But first – a quick notice: I just added a “rating” bar for posts. Feel free to vote – the more feedback I get, the more likely it is that I may eventually learn to write more consistently coherent and interesting things…
At this point, this little blog seems to get most of its meager traffic (by far) from search queries. The searches have been piling up, and I figure it’s about time to do some posts to try to address those searches.
For part 1 here, I believe I’ll start with the oddball searches which often don’t seem to have anything to do with microbiology or, indeed, sometimes anything coherent at all. It’s late, and I could use some comic relief. (In Part 2 I’ll discuss some of the unexpected-but-coherent searches that led to my blog, and in Part 3 I’ll post about the kinds of microbiology searches I kind of expect to see in the logs that I’ve gotten…)
Why MSN loses to Google and Yahoo:
- Out of the 5 whole MSN queries that have led to this site, two of them are: “mazda” and “debt”. I have no idea why. (In fairness, the other three queries were perfectly plausible microbiology-type queries).
Just plain “Huh????”
- Someone in San Jose got here by Googling the phrase: “Type of fruit makes balloon grow bigger”
- Someone from Nairobi(?) got here by querying “death and nuisances”
- From a Washington State school organization of some sort: “a powder that looks slimy looking when lemon juice is added”
- From a Toronto school network: “how does pink solution work(remove stain)”. (Actually, they may have been looking for information on Eradasol™, which is a seriously nasty-smelling detergent/solvent of some kind which does a good job of removing microbiology-type dyes from floors, countertops, fingers, etc…)
- From the UK: “in search engine type cell a room” (Uh…what?)
- From Indonesia: “expired of natto” (are they trying to find out when you throw away Natto instead of eating it, or people who died from eating Natto?)
- From the Department of Education in Orange County (California, presumably): “water ballon splater”[sic]
- From the Department of Education in Queensland, Australia: “why does this material work for the room”
- And finally, my personal favorite from (apparently) Google itself: “iron chef cheese balloon”
BLASPHEMY!
- Both New Zealand and the UK got here trying to find out about how “mushrooms are evil”. This is completely unfounded – Mushrooms are our FRIENDS.
Kinda Scary
- From the Vancouver area: “world’s best bathrooms, microbiologically” (Ah, but best for what purpose?…)
- I got two different queries (both from Pennsylvania?) for “eating expired jello” (Actually, as far as I know, so long as the stuff remains dried in its sealed pouches, it’s probably safe to eat almost indefinitely. I’d be a little leery of expired pre-made gelatin, though – that stuff’s a relatively simple protein mixed with lots of water and, often, sugar. Sounds like very attractive food for microbes of all kinds, including some that might make you sick…)
- Speaking of which, someone at University of Michigan was looking for “eating expired bread spore”
- Someone from Illinois was looking for “old interrogation room pictures”(?!) on Yahoo…
- Someone on a military base in Ohio somehow got here looking for “solicitation can be released at least how many days”
And, perhaps scariest of all:
- someone in Alabama had an odd search phrase: “organism +I*”
Why is this scary? Everyone remembers Isaac Asimov, who (while he was a live organism) wrote “I, Robot”, right? Well, obviously this means that a secret cabal of government agents managed to steal Asimov’s brain and upload it into a computer, thus creating a Robot Isaac Asimov (and this searcher wanted to know when Robo-Asimov would be publishing “I, Organism”.) Obviously, government “working” as well as it does, their Robo-Asimov still uses “Reverse Polish Notation”, hence the reverse-entry of “Organism I”…Okay, enough silliness for one evening. More – hopefully – tomorrow.
