Why...because your friends Dad is an MS employee?
But even so...I thought Alpha was only for MS employees themselves...not friends and family of the employees.
I heard that "pimps at sea" was the alpha. I messaged my friend david on myspace and he told me he was in it but can't talk about it. Shortly after starting homescooling I went over to his house and took turns playing it with him and his dad for like 15 minutes. And he is not just a MS employee, i'm not sure what exactly his job is but I believe he's on the Xbox Live launch team.
Neither me or my friend are allowed to say a word about the alpha to anyone. Back then we werent at least...now that the betas like 5 days away i'm sure I can but still not 100% sure. I can say though the graphics from the alpha were a bit worse than the beta.