Remainders: Will Wired hire Amanda Congdon to play banjo?

• Om Malik, who believes companies don't do anything once, polls his readers: Who will Wired buy next? [GigaOM]
• Hey look, it's Six Apart co-founder Mena Trott playing the banjo and swearing! Ha! Ha! We Valley types sure know how to have fun! [Abazab]
• Reporting Time Warner's falling stock is always tougher when that stock is your retirement fund. [CNN Money]
• Mysterious social network company Socializer says it's been around since 2002 — and invites you to join its private beta. [Socializer]
• the front page at Ookles.com, which used to say "coming soon," is now an empty page. The site isn't stillborn, it's just prepping for public release, says the founder. [Ookles]
• The exec producer of VH1's "Best Week Ever" tells Rocketboom's ex-host, "Get to work - the clock is ticking and 90 days from now, it's going to be 'what the fuck happened to Amanda Congdon?'" [BuzzMachine]

Remainders: Vista launches Thursday, doesn't say which Thursday

• Bill Gates says Vista will be ready in January. Unless it won't. [MSNBC]
• Boston thinks it has a hard time with wifi bedouins — cafe moochers who suck up table space and bandwidth without buying a thing. Child's play. In Boston, at least the cafes charge. San Franciscans demand free wifi — and then we figure one cup of coffee earns us a full day's rent. Hell, I'm writing this from Coffee to the People, where I've sat for the last five hours. Try that on for size, Boston. [Boston Globe]
• Old-school Netscape fans are calling the new version "New Coke." That's what AOL gets for saddling progressive exec Jason Calacanis with such a fuddy-duddy user base. [Read/WriteWeb]
• Friendster's patent looks familiar, says the entrepreneur who filed a similar social networking patent five years before Friendster launched. [Boing Boing]
• Can Google do anything without pretending it just saved the world? Business 2.0's bloggers note that Google's new HQ in Michigan isn't a philanthropic effort. Google may spin it as "a shot in the arm" for Michigan's lackluster job market. But don't expect it to pay wages like it does in Silicon Valley — Michigan college grads cost just $47,000 a pop. [Business 2.0]

Remainders: It doesn't help that the ads sell something called "iLoad"

• New York-based e-mail startup Daily Candy gets a sweet deal: an investment valuing the company at $130 mil, which lets the company take down its "For Sale" sign and get back to the important business of making urban women feel inadequately shoed. [Gawker, link being fixed]
• So some big-city bloggers had a party for Six Apart's new Vox blogging service, right? And some guys sat in a hot tub on the roof? And probably someone called this the bubble? Hon, it's not a bubble until what's in the hot tub can get you drunk. Anyway, click through for topless shots of Gawker Media managing editor Lockhart Steele. [Teen Drama]
• Damn it, Gawker's stealing all the tech news today. As our catty sister notes, the New York Times is proud to name-drop Dodgeball.com founder Dennis Crowley, the man responsible for every New Yorker and San Franciscan constantly updating their friends on how drunk they're about to get. [Gawker]
• Pictured: The Times also uses a photo illustration to remind everyone of those wild days of free drink coasters for all. [NYT]
• Mooching off the "Get a Mac" commercials: You can make a clever parody or a creepy knock-off ad. (Please make the parody.) [iLoad]

Remainders: No #$%ing Rocketboom news edition

• Steve Ballmer, given a chance to finally be right about something Steve Jobs was wrong about, fucks it up — iPods carry more legal music than stolen music. [CD Freaks]
• But while the RIAA can hold off on whatever lawsuit it was cooking up, Apple shareholders are suing the company for giving wonky stock option grants that could have illegally benefited execs (but not Steve Jobs). [thisismoney.co.uk]
• Googling is now an Oxford-English-Dictionary-approved verb, sparking the Motley Fool to write a piece that dismantles itself by paragraph six. [Motley Fool]
• The Open Source Business Conference organizer calls on his industry not to move to America, because if the open source community leaves Europe, how will it maintain its condescending liberal attitude? [Computer Business Review]
• National Semiconductor, which gave 8500 employees free iPods last month, made the brilliant PR move of firing 35 employees and demanding the iPods back. You stay classy, National Semiconductor. [Star-Telegram]

Remainders: It's New Year's in July

• Batting .000 on his New Year's predictions, Firefox developer Blake Ross rushes out a second batch:

  Citizen journalism will finally topple Old Media, ushering in a remarkable new age of incisive journalism—"That Dude Across the Street Walks His Dog;" "Local Mail Arrives Ten Minutes Past 4." Illegal immigrants will protest the discriminatory name, forcing the blogosphere to rechristen the new model "Asscasting," short for "Broadcasting while sitting on my ass, which will never leave this chair."

