about this sitesee Meranda's resumesee clips and work sampleskeep in touch
home

Archive for March 31st, 2007

Joining the blogging party

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Another of my former Stater colleagues joined the blogging world today. Welcome Rachel! She’s already been added to the “DKS Throwback” section of my blogroll, where I keep track of my former colleagues with blogs I read/monitor.

I’m pretty sure Rachel was inspired by the Future of Journalism conference. She’s in Nashville now with a few other Stater peeps.

Even her first post is worth reading. About the conference she says:

… (besides being pleasantly surprised to realize that independent thinkers can be found in any city) my passion for journalism has been rejuvenated. I firmly believe, foremost, in the watchdog function of reporters, something that often seems overlooked in modern mainstream media. But this conference renewed my faith that the career I fell in love with, the one that tells the stories of the voiceless, stands up for the people and educates the public, will not only exist but will flourish in the future. It just looks different — and it requires journalists to change.

Hear, hear.

Now, who else lurking here is going to join her? And where are the professors? Barb? Carl? Fred?

Responding to Google searches

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

I’m sure anyone with a Web site that has stats attached to it watches them with interest. I know I do.

I get a lot of hits from Google searches, and sometimes they make me laugh. And sometimes they seriously creep me out. Oftentimes people are searching for answers that I wish I could give them in real time.

Searches that creep me out include…

  • people searching for my name, first and last. I Google other people all the time as a part of my job and out of curiousity. But it never fails to kind of make me freak out when I realize other people are searching for information about me. Luckily, I suppose, this domain is the top hit.

  • the person who searched for “video of someone hanging themselves” this afternoon and landed here because of my comments on the Saddam video. This is not the first time people searching for the Saddam clip have landed here, but this is the first time someone just wanted to see someone die. Seriously, this thought made my stomach flip.
  • the many people who’ve been searching for “funny stereotypes” or its even worse cousin “funny racial stereotypes” and land at my post titled, ironically enough, Racial stereotypes ≠ funny.
  • whoever it was looking for “whole world should blow up audible voice quote” and landed here. I hope that was what they were looking for, and not something sinister sounding.

Searches that make me laugh include…

  • the poor guy looking for the answers to his relationship woes in Google by searching for “why cant meranda and i be together”

  • the hundred or so people who’ve searched for “stupid infomercials” and landed here.
  • ditto on the MXZ saw searches, which hit the same post.
  • the legions of teens who’ve been searching for guidance passing the manuverability portion of their driver’s test, which I blogged about in my discussion of parallel parking.
  • the person who searched for “dont go into journalism.” The post they hit was actually not about that at all. This is an example of a time where I wish I could directly respond to the person who was looking for serious career advice at the temple of Google. I’ll balance it out with the person who searched for “good things about journalist” and found me.
  • all the searches by people in pain looking for solace in my musings about the worst toothache ever. Usually these take the form of “toothache hurts brain” or “toothache worst pain.”
  • the person who could be my editor, for all he makes fun of my vocabulary, searching for “Like, you know, whatever” and landing on the post aptly named that. (And as an update, I am getting better at the like usage. But “whatever” is a hard word to quit. ;)

Random searches that keep popping up include…

  • people trying to translate bad language in Spanish, who hit the post where my sister replied with an explanation of a whole litany of Spanish insults for my knowledge.

  • people interested in “neat handwriting” or “beautiful handwriting” or some combination of those, which go back to my post about the world handwriting championship.
  • people looking for specific quotes by typing in the part they remember. I’d say this, by far, accounts for the most Google refers to my site. There isn’t one quote that outpaces any other, but there isn’t a day that goes by that at least one quote isn’t hit.

And now that I’ve brought all these topics back to the forefront, they’ll probably bring even more creepy, weird or funny searches my way. Whatever, it keeps me laughing. But seriously, who’s searching for information about me? That’s always going to freak me out.