Former White House correspondent and current MSNBC host David Gregory just may be taking over for Chris Matthews once Matthews' very expensive contract is up next year. It is hoped, by MSNBC brass, that the kinda well-liked Gregory will be less of a headache than the notorious diva Matthews. But maybe he'll be just as bad! We asked for your stories about Gregory, and you delivered. As we said yesterday, his reputation in DC was not particularly bad for a TV "star." But that town is sycophantic enough to forgive a lot. So far, you all agree that David Gregory is, in fact, a jerk. Your personal stories of jerkdom, after the jump (and feel free to send more).

Former Yahoo executive Jeff Bonforte, now CEO of Xobni, has come up with possibly the most cynical yet useful product ever launched by a startup. Xobni, whose software tracks and analyzes email usage in Outlook, is rumored to be in acquisition talks with Microsoft. Microsoft is, to its dismay, not in acquisition talks with Yahoo. But Xobni's latest product, TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld reports, bridges Microsoft Outlook, desktop email software widely used in corporations, with Yahoo's Web-based email. "That's the kind of demo that gets deals done," Schonfeld observes. Indeed, it may make Microsoft wonder whether they need to buy Yahoo at all.

Remember last December, when Laurel Touby's inability to use the internet created mayhem? Now (or yesterday), months later, Animal gadfly Bucky Turco annoys everyone on that list again with the attached plug for a funny Pope-related thing on their website. No responses this time from Spiegelman, Bercovici, or Jared Paul Stern.

An anonymous journo writes, regarding our all-in-fun poll:

Gawker,

A woman standing in line in front of me at Hale & Hearty salads just ordered the single most disgusting combination of ingredients imaginable: peas, beets, hard boiled egg, chicken (egg & chicken together! horror!), goat cheese, raisins, garbanzo beans.

Please let your readers and fellow salad eaters know that certain combinations of ingredients are inherently gross and will NOT be tolerated.

Bloggers, are you afraid you're going to die after reading that Times article earlier this week? Well, guess what! With the assistance of two new websites, you can set up farewell emails to be sent to your family and friends in the event of your untimely demise. Go ahead, tell them all the things you never had time to say in life because you were busy blogging yourself to death. See details below...

Gawker alum Doree Shafrir and Jezebel associate editor Jessica Grose started a tumblr made up of nothing but emails from moms. It's inspired reading, and also a fun ("fun") parlour game: match the mom-mail to the famous ("famous") New York media or internet personality! [Postcards From Yo Momma]

How much chaos can two knucklehead filmmaking students (can anyone confirm NYU? It's a hunch we have.) cause on a quiet Tuesday afternoon? Plenty if they're on top of Kate Hudson's house with "sniper rifles" for some reason! Police helicopters hovered over King and Varick in the Village and terrified office-workers emailed us. Even after Us Weekly reported the arrest of these three idiotic future Uwe Bolls your tales of bravery continued to roll in. Like this one, from an architecture firm, with a subject line simply reading "BEWARE":

Catherine Houser, MTV Networks Executive VP for Human Resources, sent an email out to 5,000 MTV employees alerting them that because "the computer of one of our MTVN colleagues was compromised.... files containing some confidential information about you were illegally accessed by someone outside the Company." Hope you weren't using that Social Security number and decent credit rating, sport: "The personal information that was accessed included names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and compensation data." Now some criminal knows how much you don't make! How many of the affected were among the 1,000 permalancers bumped up to staff in January, we wonder? Full email with all the grisly details attached. Pray for rock and roll.

Like perhaps everyone who has a website of any kind, we recieve TMZ blast email alerts all day, every day. This is not a complaint—they're often entertaining, if just as often completely inexplicable (TMZ EXCLUSIVE: Alleged 'Entourage' Victim Says "Never Mind!" TMZ: Miley Cyrus' Achy Breaky Stomach! TMZ EXCLUSIVE: Paris Has Too Many Bitches?!! TMZ EXCLUSIVE: Hoff to Pam: One French Maid, Pleeeze! TMZ EXLUSIVE: Randy Quaid's Wife — Nazis Out to Get Randy). This, though, is the weirdest one we have ever received. It's a sighting of Fawn Hall. The noted Iran-Contra figure. Ollie North's old secretary apparently works in a bookstore now, guys, in case you were wondering. Now someone get on the Eugene Hasenfus beat! (Click to enlarge)

People hold their breath when they check their e-mail, says writer Linda Stone (quoted today in Boing Boing). They also breathe shallowly while using their computers and hyperventilate on their phones, all of which aggravates stress symptoms and might even make you fat. So now you're aware of your breathing. You're welcome. Read this post every three minutes to remind yourself.

Nightmare online dater John Fitzgerald Page will appear on an upcoming episode of nightmare tv therapist Dr. Phil's show, in a segment dedicated to "men with out-of-control egos." Yeesh. Click to enlarge the woefully misaddressed email.

A Microsoft-Yahoo merger would give Microsoft control of more than 90 percent of email and instant messaging traffic worldwide. But when a reporter from AdAge asked Microsoft VP Yusuf Mehdi about it, he shushed her. "The core of the combination is around search and advertising," Mehdi said, "The other allegations are not there and not the focus of what we should be talking about in this combination." We'll ignore that advice, but agree with the sentiment. Last we checked, email use was in decline relative to other forms of online communication, such as social network messaging. (Photo by richard winchell)

Does Tribune CEO Sam Zell seem like a rumpled and eccentric batshit kooky homeless dwarfy man to you? Good news! You're an excellent judge of character. In an email tenderly addressed today, as usual, to his "fellow employees," Zell discusses increasing his reported token annual salary by two pennies to 52 cents. Diplomatic hobgoblin that he is, Zell writes: "Do I need a committee, meeting and another consultant to change that policy? Oh, that's right, I'm in charge now. What policy?" We'll give him one thing-saying 'fuck you' to his employees without actually saying 'fuck you' to their faces on camera is an art. Progress! Full e-rant after the jump.

TruTV—it was, until this month, Court TV—just unceremoniously canceled (or they "mutually agreed to cease production" of) noted lawyer and former View co-host Star Jones Reynolds' show (called, apparently, the Star Jones program). Last episode is tomorrow! The email from Tru TV's GM to Tru TV staff is attached.

Thanks, Debra, for your encouraging words! We shall continue flogging the Cruise thing to our herat's content. [Previously, idem]

In light of Heath Ledger's tragic death—which might or might not have been related in some fashion to prescription sleep aids!—Paramount Public Relations would be more than happy to arrange an interview with one of a certain health website's many experts in Holistic Sleep Aid Solutions! Blast email attached.

If we get one more plug from India or Italy or L.A. or some other godforsaken place, plugging the latest Ayurvedic shunt or whatever, cleverly time-stamped for several decades from now, we will set ourselves on fire. We see you hanging there at the top of our date-sorted inbox and we hate you.

Are you working today? We are! But it's ok—The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. would've wanted it this way. As an unnamed partner at "a large accounting firm" notes in an inspirational letter forwarded to us by a fellow freedom-fighter, MLK knew that "the efforts around basic human rights could never take a holiday." Which is why they are expected to come into the office today. (Click to enlarge, brothers and sisters.)

Our Tom Cruise videos continue to attract attention from near and far, as well as some choice comments—including a number from Germany, where the government is taking a hard line against the religion. And from Poland, where they are terrified.