
I get a lot of variations of this question in my search terms:
is he secretly in love with me
Yes, he’s in love with you. But no, it’s not a secret. Everyone knows but you. He wanted to tell you but I convinced him to hold off in the hopes that you’d increase your efforts to win his affection by dressing better and doing something with your hair.
This query has probably caused me the most concern:
i think people who play practical jokes on others should be prepared for any eventuality
I don’t know if this was directed at me specifically or was just a general philosophical musing, but it sounded a lot like a threat. I can’t think of any one of my practical joke targets who could be bent on revenge except for those left unemployed as a result of that factory fire. Lesson learned: there’s nothing funny about unemployment.
Most of my practical jokes are harmless and incredibly practical. Recent highlights include sending the boys to school with two lunches, one of which was a fake lunch meant to annoy teachers. The Fonz attended a book club party and everyone was supposed to bring a treat and he brought a can of pinto beans. He walked into book club and announced, “I’m going to need a can opener and then these are gonna have to soak for an hour.”
Optimist Prime was given a dry box of macaroni and cheese, approached his mom in the library and asked, “Are students allowed to use the stove?”
And the only recent joke I’ve played on my wife was bringing her breakfast in bed a week before her birthday so she’d think I got the date wrong. And was anybody hurt by this joke? Not my wife who actually got breakfast in bed twice as a result so she wasn’t complaining.
If you know the answer to this next query, please resist the urge to leave your answer in the comments section:
sexual terms for someone with flatuance
This next search really bothered me:
Apology accepted
Just to be clear, I didn’t apologize. Announcing, “Apology accepted,” when the other party hasn’t apologized and hasn’t actually done anything wrong, is kind of my thing so don’t think I’m going to fall for that. I always keep a list in my pocket of people who owe me an apology and people who have sufficient grounds to demand my apology, and I assure you nobody has been struck from the list in recent months.
Does anyone know the answer to the next search?
where does the Queen keep all her hats
I like to imagine this query came from a butler on his first day working for the Queen.
This one has so many possible interpretations:
i would like to apologise goodgreatsby alienate
Did he/she want to apologize to the Good Greatsby, or alienate the Good Greatsby, or apologize for alienating the Good Greatsby in the future? Or am I meant to apologize for not noticing his/her elaborate attempts at alienation? I guess I’m just not as good as everyone else at noticing that kind of stuff and it sometimes makes me feel left out. Regardless, apology accepted.
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You may enjoy other Search Engine Oracle posts:
The Search Engine Oracle Has Spoken
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Vanessa Chapman
June 11, 2012
I love looking at the search terms on mine! The most common one I get, pretty much on a daily basis, relates to fear of holes. Another common one I get, maybe three times a week is a search for my name and then I always wonder whether it is actually me they are searching for (and therefore, should I be worried?) or someone else with my name.
The Good Greatsby
June 11, 2012
I do get a bit worried when someone enters my name. And my social security number. And a description of a crime I once committed and thought nobody knew about.
mistyslaws
June 11, 2012
Well jeez, everyone knows that the Queen has a seperate castle just for her hats! It’s called The Chapeau Château. That butler needs to be fired. He obviously is not a true Brit if he didn’t know that.
The Good Greatsby
June 11, 2012
I wonder what hats are worn by the guardians of the hat castle.
Ian Webster
June 12, 2012
I don’t know what they wear, but I believe they are called Top Hats.
Hippie Cahier
June 11, 2012
My first thought was hat thief. I’m sorry.
The Good Greatsby
June 11, 2012
I always assumed hat thieves were much higher tech. It’s not near impressive to think they do all their research on Google.
Go Jules Go
June 11, 2012
The pinto beans one is going to have me giggling for days, and may also end up in an internet search related to flatulence. But first I’ll have to stop obsessing over where the Queen keeps all of her hats. I’m sorry, that was me.
The Good Greatsby
June 11, 2012
Of course I’d love to know where the Queen keeps her hats so I can nick one if I’m ever invited to visit, but I doubt she’d have anything in my size.
nancyfrancis
June 11, 2012
My productivity for the day has just gone to zero – can’t stop thinking about sexual terms for someone with flatulence. For some reason this isn’t already in my vocabulary – sleep farter, is however.
The Good Greatsby
June 11, 2012
I’m glad I’ve never been in the situation where it occurred to me to name someone sleep farter.
susielindau
June 11, 2012
I am glad to know that the answers to all of these questions are locked inside the Good Greatsby vault! Whew!
susielindau
June 11, 2012
Sheesh GG, your most recent tweets aren’t so recent! 🙂
The Good Greatsby
June 11, 2012
That’s true. I should probably change that heading. Twitter is almost always blocked from China and I’m close to giving up on it.
susielindau
June 11, 2012
I didn’t think of that! You probably can’t use Facebook either….
