a bagatelle of the brain

I have no idea what time is a mere fragmentation of the mind could mean. The use of the word mere implies nothing but to my reading, as in no big deal, as in time is no big deal, just a fragmentation of your mind,  But a fragmentation of the mind, that sounds like a big deal, as in Dr No, wasn't it?  No it wasn't, it  was Goldfinger, how nice to have google a mere keystroke away, who had that machine that was going to fry James's private parts, and James asks if Goldfinger expects him to change his mind, and he replies, "No Mr Bond, I expect  you to have your mind fragmented."  Sounds bad, seems like we need all the fragments of our mind working together to play a game of chess or drive down to the grocery store for Wonder Bread, or to write a post in the Beaglestonian, although that object seems to be getting away from me at this point,

One wonders if the subject of the sentence should have been figment.  We still have the downgrading of time, but in a more airy fashion.  "I think that Wonder Bread actually helps build strong bodies thirteen ways."  "Oh Darling," she says, and here I see a blond woman in the sports car with you, some kind of sophisticated scarf wrapped over her head, a Benson and Hedges cigarette waving merrily as she gestures. the softest touch of a British accent, "that is a mere figment of your mind." She might add, stubbing out her thin cig as you pull into your parking lot, and maybe her accent subtly turning to French, "A mere bagatelle of your brain."

A strange thing that time is, in the past frozen, unchangeable, solid as a rock, Objective Reality in its finest form, in the future a formless void, who knows what tomorrow may bring?  In the present just this little sliver, like the position of the needle in the grooves of the spinning vinyl.

Well I have spun myself out of knowing what I am talking about here.  But here we are at that odd little notch of the last week of the year.  The newspapers, tv news, websites will drag out their year in review crapola.  I hate that.  I wasn't born yesterday, I know what happened in the year 

Hmm, looking at Old Dog's time zone map, I am struck by what I always am, why a North and a South Dakota?  Why not just a Dakota?  Why that odd little north/south panhandle for Idaho?  Why is there even a Wyoming?  In fact why not just put Idaho and Montana and Wyoming together?  That would give them a population about  equal to Iowa which is only the 31st most populous state in the union.  Was there some kind of rule back when they were making these states, that a state could only be so big.  Well I happen to know Beagles has that book about how the states got their shapes, maybe the information is there,