Google, You Have Some 'Splaining To Do

Hey, Google? Yeah, um, what the hell, man?! All I wanted to know is whether or not you're supposed to wash fish after you buy it. That's all. Verrrrrry simple inquiry. Could have really been satisfied with a simple yes or simple no. But that's not what happened, Google. And you know what happened! You did it! Would you like to explain yourself? Don't look at me like that. You know exactly what I mean! The second result! The second result! (Click to enlarge.) HOW does that end up as one of my choices?! Get it out of there! I don't want to know!

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What Was That Code Again?

Sorry that this is late. I've been thinking about going to Vegas and was looking online for good deals and promo codes. OH, and I found one all right. It just wasn't what I was expecting. Behold!


Don't get me wrong. That's about right for Vegas. I was just a little surprised that it had been so embraced, that's all.

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It's All In How You Phrase It

The Google is an interesting tool. And it will apparently either smarten things up for you OR dumb them down for you depending on how you phrase your query. Behold! (You're probably going to have to click on it to make it bigger. That's me doing the dumbing down for you this time.)

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Ok, Google....

...That's really funny and everything, but you're really not helping.

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Celebrity Predictive Text

OK, fine. Since yesterday's post was kind of lame, I'll do two today to make up for it. And don't get me wrong, today isn't a much better news day than yesterday was. But whenst one is bored, there is always a little bit of amusement to be had through a little Googling. Today, I played around with Google's predictive text results with celebrity inquiries. Odd, I tell you. Very odd.

Just putting in a celebrity name will yield you some predictive text results, but they're not always that exciting. (Granted, none of this is really "exciting", but I've gotta build this stuff up somehow.) You have to pretend to want to inquire something about the celebrity. The use of "was" or "is" or "hates" or "likes" seems to help. Take, for example, the latest teen sensation, a one Justin Bieber. Do a search on "Justin Bieber is" and Google helps you out with ten suggestions of what it thinks you are most likely looking for. And in this instance, the most likely things that you're searching for about Justin Bieber are, in order of obvious importance, "Justin Bieber is....a fag....dead....bi....a jerk....a girl....a tool.....". Hard to believe from that sampling that he is just about the hottest thing out there right now. Hard. To. Believe. (A girl. Heh heh.) If you were wondering about things that "Ellen DeGeneres has", you're only going to get three predictive answers. But the most common one is about her...big ears? That's the most common? Not that she has a talk show? Has a wife? Has been putting us to sleep with her less than amusing stint on American Idol? No, you people want to know about her ears so much you're at the point of Googling them? You people need to get out more.What about that dear, sweet Betty White? That lovely 88-1/2 year old woman who hosted the funniest Saturday Night Live last week? Is there anything she doesn't like? Apparently, and it's related to you. That's right. "Betty White hates....your grandmother". But we don't know why. Hmmm.

Looking up stuff on Jay Z brought up results I wasn't expecting. He seems like an all right guy. Why, then, is the most predicted result when searching for "Jay Z is..." comes up "devil worshipper"? Really? It also says that he is not only "a freemason", but "a master mason" as well. It also covers the bases if you were thinking he was "the devil" and/or "the antichrist". Whatever the deal is with Jay Z, if he's only one quarter of those things, he's a pretty busy guy.
I was surprised when I read that "Jay Z is the antichrist" because I had been thinking all along that Barack Obama was the antichrist. Nope. Turns out "Barack Obama is your new bicycle". Wait. He's what now? Look, I even clicked on it and I still don't get it. But I was really happy to see that "Barack Obama is a muslim" was down to Number Six on the list, so I feel like there's really been some progress made here. Somewhere.

If you want to know what "Britney Spears was", you'll learn that "Britney Spears was upset unicorns". Um, what now? Unicorns? She was? Apparently, she was.
Now, if you want to know what "Britney Spears is", you'll learn that "Britney Spears is a three headed alien." Of course she is. Wait. What now?

If I were to guess at what the results would be for Googling what "Oprah has", I would guess "a lot of money" would be up there somewhere. "A talk show" might make the list. "Slept with Gayle King" would might even make an appearance. I was not expecting to learn that "Oprah has six toes". That would explain why "Oprah has eleven toes" is further down on the list, but it still really isn't explaining the most basic of all questions "Who are you people who are asking about Oprah's toes?!"

As you can imagine, The Google is not kind about Sarah Palin. Behold!