The Good Greatsby
June 12, 2012
Facebook has occasional outages but works much more frequently than Twitter. WordPress is also usually blocked but I have a VPN that can still get around it.
susielindau
June 12, 2012
That must be so frustrating. Makes me glad that I am living in the home of the free land of the brave with a few assorted raving lunatics. 🙂
susielindau
June 12, 2012
That must be so frustrating. Makes me glad that I am living in the home of the free land of the brave with a few assorted raving lunatics. 🙂
spilledinkguy
June 11, 2012
Hopefully the queen search was redirected to a list of ‘Fascinator’ results.
Also I had to search your site for ‘Fascinator’ as I could not remember the correct terminology.
Clearly I’m not getting the butler job.
The Good Greatsby
June 12, 2012
You’ll have to find another dream.
fishducky
June 12, 2012
I’ve always wondered what the Queen keeps in her purse–ID, keys to the castle?
The Byronic Man
June 12, 2012
Okay, so I panicked. I thought, what if I meet the queen some day and there’s a big gust of wind, and someone says, “Quick! Grab her majesty a hat!” and I’m like, uh, what? Where?
And then war breaks out.
Laura
June 12, 2012
I think there’s a secret message hidden in the apology one. It’s probably an anagram.
When we had that solar eclipse, I got a huge number of people searching for variants of “is it safe to watch the eclipse through 3-d glasses”. I had a post that actually answered that question, so I felt like I’d done my public service for the day. Also, apparently everyone already knows that you shouldn’t look at the Sun through one or two pairs of regular sunglasses, but I also got a bunch of queries asking whether it was safe to look at it through three pairs, some asking how many pairs you needed, and one asking specifically whether it was safe to view the eclipse through six pairs of sunglasses.
The Good Greatsby
June 12, 2012
Is it safe to view an eclipse while drunk? Will the drunken haze covering your eyes provide a certain level of protection?
Dana
June 12, 2012
I’m very disturbed by the sexual flatulence one. What the hell?!
The Good Greatsby
June 12, 2012
If that’s what counts as foreplay nowadays, I say no thanks.
Dana
June 12, 2012
Yeah, I definitely feel another “headache” coming on…
Jackie Cangro
June 12, 2012
Everyone knows that the queen keeps her hats in the belfry. Oh wait. That’s bats.
pegoleg
June 12, 2012
Thank you for acceptiing my alienation apology. Now cross me off your list.
The Good Greatsby
June 12, 2012
I’ll cross you off for that specific apology but you’re still on the list for multiple other grievances.
qwinkly3
June 12, 2012
I wouldn’t think that someone with such perpetual flatulence would be getting sex that often. At least not more than once per partner.
The Good Greatsby
June 12, 2012
It takes all kinds. There must be somebody out there who finds flatulence arousing.
Thomas Stazyk
June 12, 2012
I hear flatuance is a real turn on for some people.
lifediscoverer
June 17, 2012
gross!
Spectra
June 12, 2012
I stopped viewing my blogs search terms after “blow up china” began to show up. Why china?
pegoleg
June 12, 2012
Someone had a really bad experience at the bridal registry while picking out their pattern.
clemarchives
June 12, 2012
The first person who ever found my blog through a search engine was a google image search of “pictures of really funny and ugly and super fat babies.”
Kim
June 12, 2012
97% of my search terms are Justin Bieber related… 😦
Rob Rubin
June 12, 2012
I was getting a lot of searches for people wondering if it was possible not to be gay even though they kissed another man. But those have dropped off. I guess they answered their own question.
Jess Witkins
June 12, 2012
SEO is really amazing isn’t it. I apparently can tell you how to sew iranian books…though I cannot sew or read Iranian. *shrug*
katecourysfarmhouse.com
June 12, 2012
I’m definitely going to take your pinto bean idea! What a great snack for my son to take to his next soccer game (when we are suppose to bring the treat) then I can act all put off that there is no sink to soak them in DANG! Great idea Greatsby! Thanks!
PCC Advantage
June 13, 2012
Today, one of my search terms was, quite simply, “annoying”.
I’m not sure how to feel about someone searching for that term and coming up with my blog before they reached the homepage for The Bachelorette, anything related to Lady Gaga, or even people who don’t swing their arms when they walk.
According to Google, am I more annoying than these things? Apparently, yes. Yes, I am.
dekeboo
June 13, 2012
My most popular search term..’and i wanted details so i could’..could what exactly? Its so funny because the next most popular search term is ‘murdering miss marple’!
yellowcat
June 15, 2012
My most used search term is ‘naked figure skating’. I have no idea what that’s about and why everyone who types that in is directed to my blog.
Nidhi Shrivastava
June 18, 2012
Yes its right “i think people who play practical jokes on others should be prepared for any eventuality”. Good post.