Before Google Reader came on the scene, I visited SEOmoz daily. I was a voracious reader and an active commenter. I spent too much time here and kept returning multiple times a day to see if new comments had been posted. I was part of the conversation and it was grand.

Then, Google Reader bit my neck like a Buffy rerun and transformed me into a lurker. Suddenly the posts were coming to me, along with posts from 250+ other bloggers. I was in J-K heaven. I have a voracious appetite so I would consume Rand, digest Rebecca, savor Jane, gobble down Matthew then hit my J key and munch through the next blog with nary a visit nor a comment.

Now Sphinn has sphunn its spell and my indigestion has reversed. When Danny weaved his web I immediately signed-up via Google Reader. At first the meals came in bite sized snacks and I enjoyed them. Occassionaly a new voice would emerge. If I liked the flavor I added them to my Google Reader menu.

It didn't last. It couldn't last.

Suddenly Sphinn was twirling my head. It was like drinking the whole Colorado River from the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Echo…echo…echo… I was seeing double. It was like having the same steak sandwich to my right and to my left. I was being served the same delicious treats, via Google Reader, from both Sphinn and the original bloggers. The only problem was that if Sphinn handed me a regurgitated platter of goodness first I could not know if I would also be served the original delectable by the chef who baked the recipe. My frustration mounted.

No more! I am regulating my diet!

The answer was there all along, except in my gluttony I could not see past my lips.

Tonight I am creating a new folder in Google Reader. "AAA - Dessert." The AAA will put it at the top of my sidebar and inside that folder I will place SEOmoz and Sphinn. This way I will know if there are new tasties. If there are I will mark the folder contents as read then I will proceed to swallow all that blog goodness from the original sources.

Afterwards I will escape from the confines of my Google Reader and reemerge as a citizen in SEOmoz-land where I can relish the posts, appreciate the comments and concoct a few paragraphs of my own. Finally I will go to Sphinn where I can see what's hot and piping, check-out the writers I've not ingested while skipping the stories I have already placed on my palate.

It's a simple solution, really, except that I've been too much a glutton and not enough of a connoisseur to grasp the obvious.