Today it became official. Mark Lisanti, the Editor of Defamer since mid-2004, is done as of this Friday: Of the 9 or 10,000 posts I've done since we started this site, this one is the hardest to write. After almost four years here at Defamer, I've decided it's finally time to move on. In an effort to keep this short and sweet, I'll be climbing out of the blogging hamster-wheel this Friday, and though I......

Beware of the Google Gawker.........

How much Britney coverage is too much? Whatever it is, it's not enough. In an e-mail memo, obtained by Gawker, sent this morning from Frank Baker, Assistant Bureau Chief, Los Angeles, he tells staff that "virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal." "That doesn't mean every rumor makes it on the wire," he continues, "But it does mean that we want to pay attention to what other are reporting and seek to confirm those......

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said,......

Cardinal Roger Mahoney revealed that he had been assaulted in July outside of Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral; the attacker was "enraged by the Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal within days of a record settlement with hundreds of victims." Karl Dorrell will not be coaching UCLA in its upcoming Las Vegas Bowl game. Defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker will coach in the interim. If the world weren't already all shook up by Jakob Lodwick's departure......

The man responsible for killing a woman and her two young children in a street-racing accident last month has been tracked down and arrested in Mexico; Martin Marones is expected to be charged with three counts of murder. So many questions! Has "Heroes: Origins" been shelved? Or just "postponed" due to the writers strikes? Will we ever find out who's been offing the group of twelve? And what's up with this ADAM guy??? Two......

What are your favorite food memoirs? Ruth Reichl shares her picks with NPR, and we definitely agree that these are must-reads, especially Jeffrey Steingarten's hilarious and informative essays. Still haven't taken the $20 Farmer's Market Challenge? Now Slashfood and the Washington Post are polling readers to see how much loot they can get at their local markets for only twenty bucks. Jonathan Gold and Pat Saperstein over at EatingLA are both reporting on Jitlada......

Some people say that blogging on Sundays is worthless. Most of our favorite Gawker sites take the weekends off, for example, as do many of our favorite gossip blogs, as did the Lord. And even fewer people have any love for the old fashioned liveblogging, in all its nerdy glory. Two Sundays ago we were invited to liveblog the MTV Movie Awards. LAist Movie Editor Elina Shatkin did the majority of the liveblogging, and......

- Hugh Hefner said, "I am very saddened to learn about Anna Nicole's passing. She was a dear friend who meant a great deal to the Playboy family and to me personally. My thoughts and prayers are with her friends and loved ones during this difficult time." - Playboy.com - Playboy photo editor Gary Cole blogged, "And now she is suddenly gone, like with Marilyn and Jayne Mansfield, taken too quickly. Perhaps Billy Joel......

The 7th annual Bloggy Awards announced their nominees today. Leading the way were the usual suspects: BoingBoing, Dooce, and Blogger. But long overdue for love were our sister sites Gothamist and Torontoist. Torontoist is nominated for Best Canadian Weblog. They're up against Regret the Error, Photojunkie, Kill the Goat, and Drawn (mysteriously missing is the recently crowned Raymi the Minx who won the Canadian Blog Awards for Best Blog and Best Diarist.) The mothership......

Seen earlier today on Gawker and Dan Savage's blog via YouTube, but taken down (because it's so amazingly homophobic and hateful?), only to remain on MySpace, here is the craziest video of the day, "God Hates a Fag". Here at LAist, even though we (still) believe that the Freaked Out Bride video is real, we will have to assume that this is satire. However, if you notice, very few people are willing to participate......

STARTERS & DIPS Was the MTV President NEXT-ed? Mutiny at Music Television. [via Gawker] 50 Cent condoms will cover your wankster. [via Stereogum] Slash loses his hat. Big whoop. [via Idolator] EARLY BIRD SPECIAL The Shins' new album, "Wincing the Night Away" + iTunes glitch = download early. [via Retro Music Snob] ENTREES Money talks. And now it spies on you too. [via BoingBoing] eBay buys scalper website. This article comes w/ a side......

Do you hear the wind howling his name? Ken Layne is coming back to Los Angeles. That's why the gods are washing off the streets and blowing the smog aside. Wonkette's West Coast Bureau Chief began this year at the helm of the ridiculously funny and mindbogglingly weird Sploid. Instead of burning bridges, Nick Denton shuttered Sploid and moved the hilariously cranky Layne over to Wonkette in a rare move by the Gawker head,......

Kyle Bunch watches the blogosphere every day as head honcho of Blogebrity. Prepare as he breaks down the top 10 Blogebrities and sneaks in an eleventh when noone's lookin: Per Tony's mission to load LAist with as many Top 10's of 2006 as possible, we humbly submit our list of The Top 10 Blogebrities of 2006*, in order from coffee hot (thousands of links) to magma hot (magazine covers, development deals, merchandising rights, etc.),......

- Our good friends at Gawker seem to have some unwelcome guests - Wired - Jillian Barberie is expecting - Celebrity Baby Blog - Macaca wins Most Politically Incorrect Word - Reuters - Know some University of Michigan fans coming to town for the Rose Bowl? Wolverine Day will go down 12/20 at Universal Studios (where we like to keep our tourists), and if they act now they can get $15 off a ticket......

