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Let me replay a scene from the heated negotiations that brought me to Valleywag. Nick Denton, Noah Robischon, and I are sitting at a table at Balthazar, Denton's home away from home in New York's Soho neighborhood. "Minions!" I shout at Denton, upending a few espresso cups as I slam the table. "I demand minions!" Denton shrinks in his chair and looks at Robischon. "We can get him minions, right?" the blog mogul whispers. "Well, maybe if we cut Sicha's male-hookers budget," says Robischon, as he whips out his programmable calculator. "Screw Choire!" I bellow. "Minions!"

And so it came to pass.

The place, of course, had a few underlings already, and I haven't had the heart to issue any of them pink slips yet. There's Nick Douglas, the site's redheaded stepchild and my predecessor as editor; Megan McCarthy, our reportedly leggy party correspondent; and Tim Faulkner, our salty New England contributor. Today, though, I'm adding Mary Jane Irwin to their ranks.

Irwin, who goes by "MJ," was a former intern of mine at Business 2.0, more recently an intern at Wired, and, like disgraced "Dateline" producer Michelle Madigan, a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism. Not that I hold that against her. The first day she reported to me, she welcomed me with a gratuitous insult. And when she wasn't working her butt off, she precipitated an acid rain of commentary on the less-than-stellar startups which made their way into Business 2.0's pages. I loved it, of course. And when I started at Valleywag, I knew it wouldn't be long before she did, too. Please welcome MJ in true Valleywag style.