It is thus with greatest pleasure that I opened the July edition of Valleyschwag. The monthly branded-geegaws package outdid itself by scoring some edibles from aol.com. Love or loathe it, any site that sends Superman cookies bound up with its logo is a winner. The crumbs may fade, but the memory of AOL's gesture — or is that just the saturated fat — will stick with me.

Equally scrumptious is the fortune cookie from Mozes, which tells me to text "fortune" to 66937 for my fortune. Not that I bothered texting, as adding "in bed" to "Mozes" was entertainment enough.

After the jump, more schwag, and someone's holding a hoedown.

Edgeio sends a pleasantly generic sticker that won't go on my iBook, as do abazab, eurekster, and snubster.

AOL accompanies the cookies with a dogtag bearing that little man. He's jumping. It's a symbol of an AOL user trying to fly. AOL must represent gravity, or lost dreams or something.

Jumpcut sends a rough but rightly-sized (small) tee. The logo looks cool enough to wear on an off day.

That's everything except waitwhat'sthisit'saPOSTER FROM VALLEYSCHWAG! Looks like the cowboys are holding a hoedown on July 14 at their office in South Park, San Francisco. Check out the deets and RSVP here.

Valleyschwag [Official site]
Valleyschwag hoedown [Announcement]

Valleyschwag pissed me off.

Not because the schwag-of-the-month club isn't giving Valleywag kickbacks for adapting our clever name (it isn't) and not because the actual schwag package isn't awesome (it is, judging by excited reviews by grateful schwag recipients like this and this and this and this).

But I wouldn't know whether the May schwag is any good. Because despite living fewer than five miles from Valleyschwag's home in the Rubyred Labs office — and despite being subscriber #1 — three days into June, I still haven't gotten my May package.

Sure, it's a long process wrapping up the schwackages, but if some goof already eBayed her package, shouldn't my schwag have made it down Market Street to my door by now?

Where's the love, Valleyschwag? Where's the love?

Valleyschwag [Official site]

I want you all in this shirt by Friday.

Buy it: Web 2.OH, YEAAHH!! [Mule Design]
Because: Web 2.0 (TM): The shit hits the fans [Valleywag]

But for most who ordered them, the promised USB drives are as real as a Windows Vista launch date. Instead, as Valleywag's brother Consumerist reports, they got sales e-mails for Windows Desktop Licensing. Silly Microsoft! No one actually wanted the information. And they certainly didn't want ironic metaphors for Windows:

Deals, Mourned [Consumerist]

• T-shirts from Trulia (logo and slogan), Browster (large — bloody useless), and Limbo 41414 ("The price is low...bitch")
• $50 in wine tastings from Bite PR (did not affect judgment — Valleywag is run on beer)

What Valleywag needs (contact tips@valleywag.com):

• Someone at Amazon's HQ with a camera(phone)
• A VC-spotter sitting at Buck's
• To stop being called Nick Denton
• Photos of Steve Jobs' sneakers

• "The Daily Show for Silicon Valley"
• "Gratuitous Valley Satire"
• "Gossip From the Digerati"
• "The Anti-TechCrunch"

May I also suggest:

• "The w isn't capitalized"
• "Still not invited to Google"
• "That 'without access, favor, or discretion' tagline on Deadspin? Us too"
• "Where asking readers for taglines counts as an article"

After the jump, BONUS SCHWAG DISCLOSURE.

• SF firm Mule Design Studio hasn't sent the t-shirt they promised. This will not affect editorial coverage of my friends at Ass Mule.
• Simply Hired sent two t-shirts. Valleywag will continue to adore their publicist, Kay Luo.
• LiveJournal and Second Life gave free tees at the Maker Faire, but they're, like, two sizes too big for me. Any large LJers want a tee?

It's wrapped in burlap. Like a really rough Hustler.

Triple-wrapped — remember, guys, always bag your schwag!

Ahhhh, sweet sweet schwagload.

Verdict: Worth every penny. The stickers will cover the rest of this Compaq lid, and the tees will cover my nakedness. The Yelp chapstick (seriously) will serve as protection from the harsh chill of a San Francisco summer.

Since I'm an early subscriber (subscriber #1, uncomped), Rubyred threw in goodies like a Channel 9 foamhead from the Microsoft Developers Network. Cool. It's so...so...practical.

Got an extra bag from the Maker Faire (a schwag bag, actually), so I made a Schwag Schwap Wiki for schwag trading.

After the jump, other people rave about Valleyschwag.

