So this is how the Internet works:
-- A guy named Dean, apparently from Wisconsin, decides to starts a weblog, otherwise known as a "blog" -- an Internet page with postings from the author along with assorted comments from readers -- and decides to name it "Square Rutabaga."
-- For the hell of it, he goes to an Internet search engine and types in the phrase "square rutabaga" to see if anyone's ever been high enough on cough syrup to use such a phrase on the Internet before.
-- He discovers that the phrase has not been used much at all, with one exception: It was amazingly used in a humor column that I wrote for This Fine Newspaper last year. That column, along with the rest of them, are all on my columns website, www.jimmyboegle.com.
-- He e-mails me and, among other things, tells me where I can find a picture of an enormous rutabaga on the Internet.
-- A connection is made.
Isn't this wonderful?
Anyway, this connection was made last Wednesday, when Dean e-mailed me after coming across my humor column. The topic of that June 19, 2001 column was, among other things, a CNN.com story explaining how some space-conscious Japanese folks had figured out how to grow square watermelons that cost about $82 each. Really.
It was a slow news week.
In any case, at the end of the column, where I always remind readers that I am a fifth-generation Nevadan -- as if anybody gives a flying flubber -- I wrote: "Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who anxiously awaits the day that scientists develop the square rutabaga."
Why did I write this, you ask? You guessed it: I was high on cough syrup.
Anyway, because of that weird phrase, Dean came across the column. He then sent me the friendly e-mail about his blog, www.pycs.net/sqr. In the e-mail, he mentioned that he liked the article and also made this fascinating comment: "My site received some hits for people looking for rutabaga pics."
Ponder THAT for a moment. People are surfing the Internet looking for RUTABAGA PICTURES? What kind of sick perverts do we have in this country?
Anyway, because Dean is a nice guy who aims to please his readers, he put a link on his blog to a picture of a "gargantuan rutabaga." To the gargantuan rutabaga fans out there in the Tribune reading audience, that picture can be found at www.recordholders.org/images/vegetables/rutabanga.jpg. (No, that's not a typo; the link reads "rutabanga," which for some mysterious reason, makes me chortle.) And it really is a gargantuan rutabaga.
I e-mailed Dean back and thanked him for the note. I also asked him where he came up with the name "Square Rutabaga" and what he hoped to do with his weblog.
His reply:
"On a road trip many years ago, I decided that if I ever published a piece of my own software, or [did a] similar geeky production, I might [do it] under the name 'Square Rutabaga Productions,' a play on the term 'square root,'" Dean wrote. "The phrase 'pomegranate stew' was my first choice, but the spelling is even harder and I hope most of my content is technology related. Pomegranates also have some unwelcome associations."
I have no idea what in the world Dean meant by "Pomegranates also have some unwelcome associations," although I found the remark to be quite interesting.
He then went on to say that he hopes is weblog serves as a "journal for technology, consumer, humor and advocacy events in his life," and that he wants to create a venue for his wife -- a "literature major, avid reader, ponderer and enjoyable conversationalist" -- to share her thoughts with the world.
All noble goals, if you ask me, made all the more impressive by the fact those goals are all encompassed by the name "Square Rutabaga."
So there you go. The Internet works in wondrous ways, doesn't it?
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who is STILL anxiously awaiting the day that scientists develop the square rutabaga. His column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org.
