I eat to refuel. To him, it's an experience. ... I probably wouldn't remember where we went. You're wasting money on a good meal with me. With a skillet and a microwave, I can cook just about anything I want to eat. ... Son of a gun. I don't think that cheapskate has taken me out to dinner. That's why I hired him. He's cheap.

I found Six Apart VP Anil Dash, dressed in a sweater. He welcomed me to the "kid's table" (I was in a jacket and a t-shirt reading "You Were Plan B") and we plowed through a crowd of suits and dresses that cost more than we do. Here's what I learned about some of Valleywag's favorite targets.

• Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO: Class act with a strong handshake. Looks damn good for 62 — Chuck Norris meets Dave Zimmer from Men's Warehouse. Gave SF Chronicle writer Dan Fost some commentary on the HP leak scandal; said he'll remodel the house again soon to make it feel more welcoming.
• Larry Page, Google co-founder: Dressed in a slick suit, rocking the urban mullet (seriously, he looks good in it. Very Hollywood). Recognized me when his girlfriend, Stanford grad student Lucy Southworth (also looking Hollywood), smirked and said "I know that face." Larry just stood there, hands in pockets. Awkward moment. Thankfully, a friend of theirs relieved the tension by yelling at me about my blog. As she spoke, Larry and Lucy slipped away. Lame. Larry's co-founder Sergey would have been a real man and punched me in the face. Still, it's flattering (though scary) that they've heard of me.
• Marissa Mayer, Google VP: Surrounded by college-age-looking kids. Stanford students? Cub reporters? When one gentleman tried to introduce me to her, she giggled (oh dear lord that giggle) and ran away. Must have been late for one of her famous fourteen-hour e-mail sessions.
• Kara Swisher, prominent Wall Street Journal writer: Threatened to physically beat me up. Afraid she was almost serious.
• Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems founder, chairman, and ex-CEO: Didn't meet him, but saw him in just a white button-down (I hear that's all he ever wears). His successor Jon Schwartz wasn't present.
• Gavin Newsom, San Francisco mayor: Never heard of Gawker, thank God. Hair slicked back in its usual shape; I'm convinced he's actually a droid like Joe the Gigolo in "A.I."
• Melanie Craft Ellison, romance novelist: Not in tech, but married Larry Ellison. Charming, witty, and self-effacing. By far the best person to meet at this event. She's now writing a young adult fantasy novel and would like to hear about fantasy books with strong female leads. Any suggestions?

Also see Dan Fost's report: Where Hollywood, politics and Silicon Valley collide [SFGate; Photo from Chronicle]

"Jonathan is stylistically quite different from Scott—he's a little more directive."
"For instance, we can't just have a one-on-one meeting — Jonathan has to tie me to an Aeron chair and whip me with his ponytail. I'd complain, but it kind of feels good."

"Jonathan is kinder and gentler in some ways—"
"Okay, i should admit Scott did the same thing with a cat o' nine tails."

"—but less collegiate also."
"No cuddling."

"He makes hard choices with [CFO] Michael Lehman's support. Jonathan and Mike share an office for a number of reasons."
"Hint hint."

Selling Sun To Sun [Forbes]

There are plenty of reasons that the press needs, if not a good hate-on, at least a swat. The St. Paul Pioneer Press demonstrates one reason — the press is easily amused — by calling ex-Sun CEO Scott McNealy (pictured here finding jokes on chests) "funny", "brash", and "outspoken" in the lede to a recap of his tepid talk at the U of Saint Thomas.

"Now Microsoft, it likes to say it shares, but if they said that here today to you, you'd be throwing things down at them," he said, glancing up at the people in the balcony of the college's new Schulze Hall in Minneapolis. "And IBM, what has it shared? Invoices?"

Cue the rimshot.

That rimshot line could be wry bored commentary if it weren't for the cheesy lede. As could the following:

"Give all 6 billion people a Dell computer — think of the global warming!" he said. "Minnesota would be three feet deep in water — it would be the land of one lake."

Rimshot.

