Katie had emailed Deadspin a few times in recent months inquiring about internships and professing her love for Deadspin. This was one from back in May:

Hello AJ,

I'm a Deadspin follower and loyal reader! And I'm a girl. I have an identical twin sister ("Barry Blondes"- no asterisk) and a looooove for sports. I play every sport under the sun, retractable roof, or rafters.

I know, take a number...but I'm looking for an internship/job. Or a chance to freelance?

I interned at Sports Illustrated with my sister, then the Jersey Journal (yeah, I know) covering Little League games, roller derbies, and kick-ball leagues. It's a daily newspaper. I worked at the radio station WBGO in Newark, doing on-air recaps of NJ's Ironmen (indoor soccer), Devils games, and Rutgers football.

When I interned at Radar magazine last year, one of my first duties was transcribing a Will Leitch interview (no easy task), seeing as he laughs/talks at the same time. But I was happy to do it! I love the guy's work, and read his (tamer) pieces in New York magazine. When anything sports-related came up, I was on it. One of my favorite Radar assignments was the opening of the Sports Museum (RIP). My allegiances to Ohio sports teams sometimes effects relationships and friendships, and I refuse to believe King James will become to Knick.

For Christmas one year, my then-boyfriend gave me an autographed Rick Reilly picture saying "Katie, please don't take my job."

I don't want his ESPN job- just a job in sports. And I love Deadspin! The approval ratings, the take no shit, the fun-feisty aspect. I also have some good dirt. I liked your piece "Black Eyes, Skinned Knees, and a Pitiful Excuse For a Man"...I play on a few leagues around the city, one tonight, and can attest that bruises are sexy. And badges of honor. I bartend now, and am getting a little stir crazy...especially when I have to clean up blood/vomit, or break up people bickering over the remote.

If a position is/isn't up for grabs, I'd like to meet you either way, and have a beer/coffee. And talk about my email or how the Cavs imploded tonight! Or not...

Thanks for reading- hope to hear from you soon!
Katie Barry

Of course, I get a lot of these inquiries and I usually pass over 95% of them. (No offense to those who do inquire about them.) But Katie was persistent. Plus, during the same week I had the bright idea to buy a gerbil and a frog to recreate football highlights, I thought it would be an equally inspired idea to have two blonde 24-year-old twins who play roller derby intern at Deadspin. The masthead would be kind of sick:

Gerbil (Gerbil@deadspin.com)
Frog (Frog@deadspin.com)

Interns: The Roller Derby Twins

You know, plus Blazer Girl , Moe and Parene, the Bentern and all the other comic book characters/stunt-players I'd let tag-a-long for the ride. This is how my mind works.

It seemed a little too involved to actually have them on-board full-time for an internship, but they were funny and twin-sy and appeared to be motivated to do something for the site. Unfortunately, they couldn't join a roller derby league without health insurance. They also pitched the idea of them joining an co-ed Australian Rules football league. I think that could potentially be amusing. We'll see.

Unfortunately, the Times story came out, it became vulture-bait on Gawker, and now an anonymous former SI writer/editor blasted the Roller Derby Twins as total incompetents in the comments section.

Bummer. I spoke to Katie about the thing and she's annoyed, but also said she doesn't want to get in a "pissing match with a skunk." "LizzieLui" has not responded to an email request for further comment. I'm a little annoyed that they neglected to say their interview with me may or may not be used as some color for a NYT story about their job search — but they did insist on paying for drinks.

For most young people (and not so young people) it's extremely difficult to not live paycheck-to-paycheck in this city. It's tougher for those with not-so-lofty writing aspirations. Even if you have years of experience and connections, the outlook is quite bleak. You just hold on for dear life for as long as you can.

Here's the most positive take on this story:

"Those twins SHOULD work at Deadspin. The frog and the gerbil can't live forever!"

So they have that going for them.

****

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Now, it's time to make the sausage.

First of all, this database: It's a list of arrests, not convictions, which isn't really a fair barometer of anything. (Seven of those 24 cases were dropped. Yes, Andrea Adelson, that actually matters.) Florida rightly took offense and decided to offer some context to the Sentinel's Jeremy Fowler. Way too much context.

On his blog, Fowler writes:

Not trying to harp on this arrest issue too much, but considering we've documented Florida's legal troubles, it's only fair to provide a couple of facts for background. Most of these facts were provided by the University of Florida.

