I’ve become intrigued by the web of the Internet, the interrelationship between sites and pages forming organically over time. I have been spending time trying to iron out some loopholes and gaps in my site content of late, because people have linked to stuff from here in the past that I have then lost or forgotten.

I, for example, didn’t realise that a good dozen sites linked to my short article on trepanning – once on the site and now restored. I’d hate to be the one stopping you from learning a little more about the practice of drilling holes in your own skull out of personal choice.

I have also restored a short piece I wrote after the death of Douglas Adams, who I also commemorate in some measure with my fan site Blerontin.com, and one on Random Acts of Kindness. I’ve been impressed by even a small web of links into my site, from small personal blogs to more widely read sites like The Register. For a time, I fear, I may have been the simplest guide to exactly what trepanning was, who did it and why. Scary!

I may reach a point where I can do everything from anywhere, with any device. Having discovered I can text to Twitter and email to Posterous, I can also reach my own blog, it would appear, via email as well. Whatever next? Facebook updates by carrier pigeon? MySpace by telegram?

It never ceases to make me wonder, and worry, just how connected we seem to have become. We have become willingly enslaved to our virtual social networks and yet at the same time they have set us free – or something like that.

Mind you, I’m saying this assuming the damned thing works at all!

I’d love to understand why I always seem to end up taking more time to have breakfast than anything else in the morning. If I want to get out early, I choose to have toast. If I want to get out really early, I skip breakfast altogether. A full toast, cereal and mug of coffee experience otherwise seems to consume a solid 20 minutes. Unless I’m stood in the kitchen looking out of the window while I’m doing it, in which case it takes less. If I’m working on the computer or reading, it might take more. Generally, however, breakfast time seems to create a sort of temporal viscosity in my morning schedule. I daresay I’m actually at fault, but it’s nice to have the alternative to blame the fabric of space/time instead.

I have a problem with the morning… I enjoy it too much when I have the chance to read the overnight news, catch up on forums, sip coffee and chew toast/cereal. I’m not so keen on the bit that involves running around, getting showered and changed, then forging off into the dark/cold towards work (through moderate to heavy traffic).

Can anyone suggest why this might be the case? Could I find some means to inject some of the sedate entertainment and enjoyment of the former into the stress-inducing trials of the latter?

Answers on a postcard…

Just watched Defiance. The Jews suffered incredibly in their efforts to survive – I’m thankful not to have been around during that dark time. As a retelling of a true story, it made harrowing viewing. My wife seemed stunned that it was based on true events. I’m stunned that we live in a society that stones fire engine crews and rapes old women… the lessons of intolerance from events such as a the Second World War seem to have fallen on deaf ears and ignorant minds.

Despite the fact Slumdog Millionaire has an uplifting conclusion, I don’t think I could stomach two movies with such a weight of woe in one evening. My fragile personality already sits on a grey and depressing precipice at the moment.

I’ll record ‘Slumdog’ and watch it later in the week or something. Instead, I shall retire and get some much needed rest. I have a copy of Arcadia waiting for me to finish it. My wife considers reading plays before bedtime a little odd, but I have to read it somewhere and somehow the lavatory doesn’t seem to be appropriate. Are there certain works unsuitable for toilet reading? Do some books warrant more respect? Or more refinement, at least?