You're My Favorite!

My "Favorites" list in my Web browser is starting to look a bit unruly, disorganized, and quite frankly, about a mile and a half too long.

I've been trying to do some housecleaning among the folders, and it's not an easy task. I think I'm going to have to start using some discretion as to what URLs I drag there, because I'm in danger of becoming buried in bookmarks.

On the surface, my setup isn't the worst. It's got a bare-bones structure to it, with specific folders for sports, reading, writing, music, technical stuff, hobbies, etc. And some of those folders have a level or two of subfolders in them. Looking good so far, right?

Then would someone please tell me where all these bookmarks come from?

Am I the only one who can go online with a specific purpose in mind, such as checking the rushing totals of Detroit Lions running backs over the past three years, and within a few quick clicks find myself staring at a site that compares the volume of asparagus and kohlrabi exported to the United States from Thailand?

With all due respect to Kevin Bacon, it's got to be nearly impossible to find the six degrees of separation there.

And somewhere along that path, I always seem to find a handful of sites that look interesting enough to drag to my Favorites, sometimes filed correctly, sometimes dropped haphazardly wherever they land, and most times never to be clicked again.

The folder that seems to be the most difficult to control (and this month is making it that much worse...or better, if you look at it from the right perspective) is the Blogs folder.

I read quite a few blogs, and have subscriptions to many in my Google Reader. But I'm also compelled to file them in my Favorites list as well. Currently, my Blogs folder has subfolders titled Top Shelf Bloggers, Blogs On Blogging, Blogs To Consider, Tech Stuff, NaBloPoMo and People I Know. Aside from those folders, there are about 27 billion loose bookmarks that were added to the Blogs folder before I created those subfolders, and haven't been filed yet.

The folder that's getting the most traffic this month, obviously, is the NaBloPoMo folder. Because while the month is mostly about paying attention to your own blog every day, for me it's also been about spending obscene amounts of time clicking around on other NaBloPoMo-ers' pages and blogs. Eventually some of these links will be moved to Blogs To Consider, and there's no doubt that several will be catapulted directly into Top Shelf Bloggers. I've been fortunate to find some specTACular reading during November that on October 31 I didn't know existed.

This revelation means that I'll have to find a job with a three-day workweek in order to have enough hours to keep up on all the great new bloggers I found, and schedule laser eye surgery in the near future to get rid of that permanent itchy, scratchy, squinty, watery, blurry feeling that comes from staring at a monitor for 29 hours a day.

With a handful of days left to the finish line, I'm anxious to see how diligent I'll be at keeping up with Ton-Fifty-ONE. I certainly hope I keep writing. I know I'll keep reading.

Bookmarks to organize.
Blogs to read.
Thousands of others to peruse.

But for now...a poker game to get to.

"The Internet browser...is the piece of software

that puts a message on your computer screen

informing you that the Internet is currently busy

and you should try again later."
—Dave Barry