‘Stuff’ finds a convenient home on the Web

Netvibes

Comedian George Carlin concocted a famous routine about “stuff.”

“That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time,” Carlin quipped.

The accumulation of stuff is also starting to pertain to my computer.

When the digital age first commandeered my career, all I really needed was e-mail and some text files. Then came the Internet. And with each passing year – more likely month – I find myself needing to check more and more things on the Web right as I begin my day.

Got to check this page to see today’s headlines. Then this page to see a score. Then this thing. Then that.

It’s all very spread out and time-consuming.

But a free service called Netvibes has found a way to eliminate the labyrinthine searching.

According to the site, which was launched in 2005, Netvibes.com “lets individuals assemble all in one place their favorite widgets, Web sites, blogs, e-mail accounts, social networks, search engines, instant messengers, photos, videos, podcasts and everything else they enjoy on the Web.”

So I dive in. A speedy sign-up lets me instantly create my own private page – which I name Net Worth.

I go to the “add content” bar, and an array of suggestions ranging from A&E to travel to education are displayed. I immediately add Wikipedia and Google searches, considering I consult these dozens of times a day.

Then because I’m a masochistic Royals fan, I add MLB news courtesy of CBS Sports. Then my MySpace page, YouTube, Flickr’s “Most Interesting Photos” and Yahoo News.

Have to include Internet Movie Database. (I must confess the very first site I go to after my computer starts up in the morning is the IMDB daily poll question.)

On the local side, I click on both the Lawrence.com podcast (shameless plug) and Lawrence weather.

Then since this page can optionally be made public to other Netvibes users, I annex Forbes.com to make me seem smart and/or successful.

And finally a monthly calendar, which I’m hoping will replace my tattered Associated Press sticky calendar that leaves gluelike residue on my monitor.

Netvibes allows me to drop and drag where these selections appear on the screen, leading to a color-coded collage of enticing items.

But something is missing. Perhaps I need one of the 2,000 or so random items posed under the “browse categories” banner. Here’s one called Pornstar Name Generator. I just type in my name and get the result: Lorenzo Lovegun. That’s even a better page name than Net Worth.

So altogether I gather 14 items, which are affectionately crammed onto my very own page.

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff.