November 23, 1999 I like information. I like lots of information. Most of the information I get can be categorized as useless information, but I like having it just the same. That's probably why, after 20 years out of high school, I decided to go to college - I needed to amass more information. I like statistic-type stuff the most. Little snippets that paint a quick picture and then are on their way. It would be cool to be the statistian at a football or hockey game...not that I know a hill of beans about either of those things, it's just an example, ok?? When I was visiting Terry's webpage a while back I noticed that he had the local weather on his home page.....neato. Just for kicks I clicked on the graphic and whoooosh, I was wisked off to the page that he must have gotten this from. What were the chances that I would find Kelowna there? Ha!! I did. So now Kelowna temperatures are posted on my homepage for all those interested in a snippet of information. Another webpage that I happened upon today is a snippet page itself. One piece of information....that's all it gives.....just one little piece of information....but I found the information so compelling that I had to bookmark it so I could go back many times and find out how the information has changed. And it does change....by the minute it changes. The problem now is that I find myself needing to check out the site all the time, I HAVE to know....it's obsessive I tell you. This little quest for knowledge may very well be my undoing. And far be it from me to keep this gem to myself.....please.....go there, inform yourself, and then YOU see if you can avoid ever going back again. Countdown This information gig really is all the rage. Hey, maybe that's why the Internet has caught on....hmmmm. But what price do you attach to information? If it's something I have in my head, and you want it in yours, do you pay me for it? What do I think it's worth? What do you think it's worth? I can tell you what link to follow to get a countdown....does this have value to you? Do you even care? Is something that I obsess about even a whim of a concern to you? It could be worth thousands of dollars to me, and not a plug nickel to you. In the material world we can congregate with others that share our needs, interests, tastes, loves and even hates....it's easy, it's tangible. But not so tangible is the stuff in our heads. And who's to say that this stuff is even right? It could just be fabricated to amuse me while I fool you. Or I may think it's real and right, but I remember it wrong, or my source of information was wrong. Knowledge is power. Mmm hmm....provided the knowledge can be proven with something tangible. But as the information age sucks us into its lair we lose the touchable, the tastable, the feelable. It's all turned inward. Our senses are becoming somehow tangled in our memory reserves, our imaginations, our dreams. I know this because, lately, I've been dreaming of things that seem so real I swear I've lived the experience. But no, it's just information. Information stored in memory banks and called back to RAM along the neuro-buses of brainwaves. How long before it's all virtual? Probably not as long as most us care to predict. As much as I love information, and as much as the information highway is the road I travel most, I don't want to lose what is real. Sometimes I feel reality slipping, just a teeny bit, into some abyss where it can't be recalled from. What emerges from the abyss is a thought, a snippet of information, an intangible moment that can only be felt and lived in the vast, lonely space of the mind. Home Ahead Back