"When I think about leaving, about people going, I think about the day of the trucks. The Day of the Trucks was when everything changed and I think even my hair turned into a new blonde and none of my clothes fit. Because everything was different. The Day of the Trucks was when a bunch of men with fat bellies and smelly skin walked up into my house and into my maidfriend Guadalupe's room and started taking all of her stuff. They had boxes and belts and weird little cupboards on wheels and they took everything away. Guadalupe's red lady lamp. Guadalupe's little beady rugs. Guadalupe's sad purple clothes. I was very confused and, because I was running around in my socks, I slipped and fell down. So I lay on the kitchen floor and made cries and whimpers until finally, hours and maybe days later, Guadalupe appeared in front of my eyes and said 'Meez Teenz, ju haff to gait up. Is no good to be lying on de floor like dat.' And my face was pink and puffy I think and I couldn't hear my favorite pigeons cooing on the window ledge and I told Guadalupe about the men with the trucks and she smiled or frowned or maybe something in between, a look like Mama gets when she talks about the 1970s and her friend Dill, and she said 'Oh Meez Teenzlee. I wanted to wait to tell ju mahself. Ju see... My daughter, she has baby now. So I move home. Back to my house in the yungle.'

And suddenly I was warm and cold, all at the same time. And I said No, No, Guadalupe. You can't go. Who will iron my dresses in the morningtime so they're warm when I'm eating my cereal? Who will take me in taxicabs to my clothes appointments and the handbags meetings? Who will test my perfume and braid my hair and sing her back home songs while we sit on the deck and watch the city be the city, the way we like to do? Who will do all those things? And Guadalupe's eyes started to look like rainy puddles and she said 'Meez Tinsley, ju can do all those things, for ju self!' And then she smiled and patted my head and made me some oatmeal. And for the next few days things were regular again. We went to see the ducks in the morning and looked at pretty pictures in the big stony building by the park in the afternoons and on the underground choo-choo which Guadalupe liked to ride she would sit with her ankles crossed and her purse in her lap and she would hum a song I knew I'd heard before but couldn't quite remember and she smelled like fruit and soap, but not fruity soap, like two different things, together on one Guadalupe.

The day before she left, Guadalupe was humming and doing her dusting and polishing and I was going to go to a party. And suddenly I had an idea that I'd never had before! Guadalupe!, I yelled in her ear. And she seemed scared but then she smiled and she said 'What ees it, Meez Teenz?' And I said I am going to a party and would you like to come. And then she got that smile/frown face again and her eyes were puddly and finally she said, like a frog was ribbiting in her throat, 'Jais. Jais, I would like that very much. But I mus get dressed.' After a while she came out of her little room that was mostly empty and she was wearing a long blue dress with sequins and little jewels hanging off it and her hair was big and sprayed and sort of purple but she looked very pretty in her Guadalupe way. I told her she looked nice and she smiled and said, quiet like a little breeze that comes in through the window, 'I haff been saving it.'

When we left we walked and walked and walked down the street with the cars beeping and the kids and the people in the street saying 'excuse me excuse me excuse me' over and over and over again. When we got tired of walking we got in a taxicab and told the driverman to keep going and going. Finally we got to a boat and we got on the boat and it went 'hoooo Hoooooooooo' and it splashed out into the water and then the captain said 'Gubbernors Island, everyone! Gubbernors Island.' So we got off to go talk to the gubbernor, but he wasn't there. Instead there was a concert. We were supposed to be at a party but the concert seemed nice and Guadalupe was clapping to the music so we decided to stay. And we watched the band play by the water until it got dark and above our heads there was a thicket of starlight and it was very pretty.

At the end there were fireworks, and everyone oohed and ahhed. Guadalupe was there in her nice blue dress smiling and clapping and she turned to me and she grabbed my hand and she said 'It ees a wonnerful thing, Meez Teenz. To be a person. It ees the mos wonnerful thing.' And even though sometimes I don't understand what she says because her accent is funny or she just says weird things, that night I knew exactly what she meant.

And the next day I woke up and the house was quiet and there was no smell of cakes or candies or warm dresses on the ironing board and I wore my slippers with the rubber bottoms into the kitchen so I wouldn't fall like Guadalupe had told me and on the counter there was a little envelope. I picked it up and it was addressed to me! My first mail! It said in big letters on the front 'For Miss Tinsley.' And when I opened it, a little locket fell out and there was a note. It was from Guadalupe. It said some nice things that are special and private and I won't tell you, but mostly it said goodbye and I Love You. And, I Will Miss You. And inside the locket was a picture of me and Guadalupe, smiling and waving, from the Day of the Zoo, when I'd met some gorillas and she'd told me about all the different kinds of animals they have where she is from. So I put the locket on and I thought about "I Will Miss You." And that morning I thought that maybe I'd never miss anyone so much.

