Rupert Murdoch (a.k.a. "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas Cheer/Corporate Sponsored Drink-Ups") has evidently elected to wait until the shareholders officially approve News Corp.'s acquisition of Dow Jones before including WSJers in the annual office holiday fete. Left out of Friday's semi-mandatory corporation outing, finance-y scribes evidently threw themselves a smaller party, involving pizza, cheap booze and a location extremely close to home: their insufferable work cubicles.

"I thought we were the crown jewel," moaned one [WSJ] staffer, who sent [NYMag's Intelligencer] this haiku summing up the festivities:

Make merry, they said. / Cake. Cookies. Juice. Soda cans. / But we ate at our desks.

That extra syllable in the last line? It stands for extra despair.