in australia there aren't a lot of ads (and i don't watch a lot of tv). i began working after finishing uni last year, and once i heard about windows phone and it's shift in programming technologies, that made it for me. seeing the phone, original the live tiles were a bit blah, but everything else was really nice. i had worked with silverlight before, not a lot, but enough to know it's ease of creation and power, so i knew that development for a phone would be pretty sweet.
there is still heaps i don't understand about silverlight, but the app i'm working on is greatly improving, even though i only spend an hour or so a day on it. lets just hope the end product wows those i'm making it for.