It’s almost summer and you know what that means—DealBreaker is looking for one or two lucky individuals to be our interns and, if you play your cards right, it might just be you. Basically, it boils down to willingness for, nay a passion to excel at, picking up Carney’s dry cleaning. Are you man enough for the job? If not, please seek alternative employment via the DB Career Center. For those of you up to the task, read on.

So! We recently received a bunch of emails to the effect of “something’s wrong with the site,” “where are the posts,” “how come I can’t comment?” The reason for all of these problems is that you guys were logging on to the site incorrectly. I don’t how you all did it at the same time, but bravo!

Unemployed? Consider rectifying that with BlackRock (as an analyst), DE Shaw (as something vague but in Bermuda!) or recently downgraded Goldman Sachs (who’s looking for a campus recruiter. I threw that one in as a joke but I think some of you could really thrive in the position). [DB CC]

Also, if you are a portfolio or asset manager, the ad people in this asylum would like to know if:

It was just about two years ago that we got this experiment in gossip, news, analysis, commentary, jokes and dirty talk underway. It’s been more successful than we ever could have hoped. Our readers are largely responsible for this success. We have become a clearing house for underground market news thanks to our tips and comments. And our comment section has become such a great source of information and community that we launched a community page to let the commenters have a section of their very own, where you can start new topics or continue discussions long after they’ve left the main pages for the afterworld of our archives.

We won’t go on trumpeting our successes here. Rather, we’re just going to take the opportunity to promise you that we’re continuing to expand and improve. Thanks so much for reading, drinking and commenting with us.

On a personal note—one that demands I drop our sacred “royal we” style—I’m very grateful for everyone who has helped make DealBreaker work. I’m headed off for a long overdue vacation in South East Asia. I’ll miss you all dearly. I’m leaving the keys to the DealBreaker mansion in the capable hands of Bess, Joe and Equity Private for the rest of April. If you have any tips on South East Asia, feel free to email me at john@dealbreaker.com.

Remember, you can always reach DealBreaker by emailing tips@dealbreaker.com, calling 212-334-1871 or texting us at 973-495-0177.

Nobody leaves 'til we get there!

In our continuing (and continually failing) effort to provide the finest in financial musings for our readers, we at DealBreaker are pleased to announce that Equity Private, author of the much-loved Going Private blog has joined DealBreaker as a Guest Editor at least until May 1st. Ms. Private will be filling in for John Carney, who is fortunate enough to be departing for a month to enjoy a well deserved, and somewhat overdue vacation, April 4th.

For those of you who have been hiding under a rock for the last two years, Equity Private is a pseudonymous Vice President at the equally pseudonymous "Sub Rosa," a New York based, middle market, private equity firm focused on leveraged buyouts.

Ms. Private either holds a MA/MBA or a JD/MBA (though she refuses to tell anyone which) from a top tier university. We don't know which university, of course, but given her rather overt animosity for one in particular, we're pretty sure it isn't Stanford. Either way she has too many degrees, and not enough beachfront property in Sardinia (500' really doesn't cut it anymore).

I took a break from writing about JPMorgan and Bear Stearns all day to have a little chat with the newest edition to the stable.

Bess Levin: So, Equity, you'll be with us from now until Carney returns at the end of April (at which point I'll be taking a month off to just chill by the way). Are you intimidated at the prospect of having to fill Carney's (proverbially) big shoes.

*Messing...

We'd like to know a little about you. Our reader survey helps us create content that better fits what you want to read. More importantly, it helps us sell the advertisements that pay us to bring you DealBreaker content every day. Please take a few moments to fill out this survey and let us know a little about you.

No, just messing (that would be quite the story though, wouldn't it?) But now that I have your attention, how 'bout you take that survey again, the one we put up Friday but which was inaccessible after 11 due to technical difficulties? I know it's a gigantic favor to ask so, in a show of anticipated gratitude, I've arranged for Carney to streak naked through Bear Stearns at approximately 2 pm, making stops at all relevant desks (we'll have an intern following him with a camera and a clip up shortly thereafter). This one-time gift is predicated on at least 10,000 filling out the quick and painless form found below, so forward it to your friends and get cracking.

