GOODY "GOOGS"

Little bites, big bites the vast, varied conglomeration of tasty morsels is unbelievably delicious.

I know Google is not a human. It's a quiet, discreet, benignly sprawling inanimate interwoven thing that's there, but doesn't exist unless you seek it out

You don't eat it, just chew, swallow, and digest what you get ...

I have on my computer an old Encyclopedia Britannica, a current Britannica, a World Book, Encarta, two Groliers, a huge file I made of history from 1900 to 2000, anything-everything that rang a bell in my mind. On my shelves, there are World Almanacs from 1985 to 2008, a hard cover edition of the Lexicon, the Columbia Encyclopedia, Merriam Webster Encyclopedia, and the Americana Encyclopedia -- an old one, a newer one....

All of them are ... gathering dust.

A goog (my word for a bit of information) is ... WOW ... almost instantly, effortlessly obtainable. And googs by the dozen are saved by me (unnecessarily) in my work files ... why? Because I'm a fact hog. When I find out something I didn't know. I put it someplace where I can find it again. (Like in my file called "Verbee" -- I put words I suddenly can't remember, or names -- often celebrity names that are attached to faces I remember but names/appellations, alas, are getting to be too many for me to retain.

Every book I've written has a QF file (quick find) with any and every word I've looked up and used in the book.

I'm a lousy speller. Google the word and it usually comes out spelled correctly. I need information about some wispy, small, very vague memory, which (even sloppily) I've gathered into a sentence, and it will be clarified, able to be located in time, in some category.

Words, ancient, current things, ideas, ditties, rhymes, slang etc., etc.

Okay, I know just about everyone who goes online finds out about Google and Yahoo and the others. I'm just newly in love. I just want to somehow, in some way say to somebody -- to all the bodies, brains, minds, typing fingers, translating, downloading, participants, paid or unpaid employees, contributors, editors, conceptualizers, thank you Google Guys.

You can't call them up. Can't e-mail or write them. So I can just say it again. Google, you've made my life richer, my mind broader, my ability to do my work, any work, more fun, easier, faster, better.