STIRR Sydney launches

Here's that announcement that I alluded too earlier...we have our first international STIRR: STIRR Sydney. More to come! Good luck to Martin Wells and the rest of the organizers!

Thanksgiving weekend update

Thursday: Climbed Mission Peak (2 hours up and back); had Chinese (no turkey!) dinner with friends; drove to Gilroy.

Friday: Shopped from 12 - 8:30am...in bed by 9:30am; slept the rest of the day. Highlight of Gilroy: watching people stand in 4 hour lines in front of Banana Republic and Coach. We waited an hour for a mocha latte and an eggnog latte.

Saturday: Moved. (If you need my new address, ping me.) Dinner at Crazy Buffet and gorged on crab legs.

Sunday: STIRR has some big news (no...not the holiday party, though that is a big deal). We may take a few days to officially announce it though. I'm very psyched!

Newsflash: Local boy patents process for loading a dishwasher!

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov 16, 2006 /PRNewswire/ -- You've seen it before and we know we'll see it again. Can the US Patent Office get any worse? Though this reporter thinks there is no harm/no foul this time around. The latest *patent fiasco* involves a local Palo Alto boy, Timmy Doright, who noticed that people at office where he interned seem to get lazier and lazier about putting dishes in the dishwasher and instead put them in the sink for other people to deal with. He thought *how rude!*and came up with an idea. Searching through the US Patent Office's archives, he noticed that no one had patented the process of putting soiled coffee mugs, crumby plates or other food/drink-stained eating instruments. So he filed and now a process for loading soiled eating insturments into a dishwasher is patent-pending.

When interviewed, Mr. Doright said, "My intention is not to make any money off of this process...but, gee, that sure would be awesome. I'm just tired of putting other people's plates and cups into a dishwasher. I mean...I'm busy, too. Why can't they go the next step and put it in the dishwasher. It's right there? I just don't get it. So now that I've got this patent-thingy, I think more people will read about this, realize that they are doing this and stop!"

According to Susan "Coffee" Craver, of Menlo Park, a co-worker of Timmy's, "I do this all the time. I know it is bad. But I can't help myself. My biggest fear is that a colleague will catch me in the act and call me on it. From now on, I'll be more diligent about putitng my soiled mugs in the dishwasher. I have Timmy Doright to thank for that."

Is Timmy making a mockery of the US Patent Office. Will this act clean up our nation's sink? Only time will tell.

SOURCE LoadTheWasher Web Site: http://www.loadthewasher.org/ AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com

I've been negligent

What have I been up to?

• Got a flu shot! I'm almost done reading The Great Influenza...very scary!
  
• Went to Hawaii!
• IFTF had a conference
  
• Roadtrip to Portland (had snow to deal with on the way back)
  
• Lots and lots of business meetings

Coming up:

• STIRR Founder's Mixer 1.8 is this Wednesday. Looking forward to hearing from:
  
• Frucall, Nasser Manesh, Co-Founder & CTO
• Kongregate, Jim Greer, Co-founder & CEO
• Krugle, Steve Larsen, Co-Founder & CEO
• Liftopia, Evan Reece, Co-Founder