Survey [DealBreaker]

Favor time! The ad people in this asylum would like you to take a second or five to fill out the survey below. Do that for us, and as a thank you, we'll continue to provide you with free content. Sound good? Good.

Now for something unrelated (though in my mind everything connects). The Guardian ran an item today that wondered aloud, "Can Rupert Murdoch's nascent Fox Business network get any less classy?" and proceeded to mention two previous DealBreaker posts ("Art Cock, Sans Smock" and "Hot Sluts Are The One Thing Fox Business Can Do Right And They Can’t Even Do That") in what appeared to be the G's effort to say "no." While we appreciate the link love, we have to say that A. We don't think FBN is class-less (apologies if we've given that impression) and B. Trying to prove that FBN is a whorehouse is like trying to nail down that J. Cayne smokes dope-- wasn't it obvious anyway? Plus, thing of it is and this relates back to point A., I think Fox's problem is that it's trying to be TOO classy. No need to gussy up a whorehouse. First off (and I don't really have time for this but I'll shoot off a few quick ideas and then it's up to whoever's running that place to implement), we can't help but thinking the station needs a new name. No more "FBN." From here on out, it's Randy Rupert's Chicken Ranch. There should be an orgy going on in the background of "Happy Hour" at all times, like in Caligula, and next week, Cody needs to have sex with a horse. I would also strongly encourage a Cavuto segment called "Business Bukkake." And wouldn't a recurring feature with "Business For Breakfast" guests called "Who Would You Do" (they pick among Wall Street leaders, dead or alive) just make sense?

Survey [DealBreaker]
A Dirty Business [The Guardian, last item]

We receive a pretty consistent stream of requests from bloggers that we add their blog to our blog roll. Readers often write in suggesting their favorite blogs be added. Our response over the past year has been to concede that our blogroll is terribly out of date--it hasn't been changed since we set it up two years ago--and to promise to take a look at the blog and consider adding it when we finally get around to updating the thing. And for two years that day never came.

But now that day is here. As part of our rollout of new features, we're going to add a new and improved blogroll. So if you've got a favorite blog that you think should be added, please write to us. Or leave a comment below. If you're a blogger and you think DealBreaker readers would love your site, please get in touch. We're really doing it this time, and we want it to be the most comprehensive listing of great business and finance blogs around. Send your emails to Tips@DealBreaker with the subject line "Blogroll." Thanks!

Last week DealBreaker debuted our new look and several new features. Most of the site will still operated the way it always has. Our main column will carry the latest news, rumors and humor from the same stable of writers. Our comment section remains open to anonymous comments, and you can keep up with the most recent reader comments by clicking on the tab above. We still bring you the latest in Wall Street job offerings in our Career Center.

Our new features include a featured stories section on the top of the page, where recent important stories and classic DealBreaker items will be spotlighted. We’ll continuously poll our readers—whom we regard as our best sources for news, gossip and market intelligence—with a permanent poll featured in the center column. You’ll notice the center column also contains two new features—a column highlighting the new “DealBreaker Community” section and “Elsewhere.” The DealBreaker Community is an opportunity for reader to really shine. There you can start a conversation or pick up where one left off. It’s the place for readers to break new stories and start new conversations. Elsewhere will highlight the best stories of the day from all around these here internets. In the column on the far right, we've enabled you to sort items by the most read, most commented and most recommended.

There are now more ways to read and organize DealBreaker, and your chance to personalize your experience by registering with us. Several readers have reported problems registering—in particular, the inability to register certain user names or not getting confirmation emails. The confirmation emails are probably being swallowed up by spam filters. If you have attempted to register, or have any other problems with the site, please email us at tips@dealbreaker and we’ll get it manually ironed out.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Every now and then we like to ask our readers some questions about themselves. We think this helps us chart our editorial course so that we’re you providing the most useful news, salacious rumors, irresponsibly sourced items and contentious ranting. But even more than helping with our editorial direction, it helps our advertisers decide whether we have the kind of audience that might be interested in buying their products.

