Forget hackathons.  Some startup teams just wanna have fun.  This pong tournament should provide some entertainment:

• Thursday, June 24, 9:30 p.m., $50 to play, FREE to hang out: http://svpong.eventbrite.com/

This AngelHack hackathon will reward the top team with $50,000 in angel funding.  The event is June 23 and 24, but signups are open now.

• $22 registration.  Hackathon in Palo Alto (and simultaneously in three other locations): http://angelhack3sv.eventbrite.com/?discount=sudigest

Lesson of the day? Know thy audience.  Depending on whom you’re talking to, you need to emphasize different aspects of your idea.  This event focuses on how to pitch to seed investors.

• Monday, June 11, 6 p.m., $45:  http://vctaskforce.site-ym.com/events/event_details.asp?id=234197

1.  Executive chairman of Twitter Jack Dorsey rides the MUNI?!  In some parts of the country, the rich and famous travel exclusively in fancy cars and private jets.  But in Silicon Valley, even tech royalty can be found on public transportation.  You’re lucky if you run into them–you might get their attention until you arrive at their destination.

@Jack rides public transit

2.  In addition to the tech celebs, a number of Stanford professors ride the Caltrain to get to work.  Most live in San Francisco, and spend their mornings and evenings grading problem sets and papers on the train.  While they may not fit the Valley stereotype, they have their finger on the pulse of Stanford and can introduce you to their students (aka the Valley’s best talent).

3.  Younger startup types also ride the train.  Ever since SoMa became the hip Silicon Valley, founders who didn’t want to move to SF began taking the train every day to get to their bustling SoMa offices.  These young professionals are often hiring, and have a good sense of who are the up-and-comers you should keep an eye out for.

4.  The Facebookers getting off in Menlo Park.  When Facebook opened its new headquarters (in the space that was formerly Sun Microsystems), many Menlo Park residents feared an increase in traffic.  However Facebook committed to limit the number of vehicles on their campus–only half of Facebook’s employees are allowed to park in the area.  So many of the remaining employees take the Caltrain.

5.  The Googlers getting off in… oh wait.  They take their private buses.

Have an idea?  Want to build it into a startup, but don’t know where to begin?  Serial entrepreneur Philip Rosedale will talk about how and why to create a startup, how to manage a team, how to raise money, etc.

• Wednesday, June 20, 6 p.m., $25+, SF: http://startupcreationparisoma.eventbrite.com/?discount=StartupDigest10

Image: http://8gramgorilla.com/

Google is moving to present paid ‘listings’ where it used to offer pure search results?  “Let’s just admit that Google is evil now,” writes Business Insider editor Owen Thomas in his delicious rant:

“It may be healthy for Google to get over the whole “don’t be evil” thing. It’s not like anyone was buying it.

Even Googlers.  Especially Googlers.

All the free-speech advocates have decamped to Twitter, where former Googler Dick Costolo now runs “the free-speech wing of the free-speech party.”

The open-sourcerers have joined startups like Cloudera or HortonWorks.

The get-rich-quick crowd—sorry, people who want to make the world a more open and transparent place!—left long ago for Facebook.”

Learn all you need to know about sales for startups, including prospecting and deal management:

• June 13, 6:30 p.m., FREE: http://sales4startups.eventbrite.com/

AT&T is hosting a hackathon this weekend to build your own mobile apps.  Free food (duh) and cool speakers, including Stanford Prof Banny Banerjee.

• Friday June 8, 6 p.m. – Saturday, June 9, 9 p.m., FREE, Palo Alto: http://mobileappaspire.eventbrite.com/

CC BY 2.0 - Yukihiro Matsuda

Who are these blokes?

1.  There’s the guy with the chrome messenger bag.  Late in life he decided he’d be cool.

2.  And the impossibly well-put-together Stanford grad who isn’t an engineer but likes startups and working with the guys, and was hired for her grooming and ability to speak in full sentences to the outside world.  Who says a “useless” major isn’t worth something?

3.  Then there’s the European newcomer.  Better dressed than most, he’s knee-deep in CSS on a Macbook Air and jamming out to the latest Euro trance.

4.  And always, the loud drunks with tattoos, who get on and off between Redwood City and Bayshore, except when there’s a Giants game, when they take the train all the way to 4^th and King.

5.  Don’t forget the past-his-prime hippe in the bike car, who wears a reflector vest and has “Out of Iraq now” stickers on his pack.

6.  Perhaps more expected, there’s the khakis, loafers and polo-wearing business-type exuding Republican sympathies.

7.  There’s the Stanford hipster who, too-cool-for-school, lives in the Mission and commutes to campus on Caltrain (with fixie).

8.  Then there’s the older woman who claims not to speak English but manages to mumble her way out of paying for a ticket.

9.  And always there’s that insouciant but soft guy, self-confident and wearing motorcycle jacket and carrying helmet, pleased that everyone now knows he’s a cool biker.

10.  Then there’s me.  Spilling coffee on my laptop and cursing when I forget to tag off.

Interested in hearing about Israeli entrepreneurship?  Or are you an Israeli entrepreneur seeking more options?  There’s a Silicon Valley accelerator for Israeli entrepreneurs!

• CEO of UpWest Labs Gil Ben-Artzy is speaking today at noon at the Stanford GSB Knight Management Center in M109.

Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, and founder of KISSmetrics Hiten Shah will discuss how to be a lean startup in SF this Wednesday:

• Wednesday, June 6, 6:30 p.m. in SF, $25: http://www.meetup.com/Lean-Startup-Circle/events/64017832/