MSNBC's Courtney Hazlett dreamed of doing lazy Nexis searches from the beach.

Engadget blogger Nilay Patel got abused by Microsoft, instead of the other way around.

Kurt Andersen dined out in L.A.

Music journalist Touré did nothing to decrease the amount of violence in the world.

Wired's Danny Dumas overestimated the difficulty of getting mentioned in Gawker.

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Politico's Patrick Gavin ogled the oglers.

Salon.com editor-in-chief Joan Walsh confirmed people's general opinion of her.

Geek overlord and Digg founder Kevin Rose prepared to rule Austin at SXSW, the geek spring-break festival.

Former AOL employee and Engadget alumnus Ryan Block gloated over the firing of incompetent AOL CEO Randy Falco.

Boing Boing blogger and intergalactic space princess Xeni Jardin reported in from Africa.

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Block has since confessed to the stunt. In a post on Lam's hire, Block says "Brian Lam and I are actually pals outside of work — have been for years." But back in 2006, a tipster told Valleywag, Block created a blog called Boycott Gizmodo! and a Digg account with the same name that he used to promote blog's one and only post to Digg's front page. "The time has come to Boycott Gizmodo," reads the post. "Not only did Brian Lam and Gizmodo purposefully deceive long standing readers such as myself about the iPhone, they did a terrible job of covering their tracks." (Lam's post promised readers news about an "iPhone" device on a Friday, before the launch of the actual device — and then, on a Monday, revealed that Cisco owned a trademark on the term, long attached to speculation about an Apple cell phone, and had released an iPhone-branded product. The companies long since settled the matter, giving Apple rights to the iPhone name)

We asked Block if he was the author of the blog. In response, Block told us, "Brian and I have always been friends who knew where to draw the line." Block also just published a confessional blog post titled "Bygones and rivalries," in which he confessed to authoring the "Boycott Gizmodo!" blog. He also offered another anecdote from a rivalry we're all going to miss.

Of course, it went both ways, too. Gizmodo and a lot of other sites were pulling shenanigans day in and out, with the traded barbs pushing everyone harder, thinning out mistakes which could turn into ammunition. The result being better, faster, more accurate gadget sites, of course, but it’s a little funny, because that stuff all seemed so very serious then. Looking at it now, the storied rivalry retired, it’s almost kind of cute.

There was a line to be drawn, too, and to me that line was where real damage could be done. This May, in fact, that line drew itself right in my inbox when a disgruntled former Gizmodo editor pinged me offering a tidy bounty. The full “back catalog of classified Gizmodo emails, some discussing Engadget,” as well as “access to Gizmodo’s tips account [that'd be where you could get all of Gizmodo's scoops, or even turn over their tipsters to the companies they're leaking about]” and the “master list of Gizmodo online sources, which is a great aid.” Without hesitation, I turned this person (and any data they could make use of) over to Brian and owner of Gizmodo/Gawker Media, Nick Denton, for them to deal with as they saw fit.

Significant staffing changes at Gizmodo to announce today: Jason Chen is now the editor of Gizmodo. Brian Lam is becoming the site's editorial director as well as an assistant managing editor of Gawker Media focusing on live events. Brian will still spend the majority of his time overseeing Gizmodo, only now he will dedicate more of his time to expanding Gizmodo's presence through features, reader meet-ups, and a curated gadget pop-up store among other projects. Jason, who has always been Brian's right-hand ninja assassin and is easily one of the top pageview earners in the entire network, will take over the site's day-to-day operations. As AME, Brian will focus on organizing and running live events coverage across the network. Brian's mastery of field work (video, photo and live blogging) has surpassed my own. Spreading this knowledge to other editors in the network will benefit everyone, and expand the amount of live events coverage overall. Congrats to both.

(Photo by Brian Solis)

"I've decided to step down as editor of this publication in late August so as to start a new company," writes Engadget editor Ryan Block, confirming earlier rumors. In theory, his replacement is ready. In practice, having worked with the guy, I'm sure it's going to be tough to match his 24x7 obsession with winning at everything. Here's the newsy part of Block's goodbye post:

I'll be leaving Engadget in the immensely talented hands of Josh Topolsky, whose vision and voice will ensure the site lives up to its legacy as gadget publication nonpareil. Also, Engadget's current Managing Editor Joshua Fruhlinger will soon begin to formally oversee the AOL Tech network, including Switched, TUAW, Download Squad, and the Engadget network.

