With the web writing anthology cranking full speed ahead, I thought I’d post the final list of included sites, as it features a handful not mentioned in the prior list:

• Acerbia
• Bazima
• Bluish Orange
• Brokentype
• Bryan Adams Blog
• Constellate
• Deeply Shallow
• Defective Yeti
• Dooce
• Empty Bottle
• Erasing
• Eurotrash
• Fireland
• Fly in the Honey
• Fool’s Paradise
• Geese Aplenty
• Idle Words
• Leslie Harpold
• Little Yellow Different
• London Mark
• Oblivio
• Open All Night
• Le Petit Hiboux
• Que Sera Sera
• Rhetorical Device
• Rosecrans Baldwin
• Smitten
• Sour Bob
• Tequila Mockingbird
• Why God Why

Very exciting stuff.

As the old version of s-a was so 2002, I’m switching the site over to this new look. I don’t have much (read ‘any’) free time in my schedule at the moment, so the site likely won’t be switched over completely until this weekend; sorry for any technical problems between now and then.

For those curious, the list of authors for Cyan Publishing’s upcoming Best Web Writing anthology:

• Acerbia
• Brokentype
• Bryan Adams Blog
• Constellate
• Deeply Shallow
• Defective Yeti
• Dooce
• Easily Smitten
• Empty Bottle
• Erasing
• Eurotrash
• Fireland
• FTrain
• Geese Aplenty
• Idle Words
• Leslie Harpold
• Little Yellow Different
• London Mark
• Oblivio
• Open All Night
• Le Petit Hiboux
• Que Sera Sera
• Rhetorical Device
• Rosecrans Baldwin
• Sour Bob
• Tequila Mockingbird
• Why God Why

I’m still talking with three other writers, who I hope to rope in by the end of the week; that should bring the total count up to 30. (A brief side note: there are many, many other great writers online, many of whom I read regularly. To get to these thirty, we started with a list of nearly 100 sites, which was narrowed down by the book’s editorial panel. I really, totally, sincerely and completely hope nobody is offended by their name not appearing here; any such authors should simply write it off as my and the panel’s inability to recognize true genius even when it’s staring us in the face.)

At this point, I’m collecting a list of solid posts from each author, which the ed. panel will be narrowing down to the final assortment of pieces. So, if you read any of these sites regularly and care to recommend anything they’ve written that’s particularly stellar, I’d greatly appreciate your shooting me an email.

At some level, I know people read this site. I open the server log every week or so and pour through the statistics, marveling at the number of visitors who make their way to this corner of the internet. Yet that count is so much staggeringly higher than I can possibly account for among friends – real-life or digital – that I don’t really connect the list of IP addresses with actual people sitting at their computers.

On the other hand, after years of running companies, I’ve amassed a few thousand colleagues in my Outlook contact list, and certainly any of those people might also be Googling me up, stumbling across this site and following along. Still, for whatever reason, I simply never assume that any of those people – the ones I know through business rather than pleasure – regularly read what I say here. It’s therefore a shock when, for example, an investment banker Cyan is working with tells me his daughter is wildly amused by the photo of me with a finger up my nose.

Similarly, I vividly recall, just before starting Cyan, going into the office of the CEO of the company I was consulting for to tell him that my new startup would force me to pack up my bags and leave his company. The CEO was a personal friend, and as the company was already rather short-staffed for its burgeoning workload, I felt rather guilty about it, didn’t quite know how to have the conversation. “I have something I need to tell you,” I told him. “As much as I’ve enjoyed working here, I think I’m going to have to leave soon to start a new company.”

“I know,” he replied. “I read that on your site about an hour back.”

Having, in recent weeks, gone from my long-standing stance of pretending the rest of the blogging world didn’t exist, to begrudgingly acknowledging that the people reading this site might have interesting things to add, might even write interesting things on their own sites, I now take the final step, by admitting that I regularly read those interesting people’s interesting sites, and recommending that you do to: some good blogs.

I am exceedingly proud to say I’ve picked up an Owlie for “Funniest Use of Unabashed Egotism/Scariest Ladder-Climbing Blogger”.

Ah, the power of sleeping my way to the top.

Daily visitors by unique IP address:

7/12/03: 4,324
1/12/04:&nbsp &nbsp 512

Sheesh. Quit blogging for a couple of months and things get awful quiet around here.

Every time I come back to blogging, I remember what a remarkably, painfully slow writer I am.

In newly re-minting this blog, I’ve made several breaks with long-standing self-aggrandizement tradition. Today, I make one more: you, faithful readers, will now be able to comment on my postings.

Sure, comment systems are nothing new, and an ever-increasing number of bloggers are playing host to the happily chattering communities that often evolve within the framework of such sites. But for years, despite requests to the contrary, I strongly resisted that trend. Why? Quite simply, I just didn’t care what you had to say. The whole point of self-aggrandizement is that it’s about me, me, me. Have something to say yourself? Start your own damn blog. Have something to say to me? Write an email. Besides, as several regular readers pointed out in such emails, for whatever reason, my writing style often ‘leaves very little else to be added’. Why then even bother with comments?

And, even if just by email, I did frequently hear from readers. My recent latke essay, for example, spurred nearly two dozen people to email in their reactions, from latke-cooking tips to reflections on the nature of religion, with a heap of vague praise (‘you write very well!’) lumped in between. But, as I read through one such email, it suddenly occurred to me that I’d been looking at things all wrong. Comments aren’t a break from the hyperbolic narcissism this site is meant to embody; they’re an extension of it. Comments wouldn’t just be people talking – they’d be people talking about me!

With that stunning realization in mind, I had no choice but to include comments on the site. After quickly retooling the s-a code, comments will now take their rightful place below each of my entries. So, go ahead. Opine away. Just remember, it’s still all about me.

I know, I know. I supposedly quit this weblog thing for good, cold turkey, just two months back. But, I swear to god, weblogging is more addictive than crack. Plus, while I still am aiming to write the longer sort of articles that precipitated the move away from blogging, I realized quickly that I often had short tidbits to share that didn’t really justify pages of their own. Hence this iteration of the site, which blends a weblog on the front page with hierarchically organized long-form content throughout the rest of the site.

And, yes, quitting and un-quitting is nothing unusual in the weblog world. (Welcome back HJ!) Hell, I’ve done it at least yearly myself since logging my first post nearly five years back. So, in celebration of my utter predictability, I close with this comeback quote from one of my un-quits two years back: “Yes, boys and girls, like a veritable phoenix rising from its digital ashes, the daily dose of vitriol returns. Sorry mom, but it’s cheaper than therapy.”