Game over for GameSpot editor Jeff Gerstmann fragged Kane & Lynch: Dead Men in a video review he did for GameSpot, right in a middle of a big-time ad blitz by the game developer, Eidos.

I think that's what you call "taking a crap where you eat." No one's saying for sure, but it looks like Jeff got himself sniped for busting a cap in Kane & Lynch's ass...

The Kane & Lynch review, which allegedly caused Eidos to withdraw "hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of future advertising from the site," served as the straw that broke the camel's back. There's no named source for this information, but the piece does say that "the firm belief internally [is] that Jeff was sacrificed."

The review being the last straw makes more sense than GameSpot or Cnet or whoever's in charge throwing Jeff out over one review. For one thing, if his job was to review games honestly and he did that, I bet a couple of lawyers would be calling him up to offer their services for his wrongful termination lawsuit. Image courtesy of Wired

UCLA punts its football coach Karl Dorrell didn't want to try and beat BYU again by coaching in the Las Vegas Bowl, I guess. He had the chance to coach his team one last time, but since he'd been fired, Karl said screw that.

Ok, not really. Sort of. He said the bowl game should be about the kids...

"While I would love to take the field with these young men one last time, I felt that my situation would take the focus away from our players and their efforts and that's the last thing I would want to do."

In other words, screw that. Who would want to be on TV for three hours while the talking heads in the booth spend most of the game wondering who's going to hire a coach with 27 losses in five seasons?

I'm not weeping too much for Karl, since he's getting over $2 million to go home, watch some daytime TV, fantasize about the AD being killed by toilet ice falling out of a jet approaching LAX, stuff like that.

Karl did say one thing that some people may have missed - that UCLA might have to change its philosophy when it comes to academic admissions. Does that mean the Bruins need to lower their standards and bring in guys who lean a lot more toward the athlete side of student-athlete.

Math is hard and reading is inconvenient, I guess. Go Bruins?

Starting a career at age four As young as all the geniuses running Hollywood and Silicon Valley look, they would have to line up behind little Brendan Lee if they wanted to try out for a longshoreman's position in Boston. Brendan's dad, also named Brendan, put the little guy on the payroll to help him build up seniority for the day when he followed in Dad's footsteps...

The charges against Lee and others grew out of an investigation triggered by Massport, which noticed that children of longshoremen started showing up on payrolls at the Conley Terminal in South Boston, among other allegations, authorities said.

Prosecutors said in court papers the scheme that Lee and others used did not generate cash, but was designed to position the children in seniority ranks if they chose to work with the ILA as adults.

So look for the union label, but don't be surprised if the person with it would rather be watching The Disney Channel than unloading a freighter on the docks.

Taser happy cop gets MySpaced Hey police trainees! What do you do for a follow up after Tasing a pregnant woman?

If you were Michael "I didn't know she was preggers" Wilmer, you make sure your MySpace page has lots of great photos to make your firing an iron-clad case...

Officials said the officer was fired after his MySpace page was discovered while police were investigating the incident with the Taser.

Public Safety Director Mike Etter said they found pictures of evidence that was seized during a drug raid on Wilmer's site.

Etter said there was also a picture of the officer driving a police cruiser more than 100 mph.

Serve and protect, baby.

Creationist fired for failing to evolve If you were afraid of heights, would you take a job washing windows at the Empire State Building?

If you were a vampire, would you apply for work at a crucifix factory?

I know I avoid jobs that might have me do things I'd really hate. Sometimes jobs turn into ones you hate, and someone comes along to fire you just to let you know they hate you back.

This Nathaniel Abraham person took a job as a biologist at someplace Wired says is pretty important when it comes to doing marine research. Nathaniel didn't buy into the whole evolutionary aspect of the job...

"The overall objective of research in our laboratory is to understand the biochemical and molecular mechanisms that underlie the interactions of marine animals with their chemical environment. Our general approach is to examine these mechanisms from a comparative/evolutionary perspective...."

Only after he was hired did Abraham mention that he didn't believe in evolution and didn't want to work on evolution-related research. Hahn asked Abraham to resign. He left in December 2004.

Dude? WTF? Why would you take a job that requires you to buy into the whole scientific fact thing? Oh well, at least he didn't file a lawsuit...

Abraham took his case to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, which ruled against him in April of this year. His new lawsuit, filed in federal district court on November 30, claims violation of his rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and asks for $500,000 in damages.

