BoomTown happens to be in the Seattle area today, deep in the heart of Microsoft territory, which apparently is now living in a state of “new normal” according to a declaration by the software giant’s CEO, Steve Ballmer.

Well, it all looks the same to me, but that’s what he said in an “executive e-mail” post yesterday titled “The New Efficiency” about the changes brought on by the econalypse.

Of course, it’s also a new buzzword for the company’s upcoming Windows 7 rollout, complete with a Web site.

Now, that’s efficient!

Meanwhile, Microsoft revealed in a proxy filing that the direct compensation of its top execs in 2009 had been slashed.

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BoomTown is at the lovely Santa Clara Marriott in Silicon Valley at the 2009 Yahoo annual meeting, liveblogging the event, which should be spectacularly dull.

Here is a rundown of what went on.

10:05 am: The meeting kicks off with a little video presentation with various and sundry television talking heads saying “Yahoo” in quick succession.

Actually, this was the year during which all of those hype-magnets repeated “Twitter” so many times that it has began to make my ears bleed.

But I like the spirit of trying to make Yahoo seem relevant and innovative again.

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Let’s be honest–even with the sassy stylings of CEO Carol Bartz, who will be appearing at her first Yahoo annual meeting this morning–there are few of these affairs that are even remotely exciting.

Last year’s Yahoo meeting did have a frisson of possibility, since billionaire investor Carl Icahn and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer were fixing to put the double squeeze on the board and, especially, its then-CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang. Also, major Yahoo shareholders threatened a revolt.

But, none of that panned out. Thus, this year is likely to be a snoozer in comparison.

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In what many sources at the company said is a major push, Yahoo is working on a massive plan to overhaul its brand in order to repair a damaged public image and focus consumers on what defines Yahoo.

The effort is being spearheaded by newly installed Chief Marketing Officer Elisa Steele, who has hired well-known brand consulting firm Landor Associates, as well as an outside consultant named Penny Baldwin, who was a former top exec at brand and ad giant Young & Rubicam.

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In exactly one week at 10 am PDT, Yahoo will hold its annual meeting in Silicon Valley, the first time when new CEO Carol Bartz will greet its shareholders in person.

She should prep carefully, as the event has been quite a drama over the last two years.

Here’s a rundown of what is likely to be on the minds of investors, including the status of the isn’t-it-rich-aren’t-they-a-pair relationship between Yahoo and Microsoft.

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Yesterday–in a patented playbook move–some top Microsoft execs didn’t miss a chance to slap around Yahoo over its shareholder vote debacle, letting it be known to industry insiders (on the very loud QT, of course) that the Internet company knew full well that its biggest investor, Capital Research & Management, was going to vote a large number of shares against it.

In essence, Microsofties are arguing that knowledge of a major investor’s dissatisfaction should have prompted Yahoo to question its unusually positive voting results at its annual meeting on Friday and ask the outside voting tabulator to recheck its numbers before officially releasing them.

While BoomTown is careful to consider the sources here–the collapse of Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo has left quite a bit of acrimony between the pair–they actually might have a point.

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All Yahoo needs now is for former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to show up and start recounting votes.

It could happen, given all the crazy characters who have been drawn to the much-beleaguered Internet company like a magnet, in 2008.

It’s almost as if there is a voodoo curse on Yahoo and, so, you didn’t think the digital gods would let it have more than one weekend of good news, did you?

No, they will not, it seems.

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There is a mini-tempest brewing over how shares were tallied in the Yahoo annual meeting last Friday, specifically around whether a group of votes withheld by one of Yahoo’s major shareholders was not counted, counted incorrectly or even voted incorrectly by the investor.

According to sources close to the thinking at Capital Research & Management, the proxy committees for its two large funds that hold a significant stake in Yahoo recommended last week that they withhold votes specifically from CEO Jerry Yang and from various board members, such as Chairman Roy Bostock, to register disappointment with their performance.

Thus, sources said, the investment fund has approached outside vote tabulator Broadridge Financial Solutions, a Lake Success, N.Y.-based financial services company that does securities clearing and processing, about whether those votes were correctly counted.

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BoomTown was blogging so manically from the Yahoo annual meeting, which took place in San Jose on Friday, I plum forgot to load up the video I did there.

No video was allowed inside the meeting or anywhere near it, by the way. So rather than getting beaten senseless by the squads of purple-clad Yahoo minions of CEO Jerry Yang, I decided to pocket my Flip camera for part of it.

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Yesterday, in what feels to BoomTown to be a deeply petty move, Time Warner said that it had blocked former AOL head Jon Miller from being considered as a possible Yahoo board member.

The reason is a noncompete Miller signed, part of a severance agreement he reached with the media giant after it unceremoniously tossed him out in late 2006.

A Time Warner spokesman said Miller was barred from working “for a variety of competitors, including Yahoo, until March of 2009.”

Like it matters.

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After its annual meeting today, as Yahoo board members had lunch together, Yahoo released the unsurprising results of its shareholder vote and it seems we will still have Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to kick around some more.

Yang garnered 85.4 percent of the shares to stay on as a director of the Internet company, with 18.2 percent withheld.

While having almost 20 percent of your investors think you are not worthy is not good, it is also not nearly as bad as it could have been.

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OK, now we’re cooking with gas at Yahoo’s annual meeting in San Jose, as various shareholders–mostly small ones–come to the microphones and give Yahoo a piece of their mind.

First up, longtime Yahoo activist shareholder Eric Jackson asked Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock to step down, noted that Yahoo had overplayed its hand on the Microsoft bid, wondered about Yahoo President Sue Decker’s time problems (too many outside boards) and questioned the worth of Yahoo’s deal to sell an asset in Japan.

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For all the criticism I have lobbed at Yahoo’s leadership team over the last year, they do clean up well and look good on stage.

Not that anything they are saying has been even slightly revelatory (Starting point! Must-buy advertising! Maximize shareholder value!).

“I think we have a terrific asset, I think we have terrific people,” said Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang.

You get the idea here. Zzzzzzzzz.

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Talking to Yahoo shareholders as if they were particularly thick and surly teenagers, Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock articulated his umpteenth defense of the board’s handling of its dealmaking with Microsoft.

“I’d like to take you back–with all the hoopla, all the publicity that has surrounded the company, I think there has been a great deal of misinformation,” said Bostock about Yahoo’s dealings with Microsoft over the last year, speaking at its at its annual meeting this morning.

Thanks, Roy–glad you finally cleared things up!

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While looking for news, any news, at Yahoo’s annual meeting in San Jose this morning, who should tap BoomTown on the shoulder but a blast-from-the-past Yahoo, former CEO Tim Koogle.

Koogle still has about 10 shares of the stock apparently, and I am not entirely clear why he is here, though I will surely find out what’s what.

But Koogle looks fabulous.

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