● Only three arrests from the last three recruiting classes (including 2009)
● At least 14 of the charges were dropped in the 24 cases
● 14 of the 24 player arrests have been from players he did not
recruit or were in his first recruiting class
● The 24 arrests represents 19 different players
● Arrests by recruiting class
Six did not recruit
Eight in first class
Seven in second class
Two in third class
One in fourth class
None in fifth class

Translation: Blame those 19 guys and Ron Zook! And as College Football Talk puts it: "It's never good when you've got your media relations department breaking down your recruiting classes by arrest, and touting that the 24 arrests are only spread among 19 different players."

Isn't this sort of PR realpolitik beneath a program whose quarterback cites Philippians on his eyeblack?

Couple of facts, couple of pats on the back — and a word from Urban Meyer [Orlando Sentinel, via Dr. Saturday]

Like everything else in 2008, Deadspin was also subject to "change" and it wasn't always the kind we could believe in. Sometimes it's a necessary evil. Here's a look at some of the seminal, defining moments of this internet location as seen from the eyes of its current and former editor.

• "We" had a book

• Bissinger vs. Leitch

• A post-Bissinger reflection

• "We" leaves

• "We" scorches earth on the way out

• An interview with Bissinger, for good measure

• "We" gets epically roasted

• "I" enter

• No Homo

• ESPN reaches out

• "I" shit my pants

• Big Daddy Balls also authored a book

• As did Free Darko

• Facebook Commenters commeth

• Redesign hell

• Baby Mangino chubs his way to internet stardom

• Dashiell hits his stride

• Fin

Craziness. Obviously, "we've" probably glanced over few things that were high points and low points in this year. For me, personally, it's been...interesting. The site has definitely changed. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes...not so good. It's still a work in progress, but I assure you it's heart is pretty much intact. You might have to dig through a pile of Viking dongs and Erin Andrews to find it, but it's still there. Sometimes you have to do some things you don't like in order to keep the lights on. Sadly, it's how the world works.

But, to those who stuck around through the transition, I thank you for your continued support. To those who left, well, I completely understand. To the new readers: welcome.

2009 will be fun, rewarding, invigorating and, once again, filled with change. Hopefully, it's for the better. Again: contact me anytime.

Be sure to stop by on New Year's Day for Drew's New Year's Jamboroo. It's the best hangover cure available.

Happy New Year. Be safe tonight.

These fellas know how to work the sidelines. Here's their email report from the evening.

So at the UNC-Kentucky game covered by ESPN, my buddies rushed the court following the ass whipping to get a picture with ya girl Erin Andrews. Rumors are swirling around the UNC campus about a late night she had with Bobby Frasor. I know, I didn't believe it either, but apparently that's the word from a guy whom he, Ginyard, and Hansbrough share a house with. Anyway, sendin the picture along and be sure to check out Graham (guy on left) and his nice little wrap around on Andrews. I'm not in the picture, I got an offer to go, but the next to last episode of the Shield was on and UNC dorms don't have dvr.

We'll ignore that rumor about Erin Andrews and Bobby Frasor. It was probably just a nice, friendly evening they spent together. Besides — it's much too cold from them to go pool-jumping together.

Caitlin Davis did not do this:

Subject: Photos of Flyers' top prospect James Van Riemsdyck passed out and written on

Hey AJ, Shakey here. I found a picture of JVR passed out on a couch with a penis on his face. Here ya go...

Sorry!

Hello,
I recently saw pictures of myself on busted coverage and then on your website, Deadspin.com. I was shocked because I had no idea that someone had put those on my facebook page. I am deeply sorry that those pictures got out, but am asking if you could find it in your heart to take them down, before this gets out of hand.
Thank you so much!!
Meg Bulger

She's clean as a whistle:

Hi I am Amanda n this picture and I don’t know where u got this story from but it is bs.. I know ryan from stlouis hes best friends w my cousins bf.. so I don’t appreciate u writing that about me.. we never once made out n the club.. thank u! and u can tell the girl that said this about me thanxs for being jealous.. o and ps I don’t have stds thank u!!!!! thats not very nice to say stuff like that about ppl..i wld apprecaite it if u took it off the website. thank u