Civil rights? I'm not the country's foremost historian or anything, but I really think the civil rights movement involved something else, like not creationism, ok?

Bobby Petrino flies away from Falcons The coach ditched Louisville for the chance to work with Michael Vick and make him into the quarterback everyone hoped he could become.

Mongrel Marauding Mike turned into the Falcons' nightmare. His dogfighting activities, and a big helping of lying to the feds, cost him around $143 million and possibly 23 months of his freedom.

That dream job of coaching one of the most exciting talents ever to put on cleats and face maniacal linebackers ended up a 3-10 embarrassment, as Bobby P bailed fast out of Atlanta...

Team owner Arthur Blank and the Falcons brass were caught so off guard that they are still trying to figure out who will coach the 3-10 team over the final three games.

Petrino, who was signed from the University of Louisville to a five-year, $24.5 million contract Jan. 8, told him Monday afternoon that he definitely would be back to coach the Falcons in 2008.

It was the second time Blank had asked Petrino about his commitment to the team and the second time Petrino told him he would be back next season.

Bobby P has some truthiness issues. He's heading to Arkansas to take Houston Nutt's old job that became open when the fans ran the coach out of town, all the way to Ole Miss. Sounds like Bobby P and the Hog faithful will get along like pigs in a mud puddle.

He's fired for being a stereotypical lawyer Lawyers don't need anything else helping the lousy perception a lot of people have about them. Naturally that makes this tale much more appealing.

John Duncan got fired in October from a big law firm in Maine. Judging by this report, it sounds like he did everything but tie damsels in distress to the train tracks while twiddling his mustache...

Duncan, a 29-year veteran of Verrill Dana, was fired Oct. 28, about five months after his legal secretary first raised questions about $77,500 in checks Duncan had written to himself from a client, Gregg Ginn, a partner at Verrill Dana, told the paper. Duncan has repaid the money, according to the paper, but there could be more. Ginn said over the years Duncan overbilled clients, stole money from private accounts, and directed money meant for the firm to himself.

It's not just Johnny facing the music. The state bar might put the firm's nuts in a vise and spin the handle a few times for them not talking about this sooner.

Vote against The Donald? You're fired! Tack this one up to your list of bad career moves.

The Scotsman who cast the deciding vote to preserve Scottish coastland rather than let The Donald build a golf course over its dunes found himself on the wrong end of another vote. See ya, Martin Ford...

Last night, Mr Ford reacted angrily to his dismissal, saying it sent out the "wrong message" about the integrity of the planning system. Mr Ford's deciding vote last month came at the end of a heated debate lasting two-and-a-half hours when the infrastructure committee rejected the application for the Trump International Golf Links after councillors were tied 7-7.

It sent out a message all right. The Scottish government is getting involved, and I think money will deliver the message right where The Donald wants it to go.

Dumb and $161.5 million richer It's the end of the year, and every hack reporter who has to work the week before Christmas instead of vacationing somewhere is phoning it in. As usual, lists are popular with the journalist crowd.

Fortune has an epic list, 101 Dumbest Moments in Business in 2007. I know, can you believe it? They only found 101! ZOMG!

After the writers take pots shots at China (poisoning everything in your house), Eli Lilly (Prozac for your pooch), Leona Helmsley (dying and leaving the dog $12 million, maybe he can spend it on Prozac), and Merrill Lynch ("Subprime market? No problem! Wait, what???"), they get to this zinger at number five, ex-Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley "Money" O'Neal...

In August and September, as his company is racking up the largest quarterly loss in its 93-year history, Merrill Lynch CEO Stanley O'Neal squeezes in 20 rounds of golf, including three rounds on three different courses in a single day. In October, O'Neal announces his "retirement," walking away with a compensation package valued at $161.5 million.

That quarterly loss added up to $2.24 billion. But Stanley steamed away with a finger cocked at the shareholders, right into the sunset.

Make it through the whole list, and you'll either be in tears or plotting the overthrow of the government and some French Revolution treatment of people like Stanley.

Travolta's JR shot off Dallas set How much do you have to annoy everybody else to get paid to go home and not come back?

Since it's John Travolta, no one's saying. Mr. Battlefield Earth got the Dallas Boot as Page Six put it, and they think he got at least a cool million to ride into the sunset. Now. Please. Just get out...

"John was given a nice seven-figure 'gift' to go away quietly," our source added. "He also got five family members roles in the movie, and they aren't going to be in it now, either." A friend of Travolta confirmed, "He is not doing the movie. They've gone a different direction than was originally intended. I don't know about any 'gift,' and I don't think the family member thing is correct." A rep for Travolta declined to comment.

