Wikinvest recently welcomed its newest and youngest employee! Say hello to Ajax:

We had been talking for quite some time about getting an office pet. Well, a couple weeks ago, Parker took the plunge and picked out this cute little guy, who he named Ajax, … um … after the abrasive cleaner. Ajax is a Yorkshire Terrier, is about 14 weeks old now, and is already shaping up to be a consummate office pup. He’s forgone chewing on pigears in favor of shredding paper and chewing on Cat5 cable (which we are trying hard to discourage…), and has shunned his predesignated doggie bed in favor of sleeping on the nice cozy laptop bags that are scattered around our desks.

The NCAA tournament was pretty exciting this year…especially for Mike, who picked Kansas to go all the way and won the office pool. The final game was pretty exciting - how about that three pointer by Chalmers to tie it? Mike was curled up on the couch in nervous anxiety as KU trailed by 9 with two minutes to go…then suddenly couldn’t stop yelling “Oh Boy! What a SUPER SWELL shot! I win!” as Kansas poured it on in OT.

Tim enjoyed some satisfaction early on as he watched his alma mater Stanford pound Roger’s Cornell. Poor Roger suffered most from bracket-busters like Davidson, while Parker was somehow vindicated in his LAME strategy of picking only the favorites when all the number one seeds made it to the Final Four for the first time in history. Rog came in last among those who filled out the entire bracket, and so he got last pick of the prizes…we’re still waiting for him to row the 10-K erg piece that he owes. Mike, meanwhile, will be sporting a mean Wikinvest lab coat in the new offices next month.

Can’t wait ’til next year, when the Madness strikes again.

Woooo! Rock Band has arrived, just in time for a much needed morale boost as we’ve been preparing to demo WikiData at MoneyTech. Mike has quickly staked his claim as the resident drumming guru, exhibiting his percussionary prowess with fast and furious freestyle drum solos. Roger and I have mostly stuck to jamming on the guitar, and I sing occasionally too, while Parker alternates between vocals and drumming. This is one hell of an addictive game, and it’s unclear whether RockBand will ultimately increase or decrease our productivity. Still, we really can’t wait to download more songs as they become available on XBox Live. In the meantime, the upstanding residents of Noe Valley will continue to enjoy a free rock show every afternoon around 2pm as they walk their dogs past our office.

(PS, you can actually read more about investing in Rock Band on Wikinvest.)

Foos is here!

We had a little team go-karting outing this afternoon and Roger took the checkered flag. That guy is fast. Jason got crap from us for positioning himself for winning “most improved” next time Can somebody tell us what we should do with all our head socks now?

In celebration of Anton’s twentysomething-eth birthday we baked a fabulous three layer cake: angel food with fresh strawberries and marscapone frosting. There weren’t enough cake pans for all the layers so two of them were baked in skillets. The odd bun-like shapes that resulted didn’t turn out to be the best things to work with (the cake resembled a Big Mac that was drooling cream), but it was delicious.

The take away message: work at Wikinvest and get a tasty burger-cake on your birthday.

Getting Wikinvest launched has been pretty intense, so we decided to unwind a little this week up at Lake Tahoe. People are taking turns making dinner and it’s been pretty impressive. If we ever decide to open a restaurant instead of building Wikinvest, I don’t think we’ll need to do much recruiting. So far, there’s been homemade lasagna, French onion soup, chicken a la king (Roger’s been asking for this for a while now), grilled pork chops, jambalaya - and this one takes the cake: Gateau aux crepes. Anton is quite the pastry chef (and photographer!)

Intermix the eating with some biking, sailing, frisbee, a Reno casino run, and some post-launch product planning, and it’s been a pretty nice way to unwind after the launching Wikinvest.