Good news for book publishing! Sometime Gawker hottie, Grub Street writer and heretofore-uncredited coiner of the term "douché" Daniel Maurer has sold his first literary work, Brocabulary, in what Publishers Marketplace would call a "very nice" deal (so between $50 and $100K.) What is this new addition to the canon, you ask? It's a man-i-festo of dude talk and a dictionary of manly mots! You know, like douché. Also like: Guidon't : 1. (n) a Guido-related faux-pas. 2. (exclamation) A command given to a Guido that he cease his Guido-related behavior. Or Doug Booty: A hail mary pass made at a woman despite the fact that your game is clearly about to be over. Or Power tool: Someone who has achieved power, wealth, or fame despite being a total tool. You get the idea.

At this point, the soul of professional sports is beyond worrying about: Athletes are frantically self-interested; marvelously self-absorbed; always looking for any edge, however unfair; and forever leaping from team to team in search of a few more dollars. In other words, the jock market already has the morals of the stock market.

Second Life has been taking it on the puss this past week or so, with more dogpiling on the economic questions, not to mention the whole nuking Reebok thing. And we enjoyed our own foray into supposedly popular SL locales and a first try at sex shopping. Speaking of first-timers, the account by Drew of "Toothpaste for Dinner" fame is one of the funniest things you'll read this month, so get to it. Thanks to those who sent in suggestions for SL places to visit, which we'll get to directly. Of particular interest are real-world entities, groups, or people that have SL presences. Drop us a line if you have tips for same.

UPDATE: Brilliantly amusing Warren Ellis post on Reuters about fighting off sexual infestations on his Second Life land.

Wagner James Au asks just how much of Second Life commercial activity is sexual. Let's set aside — for now — the awkward ludicrousness of SL sexuality to entertain Au's notion that the vast majority of SL content is actually nonsexual, even in sexual venues. However, Au is so liberal in defining nonsexual content that his classification of the sexual becomes incredibly narrow.

Cold, hard cash. That's what it takes to get to get to the blackened hearts of writers these days—at least, those at the New York Observer, who received the gift card pictured at right. As our grandmother used to say, don't spend it all in one place.

We don't really want to hear much more about what The Donald is trying to "inject," and where, but since we've been talking at such length about honesty around here, it's a good thing he's a firm believer in second chances, especially since newly-minted fake-executive E.J. Ridings likely doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting one.

A tipster writes:

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that News Corp. is springing for Chairman Rupert Murdoch's $50,000/month penthouse in the Trump Park Avenue building. Granted, the poor guy is awaiting the completion of renovations to his UES penthouse that he bought two years ago for $44 million, so it's only fair that the publicly held company helps its fearless leader through the tough times. But $50,000 a month? We can think of so many other things News Corp. could buy Rupert with that money...

Oh anonymous bloggers, how you rile up the PR world with your incog-vitriol. Ben Smith of The Daily Politics showcases the latest commenter casualty, Ronn [sic] Torossian, who is so inflamed about being called a "political amateur" (my god, such language!), that he has been forced to go all Capital One on your asses in stating,

Do you take your coffee with a little class rage? If so, this is your morning: yesterday, The Real Estate mentioned that uber-mega-luxury magazine Haute Living was launching a New York edition to be made available in 400 luxury buildings where apartments averaged for $4.2 million (we noted that this was just another case of "rich fucks reading about their rich fucking lifestyle while lounging about their rich fucker apartment"). But bait and you shall receive, and Haute Living co-founders/publishers Kamal Hotchandi and Seth Similof have sent along the official release for Haute New York, which is "planned for luxury realtors to market to the exclusive high net worth investor, buyer, and sellers seeking the good life in New York and Hamptons." Mmm, you can hear advertisors moaning in ecstasy.