Yeah, like you were expecting any different.

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The Third (And Last) Top Ten Searches Of 2009

Tired of reading about the top ten searches of 2009 for the various search engines? I'm kind of tired of writing about them, really. But I find it interesting that the Yahoo! and Google searches differ in the ways of social networking (Google) popularity versus geeky and/or redneck entertainment (Yahoo!) popularity, the top ten Bing searches are neither of those. In fact, the Bing searches almost make you wonder if Bing folks are actually searching for information on something of either newsworthiness or substance. Granted, most things on the Internet barely qualify for either of those, if at all. I'll give you that. But Bing searchers weren't just interested in hotties and Facebook. In fact, Facebook didn't even make the top ten over yonder at Bing. Guess those folks, unlike the Turkish Internet users, can figure out how to log in to Facebook without having to go through a search engine. Congrats.

Number Ten on Bing this past year was for Jaycee Dugard who was kidnapped in 1991 when she was 11 and was found living in what was basically a prison camp in the backyard of the scumbag and the scumbag's wife who kidnapped her. A fascinating story, really. Of course, not to Google or Yahoo! searchers, but fascinating none the less.

Billy Mays here for the Number Nine most popular search on Bing! Yeah, ol' Billy Mays, the pitchman for OxiClean, Mighty Putty and a host of other infomercial-tastic products could also have been the pitchman for "You'll Be Dead If You Have Heart Problems And Insist On Doing Cocaine".

Bing searchers can't stay completely away from the tabloids and that's why Jon and Kate Gosselin came in at Number Eight. I'd like to know exactly what the searches were for in regards to Jon and Kate. I'm guessing things like "Jon Gosselin is a douche" and "Jon Gosselin sex tape" were probably more frequented than they were not.

Cash for Clunkers earned the Number Seven slot. Apparently Bing searchers were less interested in Megan Fox's arse and more interested in how they could get around $4,000 of their car purchased subsidized by the rest of us. Let's see if "Unsustainable Taxpayer Subsidized Programs" makes their Top Ten, shall we?

I was glad to see Patrick Swayze make Number Six. Not so glad that he made one of the top ten searches because he was dead, but glad that he made it at all. He seemed like he was a really good guy and it's unfortunate that folks don't seem to realize that about people until after they're dead. What say we try seeing the good in people and letting them know about it while they're still around to give an S about it, eh?

Farrah Fawcett came in at Number Five and that's really a huge injustice. I mean, come on! She had to die on the same damn day as Jacko? What are the odds of that happening? She didn't get nearly the public mourning attention that she deserved. She was Farrah Fawcett for cryin' out loud! I'll bet you that most people will see her name on this list (provided they're not too busy searching for "Brittney Spears naked") and think "Oh, yeah, that's right." You only get one chance in this world to croak it and Michael Jackson steals your thunder. Hope it's going better for her now, that's for sure.

Stock Market took the Number Four position while Swine Flu took third. Considering all of the swines that are running around on Wall Street, it's not really surprising that these two ended up so close together, but it is rather ironic.

And effin' Twitter came in at Number Two. See? NO ONE knows what in the heck Twitter is! Still! Look for it to come in at roughly the same degree of search-i-ness next year, as we're still not going to know what it is or what it's good for. (In case you're still wondering what Twitter is, it's the Internet platform for people to display their vanity to the rest of the world that they think cares about their every move. We don't, by the way. We wish they'd stop with the tweeting already.)

And of course poor ol', dead Jacko comes in at Number One again. Who would be someone who could croak tomorrow that would get the kind of searches that Jacko got? I'm drawing a blank. Oh, President Barry. If he were to choke on a chicken bone or something and kick it, the Internets would freaking explode. Let's hope that doesn't happen. President Joe Biden isn't something I'm OK with just so I can see what would happen to the Internets.

I find the difference in the types of searches between Google, Yahoo! and Bing to be telling. I think that it tells me that there's something out there for everyone and they're going to look around until they find what's right for them. Can each one of those search engines do anything differently in order to tap the other one's market? I would imagine that they could (hell, those Google boys can do darn near anything), but I couldn't even fathom a guess as to how. How do you draw a certain group of people to your search engine, for cryin' out loud? I have no idea, but that's why I am the Internet user and they are the Internet makers. Good job, guys! Carry on!