Remainders: Ellison officially gives Harvard the finger

• Apple's iPod maker says the sweatshop story isn't true, and they've vaguely threatened a lawsuit over the claim, made by the UK's Daily Mail. Can we resolve this peacefully so the slaves can crank out more toys? [Apple Insider]
• Props to Gnomedex organizer Chris Pirillo for designing conference tees that we'd pay good cash for (pictured). [Pirillo.com]
• I was utterly remiss not to show you this classic 1998 rant about writing for Wired Magazine. [Boing Boing]
• The "Coolz0r" blog has so far catalogued 54 services using "Flickr"-style names. If anyone wants to use this as a hitlist, the blogger will not be held responsible. [Coolz0r]
• AOL knew it was shady back in 2000. Then again, so did everyone else. [CNNMoney]
• Larry Ellison officially admits — it's not about the sick kids, it's about his buddy at Harvard. Those expecting the Oracle founder's $115 million donation can suck it. More on this tomorrow. [SFGate]

Remainders: An extra Friday post, because everyone loves topless Unix gurus

• A guide to Unix becomes the new summer beach read for a topless sunbather in Greece. [NSFW: Flickr]
• A journalist overheard explaining how to pad an article: "But one thing is clear: I have three more paragraphs to fill." "It remains to be seen whether I can meet wordcount."
• Yahoo's photo sharing site Flickr, it turns out, made a simple way to import pics from other services. But co-founder Stewart Butterfield says that management decided to can it 'cause it was too "lame, and mean, and competitive in a bad way." Good thing you got bought, wimp. [Flickr forums]
• Web 2.0 cynic Eran Globen thrills at marketer Seth Godin's ability to sell Google themselves. "You guys have built something for the ages," Seth told Googlers in New York — in 2006 — about decisions made by different people in 1999. All marketers are liars, indeed. [Hellonline]
• Dear Macromedia founder Marc Canter: If you promise not to write free verse and call it a limerick, I'll promise not to make a Flash animation and call it an interface. [Marc's Voice]

Remainders: Seriously we're writing about the Playboy party

• Don't worry, Valleywag's sending a correspondent to Playboy's Women of MySpace party. (Don't you wish you were a correspondent?) [One Industry Group]
• Well look who's Mister Celebrity Vlogger! The man who just interviewed famous blogger Om Malik now interviews famous podcast publisher John Furrier. (Connection: Both took VC money for content-based enterprises in competitive markets. Rodrigo.Typepad.com]
• Somehow, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel as the face of technology is not reassuring in the least. [Forbes]
• Web 2.0 snark blog Supr.c.ilio.us's (Supr.c.ilio.us'?) post about Michael Arrington leaving TechCrunch becomes quirkily prescient when Arrington farms out a whole day's posts to writer Marshall Kirkpatrick. [Supr.c.ilio.us and TechCrunch]
• Why aren't all industry explanations in cartoon form like this explanation of the IT process? [Scaryideas.com]

Remainders: Dude! You got a cake!

