Google Trends offers quite a bit of fun, and I often return to this wonderful feature of the premier browser on the World Wide Web. Since I discovered it several years ago, I have used it often. Today I searched for “residua” after a few failed attempts in the past. There were not enough searches using this notion, I used to be told. It was different today, though. I discovered several sharp peaks in 2010 and quite a bit of activity in 2011. Interestingly, most of these searches come from Italy and its major cities. As the cities match quite well the searches of my website according to Google Analytics, another marvelous feature of the valiant browser, I have a feeling the growing interest has to do with my own writings. I feel flattered, of course. But I also feel ever-so-slightly apprehensive. Although I would love my website to get more attention from the readers around the globe, I would wish to shun the attention of all and sundry. The limelight positively scares me. Which is why I am sharpening my lines of defense, too. “Everything I have to say is on my site already,” I keep repeating to myself well in advance of an avalanche of electronic-mail messages. “And this is how things will remain until my last day,” I would like to add after today’s discovery.

Addendum (August 22, 2016)

Tongue-in-cheek as this piece happens to be, it is still of some interest. That is, there is a growing concern with residua of all sorts, and the World Wide Web reflects it. The focus is on chemical residua, of course, but it also concerns waste, refuse, or simply garbage. Whence the punch of the very title of my magnum opus. To wit, those interested in waste in all its forms will come across my writings sooner or later. Waste incarnate, as it were. Which is why this addendum is bursting with pride. Wry pride, to be a bit more precise.