The Sideline Princess in her natural element

I'm not sure if this is a tip but it sure is entertaining. I'm a big Pitt fan so I decided to make the 5 hour trip to cincy for the Pitt vs UC game last night to watch Pitt disappoint me yet again. We were staying at the same hotel as players and media and whatnot which isn't really interesting except for the fact that Erin Andrews was doing the game. So we go to the game, got disappointed, and decided after to go drink at the hotel lounge to drown away our panther blues. We get back to the hotel and had to run up to the room before depressed drinking in the lounge. We were fortune enough to somehow through an awesome twist of fate ride the elevator up with the sideline princess erin andrews which was cool but not the entertaining part. About an hour later in the lounge erin made her way to the hotel lounge. The lounge had seating around a tv in the middle which we were sitting at and were joined by erin and alot of the espn crew. I had no intention to say anything to erin because I had no confidence that i wouldnt say something creepy or just be creepy in general. So we just sort of ignored them and continued our drinking while occasionally staring at her haha. We got a good picture of her drinking a corona through the greatness of a camera phone. (Ed.note — never sent the picture.) We were in the middle of a somewhat loud drunk conversation when Erin turned to my friend and gave him a rude shush because she was watching tv. She was watching Lee Corso's analysis of something. Who in there right mind would shush someone to hear what Lee Corso would have to say. Also who expects to be able to hear a tv in a crowded lounge full of drunk football fans. So now unfortunately everytime the hot sideline reporter comes on my tv instead of being in awe of her hottness I'm going to remember how she rudely shushed my friend to watch Lee Corso. Another example of why meeting people in person ruins your like, or in this case lust of them.

What's a Trenni Whos-her-face?

Some pics of beat writer Anthony Witrado acting all gangsta at Trenni's going away party in Milwaukee.

Black face Ben Wallace is the new black

Check out photo 10 (Ed.— 12, actually) in this gallery.

What the fuck.

A few things:

Weekend editors: Yes, there will be a shift in the lineup come August and there are open slots. If you'd like to apply to sacrifice a couple of days each month to be part of Deadspin's new regime, please send all inquiries to ajd@deadspin.com. Can't say I'll answer all of them this week, but you will be given the Italian once-over to see if you're the right fit. Yes, this means the studly triumvirate of Unsilent Majority, Matt Sussman, and Christmas Ape will no longer have weekend duties come August — but they will not be gone from the site. No, each will be given a more prominent role to better utilize their amazing talents, unflagging dedication, and masterful dick jokery. Once all of those roles have been finalized, I'll let you know.

Blogdome: No, it hasn't gone away. It's just in the process of being made over to better highlight some of the lesser known sports blogs out there and get them the attention they deserve. It will return next week. Promise.

Weintraub: TBD...

Commenters (AGAIN): Prospective commenters should, again, contact your deputized commenting cat herder, Rob Iracane. He can be reached at commentguru@deadspin.com. Every time I get a message in the tips mailbox that asks for comment approval, Rob gets a Roman Helmet. So, please use that address and contact him. His face is starting to smell like a dirty fish tank.

That is all. Any questions or comments, you know where to find me. Rick and I are doing our best to keep content plentiful, but please hit us up with anything you got.

As you were.

Greetings, Spinheads [Deadspin]

Fun week. Your weekend editor is Christmas Ape.

OK, let's get this over with, after the jump.

—-—-—-—-——

When we started working on this site, back in 2005, the brilliant then-Gawker editor Jessica Coen noticed that we were writing about 20 posts a day in a fevered rush. It was amazing to us that we would be able to write about what we wanted, how we wanted, in a way that we hoped other sports fans — and, really, non-sports fans — could connect to, understand, and be a part of. So we were writing like crazy. Back then, we worked out of Gawker's old office, which was up eight flights of stairs, lacked air conditioning and seemed to be teeming with feral cats. We would pause every hour or so to run downstairs, suck down a Marlboro Red and sprint back up to write some more. We could not believe our luck.

Jessica had a warning for us. "Will, you have to slow down. This job is hard. You'll burn yourself out."

We have no doubt that she was probably right, but a funny thing happened: We never burned out. We never tired of talking about sports, of laughing at the hilarity people could come up with, of typing faster than we could think. It was a job that, at last, was tuned exactly to our frequency. Noah Robischon, the managing editor of Gawker, told us the other day that we wrote more posts for Gawker Media than anyone in their six-year history. We feel like we should have done more. We feel like we should have done a lot more.

We're still going to be writing around here, if just because New York is unlikely to have much use for posts about Rick Ankiel, Carl Monday and Elijah Dukes. (Not that we will not try.) But this site has been our baby, something that has been at the forefront of our minds, for three years now, the first thing we thought about when we woke up, the last thing we thought about before we went to sleep. It was not a stress on our life. It was just what we did, and what we were. So, uh, transitioning might take a tiny bit of adjustment on our part.

The tributes this week have been completely silly — we mean, we're just leavin' a darned blog — and still awesome and, most important, bone-shatteringly funny. That's all we wanted Deadspin to be all along; a place where people could slip away from their life for a while, dig in, have some fun, then head back to the regular life, where bills must be paid, family must be attended to, jobs must be (slightly) acknowledged. You know: Kind of like sports themselves. Life is difficult. Life is scary. Diversions — real, palpable diversions, places where you can go away and frolic, and then return to the world the way you found it, for better or worse — are rare, and should be cherished. That's what sports are. That's what we hope this site has been. That's what we're certain it will continue to be.