• Today's "Reason that San Francisco is cooler than San Jose" is a warning to vegetarians: In Silicon Valley, waiters forcibly stuff meat down your throat. [Metroactive]
• Apparently everyone who didn't know about the Adobe/Microsoft fight over the PDF format has their heads in the sand. Yeah, they're all probably worrying about obscure news this week, like the US killing the world's leading terrorist. [Planet PDF]
• Thanks again, SloshCon sponsors! To everyone else: If you want to give people money to drink, please sponsor the Gnomedex parties coming up in July. [Ponzarelli]
• Is the Glam.com blog network scamming its writers? (Ha, name a blog network that isn't.) A tipster says, "Apparently their $11m in funding doesn't cover paying out a few cents to their partners." [Celebitchy]
• Songwriter Billy Bragg takes his music off Myspace, saying the site's terms and conditions let Rupert Murdoch's media empire re-use all posted music without paying a cent in royalties. One wonders if News Corp would ever get away with acting on that clause, but either way, YAY FOR LEAVING MYSPACE. [Register]
• Pictured: Best. Caption. Ever. The Register snarks at Dell for throwing Wall Street Journal editor Don Clark...a birthday party. [Register]

Remainders: Vlog the Implogger

• Anything, anything but calling them "vlogs!" A chat where every line is as good as: "i'm so addicted to video journals, i've got vournal disease" [jaschu's record]
• Craigslist gets Cox-blocked. (Heehee! Cox!) [Silicon Valley Watcher]
• Michael Arrington is sick and tired of those giddy Google worshippers. "What drives this kind of blind enthusiasm? When is the last time Google released a product that really changed our lives?" Yeah, startups do all the life-changing stuff, like a news service for MySpace's teenage userbase! [TechCrunch]
• It's slicker, it's eight-bittier, it's a little more emasculating — underrated fake-friends site Consumating just took the bandages off its facelift. [Consumating]
• Apparently SingleStat.us, which was coded over the weekend with no intention of actually getting attention, is now a zeitgeist of our stalkeresque society. [WebProNews]

Remainders: The first rule of Silicon Valley fight club is, squeal like a girl

• The New Yorker publishes a followup six years in the making — the wedding of designer Jason Kottke and Blogger co-creator Meg Hourihan. [New Yorker; Photo source: Kottke]
• Mini-Microsoft blogger stops writing; Microsoft now allowed to be huge and ungainly again. [Mini-Microsoft]
• Publisher Tim O'Reilly writes a lengthy response to the Web 2.0 (TM) shitstorm. The upshot: Yes, O'Reilly wants to own the name "Web 2.0 Conference." He's also disappointed in you all. [O'Reilly Radar]
• Blog mogul Jason Calacanis answers Michael Arrington: Jason meant to defuse the rumor that Arrington's TechCrunch reviews are for sale. But since Mike wants to make a public spat out of it, Jason's only too happy to oblige. [Calacanis.com]
• PR Agency Idea Grove wants to cheat test Technorati. Here's some help, just 'cause their site is pretty. [Idea Grove]
• "In McKinsey space," says VC blogger Paul Kedrosky, "no one can hear you scream." The consultants that told eBay not to worry about Google's PayPal killer, now invites other dot-coms to a bull session. [Paul Kedrosky]
• See, it's funny because Google bought GoogleMastercard.com on the eve of MasterCard's IPO. PayPal is screwed. [Simple SEM]
• Someone forgot the first two rules of Fight Club. [USA Today]

Remainders: Don't go near Bill Gates without your biohazard suit

• Animal Magazine editors sneak into Apple's 24-hour store without waiting in line. Then they pull the classy move of setting its website as the test computers' home page. They also confirm that the SNL staff shouldn't head out without makeup. [Animal Magazine via Blogebrity]
• Boing Boing gets giddy over DRM protestors (pictured doing an Intel ad), because no cause is worth fighting for more than your right to play Beyonce on your iPod. [Boing Boing]
• Web 2.0 jokes make it to the hipster lit comics. LOOK WHAT YOU PEOPLE HAVE WROUGHT. [Cat and Girl]
• Jobster acquires Jobby, making the cutest headline ever. [TechCrunch]
• Streamcast, the guys behind old-and-busted file-sharer Morpheus, have expanded their lawsuit against Kazaa, Skype and Skype's founders to include Skype's new owner, eBay — or as Techdirt puts it, "Streamcast realizes eBay is the one with the money." [Techdirt]

