Get a few drinks in freshly departed Valleywag party correspondent Megan McCarthy, and she will start loudly insisting, no matter what the subject of conversation, that she was involved somehow. You’re from New England? She’s from New England. You think your friend is pretty? She’s pretty, too. Valleywag had a scoop? That was her scoop! You played hockey in high school? She played hockey in high school. On that last point, we have obtained undeniable photographic proof. Enjoy! (Photo “courtesy” of jspepper)

When I could roust her from a drunken stupor, Megan McCarthy would usually start complaining about our last five posts, my management style, or, for lack of anything else, my hairdo. But in between, she occasionally turned in brilliant work. After the jump, my favorite bits of McCarthyism.

• If I see another guy in a blue shirt, I will seriously gag

• The nerdiest tattoos you will ever see
• Silicon Valley, meet Star editor Julia Allison!
• Tyler Winklevoss, stop rowing your way into my heart
• An open letter to the twins suing Facebook
• The Valley at its pushiest gathers at TechCrunch9
• Jason Calacanis and Kevin Rose make nice for Om Malik

And though it’s not a story by McCarthy, I love this story about McCarthy. Hearing once again about her encounter with Kevin Burton’s cell phone makes McCarthy cringe, but it shouldn’t. Every reporter should be this fearlessly curious.

• A snooper snooped

You know, I’m perfectly fine with funtrepreneur-in-residence Jason Calacanis telling us to “please die.” I’m totally OK when Calacanis emails me “Subject: Idiot,” because I can take a joke, especially when it’s true. But dammit, Janet, Calacanis has stopped posting pics of his puppies. Valleywag has been forced to outsource to Professor Chips (above), winner of last year’s Babies vs Puppies showdown. After a week where the big stories were Larry Page planting one on new bride Lucy Southworth, Heidi Roizen singing her thighs thin, Google ripping off AOL — AOL? — the Times poaching yours truly, and Megan “Leggy” McCarthy leaving Valleywag for Wired, we could all use some face-blurpy time.

After a DUI and subsequent probation violation, former Wikimedia COO Carolyn Bothwell Doran left the foundation that runs Wikipedia in July. But that incident was only the latest in Doran’s long history with the law, according to The Register.

Doran’s criminal record actually spans four states — Florida, Virginia, Maryland and Texas — and includes theft, petty larceny, more DUIs, passing bad checks, and shooting her boyfriend in the chest. One of Doran’s DUIs, a hit and run, resulted in a fatality.

At Wikimedia, Doran rose to COO after starting as a temp. As COO, she had control over much of Wikimedia’s finances, an audit of which — due in September — is still pending. “We’ve never had any documentation of any criminal record on Carolyn Doran’s part at all,” foundation lawyer Mike Godwin told the Register. How soon until somebody creates a Wikipedia entry and uploads Doran’s legal docs? That might help Godwin out.

Source:Valleywag

True story — back in October, Valleywag editor-for-life Owen Thomas and I were sitting in a coffee shop in North Beach going over party-correspondent duties and expectations and the future of the blog and all that other stuff that you talk about when you’re talking with your boss. “I want you to do a Valleywag Calendar post every day, he declares. I try to steer him towards an occasional calendar post, because, let’s face it, a calendar post is boring, and it ends up taking longer than it should because sometimes there’s nothing worthwhile going on in this town. Anyway, I’m trying to explain to Owen that a daily post might not be the best use of my time, and, suddenly, he gets all quiet and still and the color drains from his face and his eyes roll up in his head so you only see the milky gray-white underside. And this loud, low-pitched, controlled growl comes out from the space within his goatee: “You will submit a calendar post every day by 11 a.m.” And thus it was decided. So, let’s take one last look at what’s on today’s Valleywag Calendar, shall we?

• SVASE is having a holiday party for “cash-strapped startups and entrepreneurs” tonight at Blue Chalk in Palo Alto. [Upcoming]
• Copyright-challenged a capella group The Richter Scales are having a holiday concert tonight at 8 p.m. in the Noe Valley Ministry. [Facebook]
• What started out as a meeting with my boss to go over expenses and whatnot has turned into a farewell party. (Though if he thinks I’m waiting until 4 to start celebrating, he’s nuts.) Come on down to Moose’s after work and share a drink, and I’ll tell you all the stories I was too nice to put on the blog. [Valleywag]
• Santacon is tomorrow! You have your suit and hat, right? Right?

Got a to-do that’s a must-do? I’m not available to take your call, but you can leave a message after the tone.