Sometimes our readers are shocked we’d engage in radical commercial activity such as helping advertisers learn more about our readers. They demand to know why they should help us do anything so terrible as sell ads. Well, the simple reason is that you should help us because this is how we make money. The site is totally free of charge; our bills are paid by our advertisers. Without these ads—and without your help selling them by filling out these rare, brief and anonymous surveys—we would simply cease to exist. Bess Levin would have to get a real job. The other editors would simply fade away into unemployment, gin-mills and the charity of girls with too much money and poor judgment.

Today’s reader survey is particularly short. We want to know your answer to two whole questions. Go ahead and take the survey, please.

Reader Survey [DealBreaker]

We’ve been members of nearly every major social networking site that’s come around. One thing we’ve discovered is that social networking is a lot like dating. When you first come across a new networking site it can be very, very exciting but once the bloom is off the flower, so to speak, interest tends to wane. The stats for the big social networking sites seem to bear this out: after the initial rush of interest and time spent exploring, usage seems to die off.

So what’s wrong with social networking? Well, as The Long Tail author and Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson has explained, part of the problem is that social networking should not be a destination on the web but a feature of good websites. Flickr and YouTube, for instance, have from their beginnings used social networking in this way—turning users of other services into a social network. Especially in its early months, YouTube felt very much like a social networking community.

This leads us to something we’re been toying with for nearly a year here at DealBreaker. Our commenters and emailers are already something of a community, with many regular participants in our comments section adopting regular and instantly recognizable handles or pseudonyms such as Bulging Bracket, Random Banker, Anal_lyst, BSD and Zbignew. We’d like to take this further, allowing permanent profiles for commenters, where readers can track discussions, get in touch with each other and keep conversations going even after certain discussions have moved off the main page. Our creation of the “Recent Comments” page was the beginning of this effort but it is a mere seed for what we hope will eventually grow into a much more interesting social network, user-generated part of our pages.

[More on social networking DealBreaker-style after the jump.]

Through the early morning mists of October 12th, 1492, a sailor on board the Spanish vessel Pinta looked out toward the horizon and saw land land. The next day, the 90 crew members of Christopher Columbus's three-ship fleet ventured onto the Bahamian island he called San Salvador, ending a voyage begun nearly ten weeks earlier in Palos, Spain.

The twelfth day of October is celebrated throughout much of the Americas, particularly the Spanish speaking nations. But in the United States this year we celebrate Columbus Day on October 8th because the federal government prefers it that way. Which brings to mind Ambrose Bierce's quip that "History is an account, mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools."

When it comes to holidays, at DealBreaker we usually take our instructions from the New York Stock Exchange. Except our publisher, who seems to have a special reverence for either Columbus or three-day weekends or the bond market, has declared that on this occasion we shall take our cue from Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who made Columbus Day a national holiday) and Richard Nixon (who declared that it would always fall on the second Monday in October). So last night we dutifully went down into the bowels of the Knights of Columbus hall on the far side of Prospect Park, and raised many a bottle in honor of Columbus and his great achievement, nothing less than bringing America to the attention of western civilization. In a strange twist, our drinking companions were firemen and cops who cheered for the Cleveland Indians to beat the Yankees.

We'll open up this comment thread so that our readers can comment on the financial news of the day in our absence. Another way of showing our appreciation and trust in our readership. Feel free to show our publisher that we're irrelevant and the site can keep going even without writers and editors!

Money may never sleep but on this special Monday the DealBreaker team will. Tonight we celebrate the spirit of Columbus with a good bottle of Italian red, perhaps a Fontodi. We return tomorrow for our usual mischief.

Update: It just occurred to us that today might be a great day for our newer readers to browse through our archives and see why everyone is talking about DealBreaker. Long-time readers might want to catch up on some of our classics. One year ago today, for instance, we discovered that some Yale Student improbably named Aleksey Vayner had sent a link to his video resume along with his regular, paper and ink resume. And a legend was born.

Update II: The nice folks over at TheStreet.com were kind foolish enough to invite us over for a wine tasting. We were joined by some very lovely women and everyone's favorite former hedge fund manager, Tim Sykes. Thanks TSC. And to the ladies, we're sorry we drank so much and acted that way. But the wine was terrific, you were beautiful, and we couldn't help ourselves!

