Andy Baio leaving Yahoo! deserves more than 255 characters.

First: it took me a while to get into it, but I freakin’ love Upcoming. If nothing else, it’s a way for me to point where I’m going to be. I began professing my love for Upcoming about a year ago, and Andy taking a personal interest in my issues really helped me come to love it more. I use it a lot, if for nothing else than tour data publishing for Andy Osenga, Caedmon’s Call, Derek Webb, and the rest of the Square Peg Alliance. In fact, were I in my own band, I would totally leverage Upcoming to announce all my tour dates. So, all that Andy did to build Upcoming … well, dude, thank you. You rock.

Second: as Andy notes, Waxy.org took a nosedive when he started Upcoming and it really gathered steam:

In case you haven’t noticed, Waxy.org went into cryogenic sleep shortly after we were acquired as all my energy went into building and growing Upcoming. I’ve missed writing and coding here badly, so I’m thrilled to make a second announcement:

Next year, I’m focusing exclusively on Waxy.org and related coding projects. What does that mean? Yes, more links, but also the same flavor of original research and investigative journalism I’ve done in the past, though on a daily basis instead of the quarterly (ack!) schedule I maintained this year.

I’m going to be taking some time off for the rest of the year to travel and get things in order (e.g. I’m long due for a redesign), so don’t expect things to really get moving until the first week of January. Stay tuned to the feed for details.

Let’s put it this way: there are few Weblogs I read where I stop everything I’m doing, shut down all my continuous partial attention devices, and focus on the writing. Rands in Repose is one; Waxy is another. Examplia gratis: Waxy on sex baiting on Craigslist.

So Andy: thanks. Rest up. Cheers. I owe you several beers on general principles.