But maybe you don't really need to miss anyone, hardly ever. Because I think about Guadalupe and I look at her locket, now that she has been gone for so long, and it is almost like she is here.

There aren't her smells and there aren't her little songs, but there is still my memory. Still my mind's pictures of a nice lady I knew once. A lady who was warm and kind. And that is a good thing to know. To know that you knew. This feeling of Guadalupe.

It is mine to know, forever."

Well, OK, I guess I have a few things to say, mostly by way of thanks and so longs. And what better way to end a Gawker career but with a listicle!

• Thanks to Chris Batty and the rest of the crack sales team who graciously invited me to the Gawker party way back in April of 2007, and didn't get mad when I eventually left them to sit at the editors' table. Special thanks to sales associate Nell Lawson, who happens to be my sister.
• Thanks to Alex and Hamilton and Sheila and Moe and Brett and Foster and Ian and Richard and Mike and Owen and John and Ryan and Anna and Dodai and Seth (and everyone else! the fleet of interns!) for being such capable and helpful colleagues. The amount of times I IMed Pareene alone when I first started, saying "I have no idea what I'm doing, please help," qualifies him for a teaching certificate, I'm fairly certain.
• Thanks to commenters! Omigosh, commenters! So fun, so smart, so annoying, so angry, so everything. Clearly my short time here has been shaped and defined by the commentariat, and I'll always wear that badge of dishonor proudly. A grateful individual nod to erstwhile KarenUhOh, who was an early advocate.
• Grazies to Emily Gould and Choire Sicha, who helped nudge me out of the commenter closet and into STARDOM.
• Gabriel Snyder is a great boss and editor—supportive and wise, quick with proper edits and just as quick to let 4,000 word television recaps actually get posted, untouched.
• And, yes, thanks to Nick Denton. For taking a chance on an unknown kid one rainy February day. Quite dramatically, but truthfully, he handed me a new life. So, thanks is maybe too small a word for that.

I love everyone else, too. Absolutely everyone! (Except you, you know who you are.) Fortunately I don't really have anything big or sweeping or conclusive to say about What Gawker Is or How We Blog Now. Really it's just been a fantastic (and fantastically weird) experience. To end it is the height of bittersweet. But, as Tony Kushner might say, the world only spins forward.

If you are still interested in reading what I have to say, specifically about television, you can find me on the gradually-revamping TV.com starting next Monday. Hope you'll come check it out when you're bored at work.

Thanks, sincerely, for spending some time with me. It's been a treat.

xo

Looks terrific, right! And sort of intriguing that not every musical number will be strictly in the format of the club's performances. No, it looks as though we might get some Rob Marshall/Chicago-style fantasy songs. Which is fun! And fresh, for television. Hopefully High School Musical kids, now a little grown up, will appreciate this next step in their evolution.

You know, it was just Brian "Reggie" Kilmeade, Gretchen "Big Ethel" Carlson, and Steve "Miss Beazley" Doocy saying that Bill Maher thinks Americans are dumb for liking Sarah Palin. See, Sarah Palin is just like "regular folks" and blah blah blah forever and ever with this awful, annoying party line.

I hate to tell you guys, but you are not regular Americans. Not a single tax-payin' one of you. And these animate honeydew melons want their audience to know that. Though it's all trickery and silliness, because they're not regular Americans either. These rich, New York-dwelling TV toucans are just putting on their lame little show to make money, inadvertently ruining America one gurgling syllable at a time.

Sigh. That said, it's really funny! How Gretchen gets her concerned Issues face. How Steve Doocy chuckles at his own idiocy. How Bri-Bri Kilmickles just plays Short Round's scenes from Temple of Doom over and over in his head on an endless loop. Here's the dumb fatty brain of America, you Saab-driving irregulars! Fear it and love it. Cherish it and destroy it.

For my part, I'll be that dot you see, running into the hills. Receding on the horizon, on and on and on, until I cannot hear their voices anymore.

The best they could do:

Joint City Council and Redevelopment Agency Oral Communications

An unidentified woman expressed concerns with high rent rates in California and the importance of affordable housing for people living in California.

Of course, you're just looking at pictures. So there'll be none of that under-the-dinner-table footsie, followed by wine-twinged strolls in the sand, followed by darkened bedroom murmurs. Nope! None of that. You're at work, surrounded by jerks, pretending. Happy boozy Tuesdee.