They've downsized the star power of the cast, downsized the budget, hey, I've got an idea, why not make it a movie for TV? It's only been off the air since 1991, everyone should be able to pick right up where they left off.

Fired for posting a Dilbert strip? Yeah, it happened. I thought when I saw this it was just a case of someone's boss not finding Dilbert funny. Because Dilbert's not really that funny, in a Garfield/Marmaduke not-funny kind of way.

Turns out the strip David Steward put up may have hit a little too close to home for upper management types scheming to fire a bunch of people ahead of the closing of the Catfish Bend Casino in Iowa...

The human resources director for the Catfish Bend Casino testified at a hearing that management found the cartoon "very offensive." He said the cartoon accused the decision-makers of being drunken lemurs, and that management considers it misconduct.

The judge, amazingly enough, didn't agree with the casino. Dilbert David gets the unemployment benefits he sought. His old bosses get to continue acting like drunken lemurs. I'm going to think of this every time I'm channel surfing and see Zoboomafoo on PBS.

Bulls gore Stiles on Christmas Eve It's not even the first time the Chicago Jordan-less Bulls have taken a colossal dump in a coach's stocking on Christmas Eve.

The Windy City is buzzing now that Scott Skiles has been fired. GM John Paxson had the honor of backstabbing his coach...

In a statement released this morning, Paxson said, “This was a difficult decision to make, but one that was necessary at this time. Scott helped us in many ways during his time with the Bulls; most importantly, he helped this franchise get back to respectability. I am appreciative of his hard work and the imprint that he left on our team.�

In a sucky Eastern Conference, the Bulls have stood out for sucking above and beyond the East's standard of suck. Ok, they're actually a game better than the Knicks or the Heat, whatever. So it's Scott's fault John couldn't pry Kobe out of LA. Riiiiiight.

Back in 2001, the Bulls tossed out Tim Floyd, aka Worst Hire EVAR, on Xmas Eve. Maybe Scott got a nice buyout, so instead of trying to motivate a roster full of suck, he can head down to South Beach and try and talk some Argentinian supermodel into putting sunscreen on his bald head.

Maybe John gave him a Christmas present after all. Hawaiian Tropic, maybe?

Lusty novelist paged for writing on the job Unfortunately for Tanja Shelton, her job didn't include writing bodice rippers. She was supposed to be doing whatever it is a production control scheduler for an industrial machine maker does.

Typing, lots and lots of typing, made Typing Tanja's boss suspicious.

No sharply chiseled hero came to Typing Tanja's rescue. She got fired for her romantic ruminating...

After the writings were discovered, the company fired Shelton and challenged her claim for unemployment benefits. That led to a state hearing, at which Shelton testified that her writing was a way of honing her job skills during slow periods at work.

"I was writing, but it wasn't necessarily a book," she testified. "I was just typing my thoughts down, trying to keep my brain moving. I wanted to improve my typing skills."

She said she didn't consider her fiction writing a violation of the company policy that prohibits personal use of the computer.

Now she's got plenty of time to finish just what the world needs, another romance novel. As the reporter said, "Unbridled lust! Unspoken passion! Unemployment!"

Lunch lady loses her meal ticket Did Iowa take a dose of silly pills this year? Yesterday I had a post about a would-be romance novelist fired for lusting and typing on the job.

Like the author, today's fired person also had unemployment benefits denied in Iowa. Unlike the author, the fired lunch lady deserves more derision than a snarky blog post can provide. Seems Nancy Harvey had a problem with feeding hungry, broke kids...

State records indicate Harvey was reprimanded twice and suspended once for allegedly grabbing, yelling at and embarrassing students who didn't have enough money to pay for their meals.

In at least two instances, the students were reduced to tears. Harvey allegedly told one supervisor that the children "didn't deserve to eat because they didn't have money."

One second grader told Nutso Nancy his mom was flat broke and they didn't have anything to eat at home.

I'd like to think the forces of karma have something in store for Nutso Nancy, and other people who abuse little kids. Preferably payback would involve a speeding bus, a meaty collision, and someone spending a few days twitching in a snowbank before anyone realized she was there.

Too much? Not really, since the principal told Nutso Nancy he'd pay for meals himself when the situation came up. The real shame is there doesn't seem to be any way to hit her with a criminal charge of some kind.