I'm inside and the shades are drawn

I've got my computer's on

I'm getting off on googling me (googling me!)

    - "Vanity Surfin'," Jesus H. Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse  

Once you hit “publish,” you lose control of your posts.

I learned that 18 months ago when I Googled myself for the first time – well, my nom de plume, not my all-too-common real name – and was startled at some of the strange locations where links to one’s writing turned up. There may be a logical reason why a post would go from Point A to Point B, but when you see it appearing at Point Z, your only response is: WTF? 

A conversation I had at the OS meet-up / Beth Mann birthday bash last night prompted me to do it again.  And the results are just as strange.

Curiously, I got a very different set of search results from Yahoo and Google. Yahoo’s very first result returned was not only my OS blog, but it began with the words “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage.”  You see, everybody knows about OS!   By contrast, Google alone reconnected me to a YouTube video of a song Kit Duncan recorded for me, and less delightfully, reconnected me to a non-OS blog that badmouthed me.  * Sniff * I have feelings too!

While Yahoo linked to some of my Amazon book reviews, only Google returned my Amazon profile in French!  Or should I say, my “profil pour commentaires.”

I learned that just mentioning someone’s name in a post can have consequences.  For example, a brief discussion of the late Patty Donohue, lead singer of the Waitresses, and a post about the MIA singer Bobbie Gentry ended up connected to name search sites. I was tickled that one of the fictional porn names I created, Ivana Johnson, led to a Wiki name page.  What, nobody’s naming their kids Will N. Dowd or Vagina Lollabrigida?  Come on, America, use your imagination!

Please do not Google my name and Scarlett Johansson’s at the same time.  Not only is my pathetic unrequited crush embarrassing to read in black and white, but I was aghast to find my name linked to a Salon post about her hacked nude pictures – I swear, Agent Booth, I’ve never even mentioned them in print!

Some of the results were totally bewildering.  A post about seeing four films in one day showed up linked to some website called Thai Job Post.  Another ended up linked on an ask.com page under the search phrase “consequences of racism.” Huh?  I re-read the post, and besides a passing reference to “petty prejudices,” there’s nothing in it related to that subject.

My post about being attacked by a Canada goose ended linked on some website, with the following notation: “This article discusses the Canada goose population and details ways to control it.” Um, I don’t think so! 

A two-year old post about the Jay Leno-Conan O’Brien war ended up being argued about a few months ago in the comments on a site called TV By the Numbers. (To the guy who said my argument had no credibility because I called Seinfeld the greatest sitcom of all-time: Bite me!!)

There were a few results that pleased me.  My post about two local organizations battling over Thomas Paine’s legacy is linked on the home page of one of the organizations.  I was aware of that, because the head of that group had posted a comment here.

I was also surprised and pleased to find my parody “Life After I Quit Being a Liberal” excerpted and linked on an organization called the Democratic Underground.  (Just don’t ask me for a donation; like most of the 99%, I’m broke!)  To be honest, I thought the post was also making fun of liberals a little bit, but I guess I’m the only one who saw it that way.

I think I was most pleased – assuming I’ve interpreted this correctly – to appear on someone’s blog called My Executive Summary. Instead of linking to individual posts, he seemed to be linking to entire blogs and mine was one of them.  I’m hoping I’m right, because my ego could use the boost.

Finally, my post about what I would do if I won Power Ball was linked to a site which was flagged in red with “Warning: Dangerous Downloads.”  I like being dangerous.  After all, chicks like the bad boys!