Thursday, September 03, 2009

I Google, therefore I am

How do people find your blog, and are they perhaps disappointed, misled, grossed out, intrigued, or horrified when they do?

Because of the great alien-ear crisis and my somewhat hypochondriac and moderately paranoid disposition, I have spent quite a lot of time lately googling key words such as 'infected upper ear cartilage piercing', 'sea salt soak', 'cartilage damage', 'cauliflower ear', and the winning concoction 'piercing pus swelling shattered cartilage'. However, you can rest assured, I have one (hopefully) final appointment with an ear, nose and throat surgeon on Monday, so I'm not flying completely off the handle solo here, I'm just looking for additional information to scare the shit out of myself, and make it impossible for myself to have a peaceful night's sleep away from ear-related worries.

Nothing out of the ordinary then, eh?

However, as much as I know you are all just aching to hear still more about my poor ear, that is not exactly what I have in mind today. Well, I have it in mind constantly, being prone to paranoia and all, but not for you. Not again.

I promise. Girl scout's honor (Moi?).

What I have in mind for you today, my dear readers, is utter amazement over what the medical Google searches I conducted yielded as results.

How did they ever survive, before Google came along? 

Apart from some hits with decent medical information, there were quite a few hits that were surprising. To put it mildly. And then there were some, where the connection between upper ear cartilage and what was on the site was a whole neck and torso's length. And apart from that measure, there really wasn't anything connecting the query to the site that I could fathom. Those hits were just plain ole disturbing, which could, however, be an understatement. Or, the fact that I grew up in Finland a barrel, might have had a hand in the matter. Thank Zeus, we'll never have to find out. It will already take several bottles of wine just to erase certain images now mistakenly stored in some obscure part of my brain that seems to be under the influence that they need to be there. Maybe the part is confused, because we are technically still talking about piercings, albeit the more correct term is probably something quite different.

Shudder. And please don't anyone tell me what that term is. Even if you know.

Of course, I am not drinking until the antibiotics are done. No way. Never. Mother. Although, I must say the Google search concerning Ciprofloxaxin and alcohol came up with some interesting information concerning the ban on drinking while on antibiotics, dating back to WW II, some STD-ridden soldiers, and some drunken bastard forgetting to take his dosage. I'm just intrigued by this history of course, nothing else.

(Really? She just googles all day long?)   

I also have to say that I was rather thrown by the number of people out there walking around with pierced genitalia, let alone infected pierced genitalia. There aren't enough painkillers in the world.

And then, as I was pondering about genitalia and mentally placing the pain I had been in with my ear further down between my legs (a big, big mistake), I started to wonder about how people find my blog (naturally), and whether they are looking for something completely different. And I mean completely different.

Thanks to Site Meter I have been able to see exactly how many times I have unwittingly had the chance to attempt to provide the 'answer' for the question "What should I do with my life?" The count is surprisingly high, and I hope, if not to have inspired who ever was posing this question to Google (not the way I would go about finding the answer, I would of course start a pointless blog and then proceed to disregard the question...), to have made someone possibly in a total funk over their life and therefore asking a computer the most important question ever, laugh. Even just a little. Or at least to have kept them from slipping further into that funk. Or kept them from looking at that site with those ...piercings.

Still, while the above question being matched with my blog is perhaps a tad duh-worthy, why would Google feel that I could ever, ever answer questions like: "How much toothpaste will kill you?", "Why do I sweat randomly?" and "What food will shoot farthest out of a potato launcher?"

I mean, I know my blog can at times be somewhat random and even weird (although I prefer quirky and eccentric, and most times there is some sort of point. Really.), but I don't remember ever writing about a potato launcher. And I racked my brain over this one, since I thought it does sound awfully like me. And I do hope the person asking about toothpaste wasn't intending to actually kill anyone with toothpaste though. Is that even possible?

Must keep an eye out for toothpaste-related murder cases in the newspapers. Or perhaps I should just Google it?

Nah, too scary an endeavor so soon following the piercing and genitalia revelation. I don't want to know what all toothpaste is good for. I just don't.

What is this hold Google has on our lives (apart from controlling the weather and the known universe, of course), and does it even know what it is doing? Or is it just my life?

Oh Google, what will I ever do with my life?

15 comments:

Critty Critty Bang Bang said...

I Google every question I can think of. Why, only yesterday I Googled the effects of combining my newly acquired inhaler with the Benadryl I take for my allergies (I think I'm allergic to stupidity so I have to take it pretty often).
I'm a Google junkie I tells ya'.

Mara said...

Google = god (Sorry Bing, you just can't compete with that)

Sarah said...

See, Google really is entertainment for us hermits. I must start writing random things cause my site meter stats are not so nearly interesting :)

Anonymous said...

gently wash the area with dial soap, move the piercing stud so the soap gets in the hole, and move it all around, without taking out the stud, then rinse all the soap away.
Do a sea salt compress: soak a towel with warm sea salted water, the towel should be dripping, so have more towels to catch the drips.

I healed up a navel piercing like this, with zero infections, redness, swelling, or pain. But, I am not so clever, it is what my piercer told me to do.
:)

Must use DIAL soap, no off brands. NO NEOSPORIN either, or any other creams/lotions. Those are not fur puncture wounds, which is what a piercing is, and those creams hold in the bacteria. That is why dial soap works as do sea salt compresses/soaks, and they don't burn.

John Powers said...

It's been my experience that most people who didn't know what they wanted to do when they grew up... grew up, and still don't know what they want to do.

- John Powers
Standup Comedian

Sarah said...

google is my best most smartest friend in the world. i dont know how i used to live before it existed.

kristine said...

i dont know how people did actual work without google. I used to be a 'researcher" with (according to my CV) "excellent research skills". Which of course meant "I google stuff" and am extremely efficient at weeding out the information that isnt relevant (read: stuff people wrote on blogs. how ironic)

Anyway. what i really wanted to say was....hm. i cant remember. But I hope the ear is better.

kristine said...

ps totally curious to hear what you have to say about VG Little. I hated it but I am uncomfortably aware that this is because I didnt get it.

Optimistic Pessimist said...

I love seeing what searches lead people to my blog. A lot of mine are wine related and drunken mothers...what does that say about me.

hw (hallie) farber said...

I believe there was a toothpaste murder on one of the U.S. tv shows earlier this year--CSI or Criminal Minds. In the end, it was actually a suicide.

I enjoy reading your blog.

Anonymous said...

I google words whenever i get bored..im always a bit surprised at what i find:)

Cwybrow said...

I don't think it's possible to find my blog; it's not so much situated at the other end of a black hole as missing down one of the black hole's many and multifarious arms which spiral randomly...you get the picture. But now I'm all interested in the way these site search stats work.
And have a certain level of horrified fascination re. these piercings!

Escapologist said...

GOOGLE?!

That's sooo 5 years ago ...

Get with the times ... everyone is "bing"-ing now!

HAHA ... you should really throw everyone off one day and actually write a blog on what you or anyone should do with their lives :)

Harlow said...

How did I find your blog? Well, anfer a series of "Next Blog"'s (with some backtracking) I finally came to a non-commercial one IN ENGLISH.

Crymson Flower said...

I found your blog by randomly checking out the "blogs of note" on my dash board. This was the only one that I found interesting.