Those nice people at Google have opened up their ‘homepage gadgets‘ and you can now use them anywhere. Excellent, I could have the latest Scottish news headlines zipping across the page, or maybe a game of hangman for when I post something you find boring, or perhaps the phases of the moon just be all spiritual like…

Or not.

Whilst it’s very generous of Google, I would hope that people show a little restraint. The multitude of eyesore-tastic widgets and scripts that abound in blogs is already something that constantly irks me.

Ohh the moon is in the third cresecent, ohhh my horoscope says I’m about to die, ohhh the weather where you are is awful…. I DON’T CARE!! Don’t get me wrong, some are handy, and lord knows I’ve fallen prey to ‘widget-itis’ in the past, it’s very much a case of “ohh shiny” for me sometimes, but this all seems, I dunno, so 2001… Haven’t we moved on?

Do you think I read the random quotes that zip buy in that tiny box? Do you think that Flickr box with it’s ever changing photos DOESN’T keep dragging my eye away from your content? I do not care to read your joke of the day!

So, Google Gadgets, clever? Yes. Likely to be overused in every way imaginable? Yes.

Or is it just me?