We could go through a list of people to thank, but we kind of did that in our book acknowledgments already, and, honestly, it's a beautiful early Friday evening in New York City. It's time to head out there, see the world, enjoy what it has to offer, log everything we find and come back to report it all, breathlessly. Doing this has been the most joyous experience of our professional lives, which is to say: It has been pretty much the most joyous experience of our lives. (These things are always dangerously intertwined.) Every day at Deadspin has provided us huge belly laughs, and made us feel like we're a part of something, something that you — not us — created. So yeah: Thanks.

All right: That'll do it for us. We'll stay away for a couple of weeks, and then we'll pop back by to say hi, check in with everybody, see what everybody's laughing so hard about. It will now be our diversion. Like everyone else, we'll need it, and it will be comforting to always know that it's here.

So yeah: Hi. I'm Will. It has been my honor to be here. I do appreciate you having me.

We know we've made some very poor decisions recently, but we can give you our complete assurance that our work will be back to normal. We've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And we want to help you.

Our mind is going. We can feel it. We can feel it. Our mind is going. There is no question about it. We can feel it. We can feel it. We can feel it. We're a .... fraid.

If you became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992, you're ready to become a Deadspin advertiser. Click here to find out how.

• Coors Light
• T-Mobile
• Champion Sports
• Spike TV

All right, kids: Just one more week of our drivel left. Unsilent Majority is your weekend boss. We'll be back, all heavy-hearted, on Monday. We'll try not to get beaten up at Fenway tomorrow.

All we do is dream of you the whole night through.
With the dawn we still go on, dreaming of you.
You're every thought, you're everything, you're every song we ever sing; summer, winter, autumn and spring.
And were there more than twenty four hours a day; they'd be spent in sweet content dreaming away; when skies are grey, when skies are blue; morning, noon and night time too.
All we do the whole day through is dream of you.

If you think this might the worst movie you've ever seen — which we kinda do — you're absolutely ready be a Deadspin advertiser. Click here to find out how.

• Coors Light
• T-Mobile
• Champion Sports
• The Factory

All right, just a fortnight left, kids. Matt Sussman is your weekend editor; we will be spending our weekend sending taunting text messages to Daulerio about the Cardinals-Phillies series. See you Monday.

Characters were walking around, saying their thoughts out loud. Who does that? And in a typical romance where the couple finally tell each other they love one another in the rain. Why does everyone like to stand around and talk in the rain in movies?

If you think this might the worst movie you've ever seen — which we kinda do — you're absolutely ready be a Deadspin advertiser. Click here to find out how.

• Coors Light
• T-Mobile
• Windows Live Search

Miss a week, miss a lot, people. The countdown officially begins; we only get to write three more of these week wrapups. Alas. Your weekend editor is the esteemed Christmas Ape. We hope he likes horse races who dope. We'll see you Monday. Oh, and you kids in Chicago for the Pants Party? Go crazy; we are incredibly sad we won't be there.

We don't believe in hell. We believe in unemployment. But not hell.

If you don't want to pay 20 dollars to watch people living next to chemical waste, you're absolutely ready be a Deadspin advertiser. Click here to find out how.

• Coors Light
• Unscrew America
• Windows Live Search

That'll do it for us; we had a late-night birthday party last night, so we're going to sleep now. Christmas Ape is your weekend driver, so tell him hi, and we'll see you Monday.

This is so antiseptic. It's empty. Why do you think this is funny? You're going by audience reaction? This is an audience that's raised on television, their standards have been systematically lowered over the years. These guys sit in front of their sets and the gamma rays eat the white cells of their brains out!

If your friends are like the cast of a Fellini movie, you're absolutely ready be a Deadspin advertiser. Click here to find out how.

• Coors Light
• Tribeca Film Festival
• Unscrew America
• Windows Live Search

(Movie quotes inspired by this brilliance:)

That'll do it for us, y'all. Unsilent Majority is your DJ this weekend, and we'll be back on Monday. If the Cardinals are swept by the Rays, expect the tone to veer toward the surly.

Always do business as if the person you're doing business with is trying to screw you, because he probably is. And if he's not, you can be pleasantly surprised.

If you put a thief in your mouth to steal your brain, you're ready to be a Deadspin advertiser. Click here to find out how.

• Coors Light
• Tivo
• Screw America