Ran screaming into the night, came back and had a cup of tea

Whoa, where am I? What is this place? It feels familiar, like I've been here before, perhaps in a past life when I was a one-eyed shaman named Sparkplug.

Oh no, wait, it's just my blog! I've been away so long, I almost didn't recognize the place. Hello, nerdy references to literary characters! Lovely day, allusions to my awesomely embarrassing antics! Good morn, hatred of winter and mean comic book store clerks!

I wish I had some cool story about where I've been the past month, but you know what they say, wish in one hand, poop in the other and see which hand fills up first. I've been doing a bunch of other writing that none of you get to see yet, a good deal of hanging out with friends, and even a fair bit of being very popular and important, but nothing worth reporting.

Still, I feel like I should have something interesting to offer on my first day back. Ummm--oh, how about Kill Shakespeare, a new webcomic about the best good guys and the best bad guys from William Shakespeare's plays squaring off against each other in an epic quest to find the Wizard (who is Shakespeare!) and win their freedom?

Not enough? That's fair, Shakespeare isn't for everyone. Okay, how about this article from io9.com about the 10 greatest modern-day recreations of ancient technologies? The author has many nice things to say about the Hokule'a voyaging canoe and includes a video of master navigator Nainoa Thompson discussing the ongoing significance of the vessel and her voyages. You don't often run across references to Hawaii in the netwebs that aren't centered around tourism or surfing, so this is a welcome little tastycake.

Just not feeling it? Okay, here's a link to a long talk given by Douglas Adams at the University of Santa Barbara. If the author of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" doesn't tickle your fancy, well, your fancy needs a good, firm spanking.