Update III: More news from the mating market. The New York Times picks up the trail of the author of last week's response to the Craig's List girl who is now-known as Miss Golddigger. But they come up with nothing but denials. The hunt continues! (Oh, hey! If you are the author, or know who is, please contact us. We'd love to interview you. And, don't worry, we'll protect your identity with everything we've got!)

Update IV: It's our day off. So why are we updating so much? We miss you!

Update V: For all our Canadian reader s , happy Thanksgiving! If you are unfamiliar with this holiday, you can read here all about how it originated, was transformed by loyalists who fought against the American revolution, and later was moved by the government from its traditional date to the second Monday in October.

[Ed. note: The deadline for this once-in-a-lifetime offer has been extended until 5 p.m. today, so if you missed out last week, here's your chance.]

Market volatility taking up too much of your time to read all of DealBreaker? Locked in a conference room while closing a deal with no access to the web? Boss banned DealBreaker from the monitors at work?

We’ve got a solution. Now you don’t have to miss any of DealBreaker. As some of you already know, DealBreaker offers a daily newsletter, via email. We encourage you to subscribe.

You can sign up by entering your email address in the "Daily Newsletter" box, which appears in the grey box on the lefthand column of DealBreaker, and clicking "Subscribe." In case you're wondering, we won't sell your email address to a third party, spam you, or pepper you with questions about how your investments are doing. It's just the newsletter.

As a special thanks, if you subscribe in the next 24 hours, you'll receive a promotional code that's good for a free month of Sunday Silver. In case you're not familiar with it, Sunday provides you with the services of a personal assistant—which we’re sure the overworked traders and investment bankers and among you will appreciate in these turbulent times.

More details about the service, including the fine print for this offer, after the jump.

Market volatility taking up too much of your time to read all of DealBreaker? Locked in a conference room while closing a deal with no access to the web? Boss banned DealBreaker from the monitors at work?

We’ve got a solution. Now you don’t have to miss any of DealBreaker. As some of you already know, DealBreaker offers a daily newsletter, via email. We encourage you to subscribe.

You can sign up by entering your email address in the "Daily Newsletter" box, which appears in the grey box on the lefthand column of DealBreaker, and clicking "Subscribe." In case you're wondering, we won't sell your email address to a third party, spam you, or pepper you with questions about how your investments are doing. It's just the newsletter.

As a special thanks, if you subscribe in the next 24 hours, you'll receive a promotional code that's good for a free month of Sunday Silver. In case you're not familiar with it, Sunday provides you with the services of a personal assistant—which we’re sure the overworked traders and investment bankers and among you will appreciate in these turbulent times.

More details about the service, including the fine print for this offer, after the jump.

It is now time that I bid you all adieu (albeit teary-eyed and heartbroken). I have enjoyed my internship here at DealBreaker more than any other internship I've had (slim pickings). I've had the privilege of exploring the deep, dark underbelly that is the DealBreaker dungeon and have had an exposure to the lovely, heartwarming comments that you, DealBreaker reader, have adorned me with.

From a meager start of mammaries to a grand finale of Rupert Murdoch, my just over eight weeks here have been a blast. From shocking secrets revealed at the Shake Shack to hoity-toity evenings at the NYPL to Dow Jones employees at the Corporate Challenge to iPhone launch coverage (by far the most fun), my photo essays have shocked millions dozens throughout the nation.

The people who work here are awesome. Bess, Keith, David, and John, thank you so much for everything including the opportunity to work with you for a short while. It has really been an excellent experience for me and I wish you all the best throughout the next months as DealBreaker undoubtedly grows to uncharted territories and new heights.

[Ed.'s note: we have released the hostage.]

Still at work? We are too. Maybe we all need better jobs. Here’s a start. DealBreaker combed through the DealBreaker Career Center to pick out some of the highlights.

• A leading investment bank needs a foreign exchange prime brokerage client service representatives. Must work well with hedge funds.

• Client services not your cup of tea? Try out for this job as a senior fixed income analyst at an investment bank.

• A hedge fund is looking for someone to get started as a trading analyst. Little or no experience necessary. Problem solving skills get you in the door.

• A private equity group is looking for a third-year analyst for its financial institutions group.

• Much more in the Career Center.