• We just can't believe that anyone calling himself "Jacob the Jeweler," who makes his living crafting massive, diamond-encrusted watches and pendants for the good people of the hip-hop industry, would have anything to do with a drug ring called the Black Mafia Family. [TMZ]
• Introducing our new favorite website: Long Awkward Pose. People look stupid when they pose for pictures, but they look even more stupid when they don't know they're being videotaped during their earnest posing. Hilarity ensues. [Long Awkward Pose]
• Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos thinks Maureen Dowd is a "catty, insecure bitch," which may or may not having something to do with former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox. Crazy fucking redheads. [The Stranger]
• If a sex shop comes to Soho, it has to be luxe. Kiki de Montparnasse fits the bill — and if it's high-end, the celebrities shall flock. Go and watch Lenny Kravitz buy a high-end dildo, it'll change your life. [NY Sun]
• Daniel Klaidman comes to NYC to be the assistant managing fluffer at Newsweek. [FishbowlDC]
• Associated Press management slowly dehydrates its staff to death. [The Slug]
• Bill Gates announces that in two years he'll go part-time at Microsoft and devote his energies full-time to his charity work. Steve Jobs cackles, John Hodgman weeps. [Forbes]

Microsoft just announced that in 2008, chairman Bill Gates will "transition out of a day-to-day role" as chief software architect and focus on his non-profit, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Of course, it's a fancy way to say Gates is retiring. A veteran Valley journalist says, "'Chairman' is Silicon Valley for 'don't wanna work any more.' It's also code for 'visionary' which is, in turn, code for 'can't get a product out the door.'"

As we hunt for the next A-list Microsoft blogger after Robert Scoble's departure, keep in mind some odds from the ever-clever blog Make You Go Hmm. Here's blogger TDavid's handicapping, with his clever analysis stripped out and my breezy commentary subbed in.

Reader Brinke Guthrie spotted this goof on Yahoo's new front page:

Valleywag loves a good bathtub shot. So though it's a few days old, and even though it looks eerily similar to those magazines in Dad's closet, it just felt right to share this Gates-on-Jobs yaoi shot.

Time for another roundup of the top dogs in tech, with names in bold for easy skimmin':

Journos Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher had a grand time hosting the Wall Street Journal's D Conference, or at least they've learned to fake it. Reporter Dan Farber has a write-up at ZDNet, and he kindly lent his event photos. Here they are, misinterpreted.

• 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]

Bill meant this line (quoted at the Singularity Summit site) seriously, but it's more fun to say it in a singsong grade-school voice. "Teeeen Microsofts." Other exchange rates for the Microsoft:

• Lloyd Braun comes out swinging today with what the NY Times calls "the most extensive of his initiatives to get final approval:" Yahoo Tech. The top-story panel is sometimes overlaid with an interstitial ad. Should've stuck with puppet-anchored news, Lloyd. [Yahoo Tech and NYT]

Even in the overpriced conference world, the going price to hang out with Ballmer and Gates is cheaper than two shares of Google. An eBay bidder paid just $760 for two passes (and one hotel room — hot!) at the Microsoft MSN 7th Annual Strategic Account Summit, a 3-day, 3-night conference in Redmond, Washington.

On his way to chat with President Bush (which will provoke something witty on Wonkette), Chinese president Hu Jintao swung by Seattle to see the "home of the future" and other modern wonders (some of which were actually made by Microsoft) at Microsoft HQ. It's pretty safe to assume these captions are true.

Are we back to sniping Bill Gates with press photos again? Through his career at Microsoft, coverage of Gates moved from "Nerdy young Gates" to "Lurking evil Gates," softening to "Old and feeble Gates," before honoring him as "Wise and wizened elder statesman Gates." But with one little defeat for Microsoft in Europe, the BBC picks its favorite AFP photo: "Shrieking crypt-keeper Gates."

No, not "fueled by the blood of those he has devoured." Bill Gates shows Fortune Magazine how he gets stuff done. Some highlights about the elder statesman of the software world:

Forbes milks its Billionaire List publicity with billionaire horoscopes, built from commentary by professional astrologists. (Yes, this is how Forbes spends its budget.) Their lead: lots of rich folks were born under the sign of the virgin. (All right, who else predicted that?)

One word, young Ben Braddock: Ethanol.

What a week for the Valley, what a week for Valleywag! Actually, I'm just saying that. Top stories this week:

Blogger Chris Messina brings breaking video from Microsoft's Mix 06 conference. Bill Gates interrupts his talk with tech publisher Tim O'Reilly to take out an entire squad of enemy combatants. The action, blow by blow:

Photo-recognition site Riya boasts a million photos two days after its launch — all of them being auto-analyzed and tagged by name. But it's still in beta, so inevitably someone's gonna get mistagged. On the left, Bill Gates. On the right, Thomas McColgan, tagged Bill Gates.

Microsoft's Vegas conference, Mix 06, keeps rocking, and still no photos of Bill Gates gettin' funky on the dance floor. In the meantime, blogger Paul Mooney shares his Flickr'd pics from yesterday: