After blogging that Conan O'Brien is tweeting, I need a good long smart read to sink my brain into.

Thanks to Conor Friedersdorf, who collected a lot of them in his post The Best of Journalism (2009).

Throughout 2009, I kept a running list of the best journalism I encountered. Although I endeavored to remain as impartial as possible, note that I've been an employee of The Atlantic, that I'd eagerly write for numerous publications that received awards, that I have too many friends/acquaintances/professional contacts in journalism to disclose them all, and that the number of pieces I miss every year far exceeds the number I'm able to read.

In other words, this isn't an infallible account of journalism's best, but I aim to make it the best roundup that any one person can offer, one of these years I intend to do better than the committees who pick the Pulitzer Prizes and National Magazine Awards (the pressure's on, especially since you guys charge entry fees), and if nothing else my effort encompasses writing that is well worth your time.

My only complaint: When I went to read about the clone of the beloved bull Chance, who wasn't really a Second Chance despite his name, it turned out to be a 21-minute radio segment exactly halfway through this hourlong segment of Ira Glass's This American Life. Not bad -- great if I were about to drive to Coventry, Glass is good -- but not a read. I listened anyway, doing routine computer chores. It was really good.

(When blogging is spare, it means I'm coding Movable Type blogs again. More on that later.)