‘Cause I, well, forgot to post yesterday. I remembered at one point during the afternoon, but I hadn’t yet picked a thing to post about, and then next thing I know it’s, well, now. (And I already did the meta “get out of jail free” thing with being thankful for days off. Clearly, weekends are hard.)

So I’m thankful that you all forgive me for missing a day. You do forgive me, right? Right???

To avoid totally copping out on this post, though, I’m going to be thankful for the internet more generally. I was talking with kniedzw the other night about signal to noise ratios in our current society, and he complained about internet searches: fifteen years ago he could go to Altavista or whatever and type in [some kind of techie query; I can’t remember what his example was] and turn up a useful tutorial on how to do that thing. Now he has to wade past various auto-generated SEO traps to get to the actual info. I conceded this may be true . . . but on the other hand, fifteen years ago I doubt Altavista could have pointed me at an online account of the exact route taken by Elizabeth I’s coronation procession. The Internet back then was a paradise for techie topics, maybe, but not so much for everything else.

These days, I may indeed have to wade past random crap — but the information is out there, so often it simply boggles me. I can, without leaving my office, look at a topographical map of the area around Dover Castle, or read back issues of the London Times, or get instructions on embroidery stitches. The sheer amount of info contained in Wikipedia alone is astronomical. When I try to imagine writing the Onyx Court series without the 2007-2010 Internet to help me out . . . well, actually, I try not to imagine that, since it leads to me curling up under my desk and wibbling. (I dunno. Maybe it would have been great, because I wouldn’t have had so much red meat to feed my obsessive tendencies.)

So I’m thankful for the Internet, and all its wonders.

You do forgive me, right?