Sorry for the Paucity of Recent Posts

I've been busy with other things. If anyone has requests for post topics, feel free to make them in the comment thread below and I'll try to take a stab at them as time permits.

Thanks.

The Arc of a Typical Blog

From a post by John Scalzi last month (Hat Tip: commenter "Nate" on Megan McCardle's Atlantic blog):

The vast majority of blogs, in fact, have nothing but the following three posts:

Post One: “Here’s my blog! This is where I’m going to share all my thoughts about life, the universe and everything! It’s going to be great and I can’t wait to tell you all what I’m thinking about everything!”

Post Two: “Hey, sorry I haven’t updated in a while — life’s been crazy. But I’ll be back soon.”

Post Three: “Here’s a picture of my cat.”

And then it’s done.

Nothing wrong with this — writing on a regular basis is work, even when you’re ostensibly doing it for fun, and it shouldn’t be a surprise not a lot of people really want to work that hard. Also and perhaps more to the point, I suspect many people who start blogging realize fairly quickly that they either don’t like sharing all their thoughts to the world, or that their thoughts, while interesting to them, appear fairly banal once they’re typed out, and it’s better just not to post them for the sake of posting them. And there’s nothing wrong with this either, and indeed the blogger is to be congratulated of the bit of personal insight. Most blogs are abandoned because they should be.

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The Last Man on Earth To Start a Blog

That would be me. Not exactly an early adopter, to be sure. For some time I have been posting under the nome de Internet "DaveinHackensack" on a few different investing websites, mainly to organize my own thoughts and solicit feedback -- positive or negative -- on ideas. For most of this time, I resisted starting my own blog because it seemed pointless: the web has a surfeit of blogs already, so who needs to see mine? What caused me to change my mind was the gradual realization that I could profit more from correspondence with a handful of intelligent, intellectually flexible individuals than larger forums full of soi disant contrarians. My hope is that this blog will attract such a handful of correspondents.

As for the title of this blog, Hackensack is where I live. It's also the name of the river that runs alongside the city. Inspired by the example of The Atlantic, I figured I'd name my blog after this local, smaller body of water.

I plan to write about investing, politics (occasionally -- I am a recovering political junkie), and various other subjects that I find of interest, and -- more importantly -- think others might find of interest. Comments and criticisms will be welcomed and encouraged.