With the CEO of PC maker Acer proclaiming Vista a disappointment and rumor of a long, long wait for an upgrade to Vista, it's no surprise Microsoft would issue a press release encouraging everyone to purchase a Vista PC. Microsoft's marketers suggest a range of models, all surely obsolete by December. Is Vista so disappointing that they can only find holiday gift giving — in the middle of the summer — as a reason to make a purchase? Or are they simply so inept they don't see that such an outlandish excuse just serves to highlight Vista's plight? You can tell that Bill Gates, while still chairman, is no longer a presence at the company. Microsoft's famously rude cofounder would have shot down the press release's credulous opening question, "Holiday gift giving in July?" with a simple "No."

Okay, okay. We don't know if Microsoft cofounder and tech-investing dilettante Paul Allen has actually moved into it. But the Dubai Luxury blog reports that he's shelled out $12 million on a yellow submarine. A 40-foot-long yellow submarine. You're a Beatles fan, Paul; we get it. But Paulie, baby, want to know why your net worth is only a third that of fellow Microsoftie Bill Gates? Dumbass purchases like this.

Sun Valley, the quiet Idaho ski resort town, is about to get a charge from Silicon Valley. Allen & Co., the New York investment bank, has been holding an exclusive conference there for 25 years, but until recently, the invite list has been limited to old-media moguls. On the invite list for this year's conference, which kicks off tonight: Jay Adelson, CEO of Digg, the social-news website, which he cofounded with Kevin Rose. Here's why we think Adelson's on the list — and who else might show up.

The world's second-richest man just spent $26.2 million on The Gays. PlanetOut, the struggling owners of Gay.com, got an investment from Cascade Investment LLC. As Seattlest notes, that firm is owned by Microsoft's Bill Gates. But it's not the first time Bill has been the backer behind PlanetOut.

Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim surpasses Bill Gates as world's wealthiest man. [Herald Sun] Chinese women forced to reconsider whose sperm they desire. [China Daily]

Hey, so the Vanity Fair Africa issue hit newsstands today! Guest-edited by Bono! We rushed out to get our copy and brought it to the office where we realized that, you know, we're kind of shallow. Isn't Africa kind of last fall? We don't have the attention spans for that stuff. You know what we do care about, though? Celebrities! And with twenty different celebrity-studded covers, the magazine kept up involved for a good five minutes looking at the Annie Leibovitz compositions. Each one blends one subject from the previous cover, so you've got your Don Cheadle and Barack Obama giving way to Barack and Muhammad Ali. Here's a handy guide to who you'll want to look for at the newsstand.

"The most illustrious member of the Harvard College class of 1977 never to have graduated from Harvard" received an honorary law degree from Harvard today. [CNN]

According to Nathan Weinberg, Bill Gates checks the value of his house on property appraisal site Zillow, which values the sprawling estate iin excess of $130 million, but Gates says, "If you bid that number on my house I won't sell it to you." If Gates isn't selling, It demonstrates Zillow's value, not only as a buying or selling tool, but also as a reaffirmation of one's own value... whether it is underpriced, overpriced, or just right.

NICK DOUGLAS — "A new company is paving the way for a more automated Internet," shouts the New York Times. Oh god. New internets are like perpetual motion machines: they get "invented" all the time, but you'll never find a working model. Here are the most famous, including Cyberspace, the Semantic Web, and Bruce Sterling's Magical Spime World.

In Bill Gates's rah-rah innovation editorial in the weekend Washington Post, he mentions his admiration for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-backed High Tech High, a network of tech-enabled charter schools. Poor timing perhaps, as Friday marked the abrupt closure of High Tech High Bayshore, overriding the literal tears and rage of students' parents. Apparently the school was losing money ($500,000 per year) and had barely half-met its goal for student recruitment. More importantly, the school building's owner — an anonymous "philanthropist affiliated with the High Tech High corporation" — decided to unload the building after the school couldn't afford to buy it back. Hey, at least those kids got part of a kind of good education. If you know the identity of the mystery philanthropist, by all means tip us off.

Microsoft daddy Bill Gates tips Reuters to the most likely nickname his 10-year-old will give the new version of Windows.

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates will make a joint appearance at the Wall Street Journal's fifth All Things Digital conference in May. Despite a dinner-table tête-à-tête at last year's conference — and not counting the legendary "Big Screen Bill" at 1997's Macworld — formal Jobs-Gates manifestations are pretty rare. It's unscripted and unrehearsed! Oh, how the fur will fly! Expect gentle ribbing.

Hold on to your hats — we hear Bill Gates was boring as the keynote speaker for the info-security RSA Conference, ongoing at Moscone Center. Fortunately, Conference Fonzerelli is on hand, much to his personal regret. The ConFonz quoth:

The Microsoft chairman gets a little testy with Newsweek:

NICK DOUGLAS — Underneath all that decorum and collared polyester, geeks have crazy personalities waiting to bust out. Normally they have to suppress those personalities to appease investors and look like Real Important Bosses. But when they find their time to shine, they pull poses that would make Star Wars Kid proud. Here are the top ten photos some geeks wish time forgot. (Warning: some shots are a touch NSFW.)

NICK DOUGLAS — While dust gathers on our old VHS copies of Pirates of Silicon Valley (for us, Noah Wyle's career hit its high point with his role as Steve Jobs), it's time to cast the sequel. Starring the Daily Show's Demetri Martin as Digg founder Kevin Rose, Jason Bateman as Diggnation co-host Alex Albrecht and Rush Limbaugh as John C. Dvorak, the show also includes stars playing Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Merlin Mann, and Google's Marissa Mayer.

Nerdy humorist John Hodgman, who plays a bumbling PC in Apple commercials, will get a chance to rub shoulders with nerdy billionaire Bill Gates on Monday, January 29. That's when Gates will be appearing on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, where Hodgman is the "Resident Expert." Geeks will be looking forward to seeing whether Gates and Hodgman combine to create some kind of nerdy critical mass. Valley flacks will be marveling at Microsoft's ability to get prime exposure just one hour before Vista goes on sale at midnight.

NICK DOUGLAS — There are plenty of reasons for Silicon Valley to lean left. Silicon Valley is just south of San Francisco, home of liberal Congresswoman Nancy "Palomino" Pelosi. Techies are young, idealistic, and progressive. Their votes and their money end up with the Democrats.

• Bill Gates goes in with a Saudi prince to offer $3.7 billion for the Four Seasons. Or as someone put it on Reddit, "Gates uses monopoly money to buy hotels." [Washington Post]

Last week I got an email from someone at Microsoft asking if my dad was the president of Nigeria. I almost deleted the email without responding until I looked at the person's email signature and it said "Executive Assistant to Bill Gates". So I responded and it turned out that Bill Gates was going to be in Nigeria over the weekend to meet with my dad and he wanted to chat before his trip.