When we at Valleywag discussed writing up founding editor Nick Douglas's new comedy show, Blank White Cards, associate editor Jackson West chimed in:

Our secret girl admirer writes, "The perfect, shared Sunday for me would consist of..." among other things, fighting over the Sunday Times and fondling iPhones. After an art flick, "[w]e could catch up on blogs like Valleywag and TechCrunch." Ooh, dreamy! As the only one on the masthead with a scant few degrees of sexual separation from both blogs' founding editors, I have some words of — well — we have not even begun to overshare.

Julia Allison went to sunny South Florida for sunbathing and a geekfest this weekend and got, perhaps, more Gawker coverage than she bargained for. A bunch of people leered at her nipple, there was rampant speculation about her connection to Digg founder Kevin Rose, and after the whole thing was over Allison posted some angsty words on her Tumblr. Then, today, Allison entered into some impromptu unlicensed counseling with, we are reliably informed, Gawker blogger Nick Douglas, in a chat Allison posted to her blog. Douglas' advice? At the moment Time Out New York columnist and Star editor Allison's fame is at new heights, she should "step away from the camera" and "run everything by Rachel Sklar," the Huffington Post editor. Hmmm. Given Allison wrote she finds blogging "FUN!!!" even in the wake of having her chest ogled on the Web, why retreat now, when a big media gig, trophy husband or both could be right around the corner? Read Douglas' advice and post your own after the jump. Read at least the last couple of lines of the Allison chat, they are priceless:

Did you know some heathens ask for a martini on the rocks? And how many advertisers does AdBrite really have? That was just some of the bits of scandal I overheard at Valleywag's Bad Girl Friday, our happy hour turned welcome wagon for new writer Melissa Gira Grant. Check the photos for more evidence of revelry. Oh, and what is Valleywag emeritus Nick Douglas doing with Grant? Their Facebook profiles say they're "in an open relationship," but I've mentally slotted it under "it's complicated" — even I don't want to know the details.

Sex and tech writer Melissa Gira and new Gawker writer Nick Douglas are two of the confirmed famous-for-the-Internet people who'll be at Valleywag Friday today, starting at 4 p.m. and continuing through maybe 8 or 9 at Moose's in Washington Square. Some of Gridskipper co-conspirators may be there, too. Valet parking available.

We've reported on everyone else's holiday gatherings. It's only fair to spill about our own, don't you think? It's tonight at Valleywag uberspecial correspondent Paul Boutin's impressive sky-palace. The dress code is "rockstar," so expect Paul to be wearing his Armani sunglasses, Owen's hair to be extra pointy, and Nick Douglas to be in a suit and tie. You want in? IM me with a story I can use for my last hurrah before I shuffle off this bloggy coil and move to a respectable publication. Cheers!

If at first you don't succeed — and you can't manage to buy someone — try, try again. That's what Google and Yahoo, realizing the failure of their social-networking products, are doing. Google's Orkut is a nonstarter outside India and Brazil, and Yahoo 360 is, well, a nonstarter everywhere. Here's how the two giants of the Web are trying to fix their social inadequacies.Google's entrant is Socialstream, a Google-sponsored project at Carnegie Mellon University, which, instead of serving as a social network itself, attempts to unify multiple networks. That's a product that users, drowning in multiple logins and passwords, could badly use. And it plays to Google's strengths: Rather than trying to get users to contribute content to a new network, Socialstream just uses software to bring existing information on the Web together in one place, much like Google's Web search.

There's a new wag in town. And I'm feeling good. This sleepy little burg has a thousand secrets, and I can't wait to start telling them. But for the curious, I'll start, briefly, with the real story of how I got this job. Nick Denton has his version, of course, but I think mine's better, because it involves tormenting Denton.The short version: Much as I wangled a gig at Suck.com by being a complete pest, I got this job by bothering Denton. Nonstop. For two years. The torment, of course, mostly consisted of repeatedly turning down the job of running Valleywag — and then turning around and IMing Denton daily — no, hourly — no, minutely — to tell him how, precisely, I thought he ought to do it. My passive-aggressive campaign for the job culminated in drinks in San Francisco's Mission District a couple of months ago, when he finally confronted me:

NICK DOUGLAS — Forbes 25 Web Celebs! Technorati 100! Never have so many lists given so little information about who the real top bloggers are. Why is this Jeff Jarvis dude so high up on Technorati's list if you've never actually read his blog? Why does Forbes think Nick Denton is so goddamned important? Here's a simple explanation of what these "top blogger" lists really mean (short answer: less than you think).

