Blog Layoffs

"Well, what would you say... you do here?"

-- Bob Slydell, consultant, Office Space

"Layoffs? Don't talk about layoffs! Are you kidding me? Layoffs?"

-- Jim Mora Sr., former coach of the Indianapolis Colts

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Considering the current state of the economy, it should come as no surprise that the blogosphere is not immune to the wave of layoffs currently sweeping the United States. What may be surprising to some, however, is the identity of that wave's latest victim.

It's OKTO Blog (ticker: CRAPBLOG.OB), an infrequently updated West Coast-based blog noted for its repeated violations of photo copyright law and its sporadically amusing writing from the male perspective on topics such as parenting, pop culture, and the single bachelor life, announced today at 8pm EST (5pm PST) that it has let Oscar de La Jolla go. De La Jolla, 36, was a 50% owner of the blog and was arguably its primary contributor.

A source within It's OKTO Blog management said that "with our non-existent advertising revenue and feeble merchandising efforts, we were losing money with every post. Oscar seemed to think he could make it up on post volume, but he was wrong. We're not the American auto industry."

"I'd like to thank Oscar for all the meaningful contributions he made to the blog, but the fact is he didn't make any meaningful contributions," the source continued. "The Wood Dog made a resolution to post more in 2009 and that was good enough for us. Getting the Wood Dog back allowed us to get rid of the dead wood that was Oscar de La Jolla. That guy's a total fraud now - he didn't dunk in 2008 and he doesn't even live in La Jolla anymore. With the Wood Dog steering the ship we expect to reach profitability by the end of January '09."

While exiting the It's OKTO Blog compound, a visibly shaken de La Jolla told our reporter "I don't know what else I could have done. I streaked, I had sex on a beach with a 22-year old girl, I offended multiple racial and religious groups, and I filed my own teeth, all in the name of the blog. I left it all out there, and I make no apologies. Say, I don't suppose you have a vacant spare room or teenage daughter, do you?"

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Adam Entous in Jerusalem, Aziz el-Kaissouni in Sharm el-Sheikh and Claudia Parsons and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Writing by Alastair Macdonald and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)