Dave's (Birthday) Stuff

Here's the big round-up of Dave's birthday swag!

• From the Kuhns: Battery charging system
• From Mike: iTunes gift certificate, used to buy every single episode of Battlestar Galactica
• From Mum and Dad: Grilling book, digitial photography book, Sony headphones (on the way)
• From Laurel: Harley coffee mug, Harley ski cap, Harley Davidson gift certificate, Bose QuietComfort3 noise-canceling headphones (to replace the ones she bought for me last Xmas and has somehow taken possession of)

That may seem like a lot of headphones, but Laurel can attest, I'm a bit of a headphone collector, and I have a use for every pair!

Other Microsoft Birthdays!

Not only is it my birthday, but several MS products were born today. Of course, Windows Vista shipped today to "businesses" whatever that means. But more importantly, it is the birthday of Windows Live Search for Mobile (you can see what it does on a video here). Get it here, or download it from your phone at http://wls.live.com. This is a great app put together by folks from my old "PAX" team at Microsoft -- congrats Ashley, Gram, Steve, John, and Danny!

If this Thanksgiving were an episode of Friends...

... it would be called "The One with All the Butter." Dave and Laurel got back today from the Trout Lake expedition. A good time was had by all. There was lots of great food and the traditional playing of the XBOX all weekend. Many things were learned this weekend. For instance, 12 adults can drink 4 pots of coffee for breakfast. There can never be enough bread (though we tried). It's better to play Taboo earlier in the evening. Nila takes the rules of Cranium very seriously. Now who's ready for Christmas - or as we call it around here "happy secular winter holidays we celebrate by heading for the beach?"

Happy birthday, Mum!

Today is my Mum's birthday! She is 29 years old -- somehow, she is 9 years younger than I am!

Work for, with, or even against me!

I found out today that we have one developer job that just opened on the Virtual Earth Shell Applications team (aka "the cool kids"). Hey, that's the team I work on! Imagine saving the (Virtual) Earth every day! So, if you happen to be a Dave's Stuff reader who already works at Microsoft (sorry, internal transfers only for this post!) and want to work on the coolest AJAX app on the planet, get in touch!

On the Edge

I just got On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore by Brian Bagnall. I can't wait to read it, but I'm in the middle of another book (This Other Eden by Ben Elton), and I hate to have two books going at once. Should have time for both during Thanksgiving, though!

The new scooter is finally here

Laurel's Aprilia Scarabeo 500 arrived today. Pictures to follow. Gone riding now :)

New patent cube

Want to do Automatic Layout of Unpredictable Content from Multiple Sources? Sorry, gotta talk to me first!

"SpaceLump" would have been worse, I guess.

Steve Ballmer talks to a magazine about Virtual Earth 3D:

[W]e announced this week a thing called SpaceLamp, which provides 3D maps ...

How much did it cost to put the sign there?

So, while I was "away" at Amazon.com (on day 2, I think), a new set of Microsoft company benefits were announced. The most exciting of them was that we were getting new Starbucks iCup machines. Well, they have been incredibly slow getting here, but apparently they are finally showing up, with, of course, our building being one of the last on the installation schedule.

But today in our kitchen area, I saw a really nice-looking 4-color cardboard sign announcing that the iCup would be installed very soon.

Of course, then, I have to wonder -- how much did it cost to put up the sign telling us that they'd soon be taking the sign away and putting in the drink machine? Couldn't they have just put in the machine? Or not put up the sign, as it didn't tell us anything we didn't already know? Ah, bureaucracy.

Third time better be the charm

My HOG is in the shop for the third time (I didn't even mention the 2nd time on the blog because it was only in for a leaky gas valve, which took about an hour to fix). This time, the battery died as I was driving ... which Dad (Happy Birthday, by the way!) says means the alternator is probably shot. Laurel points out that at this rate, not only could I have just bought a new bike, but so much has been replaced that I will end up with a new bike anyway! ;-)

Watch CBS news tonight!

I normally wouldn't watch CBS Evening News (or any network newscast, for that matter), but apparently tonight there will be a story about the first project I worked on when I came back to Microsoft, which releases today -- in fact, you can get it right now, just go to local.live.com and hit the "3D" button. Cool, eh? I can't take too much credit, as I was only on the project for three weeks, and I mostly worked on the integration of 3D concepts into the existing 2D-oriented website.

10 years already?

The 10th Anniversary edition of Infinite Jest comes out next week. If you haven't read it, order it now and maybe you'll be done with it before the 20th anniversary!

Someone with a bigger LOST problem than me

This person on Post Secret may have a slightly bigger LOST addiction than I do, although I can sympathize.

Kitty vs. Clinton

Our phones have been dead for a couple of days. Since it was so rainy and windy recently, I figured it was just a local outage that would be fixed soon, so I didn't worry about it. But then Laurel found that Zuzu had knocked one of the phones off the hook. When we hung it up and checked our voicemail, there was a message on there -- from Bill Clinton! According to the time of the message, I would have been home to answer it if the phone was working ... I wonder what wonderful conversation I would have had with the former president (probably fairly one-sided as he is an incredible orator ... and it was a recording). Only one other message, from the Democratic National Committee. I guess Zuzu is a Republican. Good for her!