven’t bothered to set up a Google alert in their RSS reader for their own name, nor have they spent any time on the Technorati blog search page. Sometimes it’s virtually impossible for that to be a feasible way of finding information about oneself online (I’m looking at you, Will Smith). As our lives move increasingly online, the benefits of knowing what information about you is being put on the public internet are huge. When “Googling” has become a verb, we’re past the point of concerning ourselves over a vanity search here and there.

Whenever I think about Games for Windows Live, I feel like Charlie Brown, trying to kick the football that Lucy is holding. Ever optimistic, Charlie runs at the ball, only to have it jerked away at the last second. Games for Windows Live is like that – heavy on of promises, light on delivery. Someone needs to wrestle Windows gaming from the gaming group at Microsoft and give it back to the Windows team.

In other words, give the Games for Windows task to someone at Microsoft who actually cares about the PC. Windows 7 has been an impressive success, and it would be great of the team that’s responsible for making a better Windows for the PC take on the chore of making a better gaming experience for Windows.

Right now PC gaming at Microsoft lives in the Entertainment and Devices division, those edgy folks who brought you the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune, Windows Mobile and Windows Automotive. While the Xbox 360 is finally profitable, the system has certainly has had its issues – red ring of death, anyone?

The real issue is that Games for Windows Live feels clunky and just gets in the way.