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Despite what our recent coverage of Budget Travel might suggest, we don't have it out for the Newsweek-owned publication. We'd actually much rather document gay magazine cover rip-offs, BlackBook writers revolts, and daytime TV cancelations. But under editor Erik Torkells, BT continues to bleed, and we continue to make art installations from the O-negative.

After we were the first to tell you about the departure of Torkells' No. 2, Pegi Goodman, who stopped, dropped, and rolled out the door soon after senior editor Nina Willdorff decamped to American Express' Travel + Leisure, we're checking in with news not about an exit, but about a prohibition on an entrance. We're told publisher Nancy Telliho hasn't been allowed to hire a new ad director ever since Bruce Ellerstein left over the summer — which might make boosting ad pages and pleasing The Man, you know, a little hard.

But if not a new ad director, then perhaps a new publisher? Could Telliho be on the way out?

We're also told former Travel + Leisure associate publisher Robert Tramondo – ousted along with T+L's publisher Ellen Asmodeo over egregious expense accounts – has been meeting with BT brass about the top job. It's worth noting, as per our July item announcing Tramondo's exit, that he (and Asmodeo) ranked among the lowest in a survey of AmEx Publishing staffers; he was also said to have no respect among his staff, likely connected to his favorite hobby of assailing them in public.

Also checking in for a job interview is Craig Pavia, the former group publisher for Travel Savvy and Business Traveler. (In case you were wondering, he too was involuntarily removed from his spot.) Pavia has also put in time at T+L.

It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Or Erik Torkells loses his job, and we're forced to find a new punching bag.