Other subscribers blogged testimonials:

I'm such a believer in Schwag, I've even made VentureBlog stickers. Track me down at a conference and I'll be happy to give you one. Or maybe you'll get lucky and get one in Valleyschwag one of these days.
— VC David Hornik, VentureBlog

Web 2.0 is totally the new indie rock.
— Web developer David Demaree, Practicalmadness

More happy schwagsters:
Valleyschwag Reviews [Laughing Squid]
Photos tagged "Valleyschwag" [Flickr]

From the makers of Valleyschwag:
The Chronicles of Valleyschwag [Valleyschwag]
Behind the scenes at Valleyschwag... [theory.isthereason]
Valleyschwag Boinged [Jonathan Grubb]

Earlier: Valleyschwag: Monthly schwag bag, delivered to your door [Valleywag]

• You can't nab a two-, three-, or four-letter web domain. You can't register your first name. And everything sexy is taken. But if your company's named H43Qmxy, you're golden. [Domain name stats]
• Larry Ellison implied Oracle will start selling its own Linux version. Questionnaire: If you're excited about this news, what's your Slashdot user number? [Financial Times]
• Steve Jobs demands some reworking of the titanium on his giant $9 million cube in New York. And with that sentence, Steve's life becomes officially weirder than Star Trek. [ifo Apple Store]
• Thanks, L.A. Times, for taking a look at Valleywag. You're too kind. And to whoever cracked the "he's very young" joke by saying I look 16: we'll see who dies first. [L.A. Times]
• Schwag watch: Getting a T-shirt from Mule coming in. So the next time they get praised here, it's because of the free XS tees, not their own merit. [Mule Design]

Well, this wasn't the Valleyschwag I mentioned yesterday, but it sure is sexy: San Fran web designers Rubyred Labs just launched Valleyschwag, a schwag-of-the-month club with a few things going for it:

¬ No schwag from evil companies (having a "don't be evil" clause doesn't count)
¬ An inexplicable cowboy theme
¬ A photo of schwag-wearing ex-model Nikita Kashner
¬ None of the money's going to Valleywag (It cannot be! They rhyme!) or Gawker Media.

Keep yourself clothed in Flock stock and Dabble duds. Sign up for Valleyschwag — I already did.

Valleyschwag: Join the Party [Valleyschwag.com]

¬ That Sprint phone got here. Tried to use it for work, which is why there are only two posts up. (That and I am dumb.)
¬ San Fran company Mule Design Studio sent this Flickr-in-joke T-shirt. It looks good and makes one's chest happy.
¬ Corporate Casuals, a Valleywag advertiser, sent some hats with the 'wag logo. Looks handmade. Very loving, very kind, gonna keep making fun of them on Fridays.

In the works: Valleyschwag, an eBay schwag consignment outlet. Swatches of the armpits from Steve Ballmer shirts! Oracle-branded condoms (Extra-thick Firewall (TM))! All at your fingertips, mere days — no, hours — from now.

Earlier: Disclosure Day: Techcrunch, Sprint, and a thinly veiled plea [Valleywag]

But the tees at SXSW can get pretty classy. Dogster founder Ted Rheingold handed out shirts reading "byte me," but some shirts reading "I like it ruff" are rumored, and even a "Give a dog a bone" shirt.

Everyone who used to be anyone is sporting bright-red "I was Internet famous once" tees from bubble-vloggers Geek Entertainment TV. And if you're really internet famous, GETV's Irina Slutsky might give you yours for free.

There are dozens of others, of course, but you'll have to tell us all in the comments. Pixplzkthxbai.

Photo: Laughing Squid [Flickr]

It came time to head across the street to the Khonke-hosted I-Play party at the Mars Bar.

The party was supposed to celebrate the launch of 24, the cell phone game, but it ended up being a forum for the leftovers of the Marketing conference to get drunk on Khonke's dollar.

And therein the gossip flowed. The bullet points:

nVidia spends a shitload of cash on charities. Investors, remember this as you quickly remove your dough from the company.

Future Network USA, formerly Imagine, was nowhere to be seen at the event. Not a huge defeat, since this was the first time for this event, but unsettling none-the-less. Look for Future Network to be a platinum sponsor next year if for no other reason than to piss off Ziff and the 1up gang.

EA almost bought I-Play, before Digital Bridges got ahold of them. We'll see who's laughing and who's crying in a year.

There were some new terms created for the show. One is the "paid-by-schwag" employee. This term is used to designate gamers who have been bribed with labeled goodies as an incentive to go out and post hype in forums.

Earlier: ConFonz at the Game Marketing Conference: gamers vs. little old ladies [Valleywag]

The eBay auctioneer shouts, "I can't emphasize enough - there were only 20 of these made. Ask yourself how valuable an original internal Google committee wristband would be now after the IPO!"

A Google committee wristband. Now that's something for the mantel.

"The RedShift" Wristband [eBay]