P.S. -For those interested in keeping in touch or keeping tabs on the new project, feel free to hit up my personal blog and Twitter feed!

(Photo by Brian Solis)

Whatever Block does, he'll do it at full throttle. The guy pioneered live, realtime photo shoots from gadget industry events, uploaded while top mainstream media photgraphers puttered with their lens cases. Check out his first-onto-the-Internet photos of the iPhone's unveiling. Having worked both with and for him now and then at Engadget, I'm just glad I won't have to compete with Ryan Block anymore — as, I'm sure, are my colleagues at Gizmodo, the rival gadget blog owned by Valleywag publisher Gawker Media. Someone else is about to start losing a lot of sleep.(Photo by mroth )

• "This is a business where every minute counts," Lam wrote.
• Like a couple of rival hometown newspapers, Engadget and Gizmodo have seen their competition develop into a full-blown feud, complete with charges of malfeasance and sabotage. Gizmodo's publisher, blogging impresario Nick Denton, has accused Engadget of being "amateurish" and "gullible."
• [Engadget editor] Ryan Block, for his part, offered only minimal comment for this story: Lam is a former Wired contributor and assistant editor, and Block said he was concerned that Lam's relationship with the magazine would prevent Engadget from getting a "fair shake." He even forbade Engadget employees from talking to me at CES.
• "They have audience, and they have influence. They are right up there with Walt Mossberg." As a Samsung spokesperson puts it: "Gadget blogs are the future of the world for us."
• "They have to figure out what they want to be when they grow up," says David Pogue, who reviews technology for The New York Times and reads both blogs regularly. "And they are going to continue to stub their toes along the way."
• Despite the heated competition, neither site appears to be damaging the other's popularity. Most business battles revolve around a scarce resource — audience or customers or money. But in this case, the battle for readers is not a zero-sum game. "Nothing stops people from going to both," says Jeff Jarvis, media blogger and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism. "This is a natural state of media. It's good for everyone."
• Victories and bragging rights are won in seconds. Lam talks about renting a different apartment so he can be on a FedEx route that receives deliveries before Block.
• Engadget is cool and straitlaced. (One typically direct headline: "Sprint Announces Massive Layoffs, Store Closings Amid Subscriber Defection.") Gizmodo revels in cheap jokes and hedonism. Its writers regularly proclaim their love of alcohol, marijuana, and Jessica Alba. Las Vegas would seem to be a very dangerous place for them.
• Around 5 pm, Jason Calacanis — who cofounded Engadget's parent, Weblogs, Inc., and sold it to AOL in October 2005 — inadvertently wanders into Gizmodo territory. Calacanis immediately spouts off: "Fuck Gizmodo. Engadget rules." Then he throws up three fingers twisted into the shape of an E, the Engadget gang sign.

  Calacanis' outburst is a reminder of what really motivates both sites — more than money or prestige, it comes down to a frat-like rivalry, driven by boyish egos and measured in pageviews.
  

• Richard Blakeley, a cameraman for Gawker Media and Gizmodo, was armed with a little device called TV-B-Gone. He prowled the floor, extinguishing the demos and displays that are CES' lifeblood. Four days later, however, Lam posted a story titled "Confessions: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES," which included a video documenting the escapade.

  Four days after he uploaded the clip, he posted a response to his many critics: "Bloggers and trade journalists, so desperate for a seat at the table with big mainstream publications, have it completely backward ... No matter how much access the companies give us, we won't ever stop being irreverent."

  Not as long as it pays off. The TV-B-Gone video received some 679,000 views by February 22, making it Gizmodo's most popular CES story.

(Disclaimer: Valleywag is published by Gawker Media. So is Gizmodo, a gadget blog which competes with Engadget. Not that we care. Can you explain the difference between them to us? They both have freaky commenters who are way too emotionally involved in MacBook "unboxings," whatever those are.)

To prove Gizmodo's ascendancy, Denton cites numbers from Compete.com, an increasingly popular Web traffic-research firm. But he also claims that both Gizmodo and Engadget "have grown at the expense of established tech sites like CNET." Really, Nick? Because if you had bothered to consult Compete.com on the matter, you'd have seen that the research firm believes CNET has outgrown Engadget. While there's been a dip in CNET's readership since the spring, in the past year, CNET has added 3 million visitors — the equivalent of two Gizmodos. Some expense.