In Search Of. . .

As most of you know, most if not all blogs have a site counter of some description and these tools allow the blog owners to see whence and where any visitor is from, how they got to the blog, how long they peruse your useless drivel and where they go afterward by any out-click from your site.

Other than the satisfying fact of occasionally shouting out something like, "Yay! 300 total visitors," a site counter can also be mined for some unusual search terms that bring users to your site.

Here are a few interesting ones from recent traffic:

A visitor from Beverly, East of Riding Yorkshire, United Kingdom had a rather esoteric and cryptic search for, "I have no hat to weigh me down, I can outrun any hat-wearing man."

Ooooookay then!

Brazilians are usually good for a few laughs. One visitor from Sao Paulo had concerns about, "aiding cat digestion."

Mmm-hmmm. I hope the person meant aiding the cat's digestion and not aiding in the digestion of a cat.

And I've seen over time, I get random searches from terms like "asstraffic" although I host no pRon. I hear it makes your palms hairy or something. And the large majority of extremely vile pRonographic searches usually come hitherto from places where such things will get pieces parts of you lopped off in a hurry. Like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Syria.

I do get lots of references for "burning toast" which can be searches for answers about the dreaded malady of stroke (the most common) or for burning DVD's, CD's and such using Roxio's software called Toast (the second most common).

Over the weekend, I had an obviously perplexed, but "unknown" visitor searching for the answer to the all befuddling question of "carbon offsets for burning toast." To this person I can only sigh in despair, apologize for not having the answer he or she seeks and I suggest either getting a new toaster or a life! Freaking Mac user, go figure.

Several recurring searches turn up and usually in curiously timed bursts of three and four at a time. One for a post I wrote about hollandaise sauce, typically from someone with a broken egg emulsion, and the other for a post I wrote shortly after the NY Giants won the Super Bowl XLII concerning "little brother syndrome." Lots of persecuted little brothers out there with problems I suspect.

And just recently, three searches, one from Nuremberg and two from Paris, for the gal in Germany who caused a sensation when a prudish bus driver ejected her from the front seat because her cleavage was too distracting. I wonder if she is back in the news again?

Well, to paraphrase Forest Gump, "that's it."