And, yes, we are aware of the whole Chris Langham unfortunateness.

Richard LaGravenese, stalwart screenwriter who recently directed P.S. I Love You, has landed another helming gig. He'll both direct and write a romaaanncceeee called Man and Wife. Here's hoping there will be some sort of empowering karaoke or montage moment. [Variety]

Jon Hamm has signed on to star opposite Ben Affleck in a "romantic crime thriller" called The Town, which Affleck is also directing. No, sadly, Hamm and Affleck will not be romancing each other. Rebecca Hall, so lively and smart in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, will play the lady. Nuts. [THR]

Quietly masterful director Richard Linklater looks to have lined up his next project. He'll make Liars (A-E) for Scott Rudin and Miramax. The movie is about a lady on her way to the Obama inauguration who revisits old boyfriends on the way. So it's sort of like Broken Flowers, only instead of ending with a weary middle-aged man standing in a rainy intersection, bereft and alone, it'll end with Hope. [Variety]

Wes Anderson will unveil his latest work, a stop-motion animation movie based on Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, will premiere at the London Film Festival. The movie sports voice work provided by small-time slouches like George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Bill Murray. I really hope it's wonderful. [Variety]

Alcon has paid high six figures for Prisoners, a thriller spec about a man who goes vigilante and locks a dude in his basement. Awhile back Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale had been attached to star (Wahlberg as the vigilante, Bale as a policeman investigating the incident), but now they're no longer aboard. Hopefully this will free Bale up to do a damn comedy, because... dag. [THR]

Hm. Josh Radnor, somewhat irksome star of How I Met Your Mother (about five young adults in New York tryin' to make their way), will make his film debut with HappyThankYouMorePlease, about six young adults in New York tryin' to make their way. Somehow he landed a pretty nice cast: Zoe Kazan, Kate Mara, Richard Jenkins (who will not play a young adult, I'm guessing), and Liev's theatre-lovin' younger brother Pablo Schreiber. [Variety]

Oh look. They're going to make a movie version of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Well, they already made a version in the early 80s, but this will be bigger budget and fancy and all that! And probably done with computertrons. In other news, you no longer have a childhood. [THR]

Tell your little sister (or creepy older brother) to sit down and take deep breaths. Because her (or his) favorite show, ABC's gymnastics deep-dive Make It Or Break It, has been renewed for another 10 episodes. Because it's a hit! [Variety]

1) "Which Brit star's sordid past appears to be finally catching up with her? She was left red-faced after fans recognised her during a recent visit to her local STI clinic." [Mirror]

2) "This B+/A- movie actor had a great relationship with his C list movie actress co-star on one of his recent movies. It didn't lead to anything romantic for them, but the actress did invite her sister to the set. Well one thing led to the other and the next thing you know the sister of the C list actress was pregnant. When our actor found out, he dumped the sister and is saying the child isn't his. It made for a VERY tense time between the actress and the actor on their recent promotional tour." [CDaN]

3) "Which half-jock couple isn't telling the truth about their breakup? Both parties are sticking to the same story: it was mutual and they still really, really care about each other, but their careers forced them to spend too much time apart. LOL. Not even close. The truth is that he was a dog. Not the cute, cuddly type you carry around for a photo op. No, he was the two-timing, non-condom-wearing kind of sinner. She wound up with an STD that he picked up from one of his pickups. No, it's not Paris Hilton." [BlindGossip]

Um, probably because Judd Apatow is like the god of all comedy of all time. He's basically had a hand in every other major comedy hit in the past five years, people lurve his short-lived (don't they have to be short-lived to have even more mythic status?) TV series Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared, and his two writer-director efforts at the cinema, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, have been critical and box office darlings. So you will have a hard time saying no to that.

But might you have an even harder time saying no to him when the back six of his latest auteur effort, a mopey Adam Sandler flick about the comedy of the heart, features, front and center, his acidic cherub of a wife, Leslie Mann? The early reviews, while mostly positive, do seem to find nagging flaw in the long last third of his movie, which deals with Mann's character and her marital strife.

We have nothing to base this on except pure speculation, but could it be that Apatow's dive into the serious side of his actress wife prickled a bit with Universal execs? Not that they wouldn't love Mann! Everyone loves Mann! But they love her as the spritely, mean supporting lady, not as the star of her very own late-summer dramatic arc. Plus can't poor Universal please just have a regular bros-'n'-dick-jokes August comedy to rely on, not some itchy junior Importance film ("The third film from...") by comedy's reigning rabbi?

