Here's a new wrinkle on the controversial firing of CNET editor Jeff Gerstmann, which came shortly after he posted a negative review of CNET advertiser Eidos's Kane & Lynch. An individual claiming to work in CNET ad sales — specifically on the Eidos ad campaign — claims that while Eidos was upset over the review, that conflict was settled over two weeks ago. He says, "I'd heard a few people tell that [Gerstmann had] already been skating on thin ice for 'unprofessional reviews and review practices.'"

Megan McCarthy, who since October 2006 has covered the Silicon Valley party circuit for Valleywag and become bizarrely famous in Germany along the way, starts at Wired in two weeks. Instead of drinking startup founders under the table, she'll be fetching doppio venti extra-hot raspberry white soy milk mochas for Epicenter blog editor Dylan Tweney, who himself once wrote for Valleywag — we're all dizzy now. Megan (pronounced meh-gan around here) will continue posting for us until she makes the switch. Please, please please send her out with a big scoop. (Photo by Mike Calore)

The only offense we see is that his words were much harsher than his written review. Gerstmann called Kane & Lynch an "ugly, ugly game" and characterized the developers as "lazy," but he still gave the game a 6 out of 10 score. Some choice quotes from his video review:

Ed Zander is stepping down as CEO of cell-phone maker Motorola on January 1. He will be replaced by current president and COO Greg Brown. Zander plans to "go do the things that my wife and I have wanted to do now for years and years." One analyst calls the move a "slight positive" for the company. In its most recent quarter, Motorola had a 94 percent drop in profit — maybe it is time for some fresh blood, but promoting Zander's No. 2 hardly seems like the trick. (Photo by AP/Damian Dovarganes)

CNET GameSpot editorial director Jeff Gerstmann was supposedly fired for giving an advertiser's game a low score. I don't buy it. Here's why.

Rumors are flooding the online videogame forums that Jeff Gerstmann, editorial director of CNET's Gamespot, was canned for criticizing an advertiser's product. A tipster informed us that Gerstmann, who had worked at the company for more than a decade, was greeted with a locked office yesterday morning. While there's no official explanation (apparently, it's being kept very hush hush even inside the company) as to why Gerstmann was escorted off the premises, the evidence gathered so far is pretty damning.

Yahoo isn't the only Valley company hemorrhaging employees. A tipster writes in with another chapter of Google's employee exodus.

Why is CEO Bruce Chizen stepping down from Adobe next month? Normally, CEOs give a bit more than three weeks' notice. The Adobe press release announcing his replacement, Shantanu Narayen, trips over itself to stress the company's supposedly strong financial performance. One obvious conclusion: Chizen knows something about the software company's future we don't — and he, and Adobe, aren't telling.

Gilberto Gil, Brazil's Minister of Culture, is retiring. Medical tests revealed a polyp on his vocal cords which could threaten his musical career. Gil needs to quit giving speeches while the polyp is being treated. Which is unfortunate, because he has quite a bit to say. Gil is the man who turned down Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project in Brazil. We got the chance to meet the minister at the EmTech conference in September. I was struck by how, unlike many politicians who promise the world and deliver nothing, Gil seemed aware of the significant shortcomings of the OLPC project. We wish him the best.

Andy Baio, the entrepreneur who created group calendar site Upcoming.org and sold it to Yahoo two years ago, is leaving the company. Not surprising that a company founder would leave after an acquisition, especially after two years, since that's a typical length of time for shares to vest under a deal's earnout provision. But Baio was part of a generation of startuppers brought in to transform Yahoo in the wake of that company's groundbreaking acquisition of Flickr — like, for example, Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter, shown here rocking out with Baio. Schachter is still a presence at Yahoo. But what's most notable about the list of people Baio thanks in his farewell post are the ones who are no longer there — or are on their way out.

Stuart Scott, Microsoft's former CIO, is not the only Microsoft employee unceremoniously being shown the door. Some staffers who are putting in their notice are being escorted off campus immediately. Why? Because they've put in their notice to join Google. In Microsoft's eyes, Google is Enemy No. 1. Anyone leaving Redmond for the search leader is a threat. Not because they'll scurry around collecting company secrets — as if Google's interested in Microsoft's '90s-era technologies. Departing employees, however, might tell other 'Softies how much better Google is. If an employee is leaving for Amazon.com or another second-tier employer whichdoesn't make Microsoft so paranoid, they'll probably serve out the traditional two weeks of unproductive wrapping up. So if you're planning on leaving Microsoft for Google, pack up your belongings and say goodbye to friends ahead of time. There'll be no cake and two weeks of paid slacking for you. And, Microsoft, don't expect former employees who are treated like security threats to ever want to come back, even after their Google stock options have vested.

The Stuart Scott affair has gotten deeper. The latest wrinkle in the firing of Microsoft's CIO? A source close to Scott now claims that he was indeed on leave at the time of his dismissal — because of his sister's death. Scott was traveling to her funeral when the news broke. "Microsoft seems to have arranged the news for maximum embarrassment and pain for him — it's not so time sensitive that they can't take more than a month reviewing things, but they have to leak it when he's got a death in the family?" writes our tipster. If true, I worry for Microsoft's future. Top managers in Redmond really have time to plot such elaborate set-piece humiliations of straying executives? If they put this kind of energy into Web search, Google might actually be worried.