Remainders: LJ boob job

• San Francisco PR firm Bite interviews the San Jose Mercury News senior web editor about the Merc's new media offerings. Sez the editor about the popularity of the Merc's American Idol blog, "Compelling content still rules the day." And by "compelling content," he means "celebrity trash." (Gawker Media heartily agrees.) [Bitemarks]
• A reader responds to the Apple shared bathroom incident: "SCO (a.k.a. Santa Cruz Operation), when it was still in Santa Cruz, posted similar signs after customers on a late tour of the facility suprised a group of nude hot-tubers. good times."
• USA Today manages to sound like it reads books, and it gives tepid approval to Douglas Coupland's JPod, a novel about game developers that outclasses his '95 novel Microserfs. [USA Today]
• SF Chron tech blogger Alan Saracevic asks about the $100 laptop (meant to put a computer in the hands of every child), "Why does everyone need a laptop?" So we can get more blog traffic, Alan. Geez, catch up with everyone, okay? [SF Gate]
• The Boob Nazi battle on LiveJournal — where militant breastfeeders fight LJ's abuse team — gets attention on the LJ Abuse Blog, which calls the affair "Nipplegate." [Exposing LJ Abuse — NSFW]

Remainders: Photobucket -- it's alive!

• MarketWatch launches a fake stock market. Now everyone can play-act as Larry and Sergey — "Oh no! My billions!" [Bambi Francisco]
• Google has enough open positions posted online to add another 27% of its current workforce. Yahoo, 8%. (Sun Microsystems, somewhere in the negative.) [GigaOM]
• Flickr cranks it up from beta to gamma, introducing a new level for companies to get stuck at before 1.0. [Flickr]
• Mule Design lays out Michael Arrington's TechCrunch redesign faux pas all fair-like. [Mule Design blog]
• Neat trivia tidbit: Photobucket is still alive and still sucking up VC funding. [Business Wire press release]

Remainders: To the CrunchCave!

• Ballmer, Brin, and the other big boys take potshots. Google's Sergey Brin about Microsoft: "We just see the history of that company behaving anti-competitively and not playing fair." MS's Steve Ballmer about Google: "Can you imagine writing a letter to someone. 'Hey, Mom, I am upset with the gun policy.' Then an ad pops up and says, 'Hey, do you want to buy a gun?'" Yahoo's Terry Semel about Microsoft: "My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance." [ISEdb.com]
• Matt Cutts is a Google celebrity. In the lame way that Walt Mossberg is a celebrity. [ClickZ]
• Michael Arrington could make a million a year. But he blows it all on renting the secret CrunchCave and CrunchMobile. [OKDork]
• Okay, fuck it. Gizmondo's Stefan Eriksson is so terrible that he's awesome. [L.A. Times]
• Lloyd Grove gets pissy after Terry Semel teases him — in front of all the cool media people! Terry, that is just mean and you should apologize or Lloyd will keep sniping at you in his gossip column. [NY Daily News]
• MTV plans to kill iTunes. The plan: "We will concentrate on people who don't have iPods." So, like, music for uncool people? [Financial Times]

Remainders: Ask a ninja about Net Neutrality

• As predicted, someone's trying to crush social networks, and danah boyd is righteously pissed. [Zephoria.org]
• While other moguls do boring things like running their companies, Oracle founder Larry Ellison pilots a yacht in the America's Cup. [BYM News]
• And now, a ninja explains Net Neutrality. (Why are all the vloggers — e.g. these Halo actors too — filming Net Neutrality PSAs? Because if the telcos get to break the Internet, amateur vloggers are the first to go.) [Ask a Ninja]

Remainders: Kotaku E3 edition

• Thanks to that health nut Steve Jobs, your kids are gonna get Hot Wheels and Barbies in every Happy Meal from now on — just as Jobs becomes Disney's biggest stockholder, the Mouse stops signing Happy Meal toy contracts with McDonald's. [ZDNet]
• With his excoriation of copyright freedom fighter Larry Lessig, pundit Andrew Keen confirms that besides being a flame-baiter, he's kind of a dick. [Andrew Keen]
• As Google gets better and better, the Register decides to take the subtle, calibrated perspective: "The worse Google gets, the more money it makes?" [Register]

Remainders: Marissa Mayer toys with our health