Fun With Keyword Searches 2

Every once in a while I like to take a look at the stats page for my blog.  Sometimes it's quite educational.  For example, I am now being found by searches on Google India, Google UK, Google Australia and even Google Algeria, among others.  I feel so international.

I've also graduated from being referred by Ukranian porn sites to being referred by a Ukranian website which appears to sell "Military weapons without a permit and documents."  Well, I know I'm  relieved to have made the jump from pornography to illicit gun sales.  Phew!  Near as I can tell, the website is based on some movie and subsequent Danish stealth game.  Still, the website looks disturbingly real and were I so inclined, I could spend many happy hours filling my "cart" with assorted guns, gun parts, and live ammunition.  I'm still trying to figure out what on earth I could have previously written that would garner me such attention in the Ukranian underworld.  It's rather disconcerting, to say the least.  Of course, I'm also getting hits from a place in Russia that sells modular cabinetry and office furniture, as well as Russian hockey webpage.  Perhaps the Soviets think I'm luring people to my lair of modular furntiture with my wanton and scantily clad body, after which I bludgeon them with a hockey stick and stuff them into the Walnut Emill Wall Unit, with my trusty illicit Luger standing by in case of emergencies.   And I thought I was overly dramatic...

When my blog isn't being discovered through searches by nefarious home-decorating Ukranians, it's being discovered by an inordinate number of people feeling the need to search for "bad ginger perms."  Apparently my 1983 prom picture has become the definitive image for bad ginger perms.  Don't get me wrong--I'm not saying it wasn't a bad perm or that I'm wasn't "ginger."  On the contrary--my hair was poofy and poodley in the grandest of '80s traditions.  What I can't fathom is why so many people are suddenly interested in finding images of red hairdos gone wrong.  Is there some uprising of Disturbed Overreacting Independent Citizens Against Redheaded Egregiousness (DOICARE) about which I have not been informed?  And, if so, why??  All this redheaded discrimination just reminds me of Tim Minchin's song about prejudice, called...Prejudice.  (Be forewarned; some of the lyrics are not family-friendly.  Of course, neither am I all of the time.)

Seriously--Gingers often get a bad rap, and for no good reason.  Redheads are feisty and fiery and full of passion.  Redheads are awesome and brilliant; Galileo, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, Van Gogh, and James Joyce (good Irish lad) were all ginger.  And because we are feisty, you don't want to mess with us--just ask Lizzie Borden, Oliver Cromwell Margaret Sanger and Queen Elizabeth I.  Redheads are talented and entertaining, just like Reba McIntyre, Willie Nelson (apparently we also like country music), Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball.  And if you think redheads can't be hot, all you have to do is read about Jamie Fraser from Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.  You'll be fantasizing about tall ginger Scots for months.  Of course, the whole men in kilts things doesn't hurt.

DeviantArt's imagining of James Fraser.

Gabriel Aubry, with hair photo-shopped to red.

Sorry, what was I saying?  Oh, right.  When I'm not getting hits for bad ginger perms or all things Russian, I also get some distinctly interesting keyword searches.  One of my favorites was for "Duct Tape Messiah."  I don't even want to try to figure that one out.  Other recent searches have been for "d latch and a d flip-flop using magic layout tools" and "laurie hugh - cannibal."  Um, scuzemewhat??  In the first place, I wasn't aware that Hugh Laurie had ever been cannibalistic, and in the second place, trying to find a "d latch and a d flip-flop using magic layout tools" sounds like something I might try to find/accomplish while on some equally magic chemical substances.   Some of the keyword searches make sense after I think about them for a while; at least I can see how my blog is getting pulled for them.  Then I get stuff like this:

"Toddler sports bras?"  Really??  What toddler needs a sports bra?  That's just messed up.  Also, "shirt woot ginger boobs??"  Um...are we wooting for the ginger boobs in a shirt, or what, exactly?  I know there is a company called Shirt Woot, but to my knowledge they've never had any shirts related to ginger boobs, nor have I written about that particular aspect of gingatude.  Still, it makes for a colorful search term.  "Bizarro Wuxtry" I get; that's a local comic book/music store.  "Tressed" I also get; that would relate to my post about bad haircuts--and we're back to bad ginger perms.  Then we get to "Enlargement time delay electric shock physiotherapy."  I don't know who told them what I do in my spare time, but...  Seriously--while I've probably had a couple people suggest I need electro-shock therapy, I don't actually write about it, much less about any "enlargement time delays" resulting from using it.  I'm starting to think people need to get out more.  Step away from the computer...well, read this first...step away from the computer and get some sunshine and fresh air.  Take a book.  NOT one about toddler sports bras or electro-shock therapy.  Or learn a new hobby.  Like macrame.  Apparently macrame is the hot topic of the current decade; I've gotten over 200 hits off of the term "macrame" alone, never mind the 150 or so from "macramé" (because that accented 'e' makes all the difference to the macrame elite in the world).  And you haven't lived till you get hits in Cyrillic for "macrame."  Who knew so many Soviets were into macrame?  I guess one has to have something to do when one isn't trolling the web for pornographic hockey hit men who like to decorate houses.

I probably shouldn't be surprised by some of these hits, though; I know what goes through my warped mind on occasion, so I can hardly expect that other people are any less "colorful" in their searching needs.  And they give me the occasional laugh, as I hope they do for you.

P.S.
Now if I really wanted to keep this interesting, I'd offer up a dozen snickerdoodles to the person who creates the most entertaining sentence using no less than 5 of the search terms above...hmmmm...