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Friday, October 14, 2005

 

Googlewhacking, Star Wars and shameless boasting

I got one of the oddest comments ever the other day (and that says a lot around here!):

Hello!
Did you know you're a googlewhack?
(deleted - see original comment)

Matt 10.04.05 - 3:21 pm


I've been called a lot of things in my day, but being called a googlewhack was a first for me. Not sure whether to blush demurely or declare war, I did the sensible thing and googled 'googlewhack'. I found out that googlewhacking is a game for people with FAR too much time on their hands.

You know how usually when you search for something on Google, and usually you get somewhere around 8,000 pages of returns for your keywords? Well, the gist of googlewhacking is keying in pairs of words that have no relationship to each other to find a pair (must be two words, no quotation marks) that return a single, solitary result. Here's the googlewhack they used to find blog. I didn't read through all of the rules (I have to admit, googlewhacking does not float my boat to the same giddy level of obsessiveness as, say, LibraryThing) but I did read enough to understand that by quoting the two search terms here I would skew future searches. It's a wonder some of us ever make it out into the bright light of day, what with all the fun to be had on the Internet.

Speaking of crawling out of your parents' basement into the bright light of day, did you hear they are making not one but two new television series based on Star Wars? One is a 3D animated series they have been working on since the spring, but producer Rick McCallum is now talking about a live-action series, set somewhere between episodes III and IV, that will feature a character "who’s been less highlighted up to now, but has been very popular with audiences." Call me a purist, but there's no place for Star Wars on the small screen. It's been 28 years, give it a rest. (Gak. 28 years? Holy crap, I'm old.)

And now, to end our Friday ramble through the back 40 of what passes for my brain these days, I bring you two brags about my incredibly smart preschoolers. (Hey, my blog - my brag.)

First, Tristan: he was playing with his trains on my bed this morning as I was getting ready for work. He was half talking to himself, half talking to me, when he said "Time to go downstairs now. Abajo. That means down." I had to look it up, but he's right. I'm guessing this comes from Dora the Explorer. My mother credits the 2 hours of Sesame Street I watched each day as a kid with my graduation magna cum laude from university 20 years later. I'm happy just to have another justification for leaving the TV on.

Second, Simon: I commented on Andrea's blog recently that Simon was nowhere near her daughter Frances' ability to count, but instead loves to make counting grunts that in no way resemble actual words. I guess Simon was just waiting for the right audience, because last night at dinner he blew away not only Beloved and I but Granny and Papa Lou as well when without prompting he said, "One... two... fee... fou... fi... seeex... seben... nine... DEN!" (insert sound of four jaws dropping on to the table in unison)

Not even in school yet, and they're both already smarter than me. I knew it was coming, I just thought I had a few more years. Man, I feel really old now.