Because you need more help, and because we were being inadvertently sexist:

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• Droll Gawker alum Elizabeth Spiers ditches her EIC gig at Mediabistro, sends requisite farewell memo, sells her first novel, and yet everyone speaks in hushed tones about the advance.
• But more importantly: Which poor fool will be Spiers's replacement at the 'Bistro?
• We spend some time on the Panel of the Damned.
• You can't just say no to free drugs!
• The Times found its inner inner fratboy.
• And the city's "elite" who received the advance warning about this month's credible non-credible terror threat are revealed to be little more than crunchy art lovers.
• Forthcoming 7-Eleven marks UES apocalypse.
• The 40 best magazine covers remind us of the piss-poor state of our glossies' art departments.

Nothing certifies a hot new trend like a mention in a fledgling trade pub, so now it must finally be true: "It's safe to say that the blog-to-book phenomenon has gone mainstream," reports The Book Standard today. "Two more well-known bloggers scored book deals this week."

• Parents Television Council names list of best and worst shows for "families"; Gawker names PTC to list of worst bullshit "family values" advocacy groups. [NYDN]
• Judy Miller testifies before Congress in favor of shield law, several months too late. [NYT]
• Esquire-food-critic-gate continues: The Houston visitor's bureau paid to fly him down to sample four eateries, which comped his meals. Because, you know, Hearst doesn't have much cash to throw around. [Houston Press, second item]
• Dow Jones had a bad quarter, too — but still not as bad as the Times did. [WSJ]
• This just in: Elizabeth Spiers sells book, to leave Mediabistro. [FishbowlNY]

With two weeks to go before she sheds the orange-and-green handcuffs, Mediabistro editor Spiers today bids a fond farewell to her coworkers, issuing a recitation of her (significant) accomplishments and a bout of "nostalgia" for her time at the company.

And why could Elizabeth Spiers afford to walk away from Laurel Touby's boa'd embrace? Because she has herself a book deal.

Not to say we told you so, but here's what was posted on Mediabistro this morning:

This week's Village Voice is the annual Best of New York issue, and, to be honest, most of it we couldn't muster the energy to actually read. ("Best Borough Connector: Pulaski Bridge"; "Best Place to Catch a Fish You Won't Eat: Harlem Meer"; "Best Use of Lettuce: Porcupine.") But one entry particularly caught our eye, largely because we had a strong suspicion from the git-go of what the winner would be:

So, word on the street is that Gawker alum and current Mediabistro EIC Elizabeth Spiers has finally roused from her 100-year slumber and is shopping around her completed manuscript. The book, a novel with roots in Spiers' former life in finance, is up for auction, and we hear that wizard-like agent David Kuhn (who scored Dana Vachon's sick, sick book deal) even offered to adopt Spiers just long enough to broker the deal. Makes sense: Spiers is talented enough, honestly, to bring in the big dogs. Our heroine, however, is a woman of principle — perhaps too much so? — and thus declined, staying loyal to her agent-to-the-blogstars, Kate Lee. Excuse us while we go rent Beaches.

After the untimely loss of my hard drive yesterday, my publisher loaned me an old Sony Vaio and for a few precious hours I was able to get online. Then, predictably, the replacement computer broke. (My phone isn't working properly either, so I'm beginning to take it all very personally.)

Let me preface this by saying that we don't get a lot of hate mail. (Yes, I know. We're more surprised than you are.) And when we do get hate mail, I have a masochistic tendency to publish most of it.

Dear Readers:

Dear Readers:

Dear Readers:

An "anonymous source inside the Condé Nast" building fact-checks my cafeteria report:

A profile of Gawker, and Elizabeth Spiers, in The Observer. "I like Gawker because it's funny and smart, and because it gets out a lot more than I do, so I can live vicariously through it" — Kurt Anderson of Spy, New York Magazine, and Inside.com.
On the verge [Observer Magazine]

Gawker Editor, Elizabeth Spiers, in a flash of blinding stupidity and having been completely brainwashed by the Manhattan indie-art scene, spots an interesting-sounding documentary on Paper Magazine's "picks" list and thinks "Cinemax" is an indie film complex somewhere near 42nd street, instead of a cable channel like a normal person. (I think I'm overdosing on Manhattan culture. Perhaps I need to find a suburban Walmart and detox.) The documentary on today's to-do list: that's on Cinemax; not at Cinemax.

· "I fucked Gisele" [Garden variety porn]
· "Naked pics of Paris Hilton!" [More garden variety porn]
· "Don't quit your day job, Elizabeth Spiers" [Get your university diploma online while you work!]

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