First, former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel banned Rachel Glaser from the corporate jet. Now the annoyingly loud talker is out of the corporation. The senior vice president will leave the company in 2008, reports Kara Swisher, who’s an expert on loudness. On her way out the door, Glaser could hold it open for VP of media engineering Bharath Kadaba, also soon to depart. A source told Swisher that Yahoo is just trying to cull its executive herd. Not a bad idea, considering that as recently as September, that pack included 300 vice presidents and several dozen senior VPs. But there’s likely more to Glaser’s departure, at least, than simple economics.

Last we heard of Glaser, departing Yahoo finance exec Mark Rubash told us it would “more enjoyable and rewarding elsewhere” than to take a job which would place Glaser as one of his reports. Rubash was hardly alone, according to one commenter who wrote, “To say Ms Glaser is ‘widely disliked on the Sunnyvale campus’ is being kind.”

Source:Valleywag

Herb Caen’s typewriter is gone from Moose’s, but the recently remodeled North Beach hangout still hosts the beloved columnist’s spirit, I’m convinced. So I picked the spot for drinks in honor of Megan “Leggy McCarthy, our party correspondent who’s headed to some print rag in SoMa. (In Soviet Russia, Wired gets you!) Drinking starts at 4 p.m. Drunk blogging starts at 4:15 p.m. RSVP on Facebook, or just show up with a juicy piece of gossip dripping from your lips.

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Congratulations, Eidos: You’re officially off the hook. Responding to rumors that CNET fired GameSpot editorial director Jeff Gerstmann for slamming a game heavily advertised on the site (check out the highlights in the above clip), spokesperson Sarah Cain told Joystiq, “We do not terminate employees based on external pressure from advertisers.” We doubted that CNET would toss away its credibility so readily.

Kotaku got a longer if less poignant spiel from CNET’s improbably named director of public relations, Leslie Dotson Van Every:

“GameSpot takes its editorial integrity extremely seriously. For over a decade, GameSpot and the many members of its editorial team have produced thousands of unbiased reviews that have been a valuable resource for the gaming community. At CNET Networks, we stand behind the editorial content that our teams produce on a daily basis.”

Stand behind? If CNET stands behind its editorial content, why did it take down Gerstmann’s video review in the first place?

Source:Valleywag

Ahh, that feels good right there. I don’t think we’ll be talking about this week next week. The Facebook pile-on continued. Amazon’s Kindle reader suffered a surprise media backlash. I’d hoped for another bank-employee-in-tutu photo to liven things up. Instead we got Gerstmanngate. At least we still have jobs — oh wait, Valleywag party girl Megan “Leggy” McCarthy is heading to Wired. I think I’ll go curl up in the tub with my INVISIBLE PUPPY. (Photo by Jason Calacanis)

Perhaps former AOL CEO Steve Case should get better insurance for his workers at Revolution Health. When they’re not lying down on the job, employees at his poorly run startup targeting the healthcare industry are dropping like flies. Here’s the latest word from an insider:

On Wednesday, Tim O’Shaughnessy, one of the leading product managers, left along with 3 key developers to do their own startup. This is in addition to the departure of key lead developers last week that were laid off. During an employee lunch meeting today, the morale is at an all-time low.

Ah, but when other staffing plans fail, there’s always nepotism.

Another tipster says that after the departure of most of Revolution Health’s lead developers, the remaining stalwart is Todd Fisher, son of Revolution CTO Marty Fisher. Ah, family.

Revolution, conveniently, bought Todd Fisher’s company, Simo Software, in 2005. Simo was one of four acquisitions by Revolution that year — all of which Revolution has since shut down or left to languish.

To make up for the traffic lost from its failed acquisitions, we hear the company is now pushing employees towards a goal of garnering 5 million Web visitors in five months. To meet that goal, Revolution is spending heavily on search-engine marketing — as much as $700,000 a month, a tipster says. Not that advertising on search engines is such a terrible idea, mind you, if done well and frugally. But at that spendthrift rate, will Revolution have much money left to enter the bidding for diet site SparkPeople, which it’s rumored to be interested in?

(Photo of Tim O’Shaughnessy by Robert A. Reeder for The Washington Post)

Source:Valleywag

In the youth culture of social networks, the worst thing to be is the old guy. Even News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, after shelling out $580 million for MySpace, has tired of the website. And the Facebook frenzy could fade equally fast, if more people follow Jason Calacanis’s lead and declare Facebook fatigue. That’s why Plaxo has a shot — if a shaky one — at transforming itself from spammy address-book manager to the hot new thing, when it relaunches as a networking site on Monday.

