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We had high hopes when we found out that Leah Culver and Brad Fitzpatrick, pictured above at a party in August, had started dating. Fitzpatrick, the LiveJournal founder turned Google engineer, and Culver, a cofounder with Digg's Kevin Rose of Pownce, the Twitter-and-file-sharing mashup, seemed heaven-sent to the eyes of a tech gossip columnist. Brad 'n' Leah could be our geek Brangelina. Both partners were sufficiently techie, and, thankfully, good-looking enough to get on a year-end hot geeks lists. Also, neither seemed afraid of a bit of drama. For example, Culver's recent staged snit against Rose where she claimed Digg ripped off Pownce, and Fitzpatrick's confrontation of a romantic rival at a party. So it was such a disappointment for us to learn that they had ended their nascent relationship last week.

According to Culver, the breakup came over time spent at work — no surprise, given Fitzpatrick's punishing new commute to the Googleplex. Has the attention-seeking engineer gotten press-shy, though? At one time, Culver was disappointed that the start of their relationship didn't merit a post. But at a party in SoMa last night, she told Valleywag editor Owen Thomas that she didn't think the breakup was news. Well, sure, Leah — you and Brad may not be newsworthy, but the punishing drop in pageviews we're about to endure, now that we no longer have our own celebrity geek couple to chronicle? Front page of the business section, baby. Brad 'n' Leah, you have no idea how much we'll miss you when quarterly bonus time rolls around.