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Top Ten Things You're Not Searching For

I've just glanced through the top Internet searches for 2009 on Google and on Yahoo! and I've come to this conclusion: The Internet is a toy which we use strictly for our enjoyment and pleasure. I've also concluded that while most folks are morons and judging strictly on what was searched for, folks that are searching on Yahoo! are simpletons compared to those searching on Google.

Let's just run down the Top Ten Searches for 2009 on Google first, shall we? In a very particular order, starting with Number Ten is something called Torpedo Gratis. I believe that translates roughly to "free torpedo". I would like a free torpedo. (It'd be a nice conversation piece. I never know what to say when I have company.) I have never thought of searching for one however. But since so many people did over the course of 2009, I figured I'd better check it out. It is a website in Brazil that allows you to send a free text message from your computer to a cell phone. I guess that's needed in Brazil. Hard to imagine it doing very well in the US.

Number Nine was equally puzzling to me, as it was something called Dantri.com.vn. It's in Vietnamese, so just looking at the page didn't help me a bit. But according to something called Xomba, "...it is a Vietnamese page where you can find news...Each news has its own headline that you can select to see the whole information." OK, so it's like a news aggregator t kind of a deal, only in Vietnamese. I get that. (Then again, Xomba could be lying. I don't know. It could be Vietnamese human trafficking and porn for all we know.)

Number Eight was Windows 7. Finally something I understand!

Number Seven was Lady Gaga. Crap. Right back to things I don't understand.

Number Six was New Moon (the sparkly vampire movie sequel thing to Twilight, the sparkly vampire movie original that started it all!).

Number Five was another head scratcher. It was something called Sanalika and according to the European Tech Crunch it is "a virtual world where you can play multiplayer games and join realtime events. It was launched on November 2008 and has already reached over 3 million users." That doesn't help me understand why it's so popular, but it seems like it has to do with little anime characters, and no one can ever help me understand why those are so popular, so I'm just going to have to take The Google's word for it that folks like it.

Numbers Four, Three and Two perplex the heck out of me. Four is Twitter (which is perplexing in and of itself, I realize that, but stay with me here), Three is Tuenti (which I think is pronounced like "twenty" and is basically the Spanish Facebook) and Two is Facebook. Now, I understand that those sites are popular, but I don't understand why they would be so popular on a Google search that it would warrant them being the top second, third and fourth search for an entire year. I wouldn't have thought that so many people didn't know what they were that they needed to search for them. But I only thought that because I was wrong. Fortunately for me, I can use Google to actually search rather than using it to be lazy, which is what would account for this phenomenon.

Back to the Tech Crunch folks for the answer to this. They claim that "Most Turkish Internet users search for the domain or keyword of a website on Google then click on the first search result to go to the actual site." Wow. I don't understand. I thought computers were computers. Do they not have the automatic fill in thing with web browsers in Turkey? You type in the URL once and then it remembers it? Or better yet, they don't have bookmarks in Turkey? Y'all can't bookmark your damn Facebook and click on that? Instead you type "Facebook" into Google and then click on it. This is why Turkey is Turkey and the US is the US. No further explanation needed. What is wrong with people?

The Number One search on Google this year, if you haven't already figured it out, was Michael Jackson. It took the guy dying for people to want to pay attention to him again. That's pretty sad. I'm not saying that he didn't bring a lot of it upon himself, I'm just saying that it's pretty sad. I'd like to think that maybe if he had known how much people had liked him and how many people had liked him that he wouldn't have had nearly all of the issues that he had. But it's the answer to that and other questions that are much more important that can't be found through a Google search. The Google is to entertain you and me and to make Sergey and Larry a gazillion more dollars. That's it. That's the sole purpose of the Google. The Google is like the Internet version of The Oprah (only without the intermittent weight gain and the lesbian rumors about Gayle King). It's to entertain and to make money. Tomorrow I'll delve into how Yahoo! is just like The Google...only without the making money part.

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Google Me A Logo

As I'm writing this on Halloween night, it's almost impossible for me to keep my butt in this chair for more than five minutes without the doorbell ringing and my having to go and appease the desires of the throngs of costumed beggars which have appeared at the front door of the compound. (I lower the drawbridge for the moat on the occasions when tradition dictates that I allow the part of the public which consists of the small to traipse onto the grounds of "Chez Tiré à Vue". That translates to "Shot on Sight". Catchy, no?) They all seem quite surprised when I ladle piping hot creamed corn directly into their bag. It's odd.