Well look who's got themselves a new sugar daddy: the pretty ladies at Daily Candy have found themselves a minority investor valuing the company at $130 million. Back in February, Daily Candy's controlling investor Bob Pittman put the trendy email service on the auction block with a minimum bid of $100 million — but the ballsy number was enough to scare off the New York Times Co., News Corp., and Hearst. Instead, the Wall Street Journal reports that the company is no longer for sale, the ladies having decided to whore themselves to just one minority investment, the money from which shall go towards maintaining their well-stocked closets.

In a place where shrinks and therapists serve as our food and water, it should be relatively obvious that New York is the most miserable city in America (this may be directly related to the average New Yorker's inability to meet the cost of living here). New York magazine comes to the rescue, however, compiling all the self-help books on Adam Moss' bookshelf in order to create a list of 20 strategies for happy New York living. Most of the suggestions are pretty obvious: avoid law school, find a mate, do as little parenting as possible.

Oh, and some good news for those of you following the sage of Wayne Pace, the Time Warner CFO named by an alleged Manhattan madam as her sugar daddy (a story we really should have been paying much more attention to, except that it broke in the tabs over a weekend, and who reads the tabs on weekends): Time Warner announced late yesterday that it has completed its review of the case, and the media giant is now confident that no company funds were used in and sugar-daddying that may or may not have occurred. And was the CFO in fact the sugar daddy to a madam? Eh, who cares, seems to be the feeling at the Time Warner Center. As long as no company money was used, it's all good.

But isn't the bigger problem that the city's middle class was already so small one guy's dismissal makes a difference? (And since when an eight-figure NBA coach considered middle class, anyway?)

First Forbes loses Charles "Don't Fuck With My Headlines" DuBow from its website; now it loses vet Pete Newcomb from the magazine. We're told Newcomb heads up the biz book's most recognizable feature, the annual "Forbes 400" list of the wealthiest people in the United States, so one imagines his departure, for Vanity Fair, comes as a bit of a disappointment. Why would he go? No raises around the family-owned mag for the last few years. Which must be even more frustrating when you spend your days reporting on obscenely rich people.

Can we go back for just one sec to the Kevin Federline PR stunt in Times Square today? Yes, it's your rare chance to see The Impregnator out at a public event, and, yes, it's amusing — if expected — that the flacks won't let any reporters actually, you know, talk to him. But we must stop to highlight the allegedly philanthropic cause he and Richard Branson are supporting while also drumming for Virgin Mobile. They're working to save the penny. We'll repeat: To save the penny! "[T]o prove the value of the penny in face of its possible legislative elimination," the press release brags, "Branson, Federline and Eggers show their enthusiasm for the nostalgic coin by highlighting the value of the penny and being the first to sign the 'Save the Penny' petition to be presented to lawmakers in Washington D.C." Why the hell would you want to do that? Who needs more pennies? Wouldn't you rather just round everything to the nearest nickel?

Think that ƒ in the middle of Portfolio is merely a design flourish in the forthcoming mag's logo? Maybe it's just a way to scoot the ascender of the "f" far enough right to nestle the words "Conde Nast" in there? Perhaps. But a reader points us to another explanation:

AdAge reports today that Katie Couric's goodbye isn't just massaging her ego; it's also giving a healthy rub and a happy ending to NBC, which has more than doubled its ad rates for today's episode of the Today show. 30 seconds of air time went for $110K, with the network selling off the last of its available space sometime last week.

Oh Martha, Martha, Martha. Just when her problems seemed to be over — a handmade poncho heals all wounds! — the long arm of the law comes back for a bitch-slap. Today, Thursday, is the deadline for Martha to respond to a three-year-old civil suit filed against her by the Securities and Exchange Commission for insider trading of 4,000 shares of ImClone in 2001. Having maintained her innocence on the same criminal charges, one would suppose that she'll take the same stand for this round, and trial preparations would begin.

Today, rather than tell you pretty ladies how to be even prettier, DailyCandy has a reader survey. Just be careful: answer incorrectly, and you may be blackballed from Intermix — or their mailing list.


Daily Candy New York Reader Survey 2006