Plaxo’s motivations, of course, are purely mercenary. Everyone wants a piece of Facebook’s magical billions. Where Facebook is weak, of course, are its not-so-private privacy settings. Your choice, when adding someone as a facebok “friend,” is to offer them either an insulting (and easy to spot) “limited profile,” or open the kimono, drunken party shots and all.

Plaxo, by contrast, offers more fine-tuned controls in its new Pulse social network. And, most importantly, for self-important self-promoters like podcaster Robert Scoble, it offers total control over how to spam your fans. The premise: Plaxo users will be able to designate contacts as dysfunctional family members, insincere friends, smarmy coworkers, casual acquaintances, or desperate hangers-on, and treat them accordingly — never leaving them the wiser as to their classification. Your friends will never know how limited you think they are.

If the goal is to boost its buzz, and with it the company’s valuation, Plaxo’s social networking bid certainly makes sense. The company’s software already actively updates address books, but that’s about as exciting a business as LinkedIn. The new Plaxo aims to be the Web’s social butterfly. But before it emerges from the chrysalis, let’s all stop and ask ourselves: Can we face the propspect of having another social network to update without going mad? At some point the old and familiar outdraws the shiny and new.

Source:Valleywag

News flash: Valleywag’s editor revealed as “snarky,” party correspondent “leggy.” Who knew? We’re still hoping for a swanky receptionist, though. [The Inquirer]

Looking for more adventure than the staid office parks of Silicon Valley will ever offer? Can you front-end your way through a minefield and reboot a server under enemy fire? Want to exercise those libertarian gun fantasies in the real world? And how about pulling down a $200K salary while you’re at it? Well, then, rifle-toting geeks, Uncle Sam has a job for you. Only one hitch, Ajaxian points out: It’s a Web-developer gig in Iraq. (Photo by minjung)

Source:Valleywag

I had no idea why one of PodTech’s major sponsors would tell the podcasting company to drop show host Loren Feldman from its front page. What man hasn’t shown a two-year-old’s ass on a tech podcast? The clip, in full glory, below.

Yes, it’s about me. I’m so very proud of everyone involved. In fact, I like the clip so much, I recommend you link to it with the word “PodTech” like so: PodTech. Then Google searchers can easily find this high-quality content when they search the site!

Source:Valleywag

Newsweek, from 3,000 miles away, bills TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington’s parties as “harder to get into than Studio 54 in its heyday.” So much for the periodical’s vaunted factchecking: I waltzed right in. And the scene? Last Friday’s TechCrunch9 was, at heart, the same meet-and-greet that takes place several times a week somewhere between San Francisco and San Jose. Except on steroids. A reported 900 people showed up on the Sand Hill Road patio of August Capital to schmooze, deal, and — oh, yes — sucking up to Arrington in the hopes of a mention on his site.

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It was the same small talk, the same pitches, and the same scanning of nametags before faces as any other Valley networking event. With one small hitch — partygoers were asked to fill out their own nametags, and most neglected to include their company information. That omission perplexed at least one venture capitalist in attendance. “I feel like I’m walking socially blind,” he confessed. “I don’t know how important these people are to me.” You mean Arrington’s velvet rope-holders let in some hoi polloi who aren’t worth your time, let alone your capital? Quelle horreur!

Still with a headcount inching towards quadruple digits, there were bound to be a few gems in the crowd. MySpace cofounder Chris DeWolfe was on hand to support Fox Interactive alumna Heather Harde, now TechCrunch CEO (and proud owner of a a blinged-out TechCrunch rhinestone nameplate necklace). Ning CEO Gina Bianchini, while sampling the samosas, warned me away from the sickeningly sweet frozen margaritas doled out by an overeager PR firm.

But for the most part, it was midlevel business developers trolling the crowd for victims. The pitches from official TechCrunch9 sponsors and invited guests mostly went ignored, but it was harder to miss some pushier in-person come-ons. One annoyed CEO told me, “Three times I’ve been talking to people and interrupted by pitches. These people just don’t get it!”

Confession time: Yes, I went to the party even though I was technically disinvited. I thought it was a cute Valleywag tradition, but apparently Mike wasn’t kidding about taking my name off the list. Other guests were well aware of this, and commented on my presence, often, once I graced the patio. One guest half-jokingly said to me, “Arrington’s right there, I can’t be seen talking to you.” At least, I think he was joking. As soon as he pronounced that, he turned and bounced away to the next conversation. Wanker. I’m hoping he got cornered by biz-dev types in blue shirts for the rest of the evening.