Bright and early tomorrow, I ship out for twelve days of much-needed vacation in Cambodia, where I intend to spend a lot of time seeing one of my good friends from college, touring temples, eating seafood, gawking at skies over Angkor Wat like this one, and lying on the beach. That itinerary doesn't include blogging (it's been a long year, guys) or answering email. Lest you be denied a steady diet of pop culture updates, though, I've asked a slate of guestbloggers so amazing you'll never want me back to take the reins while I'm away. They are:
-Representing the Grape Drink Mafia, PostBourgie's Shani. At her regular joint, Shani blogs about race, class, culture, and politics. She's a Californian who went to J-school in Washington D.C. and now works in New Jersey -- and she doesn't hate it. Shani has mad love for musicals, old movies, ignorant Southern rap, and The Roots. Her favorite film is "Flight of the Navigator" (Ed: Am I the only person who was scared to death by that movie?) and her favorite song is "Sophisticated Lady."
-From the ranks of fantastic rising college bloggers, and my adopted little brother, Dylan Matthews, who actually watched all of Star Trek: The Voyage Home while eating a cake poorly disguised as a Tribble with me this summer. Dylan is a staff writer for Campus Progress, and has written for The American Prospect, The New Republic, and Slate, as well as his personal blog. He also runs a small liberal magazine, Perspective, and DJs for Record Hospital, the underground rock division of WHRB 95.3 in Cambridge, MA. In his spare time, he pretends to go to college.
-Drawn from your own ranks, dear readers, is Ian, better known by his commenter handle and blog URL as GayAsXMas. Ian is originally from Cork in Ireland and has lived in London for over five years. He has a degree in journalism but realized that hard news reporting simply wasn't in his blood (Ed: which he's blogging about eloquently right now. You should really check it out.). He's currently communications manager for a national charity in the UK which works to ease the harm caused by drugs and blood borne viruses (especially Hepatitis C and HIV). His Grand Youthful Craze was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he is currently on the lookout for an exciting new obsession.
-And finally, and this is a special treat, the coolest couple I know, the husband-and-wife team of Rachael Brown and Bryan Hayes. Rachael is a staff editor at The Atlantic, and has written for that magazine, The Guardian, National Journal, and blogs frequently for DCist. She's also a former DC public school teacher, and a hot hand with arts and crafts. Bryan makes bread and kites and hopes to write science fiction and become an urban planner. When he isn't applying to graduate school and launching a new website -- for work -- writes the fantastic and fragmentary Knock Twice blog and frequently schools me on sci-fi in comments here. He also moderates the Carl Sagan fan site, Celebrating Sagan.
I hope you and they have a lot of fun together over the next twelve days. I'll miss you guys, and look forward to reading your emails and comments when I come back. And if folks are interested, I'll try to do some photo galleries and writeups of the cultural highlights.