You're probably pretty sick of reading posts from me that start off by complaining about how far behind on everything I am. So am I, for what it's worth. But a lot happened over the course of the ten days when I was gone, and I feel like I need to sift through it if I'm ever going to return to the state of continuous partial attention that I left.

It's tempting to just hit "mark all as read" on every feed in my reader, but I'd be a real jerk if I didn't point out that my friends did a lot of cool stuff while I was gone (or while I was too busy preparing to leave to link to anything). So, a few plaudits. If I left your amazing accomplishment off, well, I guess I'm still a jerk. I promise I'll write about it as soon as I read about it.

• Charles recorded an album! I got to witness the break-neck pace at which they threw this thing together. Their devotion to the process was impressive, but hearing Aaron sing the same apparently atonal chorus a million times left me gritting my teeth for an irritating final product. But I was pleasantly surprised — I think that this is the best stuff I've ever heard these two guys record (they collaborated with Bayes, but I've never heard anything he recorded). If you haven't gotten around to downloading the whole thing from Charles' site, here's a flash player that should let you pick and choose from the tracks. I'd suggest starting with track 7 — it's got a an impressively catchy (and New York-y) guitar hook that'll burrow straight into your cochlea and stay there.
  
  
• Congratulations to Heather for putting together DCist Exposed, which by all accounts was an enormous success. I haven't made it down to Warehouse yet to check out the photos, but I intend to tonight. Way to go.
• Sommer was interviewed by Fox 5 for their "Blogapalooza" feature and handled the ridiculous premise with grace, walking the line perfectly between promoting DCist and being impolite to her interviewer.
• Spencer's in motherfucking IRAQ! And he's issuing excellent dispatches here, there, and allegedly in various print outlets (paper is deprecated). I can't wait until he's safely home and the backlog of morbid jokes can be unleashed. In the meantime, go read his stuff. Hanging out with Spencer and witnessing the gallons of boundless energy that pour from him every second makes it easy to forget what a great writer he is. But god damn! Not only is he putting his ass on the line, he's wringing an amazing amount of humor from a dangerous and difficult assignment.
• Speaking of my writerly friends, Kriston's got articles all over the place. I hear the Guardian is opening a Florida Avenue bureau.
• Yglesias doesn't write about the news, he makes the goddamn news.
• Rounding out the flophouse's journalistic successes, Catherine's Washingtonian blog is off to a great start. Be sure to check out the glamor shot from her photostream of the Washingtonian web team. They look like they're promoting their new Fox show about doctor-cops who are also lawyers, yet find time to have complex romantic lives. William Shatner guest stars as the curmudgeonly but lovable Garrett Graff.
• Finally (because it's actually happening in the future), Ray's playing a show at DC9 on Sunday. I've seen his band before (at the Grog, no less) and can vouch for 'em. I intend to be there on Sunday; you should, too.