Thousands of Microsoft employees share their ideas with their coworkers, competitors and customers via blogs on a daily basis. Lots of companies would clamp down on that sort of behavior and ensure that only sanctioned company positions go out in employee communications but not Microsoft.

I love this video from Loneserver.com. "What ever happened to him?" "Windows ME? He's in the back, washin' dishes."  

Related: Mommy, where do home servers come from?

Megan Wallent (formerly known as Michael Wallent, General Manager with IE) is back on the job this week.

It's been absolutely fascinating to read about her transition on her blog ... and it sounds like things are going smoothly now that she's back in the office!

...like you've never seen it before. Hint: there are white baby grand pianos involved.

Once again, I love it when MSFT goes for WTF humor!

Think you can always tell the difference between designers and devs? THINK AGAIN!

I've always wondered. And now the truth comes out!

 Video: Israeli food

I grabbed this from Declan's awesome blog all about International MSFT tech jobs:

So what do software engineers eat in Israel?

So for a bit of Friday fun check out Lisa, one of our SDEs in Israel, telling us a little about free food and in particular"diet" food that they all eat in the Haifa break room... :)

The web's all a-twitter about the MSFT/Facebook deal that was just announced. I'm mostly curious to see if this means more 'Softies will start using Facebook. The Microsoft Network has 18,000 members, which isn't that many, when you consider I have almost 80,000 coworkers...

There were not one but TWO exciting speakers on Microsoft's campus today. Hilary Clinton was here in the morning, and then the infamous Fake Steve Jobs (nee Forbes editor Daniel Lyons) this afternoon.

I had a meeting this morning, so I missed Hilary ... but Fake Steve/Daniel was hilarious and spoke candidly about print journalism ("You know it's bad when you're in your 40s and you're celebrating that sales are only down 2% this year."), starting his blog, and being outed.

He also addressed the (hilarious!) rumors that he was a borg (aka MSFT) shill -- I guess there are conspiracies that his book deal was part of a money laundering scheme so that Microsoft could pay him. "If that's the case," he said, "You guys really didn't pay me very well."

The whole talk was very funny, but one of the biggest laughs was when Daniel did his best imitation of the unbridled consumer excitement over the iPhone: "Look at me! I bought a product! I gave them my credit card and they sold it to me! WOW!"

Fake Steve/Daniel also mentioned that Microsoft was the first company to call and invite him to speak. "I'm still waiting for a call from Apple," he quipped, explaining that he thinks Microsoft has a great sense of humor about itself. We all proved him right when the room erupted in giggles over a jab at the Zune. Ouch! ...But HA!

I am on the hunt for this gold helmet-wearing Segway rider. He's been spotted all over campus (that's my building in the background of this photo!) and I must speak with him. I want to know more about tooling around Redmond on a Segway -- and why the gold helmet?

This isn't MSFT-specific, but I couldn't help but link it.

Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers.

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