Thanks to this week's sponsors, who would never, ever force us to blog about our dating life and do whatever our readers dictated. More info here.

With heavy heart, we must announce the loss of our beloved intern Amanda Dobbins to those poaching fiends at Huffington Post. Amanda did yeoman (yeowoman?) work assembling the To-Do list that daily graced these pages, freeing us up for mojitos and The View. We'll miss her professionalism, humor, and downright spooky reliability, but we understand that transcribing Arianna's thoughts on vacation in the Caribbean requires more time than she would be able to dedicate to our pedestrian pursuits.

Tidings of joy and affection to our advertisers who are just as curious about baby Suri as the rest of you., Want to join in the fun? More info here.

Yesterday Us Weekly reported that Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn were engaged; a few hours later, Aniston's publicist Stephen Huvane denied the story, saying that the magazine was simply wrong and that there was no engagement. Just like any decent flack, Huvane has been known to outright lie on behalf of his clients — but at this point, we don't really care if he's lying or not. We're just happy to have this picture of him picking the gum off of Kirsten Dunst's shoe. That, friends, is what the PR industry is all about.

We've been thinking a bit about New York's recent package on celebrity stalking. We're not sure what annoys us more, the fact that they ripped off our map or the fact that said rip-off was accompanied by a 2000 word essay that was full of sanctimony and studied ambivalence. Our initial anger at the deliberate misinterpretation of the Stalker feature (as Elizabeth Spiers made clear elsewhere, "The point of Gawker stalker was not being impressed by the celebrities. The irony was subtle, but I'm fairly certain it was obvious.") gave way to a more measured understanding: This kind of package is the ultimate New York feature, in that it wants to have it both ways.

A hearty holla to this week's sponsors, all of whom owned more than 12 different newspapers before their 25th birthdays. Interested? More info here.

In an effort to clothe those who either have no light seasonal wear or those who insist on going a little too nude in the heat, the Gawker Shop is purging all t-shirts for 20% off. Everything's $16, we're the Wiz, nobody beats us, etc. Yep, even that shirt is eligible for the discount. Note that everything still goes out priority mail at no extra charge, so please don't ask us to whore ourselves out even more. We have to clear out all these designs to make way for the fierce new fall line.

Dear Jon,

We read your column "Why I stopped reading Gawker," this morning with deep sadness, and not a little hurt. While we're thrilled to see that you've finally stated an opinion about anything, we're sorry that that opinion is about us, and is that we're "going for shock value and cheap laughs." (We disagree; do you know how hard it is to wring humor out of the word "twat" twelve times a day? There's nothing cheap about it.)

So this has been floating around the web of late: It's a look back at the Internet of 1996, an era of poor design and disturbing aesthetics. It's a fascinating capsule of an era, and our usual willingness to make mockery of it is tempered by the fact that we took a look at Gawker's content and design in 1996, and, well, we're in no position to point fingers. After the jump, a blast from our past.

Give us $100 and approximately 24,000 more links by December 31, and we'll give you $1,400 back. That's the game identified by Blogebrity, i.e. a new racket of betting on what blog will inaugurate 2007 at the #1 spot on Technorati's Top 100 list of the most-linked blogs. Gawker's currently at #20, and the bookies are giving us +1500 odds. Of course, that puts us well behind such worthies as a nonexistent NPR page (#4) and various nerds, but c'mon, who's the prettiest pony you ever saw? Someone at least join up and tell us how our action looks.

In a long overdue move, we're casting our wide net into the vortex of visual inanity known as Flickr by establishing an official Gawker photo pool. The unmoderated, public group is open to submissions concerning our usual favorite subjects — Manhattan and New York, celebrity sightings, news, gossip, and poontang. We expect the pool to get immediately stuffed with hooker ads and cute cats/babies in no time, but we'll periodically dredge the shallows to see if anything of interest floats up. Just like a cult, the rules are simple — join and submit.

So, we were just lounging around in our midafternoon pjamas, wondering when we can shift from white to brown liquor and measuring out the evening's pretend cocaine, when inspiration struck. Comments have been so much fun lately, why not open the floodgates? We could create another one of those anonymous comment logins for anyone to use over the weekend. After all, what could go wrong? Therefore: until it becomes too much of a hassle, the uninitiated may play around with an open comments account on this post by logging in as [redacted] with password [redacted]. In the comments below, feel free to respond to recent posts, make suggestions, or complain like a lil' bitch. Play friendly, or mommy spank, and not in the good way.

It's time again to thank this week's sponsors, none of whom would pull a prank on local news while children were watching. Interested in joining the club? More info here.

You guessed it — a charming combination of technical issues kept us off the airwaves for a good portion of the morning. Radio Free Gawker is broadcasting once again though, so please feel free to send us your letters and tips as before.

Check out this sweet lil' piece of inevitability. Available only in the babiest of blues and hand-crafted by the artisans of American Apparel, the teasingly retro "Hot Piece of Twat" shirt commemorates the love trifecta of Peter Cook, Christie Brinkley, and Diana Bianchi. Wear it proudly, and as the startled eyes of friends, family, and clergy widen in moderate irritation, you'll smirk with satisfaction. O, how you'll smirk.

What, you surely ask, the hell is this? Funny: when Gawker Media darklord Nick Denton sent us this picture yesterday, we asked the same thing. Silly us — this was something he actually wanted to share with you! Far be it from us to stand in the way. A self-referential explanation after the jump.

Rarely, Gawker gets correspondence from readers, and even more rarely, some of this correspondence is not all positive. Even more rarely still, and more often randomly, we attempt to answer questions or concerns raised in such letters. For example, here's a criticism about a post regarding "wise old man with all his buttons" Daniel Schorr, the famed NPR newsman and broadcaster. Writes the reader:

Overlooked in all the excitement during our one-day commenter invitation free-for-all was the note that banning of commenters would become "much more arbitrary and punitive, and such banning may be accompanied by public ridicule and execution." Well, guess what time it is? May we present commenters who have been banned, as of right now, for the following criminal trespasses:

And so we bow down in gratitude to this week's sponsors, all of whom communicate with God and are destined to work at Us Weekly so that Janice Min can bring them closer to their soulmate Jessica Alba. Interested in joining the club? More info here.

Glutton for punishment that Gawker may be, our offices were loaned out last night to mascot Andrew Krucoff, who used our HQ to host a book party for King Dork author Frank Portman (at right with — gasp — chastity slut Dawn Eden). No ridiculous journalists engaged in bitch-slappery, making things a little less pseudo-exciting, but Krucoff still has his own party crash for your perusal. We're just hoping that no shitfaced bloggers enjoyed a fumbling hookup atop our servers.