If you have to simulate musical joke alerts in a news piece, just don't print the gags at all.

Potshots, rimshots at McNealy talk [Pioneer Press]

Six holes were now cut in the patient's head. When she had been stitched together and had awoken from the anesthetic, the sense of calm she exuded in contrast with her former terror was striking. When asked by Freeman if she could remember why she had previously been so upset, she could only say: "I don't know. I seem to have forgotten. It doesn't seem important now."

Newly retired Sun CEO Scott McNealy, last week:

He feels as if a buzz saw has suddenly been removed from his forehead.

"I've been having this CEO grindstone grinder gnawing at my forehead for 22 straight years now," he said, mimicking the sounds of a chainsaw as he placed his hand between his eyes, as if it were a blade slicing into his brain.

"It's strangely quiet," he said with a laugh.

Brief History of the Lobotomy [University of Arizona]
Sun's McNealy revels in new role after stepping aside [Washington Post in FW Journal Gazette]

• Bubble billionaire (from Broadcast.com) Mark Cuban signs with Sirius Satellite Radio, promising to "raise hell" and "take no prisoners." We can only hope Donald Trump takes Mark's war metaphors literally and breaks his jaw — or at least starts a noogie fight. [Orbitcast]


• Lastminute.com co-founder Brent Hoberman quits and crawls back into the outdoors (or "the big bright place with no Internet"). [BBC]


• "Don't blame Scott" for Sun Microsystems' financial failure, says Wired News about the exiting CEO, before giving a dozen reasons to blame Scott. [Wired News]


• See, we're not the only obsessed ones: From the bowels of the Internet, a gallery of Steve Jobs caricatures. [all about Steve]


• Computer Associates International CEO Sanjay Kumar pleads guilty to eight counts of securities fraud and eight of obstruction, taking "full responsibility" for his crimes — after lying about them for six years. Is that integrity? Meh, it's close enough for Valley work. [NYT]

Analysts took the chance to gently honor the Sun founder:

"McNealy was a hero in the late '90s, but he's a goat today.''

"This goes to show how unhappy folks were with Scott,'' Enderle said. "This is a company that's damaged property.''

So Scott's not headed to any other C-level spots soon. But the way Scott talks, he'd have a great career in PR. And he's finally free to blog.

Sun Founder McNealy to Step Down as Losses Mount [Bloomberg]
Earlier: Sun's Scott McNealy joins the So Out Club [Valleywag]

Time to update the "Leaving any day now" scoreboard:

Might McNealy step down at Sun? [Mercury News]

The story might have started at the more risk-taking MarketWatch, which spun an analyst report ("given this, this, and that, McNealy's work might be done here") into a prediction ("oh, he's so out"). Now a pundit-driven rumor will be presented as fact, sparking a media rush on the story and eventually convincing the actual subjects to hold on for a while. And you know we just hate that sort of thing.

Sun Micro CEO could be gearing to leave - analyst report [MarketWatch]
Earlier: Lloyd Braun becomes (more) useless to Yahoo [Valleywag]

But blogger Barbara Darrow points out McNealy's timing. HP's about to hold a "future of enterprise computing" event with Intel. Darrow says Sun is trying to steal some glory. Basically, the open letter means "Please, HP, pretend we're friends."

Which, of course, they aren't. Just Tuesday, a Sun exec slammed the HP/Intel event, saying it's like "trying to put lipstick on a pig."

McNealy To Hurd: Lets Merge OSes [CRN]
Chairman's Email to Mark Hurd [Sun]

So even though Sun and Microsoft are partners, Scott McNealy still hates Bill Gates. For the record, here's where things stand:

McNealy hates Gates. (But he'll smile for Steve Ballmer.)
Oracle's Larry Ellison hates Gates more. If they get too close, Larry will actually chew on Bill's face like a rabid dog.
Gates hates Steve Jobs.
Jobs loves Intel's Paul Otellini, but he can't stop hurting him.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin love the whole world. Honest.

Tech Humor [SFGate]