Post hoc, ergo propter hoc

Today was a good day, and I just wanted to blog it a bit before I talk about some other stuff that's been on my mind lately. First, you probably noticed (and by you, I mean the one person who reads this thing, other than me) that I haven't posted in awhile. There's been a few reasons for this, most of them having to do with me being really busy on this project at work. But it's sort of winding down now, and I have some time (before the next project begins) to step back and reflect on the technology industry as a whole. Someday, I hope to have enough time to sit back and reflect on my life as a whole, and the way things are going right now, that should probably be soon.
So, you know, that's why I haven't been writing. Spending most of my time listening and thinking. A couple of recent events spurred me to try a little writing again, and here they are, in no particular order:

• The death of Neal Pollack: In case you didn't see it (and unless you read Eschaton pretty frequently, you probably didn't), Neal Pollack died ** the other day. I remember getting Neal's Anthology of American Literature back in my senior year of college. I read it when I was on the plane out to Austin for a job interview, and man, I laughed my ass off. His death reminded me of the incredible joy I used to find in the written word, and its power to make a grown man wet his pants in row 24, seat F.
  
• The web became really interesting again. I use the web every frickin' day. It is a struggle to tear myself away from my laptop. It's probably unhealthy. And so on and so forth. But because it is so ubiquitous, I don't really think about it as something that is interesting in and of itself anymore. But that's changed lately, and it's primarily due to a new online crowd I've been hanging out with. Less of the political stuff, more techie. Back to the roots.
  

So that's my story. On to the substantive things.

** Neal didn't really die.