Monday, September 14, 2009
Here a leaf, there a leaf, everywhere a leaf, leaf...
Ever the finder and chronicler of useless information, I noticed recently that Yahoo includes on its main page each day a list of that day’s top searches. It provides an eye-opening glimpse into the banality of American culture, the fickleness of the American public, and the shallowness of society in general, I think.
Here is the list of Top Searches for today, September 14, 2009:
1. Taraji P. Henson -- 2,330,000 results
2. Toronto Film Festival -- 45,100,000 results
3. Dr. Oz -- 47,900,000 results
4. Jay Leno -- 34,400,000 results
5. Leaf Peeping -- 999,000 results
6. Kate Gosselin -- 39,000,000 results
7. 2010 World Cup -- 110,000,000 results
8. Ted Kennedy -- 133,000,000 results
9. Milky Way Galaxy -- 6,990,000 results
10. Affordable Housing -- 157,000,000 results
I think “results” means the number of places on the Web where information about the search topic can be found, not the number of searches that were made today. But I could be wrong, of course. Let me repeat that for emphasis. I could be wrong, of course.
Here are some other interesting statistics I “yahooed” on my own:
Jon Gosselin -- 82,100,000 results
Osama bin Laden -- 30,000,000 results
Barack Obama -- 396,000,000 results
Michael Jackson -- 694,000,000 results
Kanye West -- 90,300,000 results
Serena Williams -- 35,700,000 results
Sean Hannity -- 13,700,000 results
Nancy Pelosi -- 4,600,000 results
Yorkshire Pudding -- 1,600,000 results
rhymeswithplague -- 27,400 results
For the record, I have no idea who Taraji P. Henson is, but I do know who Kate Gosselin, Jay Leno, Dr. Oz, and Ted Kennedy are. I also know that Toronto is a city in Canada. No one in his or her right mind would ever admit to “leaf peeping” unless he or she were wearing dark glasses and a trench coat.
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I thought you were suffering from an autumnal depression, trying to cheer yourself up with a catchy tune.
ReplyDeleteLeaf peeping. I'm afraid to Google or Yahoo it, but I am curious. Perhaps it is something very innocent.
Leaf peeping, I think, is what some people somewhere call what we in Georgia call "going to see the leaves," which we do in the fall. In the spring we go to see the dogwoods and azaleas. I once wrote a poem about such a fall trip, which you can find in Chapter 33 (Part 2) of Billy Ray's book, here. If you like them there poems o' mine, you can find some more in Chapter 33 (Part 1), but far be it from me to push my own work.
ReplyDeleteARE YOU SERIOUS... i find your results hard to BELIEVE
ReplyDeletePutz (David in Utah - I am as serious as I can be. Those are real, gen-you-wine results. No artificial results in these parts.
ReplyDeleteYou have gained 100 "results" since your post. I just checked: it's up to 27,500!
ReplyDeleteI'm a leaf-peeper, myself. I really enjoy seeing the changing leaves.
It is amazing the footprint we leave when we commence to commenting on the web. I stumbled across something called backtype that has a record of all of the comments I've left on other people's blogs. (Not just me, of course, but it is sorted out in to different people.) kinda freaky.
ReplyDeleteI have been trying to comment on your post about your friend, but blogger won't let me. I just wanted to say your friend sounds lovely. She sounds like someone who will be right at home in heaven, having fitted herself for it while she was here.
ReplyDelete