November 18, 2003
We here at the Daily Sparks Tribune Humor Department are fascinated with the Internet, and how it works, and how -- thanks to the weirdness of search engines -- random people can connect and find things unexpectedly.
We've written about it before, in particular when a man e-mailed us after
finding that we had used the phrase "square rutabaga" in a column
once (all columns can be found at www.jimmyboegle.com), a phrase this man had
thought was entirely unique. He named his Web log (aka Blog) "Square
Rutabaga" and was surprised to discover
He e-mailed me. A connection was made. Touching, ain't it, how square rutabagas can bring people together? If only Saddam and Dubya had somehow shared a square rutabaga moment together ...
But I digress. Back to the topic at hand, which is my Web site's stats. I was checking them out this weekend, and I found some tidbits that were quite interesting, none of which I am making up:
-- Some of my columns have had as few as two hits. The square rutabaga one, thanks to my new friend's publicizing of it, has gotten 2,226 hits.
-- I was shocked to learn my April 17, 2001 column -- in which I joked about the lunacy of a Japanese newspaper offering $1 million for a nude photo of Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki -- has gotten 1,835 hits. Then I looked at what was referring people to my page: When you type "naked baseball" into Google, this column is the No. 2 link out of almost 419,000 Web pages Google's found with this phrase in it. Why this is, I have no clue. But methinks some porn surfers out there have been mighty disappointed by this -- poor schlubs looking for nudie jock picks accidentally stumbles upon me making vegetable jokes. How sad is that?
-- My May 14, 2002 column, in which I mock commercials for Enzyte, a pill offering "natural male enhancement," whatever the hell that means, has gotten 2,149 hits. It turns out that with the Google search engine, typing in "Enzyte commercial" brings up this column as the No. 2 link of about 2,500 pages with that phrase. You may recall this commercial, which still airs on occasion, features a man named Bob running around like a deranged happy lunatic -- with an even happier deranged lunatic wife. This couple scares me.
-- Some 1,646 hits have been recorded on my Jan. 11, 2000 column in which I discussed a Web site featuring all sorts of old TV theme songs -- including the complete "People's Court" theme song, which has to be one of the most stunningly, hilariously bad pieces of music ever recorded. Frighteningly, typing "People's Court theme song" into Google brings this column up as the top link. Good god. I am not sure whether to be proud or to be mortified.
-- You type "abolish spring break" into Google, and again, a column of mine is the No. 1 link: The March 20, 2001 piece in which I sniveled that bad weather was keeping me inside watching "Jerry Springer" while my college buddies were frolicking in tropical climes, the bastards has, as a result, gotten 992 hits.
-- I almost shot tea out my nose when I saw that Googling "old people smell" brings up my April 25, 2000 column in which I discuss, well, the old people smell as the No. 3 link.
I could go on and on with examples like this. But I won't, because I need to get to the store. I am running low on rutabagas.
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan in exile in Arizona who still can't get that damn "People's Court" theme song out of his head, even though he hasn't heard it in several years. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays, and the aforementioned column archive may be viewed at www.jimmyboegle.com.