The Writer Who Tried to Vanish
http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2/

How Can I Get My … (What people searching google are looking for)
http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=704

The Significant Objects Project
http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=708

How to Avoid Camera Loss
http://www.dailygifblog.com/2009/12/how-to-avoid-camera-loss.html

Haitians to blame: Robertson
http://www.theage.com.au/world/haitians-to-blame-robertson-20100114-ma3i.html

Ekaterina Sedia: On exoticism of language
http://fishmonkey.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-exoticism-of-language.html

Inside Australia’s Cyber Security Operations Centre
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Inside-the-Defence-Signals-Directorate/0,130061744,339300441,00.htm

Chinese Farmer Builds Robot Army
http://www.weirdasianews.com/2008/12/08/chinese-farmer-builds-robot-army-cybernauts-move/

Drake Equation explains lack of aliens, girlfriends
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/13/drake-equation-expla.html

Most of the published short stories (as opposed to drafts of friends’ stories) I read in 2009 were from online magazines.

I read them on my computer or downloaded them to my Palm Pilot and read (or listened to) them while I was commuting.  I noticed that I’ve got less patience with stories I read in electronic format.  If I’m sitting down with a book, I’ll generally give a story more of a chance.  But with stories in electronic format, if they haven’t grabbed me by the first paragraph, I’m likely to discard them and move on to the next one.

I didn’t read any original anthologies last year.  I just got my hands on Eclipse 3, The New Space Opera 2 and The Apex Book of World SF and am looking forward to reading them this year.

Here are my ten favorite short stories I read in 2009 (several of them were published a few years ago).

Death and Suffrage
Dale Bailey
The dead have risen and are voting democrat.  Funny and moving.

Shoggoths in Bloom
Elizabeth Bear
Winner of the 2009 Hugo for best novelette.  An interesting and thoughtful blend of Cthulhu mythos and race relations.

The Tale of Junko and Sayuri
Peter S. Beagle
A slow-paced, but carefully drawn tale of mythical creatures in ancient Japan.

Exhalation
Ted Chiang
Along with Greg Egan, Ted Chiang is my favorite short story writer.  I don’t think there is anyone else that compares with the sheer granduer of Egan’s and Chiang’s ideas.  Exhalation won the 2009 Hugo for best short story.  It’s a bit drier and slower than some of Chiang’s other stories, but still contains some remarkable ideas.

Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast
Eugie Foster
Manages to successfully pack a whole range of interesting world-building ideas into a short story.

A Study in Emerald
Neil Gaiman
Sherlock Holmes versus Cthulhu.  What’s not to love?

Orange
Neil Gaiman
A quirky, fun story in an unusual format.

Article of Faith
Mike Resnick
A robot wants to know why he is excluded from the church’s congregation.

The Death of Che Guevara
Lewis Shiner
A thoughtful alternate world history story speculating on what might have happened if Che didn’t die in Bolivia.  I loved it, but I suspect that if you’re not familiar with Che’s history, a lot of the story might be lost on you.

From Babel’s Fallen Glory We Fled
Michael Swanwick
A well-crafted story with interesting aliens and technology.

Tehani Wessely has announced the table of contents for the forthcoming 12th Planet Press kids’ sf/f/h anthology, Worlds Next Door.

http://editormum.livejournal.com/218142.html

I’m fortunate enough to be sharing the table of contents with two of my Clarion South classmates, Angela Slatter and Angie Rega.

Beware of Science Fiction
http://wayoflife.org/files/2fd19aa02a25c87c4946a653a20f1344-486.html

Jeff VanderMeer on Seven Points to Consider When Submitting Short Fiction
http://booklifenow.com/2010/01/booklife-seven-points-to-consider-when-submitting-short-fiction/

5 Lies Writers Believe About Editors
http://www.jeremiahtolbert.com/2009/5-lies-writers-believe-about-editors/

Don’t Eat the Marshmallow…Yet

Random Bizarre Photos from around the Japanese Interwebs
http://qjphotos.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/random-bizarre-photos-from-around-the-japanese-interwebs/

100 Games Cupcake Game
http://www.steelheadstudio.com/100cupcakes/

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski
http://www.runleiarun.com/lebowski/

Ten Things You Need to Stop Tweeting About
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/twitter_stop

100 Extraordinary Examples of Paper Art
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/05/100-extraordinary-examples-of-paper-art/

Internet Review of Science Fiction Suspending Publication in 2010.
I enjoyed reading the site and had two articles published there.
http://irosf.com/news-item.qsml?id=220

Paul McAuley on depicting science in fiction
http://unlikelyworlds.blogspot.com/2009/12/sciencefiction.html

Weird Books
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/books/weird/index.shtml

Japan planned ‘karate ladies’ escort for Thatcher
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8433689.stm

Chinese Man Throws Bicycle at Thieves on Scooter

The BBC’s most read story of 2009.
60-foot penis painted on roof
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/newsbeat/newsid_7961000/7961224.stm

Allah helps Nigerian man to have 86 wives
“A man with 10 wives would collapse and die, but my own power is given by Allah. That is why I have been able to control 86 of them,”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7547148.stm

Why people don’t want to believe in things they don’t think they can change.
The Psychology of Climate Change Denial
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/climate-psychology/