You mean we're still in the date tie-in?

Here I am, referring to the objectives of The Boidem. But that sort of discussion should be on the main page, or at least branch out from it. It doesn't really belong nested way down a series of links from the date tie-in. On the other hand, considering the fact that this is (also) a birthday edition of The Boidem, perhaps there's more than just a bit of poetic justice in so many of the issues raised in this column spiraling out of that page. It does, however, beg the question of what it is that I want this column to say, rather than what I want it to be. At this point, at least, form is not following function. But perhaps it is. Maybe the fact that this ongoing stream of links continues to develop not on the main page of this column, but instead from an asterisk that as I've noted is easily overlooked is an almost tangible representation of what The Boidem was.

There's also, however, another explanation for that small asterisk serving as an invitation to so many "side" thoughts. I've collected extensive notes for this column, and I've sent them to my mail. One of these notes relates to the fact that after eight years I hardly remember how to build a Boidem column. I have a very outdated but at least for me fully functional version of DreamWeaver into which I can type my columns, but for years most of my online writing has been in WordPress and that's a very different type of writing. DreamWeaver is better suited for the highly linked writing that's characteristic of The Boidem, but I have to admit that after such a substantial hiatus I have to relearn how I do that. Did I type straight into DreamWeaver? Did I copy/paste my notes? Should I underline potential links and return to them later? Should I "finish" a page and then build the linked pages, or can I allow myself to jump from page to linked page and back, hoping that I don't overly confuse myself? Do I type out separate paragraphs and then try to figure out which belong to the main text and which will become tangential links? I'm very sure that the end product (meaning what the reader is now reading) will look like the traditional Boidem column, but I don't know if the path toward getting there is the same path that I used in the past. Of course it's a good guess that none of my readers actually care about the process; after all, even the end product has been of limited interest to anyone beyond my traditional eight readers if that.

At this point it no longer makes sense to do this, but quite frankly, a great way of building this column could, and perhaps should, have been to have all of my pages spiral out from the date tie-in, and have the main page text consist of one short sentence:

Click on the asterisk.

I like that idea. If for some inexplicable reason there will be a fortieth anniversary of the Boidem (and if this is the last column, clearly there won't be) that's what I'll do.

Go to: Whatever happened to ten blue links?, or
Go to: Even back then ..., or
Go to: There's no chance that I'll find them all, or
Go to: Sometimes the tie-in is obvious, or
Go to: It was thirty years ago today