Mark Lisanti has posted, by his estimate, 9,000 to 10,000 posts since he began as the original, and anonymous, Defamer. This one today was the hardest:

After almost four years here at Defamer, I've decided it's finally time to move on. In an effort to keep this short and sweet, I'll be climbing out of the blogging hamster-wheel this Friday, and though I wish I had exciting news about where my next paycheck will be coming from (or some great story about why I'm leaving other than "it's time"), I'll probably just be taking a little hiatus to figure out what's next and work on some projects I haven't had the time or energy for since, oh, mid 2004: writing that might not involve typing in a tiny box in a browser window, eating the occasional lunch, spending lazy afternoons standing in front of the Chinese Theater in a loose-fitting Power Ranger costume, shaking down tourists for money. You know, how everyone in L.A. spends their idle hours.

OK! So that's that. I'd love to talk at length about what a truly amazing experience this has been (and it has been pretty amazing), but I've promised to save all the weeping, gnashing of teeth, and goodbyes until Friday, when I've scheduled a spectacular emotional breakdown; suffice it to say that the ambulance to Cedars Sinai has already been reserved.

I'm sure there's a backstory. There usually is when it comes to the turbulent Nick Denton blogging empire. But for Mark, job well done. He was outed as Defamer in 2004, you might remember, by Lloyd Grove and Esquire.