I’m back! A few of this blog’s more diligent readers will have noticed that I didn’t write any of the posts over the last week. Some things that might have tipped you off were the 100 percent increase in entries devoted to Cajun Cuisine (which, until reading the post, I had thought just meant adding hot sauce to stuff), the frequent and disturbing appearance of the words “love” and “hugs” on these pages (you can expect a dramatic decrease in this kind of new-age tomfoolery now that I’m back), and the fact that all of the posts were signed “Christine <3” (something I would only normally do in an emergency).

So thanks to everyone who held on while I was away—and for those of you who actually preferred Christine’s thoughtful, engaging, “feel-good” approach to blogging over my own vaguely coherent ramblings, you’ll be happy to hear that there’s another SXSW Interactive Media conference next year, so I expect she’ll be pressed into service again in March 2009. Anyway, here’s a picture of me looking cool:

-Jack

I’m at South by Southwest in Austin this week with some other folks from PETA’s Marketing Department, for the Interactive Media portion of their little festival. ‘Cuz I like to nerd out like that. The idea is that I’ll return an even more cutting-edge and, like, connected blogger than ever before. It’s my intention to learn how to use obnoxious Internet-speak more effectively and maybe spend more time dropping references to XHTML or whatever’s going on with my Twitter page—so you all have that to look forward to if I’m able to make the most of SXSW this week.

Anyway, the point is that my friend Christine will be running the PETA Files in my absence. Unlike some of the other folks who have been filling in for me in recent weeks, Christine is smarter, cooler, and generally more fabulous than I am. She’s like Jack 2.0. So, um, don’t get too attached. I’ll be back Wednesday.

Alistair Currie, the Senior Research and Campaigns Coordinator for PETA UK has an amazing piece in The New Statesman this week about the ethics of animal experimentation. If you’ve got a few minutes, you should definitely check that bad boy out. For some reason, there’s also a poll on the page asking whether “24-hour drinking is bad for society,” but I don’t recommend voting on it. It’s not particularly fulfilling.

Anyway, you can read Alistair’s great piece here. Lemme know what you think.