...and now it's the over-socially-networked, over-linked and all over my inbox e-shot from Vail Resorts creating "Epic Mix: A New Social Media Application That Will Revolutionize the On-Mountain Experience". Sporting more capital letters than a six-year-old's letter to Father Christmas, this press puff claims that skiers meandering gently around participating resorts can share their experiences via the usual suspects and recognise 'achievements' by awarding themselves collectable 'digital pins'.

These achievements appear to be known to the rest of the world as 'going for a few runs'. I know there will be people who really love this stuff; always letting virtual chums know your whereabouts, half-cocked photos infesting webspace, being part of something epic. That's 'epic' in the sense of 'invented by a marketing person to make daily activities in a ski resort a new kind of game'.

As you place yourself inside the game, becoming your own Pac Man, gobbling points to no purpose and spewing said information all over the web, your details are digested and spewed out as analysis to other marketeers, where your activities place you into a bracket and you become a number, a target, a digital function to say yes or no to the next offer coming your way.

Because this is the pointless purpose of it all. They will know more about you, but what they know is that you stopped for a pee behind tree 3427 on run 84 in resort 3 at 1254 before dropping into mountain restaurant 32 for a number 2, 57 and 35. You will be tracked and this tracking is supposed to tease you into buying something that these numbers say you should.

Or you could just go skiing.

Bah to over-complicating my escapism.