I've been busy on xml-dev, announcing a half-parser (yes, it's a parser that preserves the full text of the original XML document) and talking about Microsoft Office beta XML formats, with sample XML documents. (General, Access, Excel, Word).
I'll also be presenting on this stuff at the Open Source Conference in July. The last thing I presented there was Open Source, Open Data: What XML has to offer Open Source. Should be an interesting followup - I was thinking about .NET and XML then, but Office is both different and potentially more interesting in a lot of ways.
As for the rest of the world - ugh.