• Reason I came to VON, a conference that means both "Video on the Net" and "Voice on the net": Free press pass, free coffee and it's brighter than my home office

NICK DOUGLAS — Saving the world isn't just for doctors in Africa and technocrats in San Jose. They need funding, processing power, and support: and that's just what you have. You don't even need to move your lazy butt. Just stop reading blogs and Digg posts and take a minute to save the world using these ten sites.

The variety of stars at tech conferences used to be limited to bloggers, startup innovators, designers and programmers identifiable only after a glimpse at a name badge. But a new class of celeb is rising with more recognizable star power: videobloggers, often good-looking and engaging, practiced at being entertaining, and a prime target for conference-long entourages. Other techies love hooking up with a less nerdy brand of internet celeb. At this weekend's South by Southwest conference, star vloggers included Casey and Rudy from sci-fi show Galacticast and ABC News vlogger Amanda Congdon. The biggest star by far, though, was Ze Frank, host of the one-man "The Show," who cruised a few parties, hosted the annual Web Awards, and performed a Powerpoint stand-up routine at a Buzzfeed party. Prediction: "Fun" conferences (full of the geeks who do the actual work of Web 2.0) like SXSW will have more vlogger presence than "business" conferences like the upcoming suit-heavy Video on the Net. (photo by Scott Beale)

NICK DOUGLAS — I had a lot of fun live-mocking last year's moving but off-kilter speech by sci-fi author and futurist Bruce Sterling. The venue was South by Southwest, the topic (mostly) spimes, Sterling's pet idea of constantly trackable objects. He's speaking again this year, no one knows what about. And in what I'm now declaring an annual Valleywag tradition, I'm live-blogging it below.

Spotted at this week's South by Southwest (SXSW) conference: Bloggers, vloggers, engineers, the team from up-and-coming startup Twitter, star Apple developer Buzz Andersen, Podtech host Robert Scoble, Digg founder Kevin Rose, vloggers Ze Frank and Amanda Congdon...but no investors. Forget the Web 2.0 expo; this is the place to meet the techies with some truly clever ideas. Not only are there a good number of startups from outside Silicon Valley, but everyone's in a good mood thanks to the constant libations at several open-bar parties each night. Granted, most folks worth meeting here would rather not see SXSW filled with besuited venture capitalists. An angel investor, especially one who made a fortune in their own startup, would have better luck finding willing investees. If a VC firm insists on coming, they'd best curry favor by holding their own open-bar party. Geeks will thank their drink-buyers. (photo by Scott Beale)

One-line one-to-many messaging service Twitter is aflame during the South by Southwest Interactive conference. The techies, bloggers, and various citezenry-of-media are pumping the service with constant web, IM and SMS messages. Twitter staffers Jack and Alex tell me that the site, which normally carries around 20 thousand messages a day, broke 60 thousand a day this weekend. This traffic boost should add a strong layer of new permanent users. In the next year, Twitter could make a Facebook-sized blowup among the general public.

NICK DOUGLAS — "A new company is paving the way for a more automated Internet," shouts the New York Times. Oh god. New internets are like perpetual motion machines: they get "invented" all the time, but you'll never find a working model. Here are the most famous, including Cyberspace, the Semantic Web, and Bruce Sterling's Magical Spime World.

NICK DOUGLAS — Are Macs just for hipster designers? Not at all! Maybe you've wanted to switch to a Mac, but you were afraid it wouldn't work with your Office files. Maybe you can't convince your parents they won't lose their vacation photos. Maybe your boss thinks Macs are toys not meant for serious adults. For all those cases, here are 42 reasons that normal people can switch to Macs.

NICK DOUGLAS — Vlog: To stare into a dark hole after too much vodka and project things at it which no one likes to see. Below are more technical terms re-defined.

Getting even more diverse as we drill further into the depths of vlog hotness, and of course, I mean that in a good way. Why else would this wildcard round lead with none other than Nick Douglas, followed by Juan Falla, John Herman, Eric Rey, and Bill Streeter. Here comes the jump; you know the vote-drill.

If you can't see the voting mechanism below, we can't help you. We don't know how it works either. You might try turning off firewalls and turning on cookies. Note that you can now vote more than once! And why not? You should be able to vote once per day in any of these polls, showing true devotion to your favorite vlogger by suborning the more casual, ephemeral love showered on her or his opponents. Again, if you have technical problems with that, don't call us. For amusement only, far as you're concerned.