"I don't care if Mark Foley had been asking boys to describe their penises because I have some sad news for you: Your kid is so larded out on Cheetos and Yoo-hoo, he can't even see his penis." - Bill Maher, today on Salon.com "You're wankers, but really important wankers. Even you, Robert Joseph at Earthlink, who has sent me consistent hatemail for two years straight. You, sir, have been impressive." - Jessica Coen......

If you drool at DVD, love laptops, and go nuts over i-pod nano, you will die and enter heaven at Gizmodo. Another beauty from the folks at Gawker Media This NYC tech blog has slick and glowing images and snappy specs on all the latest tech toys. Here is where you will see the next generation of the SMC Skype phone, battery powered LED fixtures for $10 (don't ask, I don't know what they......

One of LAist's favorite blogs is Kevin Roderick's LA Observed. His news and media posts and LA insights are always straightforward and right on. Today we found out that LA Observed is expanding its universe -- and Roderick's recruited some heavy-hitters as contributors to offshoot Observed blogs. For example, former Los Angeles Business Journal editor Mark Lacter takes a look at LA business in LABizObserved; the new SoCal Sports Observed features sports writer David......

After breif stint off the Interwebs, stereogum returned today saying that yes they were hacked but no the hackers did not leave the clever ha ha message that we wrote about the other day. Kids, I wrote that. The intention wasn't to punk the blogosphere -- what hacker correctly uses 'whom' and posts a Bob Dylan MP3? -- but to amuse you while we were pwned. I see how it would appear a hacker......

The Gawker empire puts Sploid up for sale, reshuffles lineup. Fishbowl NY summarizes some of the many changes that Nick Denton's blogworld incurred this weekend. # Chris Mohney moves from Gawker Media's Gridskipper to Gawker, assuming a new managing editor role. TMFTML's Alex Balk replaces Oxfeld as co-editor alongside Jessica Coen. # Wired editor Brian Lam will leave the magazine to become editor of Gizmodo, replacing Biggs. # Joshua David Stein, a contributor, replaces......

So Southern California-born Trader Joe's goes to Manhattan, and Manhattan, in the words of a Gawker poster, is "wetting pants in anticipation of bargain-basement wasabi peas." Bon appetit, Manhattan! Oh, and while we love Trader Joe's, don't bother trying the whole wheat ravioli with herb chicken. It's bland and some of the herbs have little twiggy stems. Go for the gyoza instead. Classic.......

We're looking for new interviewers. We're also giving away a signed poster from The Chumscrubber. We opened a merch store as well featuring LAist branded American Apparel shirts (amongst other things). And we talked about... - UCLA Basketball and why you'll love and hate this team. - We're cooking in the kitchen - pumpkin cheesecake and pinzimonio. - The Huffington Post/Yahoo!/Gawker Party and local blogs. - Who knew Jane Austen and John Hughes had......

Hmmm, what better day to start what will probably become our weekly look around the local blog soap operas than the morning after The Huffington Post/Yahoo!/Gawker Media love fest that was billed as a night celebrating Defamer's Mark Lisanti but really was to celebrate and launch the syndication agreements between the three parties. While we generally hovered next to the go fug girls, the Mister Zero you don't want to !@$* with, Defamer's Employee......

Gawker.com, which doesn't seem to share Defamer.com's compunction to snicker at celebrity-offspring who are barely 18, shares a bit of news about a flack's efforts to spread the word about a couple of aspiring socialites, including Sam Greisman, who, apparently, is Sally Field's son. Upon reading about the publicist's efforts on Greisman's behalf, we felt an odd sense of recognition. Why, last week we'd just read a profile of Sam's (half?) brother Peter Craig, in......

During the months since Defamer launched in May last year, the Hollywood outpost of the Gawker blog dominion got under the collective skin of Hollywood faster than the hands of an agent under a willing starlet’s skirt. This formerly anonymous, always smooth operator has proven that equal opportunity offending makes openly credited blogging a safe enterprise. While the media spinners of the world try to protect us, the delicate and impressionable public, from the......

Two items in the news have us worried about the safety of LA streets again. Gawker.com informs us that an upcoming profile on Damon Dash in Details includes several anecdotes about Dash and his posse driving the streets of LA while toking copious amounts of potent weed (indeed, the writer sacrifices "journalistic objectivity" for the sake of winning his subject's trust by inhaling with the gang). The 1/17/05 issue of the Ocean Park Gazette......

LAist shed a big fat tear of pity for Los Angeles Times writer Lynell George who was probably forced at gun point to write today's oh-so-lame story, "What is hip?" So, like a dutiful hostage corporate soldier, she interviews both John Leland about his new book Hip: The History and Laren Stover who has recently authored Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge, which tracks the lifestyle. The story yields nothing......

Forget tonight's celebratory chat between Leno and Schwarzenegger. On Monday, President Bill Clinton will visit the Daily Show to rap with John Stewart about his book and the election. The bad news here is that his appearance with Stewart seems to be a replacement for his rumored-but-quashed potential guest spot on Saturday Night Live. Too bad - it would have brilliant to see him in a debate with some satirized version of a Republican luminary.......