No, they can't. Because Judd said so. It's his wife's big moment! Now that he's a big deal, it's gonna be one for you, one for him, etc forever. Next one's yours, Universal. No worries.

We think? Er, it's always possible that Universal just wanted some of the funny stand-up parts cut, right?

It wasn't like he said that ethnics and stuff shouldn't interbreed lest they be made impure or anything. Mercy no, nothing like that. It's just that if you're gonna be drinking Red Stripe beer, which Gates supposedly likes, it had better be in Jamaica. Because in America we drinks American beers, like Budweiser and Guinness.

To their credit, both Bri-Bri and Steve "Reason Not to Go Into Room 237" Doocy like Blue Moon, which is a delicious beer. Gretchen remains silent in this clip (though we did learn earlier that her summer vacay was to northern Minnesota. Conferring with her Nordic peoples, no doubt), but you can bet that had she been asked to weigh in on the beer discussion (she never wouldn have, by the way, because only men and ugly women drink beer in Real America), Gretchen would have just nodded her head and done a quiet clog dance.

One more day, my loves. Just one more sweet day. Please make it a good one tomorrow.

Other than his professional failures—taking big, sloppy risks and never learning from his mistakes—there were myriad personality "quirks" that just didn't bode well for a long network career in these depressed, skittish times.

First off, he was always saying dumb things. Like the time he called striking writers who refused to participate in the meaningless Golden Globes ugly nerds who were trying to ruin the cool kids' prom. Or when he basically admitted that he thinks he's the funnest guy he knows. Or hows about that time he called a bunch of his colleagues "D-Girls", the Hollywood equivalent of calling them ineffectual pussies. And who can forget when he declared himself "the perfect storm for making a television executive." (Very destructive storm being an unwittingly apt metaphor, Ben!) That he said whatever he wanted was brave! But it was also dumb.

There was also the youthfully irksome "rockstar" shtick. Silverman's partying has been called "voracious." Because, you know, he came to NBC from the relatively devil-may-care enclaves of producerdom. Those stuffy NBC suits just couldn't handle his wildin'! Wildin' like rescheduling morning meetings to the more hangover-friendly afternoon and hugging executives and signing emails, drunkenly probably, "Love U!" Or maybe they couldn't handle his gangsta freestyle? Likely, though, it was that Ben never showed up for work. He was too busy yachting and yukking it up (flirting?) with Ryan Seacrest.

Basically if you're curious about what it takes to rise from nothing, find fleeting fame and fortune, then collapse and vanish under the weight of your own expectations, just start here and keep on reading. It reads like pretty much any overly-cocky post-college narrative, only with a bunch more money involved.

He gave us so much to write about! And now, like dreams abruptly ended by alarm clocks, it's gone.

The appropriation continues! Another old-timey throwbacky kinda thing will be made into a movie, because no one knows what else to do anymore. Remember Castlevania, that sorta-creepy, sorta-silly vampire videogame from long ago? It will be a movie now. Directed by the guy who directed Saw. Sigh. [Variety]

Wow, does Mila Kunis keep defying the odds (whither Wilmer, Laura, Topher, and Danny?) and getting work. She'll next star opposite Natalie Portman in a new Darren Aronofsky movie. Quite a get! The film is Black Swan, a "supernatural drama" about a ballet dancer (Portman) who is haunted by a rival (Kelso's girlfriend). [THR]

Robert Downey Jr. is jumping on another gravy train, this one called the Todd Phillips express. He's signed on to star opposite Zach Galifianakis in Due Date, a buddy road trip comedy. Which Phillips does a lot of! So, capable hands and all that. [Variety]

Moon Bloodgood, who didn't embarrass herself in Terminator Salvation but didn't ennoble herself either, has been cast in the Spielberg-produced TNT pilot that is about aliens invading. The tentative title is Not 'V', Sorry Elizabeth Mitchell. (Not really). [THR]

Speaking of the Kunis-factor! Her new Mike Judge comedy Extract, got a "warm" reception at Comic-Con this year. What this movie has to do with comics is a mystery. Is it that Jason Bateman sorta looks like a cartoon? [Variety]

Out of 15 TV channels, HBO has topped (heh) GLAAD's Network Responsibility Index. NBC and CBS failed. Unsurprisingly. Please make David Caruso gay on CSI. 'Twould be hilarious. [THR]

In the fine tradition of fake-collectible-monstrosities like the beautiful and respectful 9/11 plates, infomercial behemoths Telebrands has rolled out a once-in-a-lifetime stock of Michael Jackson "Thriller" lithographs for you to hang on your wall and proudly admire while you fluff your roses. Now that he's dead and all.

