I am something of a virtual hoarder (or digital hoarder, either will do). By this, I mean that I am constantly bookmarking things I read online, saving funny memes and other pictures into vast directories, accumulating animated GIFs that I may never look at again because I think they might be useful in a Facebook thread some day, and so on. I’ve mentioned before that I have amassed a sizable collection of unpublished blog post drafts, some half-written, some entirely unwritten, and some that are nothing more than a title and a note to write something with that title.
![By TheDoctorMo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Hoard.jpg "By TheDoctorMo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons")
Not pictured: My blog dashboard. This is a metaphor.
Among those drafts are several accumulations of links to major news stories of the past couple years, which I accumulated through hours upon hours of reading time-wasting on the internet. I have no reasonable expectation that I will ever take those giant lists of URLs and spin them into written gold, but I want to do something with them. I proclaim this to be blog-cleaning season!
![Logan Ingalls [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/3509371657_d001f34146_z.jpg "Logan Ingalls [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via Flickr")
Still a metaphor.
The least-obtrusive thing I can think to do is just make lists of links, arranged by subject or whatever. Hence, there is a new page on my blog, which you can probably see at the top of this page, that will host as many of them as I can bear to cut and paste. It is a work in progress, but I have links related to a few 2014 and 2015 events up already. I may post updates to the blog when new stuff goes up, or I may not. I’m mysterious that way.
I also, I should note, have no illusions that I’ll ever really stop digital hoarding.
![By Ingrid Taylar from San Francisco Bay Area - California, USA (Western Scrub Jay) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/800px-Western_Scrub_Jay.jpg "By Ingrid Taylar from San Francisco Bay Area - California, USA (Western Scrub Jay) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
Not a metaphor: I really am a bird, and I save my blog posts inside nutshells.
It’s in my nature.
Photo credits: TheDoctorMo (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons; Logan Ingalls [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr; Ingrid Taylar from San Francisco Bay Area – California, USA (Western Scrub Jay) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
