Due to a budget shortfall, NYC's Gay Pride parade has been cut by a mile.

Hopefully another step in getting Constance McMillen, lesbian prom crusader, out of her repressive Mississippi town: She's been named a grand marshal for this year's New York Gay Pride Parade! Maybe she can look at apartments while she's here. [NYDN]

• An early, unofficial list of places taking part in NYC Restaurant Week. [W&D]
• Interested in a Michael Jackson-themed wine pairing this evening? Too soon? That's what City Winery has planned anyway. [City Winery, GS]
• A few closings in restaurant-land. [Eater]
• Pret A Manger is in expansion mode. Four new locations have opened in Manhattan in the past two months and more are on the way. [Crain's]
• Free cups of Pinkberry's "summer fresh flavors" available this eve. [GS]
• Some bartenders are now asking that people call them "bar chefs." [Eater]
• The Gay Pride parade takes place on Sunday. A few recommendations on where to drink and party when it ends. [Metromix, AMNY, Newsday]

[A man marches, along with 2,000 other Israelis, in the Jerusalem gay pride parade today; image via AP]

With gay marriages legalized in California, Google has its rainbow flag out. Google search for the term "gay" and see for yourself (you have to be logged out of your Google account, a tipster tells us). Google's always been plenty gay-friendly, but it's got nothing on big purple. Last October, a brand survey revealed that lesbians and gays may prefer Yahoo 2-to-1. Despite Google wrangling George "Sulu" Takei for the company's Pride parade float the Yahoo's cheesy 2007 appeal for gay users to go ahead and "fabu-lize" their online avatars.

If you were in any part of Manhattan or, really, the world yesterday, you probably had some sort of encounter with the rainbow-colored vomit puddles of the Gay Pride parade. A dude named Brad from Bay Ridge was so inconvenienced by this event that he took to his keyboard, decrying the gays and their filthy, bus-delaying ways. We couldn't help but kind of see his point (sic throughout, obvs). "So today i had some errands to run in the city," he begins. " I hop on the bus as usual and expect to be in the lower east side within a half hour. Not today. Today turned out to be the gay pride parade. can someone explain to me how you can shut down half of the biggest city in this nation for a parade to celebrate being gay ? new york city is composed of nearly 6 million people over half of them being women. THE WOMEN OF NYC have been sucking dick for FARRRR longer than any gay man. If anyone should be celebrated and thanked for there efforts it is these woman." We like where you're going with this!

The Valley styles itself as gay-friendly. But how many queer venture capitalists can you think of? Here's a sign, in the month of gay pride, of change in the wind: NEA's Patrick Chung recently held a commitment ceremony with partner Matthew Burt, a church choir director. After the jump, more on Chung and Burt's Valley links, and a photo of the wedding party.Following a honeymoon in what Chung describes as "the Far East," the couple will be hard to ignore in Sand Hill society. Chung and Burt, known for throwing the occasional croquet party, are well-connected. Burt directs music at Christ Episcopal Church in Portola Valley, a hotbed of venture capitalists. Chung is on the board of wireless startup Loopt and is also involved with the NEA-backed 23andMe. 23andMe, of course, is the biotech startup founded by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin. As a wedding gift, Castro Confidential recommends his-and-his iPhones. We suspect Brin, at least, can afford them.

Exploiting two marketing trends in one go, Altoids, maker of curiously strong mints, is curiously sponsoring virtual gay pride month in Linden Lab's Second Life along with the obligatory parades and accoutrement. In an apparent attempt to one up Yahoo's gay avatars, the Altoid "parade" is more gay avatars (a pirate and Uncle Sam apparently) standing around amidst gay pride flags and Altoids' ads with little resemblance to the crowds, excesses, and exposure of a real world pride parade. In fact, this is an instance where griefers add more realism than Altoid marketers forced to masquerade as "Pimp" trannies. What's a virtual gay pride parade without flying penises?