They're only $10! But because the demand is already so high, you can only buy two per order. So maybe you should apply for a few more credit cards and open a PO box or something so you can stock up, like you did on Beanie Babies. (Man, those things will never devalue).

The best part of the lithograph (and of the commercial)? That Michael's white suit is "as pure as his heart." Which is fancy infomercial speak for "buy this useless trinket that pays tacky tribute to someone who never molested anyone, please."

Mostly it's bad, embarrassing news for Silverman, who was heralded back in 2007 as the coming of a new era. And for a time, he delivered. His departure is being spun as a resignation, but it looks a lot like Silverman was pushed. His two-year contract recently expired and the gig that he has lined up — running something for Barry Diller's IAC — sounds like deal slapped together in a hurry. As Diller vaguely describes it, Silverman will "create a truly integrated and truly interactive new media production entity, a next generation enterprise that bridges the gap between traditional television and the internet."

While at NBC, Silverman had a few successes watching The Office (which his old shingle Reveille sold to the network before he joined) develop into a critical and moderate ratings success.

But everything else? Yeck. None of the big hour-long programs that rolled out under Silverman's watch made much of an impact. Not Heroes (though, admittedly, that was developed before Silverman took over), not Knight Rider, not Southland, not Chuck, not My Own Worst Enemy. Plus the buzzed-about comedy Kath & Kim proved a complete disaster and old warhorses like Law & Order: SVU seemed to be graying around the edges.

Really this is just a story of a daring move—hire the cockeyed optimist kid to shake up creaky network TV—that sadly didn't pan out. It's not HBO, guys. It's TV.

1) G-Force — $32.2. million
As we bemoaned earlier, the success of this film likely means that there will be many, many more awful animation/live-action hybrids to come. Oh, look! Here's one already! The thing about these movies that's really annoying is that because there are live action elements in them, the filmmakers seem to feel like, for some reason, they can be a bit more risque. Because, what?, adults are going to go because they want to see Jason Lee embarrass himself? Whatever the reasoning, it ends up with us having to see poop eating and stuff. Jokes that the classy Pixar and its classy-wannabes would never stoop to. Because animation is art. And live-action is everything else. So live-action/animation is... just pure shit. I mean poop. Eat it.

2) Harry Potter and the Dumbledore Dies — $30 million
Not that this movie is doing bad or anything. It's already grossed like $220 million in the States, not to mention the foreign box office, but still... This thing couldn't beat motherfucking G-Force? 'Tis a sad day for Potterville. Maybe number six is just too dark. What with the gloom and emotions and turmoil and people dying and stuff. Good thing no one dies in the last bo—... Oh. Oh wait. Shit. I mean poop.

3) The Awful Truth — $27 million
Even though this movie seems toxic and horrid, it still did pretty well. Even though Katherine Heigl has, somehow, squandered most of the good will she earned before/during/after Knocked Up, it still did pretty well. Even though Gerard Butler is nothing more than a poorly-accented talking leg of mutton, it still did pretty well. Even though John Michael Higgins and Cheryl Hines were crying all the way to the bank on this one, it still did pretty well. Even though there is no discernible reason why anyone, short of self-loathing masochists, would want to see this apparently dreadful "film", it still actually did really well. Poop. I mean shit.

4) Orphan — $12.8 million
DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW THE SUPER SECRET SPOILER ENDING. But why wouldn't you want to? Because it is awesome. Orphan is a movie about a secret dwarf who kills people. It is not about a creepy demon kid. It is not about a ghost possessing a child. It is not about a weird cult that pretends to be an orphanage. Nope. Orphan is about a secret hooker 33-year-old dwarf who kills people. It did pretty OK for a horror B-movie in the thick of gushy summer. A movie about a nearing-middle-age Estonian dwarf who kills people did pretty well against a movie about computer guinea pigs who solve crimes for real humans. SHIT.

11) (500) Days of Summer — $1.63 million
Ohhh twee indie success! Though only open on less than a hundred screens, this gimmicky and highly cultivated feature is doing a nice, tidy little business. We here at the Gawkerdrome didn't care for it as much as we hoped to. It just felt... way too forced. And really derivative (in a bad way) of the farrrrr superior Eternal Sunshine. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is like having a delicious chocolate-chip sundae talk to you, and other things look really pretty too, but as a whole it's just a far more conventional film than it seems to think it is. (It clearly thinks very highly of itself. And, sadly, it shouldn't.) Ah well. Good for it anyway.