THIS IS WARThe Passion of the GossipDesk

Last week, while i was on something of a bender-cum-birthday vaca, the anonymous geniuses (specifically one blogger with the handle, twothirty) decided to fight our criticism of their shitty investor-backed blog, CollegeOTR, by attacking all that is holy about gossip desk.

"The blog's creator and primary poster would be best advised to wait on calling out others' 'mediocre copy' until he starts mandating sparkling prose on his own pages," the man behind the mask writes. "The writing verges dangerously away from irreverent snark into bitchy, desperate queen territory. Saddest of all, it's not even so-bad-it's-good, Center Stage-style funny."

OK, I like criticism as much as the next person. Even thoughtful criticism proving that Kassner can't write for shit. But the funny part about all this is that... wait for it... the editor of Northwestern OTR has been recruiting the two of us to write for her precious little blog -- and get $500 dollars a quarter to do so. We said "No," but here's how it went down:

Approximately two weeks ago, I get an e-mail from Lena Chen (pictured), a Harvard student who's in charge of this whole Big Brother college blogosphere: "After coming across your blog, I'd like to offer you and your co-author positions on the campus editorial team for NorthwesternOTR.com, no formal application process required," she drooled.

So yeah, Lena loves us. Whatever. We said "No," and she finally got back to me this weekend with the following e-mail:

Sorry to hear that but good luck with Gossip Desk! If you're trying to promote, we're looking into syndicating student blogs on our website as well. Let me know if that's something you're interested in.

I think we're going to pass on that offer, honeycakes, seeing as your writers have already taken it upon themselves to jab the knife in our hearts and increase our traffic at the same time (thanks twothirty!). But doesn't anyone else find it oddly curious that a blogger can be trashing our blog and telling us we can't write while his boss is trying to recruit us? What horror! What inconsistency! What shoddy office politics!

Honestly, I really don't care about all that. I'm only bringing this up because it hits even closer to home. In his post about Gossipdesk, the blogger writes, "The two gentlemen running the place might want to step away from the mutual masturbation and shape things up before job-hunting season."

The truth is, I'm never going to use this blog to get a job. And even further, I don't really need to be masturbatory, twothirty, because you're already blogging about me.

Dear readers, here's a contest: Find out who this punk blogger is (what's the fun in being anonymous, anyway?). Whoever it is creepily remembers what I wore to Fling at the Field freshman year, and obviously doesn't remember that I own sand, not chestnut, Uggs.

All guesses and crucifixions should go in the comment section. Let the witchhunt begin!