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Pretty much everyone worth a shit has left town for the week, so what you're left with is me: the walking, blogging, tobacco-chewing publishing-industry-mistake known as "Rob the Bouncer." I write a legendary blog called Clublife, which will be on something of a hiatus this week while I'm busy running Gawker into the ground.

Before I begin doing that, however, we need to get something straight and get it straight immediately: they couldn't find anyone else. What you'll discover, probably within the next hour or so, is that I don't know shit about shit. Nor, quite frankly, do I care. I'm like a substitute teacher with nothing to lose. Someone gave me a bottle of scotch at the door last Saturday night, and there's a strong possibility I'll have opened the son-of-a-bitch by my third post or so.

All I'm saying is this: go easy, rest assured I know all you happy sophisticates are exponentially smarter than me, and be patient while I figure this out. I should be able to fake it reasonably well by Thursday. - Rob