The point here is that it's hard to keep a consistent thought in my head due to the ruckus, so I headed over to The Google to see what their Halloween logo consisted of. Very clever this year, it was. Behold! Now, when you would hover your mouse over said logo, it said "Click or treat". So I did. Click, that is. And the logo changed, as if by magic. And since you can't run your mouse over it now and have the same effect, I shall recreate the results for you. Behold!

I repeated that scenario two more times and two more times the logo changed. Behold!

And behold again!
It's cute and all, but they really need to be trick or treating in a different neighborhood. Look at all of those unwrapped candies in there! The horror! And who can manage to eat half of a Life Saver like that? Why not just finish off that roll of Smarties? Do they make those lollipops with the loop for the handle anymore? Where do I get some of those? I would like that.

That all got me thinking about some of the Google Halloween logos from the days of yore. If you're not familiar with yore, it's right around the time of yesteryear. In 2008, horror film guy Wes Craven designed the Google Halloween logo and it was just swell. Behold!

I was also a big fan of 2007's Halloween logo. It was sort of that Victorian-era-meets-The-Haunted-Castle ride at Disneyland. Behold!

But as I started looking over the past Google Halloween logos, I realized that there were about a gazillion different Google logos for about a gazillion different 'occasions' all across the land and the world. Who knew? I'm always amazed at what the self-righteous (and while they have perfected possibly the greatest invention/tool ever, that of accurate Internet search, and they have exactly the amount of money they deserve for such a feat, they're a little full of themselves at times) over there at The Google consider "logo-worthy". I mean, come on! From what I can tell, the very first custom Google logo to commemorate a holiday or event was that of the Burning Man Festival in 1998. What does that tell you? (I don't really know what it tells you, but it tells you something, I know that!)

Of course, before I continue with those that have been deemed "logo-worthy", I'm in no way implying that they're not "logo-worthy". Actually, you know what? Maybe I am implying that. You don't know. Even if I was implying non-logo-worthiness would I tell you if you called me on it? Damn straight I would. Forget what I just said. Take this however you want.

There's National Aboriginal Week in July in Australia. Really? A whole week for that? How does that work? According to the logo, there seems to be dancing with shields, presumably to protect one from that whirlwind of rocks behind them. Behold!

In Poland, there's Fat Thursday. I'm not sure if that's anything like Fat Tuesday in New Orleans here, but if you've looked around lately, it seems as though every day is Fat Day. People are huge lately. Behold! Good Lord, are those jelly donuts there? I have got to learn more about Poland if they celebrate the equivalent of Jelly Donut Day! But I digress. In Germany, something called Seven Sleepers Day gets a logo. I don't know what that is, but it sounds fabulous. Any day which promotes sleeping is just a fantastic idea all the way around. How can you go wrong?

I was a big Tetris fan, but does it deserve a logo for the 25th anniversary of the thing? If Tetris gets one, Pac-Man better get one, as should Atari (and/or its founder, Nolan Bushnell), Space Invaders and Pong.
Germany also gets a logo for Girls Day. We don't have a "Girls Day" in the US because it would be considered sexist. It would also probably be considered racist, even though race has nothing to do with it. One goes hand in hand with the other around here (which is why I cannot wait for this night to be over so the drawbridge can go back UP where it belongs and my walled off compound and go back to being walled off).

The 200th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Gogol, the father of Russian realism, gets a logo. I guess I'm OK with that in theory, but I read about Mr. Gogol and I am confuddled by what the nose has to do with anything. It's not like he founded smelling. His realism didn't seem to focus on the human nose. So what's with the nose, Google Boys?

The Large Hadron Collider got a logo. I guess over there at Google they figured that they might as well get in one last custom logo in just in case that collider thing ended up killing everyone.

And even Alexander Popov got a logo. If you're asking "Who?" you're not alone. Alexander Popov is the guy who the folks over yonder in Russia consider to be the inventor of the radio. Now, according to Russia Today, "Americans are convinced it was Nikola Tesla who invented radio. Italians claim it was Marconi, but for Russians it was Aleksandr Popov who gave radio to the people." I haven't found a logo for Marconi or Tesla, but then again, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was born in Moscow. Enough said.
Whew! Doorbell stopped ringing. Time to put away the ladle, raise the drawbridge, release the alligators and sit back, relax and enjoy the confines of the walled off compound for another year. I hope you had a Happy Halloween.

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