Finding an article I wanted to read in today's paper: Internet 1, Real World 0

That's the final score, just in after I realized, for perhaps the first time in a conscious way, that the web can interact with the real world in such a way as to enhance its capabilities, much as futuristic fighting suits in Joe Haldeman's great science fiction novel, "The Forever War," did for their human occupants.

Here's how it went down: when I was reading today's Wall Street Journal this morning I noticed a header on one of the sections about Paul Allen's latest debacle.

I said to myself, have a look at that, but then read on and somehow missed it.

Then, just a few minutes ago, I said to myself, hey, Joe — you missed that Allen article.

So I moseyed on back into the living room where the remains of the past few days newspapers are scattered hither and yon — in your world it's called treadmill hyperspace (above and below) — and prepared for the usual dig through them in search of the page I wanted.

Then a little bulb — true, dim, but visible nonetheless — went off and simultaneously a penny dropped and I thought to myself, wait a minute: why not simply click on my Wall Street Journal bookmark (WSJ is how I abbreviate it), put Paul Allen into the paper's search engine, click on the story, print it out, and Bob's your uncle?

So I did just that: total time from the bookmark click until the article was in my printer tray = 30 seconds.

Tell you what: It would take that long just to zone in on the general region and pile of discarded newprint the real world version of the story is crumpled up and buried in.

I like this new way.

A lot.