As CNBC bureau chief Jim Goldman chatted with me about the abrupt sacking of Stuart Scott as Microsoft's CIO, I reminded him of another high-level firing. Remember Martin Taylor? A right-hand man to CEO Steve Ballmer and Microsoft's point person on its anti-Linux campaign, Taylor and Microsoft "parted ways" — code words, insiders say, for a firing. A commenter on the Mini-Microsoft blog claims that Taylor was fired not just for pursuing an affair with a coworker, but expensing a hotel room for weekend getaways. "'Internal affairs' takes on a whole new meaning at Microsoft," cracked Goldman. One hopes that Scott's sins against the company had more to it than just an affair. Sacking an employee merely for office hanky-panky seems meddlesome and moralistic. But frittering away shareholders' money on extracurriculars, as Taylor stands accused of? A firing offense, for sure.

We've already got one theory on why Microsoft CIO Stuart Scott was fired. He and a VP-level direct report both recently took "emergency family leave," says a tipster. But the family leave was a ruse, our tipster claims, meant to cover up the fact that the two were having an affair. According to Directions on Microsoft, an analyst firm which tracks the software giant's org chart, Scott had only one female VP reporting to him, and we have yet to determine whether she's still employed. But let's put the rumor of an affair aside. Compared to, say, Google, Microsoft is surprisingly Puritan about such matters. What does Scott's departure really tell us? That the CIO job at Microsoft, where Scott's chief responsibility was inflicting Microsoft's newest, buggiest software on his colleagues, is deadly boring. Boring enough to make a bit of intramural entertainment plausibly worth the risk of getting caught. Scott's successor will be Microsoft's fourth CIO in as many years.

Heard of Stuart Scott? No, not the lazy-eyed Stuart Scott of ESPN fame, but the wandering-eyed CIO of Microsoft fame. He's been sacked from his chief information officer job at Microsoft after joining the company in 2005. Microsoft will only say:

Add one more to the AOL body count. At AOL's parent company, Time Warner, CEO Richard Parsons will soon resign, according to reports of a board meeting in London last week. But we all know it's not official till there's a drunken layoff-victim email. The axe drops after Parsons led Time Warner through five years of stagnant growth. His problem, according to some, was a sentimental attachment to the failed AOL-Time Warner union. Parsons's reported replacement, current Time Warner president Jeff Bewkes is not considered so sentimental. His ascension would increase the likelihood of an AOL spinoff or sale. We say Parsons isn't allowed to go till he makes his own French music video. (Photo by AP/Stephen J. Carrera)

Shawn Gold is out as MySpace's senior vice president of marketing and content, we keep hearing. It seems few at News Corp. or Fox Interactive Media will miss him, from the tart-tongued reports of his exit. Gold, previously an executive at AOL's Weblogs Inc., touted himself as MySpace's "chief marketing officer," a title he didn't hold. His pretensions to the C-suite, as well as a clash with MySpace's European marketing chief, Jamie Kantrowitz, may have cost him his job. And then there's the curious question of what, exactly he did at MySpace. On a social network, users ought to provide both the marketing and the content. True, bands have found MySpace to be a congenial environment to promote their tours and music. But MySpace's own efforts to market its video channels have proved more laughable than lucrative.

I've noticed a trend in goodbyes from Yahoo: All the departing executives claim to "bleed purple." If so, Yahoo blood is thinner than water, because there's little love for president Sue Decker's new regime. Jacki Kelley is the latest executive to flee the sales side, now under Decker ally Hilary Schneider. She headed up sales strategy and worked on Yahoo Travel, one of the first areas of the portal to try to integrate banner and search-ad sales. Kelley is joining former Yahoo sales chief Wenda Harris Millard at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. This isn't just another departure, in other words — it's a show of loyalty.

Looks like Yahoo marketing head Cammie Dunaway's departure caught Sunnyvale offguard — much like sales chief Wenda Harris Millard's. Yahoo president Sue Decker's followup email, sent out after Dunaway's announcement, details the management changes on the marketing side of Yahoo. The takeaway: Dunaway had no deputy or clear line of succession. We count 10 different people named as the head of the different sections and divisions that Dunaway ran. Anyone have more scoop? Fill us in. Want to see Decker's full email? It's below.

Yahoo marketing head Cammie Dunaway, last seen reporting to Sue Decker, has left the also-ran search engine for a new gig. (Kara Swisher at AllThingsD broke the news this morning.) Although Dunaway "can't share specifics" about her new position until next week, she states that it is "a natural fit for someone who loves driving profitable revenue for big, well-loved consumer brands and can't pass up the opportunity to be the coolest Mom in the universe." I guess that means Yahoo is not a big, well-loved consumer brand, and Dunaway's old job not one that made her cool in her kids' eyes. Have more details on where Dunaway is headed? Please let us know. Dunaway's exit email is reprinted after the jump.