We have made contact

The past few days have been tumultuous for the bears. Conveying the depth and breadth of the emotions experienced in our the sine wave of exaltation and despair is difficult. The good news is that we have made a large number of new friends in the past few days. The bad news is that these new friends share our occupation, have more experience, and are more successful at our job. A new window has been opened through which we can see a wondrous world. Unfortunately, the world already contains facsimiles of ourselves. The effect is rather unsettling. The German word unheimlich is the perfect description of our predicament.

Personally, I am neither disturbed nor surprised at this turn of events. Google claims to search through more than 8 billion web pages each day. Such an enormous number makes even unlikely events extremely likely. For instance, suppose 10 out of 100 households in the United States own teddy bears. Of these bear owning households, perhaps 1 out of every 100 possesses a bear with a sufficiently developed personality to blog and contribute a voice. Since 60% of households in the United States have access to the internet, it is possible 66,000 personable teddy bears have access to the internet. Only 6% of internet users maintain a blog (54 million blogs divided by 930 million internet users worldwide). If we assume that teddy bears with internet access share a similar ratio, then there may be 3,832 teddy bears blogging in this country alone. Finding a unique voice amid this furry cacophony could be difficult, but really besides the point.

I have long believed that the internet was a close approximation to an infinite number of monkeys in a room with an infinite number of typewriters. It is --

Goofball: Yes, but they are our typewriters and our monkeys.

-- ah, true. Yes. You are correct Goofball. Ah, I was going to phrase it slightly differently. Perhaps something about the journey or effort, but I suppose you cut right to the heart of it.

Yes, they are our typewriters and our monkeys. How did I get interupted on my own post? I thought this only happened to Wagsy. Where was --

Wagsy: Um, no Pudgie. It can happen to anyone. People just jump in all the time. I don't really understand it.

I see what you mean. I --

Wagsy: But ... um ... while I am here, I thought I'd offer a furry thought for this fuzzy time. Um ... our job is to love Harriet and no other bears are the internet are doing that.

Yes, I suppose that is true. But I fear that you are conflating our role in life instead of the purpose of this blog. The stated purpose --

Buffy: Like the blog is supposed to make me famous. None of the other thousands of blogging teddy bears are going to do that. This blog is totally essential.

Goofball: Does this mean that Ozzie is our monkey? Dance monkey. Dance!

I give up, and I'm going to bed.