As part of this week’s ongoing celebration of the relaunch of Oddball Update (yaaayyyy…pass the Provigil), it’s time to check in with those wacky denizens of the Intarwebs and see what sort of ridiculous things they’ve been searching for when they, for better or for worse, stumbled upon my hidden underground lair. Although it’s only recently begun to occur to me that these posts do nothing but perpetuate the continuing folly of my site’s irrelevance to most of these queries, in the end I decided that I don’t care. Your amusement comes first!

So let’s get into it: I’ve got six months’ worth of Google Analytics data to comb through, and over 1,300 unique search queries that led people here. Most of them were again related to a former Battle Creek, MI-based restaurant chain that, in the hearts of your fellow ‘net dwellers at least, just will not die. Besides that, I’m sure there’s something chuckle-worthy in all this dreck, so let’s see what I can come up with.

• what continent is the oddball? why (I’ve been known to inhabit several. But my reasons are secret.)
• “car parked” engine ticking subaru (It’s just cooling down! You’ve never heard that before?)
• “kill you all die make you suffer” (Hehehehe…I love it. Yes, it’s a line from Star Trek, and yes, I’ve quoted it on this site, thereby explaining its presence here. I just love seeing it appear completely at random in a search log.)
• “knight rider” “shake it baby” (WTF is this? A Knight Rider total conversion for Duke 3D?)
• “norton mapes” “dennis nedry” (Yep. As I observed here, they’re basically the same guy.)
• “v4 that is not the doctor” (Somebody searched for this? There may actually be another person out there who’s as eccentric as me.)
• awrey’s chocolate marshmallow cake (Oh my God, that stuff is delicious! But I don’t have any of it here. …Unfortunately.)
• bedroom set called root beer float (I’m not sure I want to know what that bedroom set looks like.)
• dell support software is crap (Wahahahaha! It’s funny because it’s true.)
• duke nukem bankruptcy (Yep, Duke had to file. Burned through all his money on strippers and blow. I hear they’re going to have to repossess his space ship.)
• goddamn insurance companies (Hehehehe…yeah, okay. That’s generic.)
• half eaten bread bowl (I ask again, who searches for this stuff?!)
• hates when weekends are over (Yeah, you and me both.)
• highly compressed vampire (A highly compressed vampire? Maybe a dumpster fell on him, I don’t know.)
• i suck at rpgs (I’m not that good at them either, but what did you hope to gain here? Sympathy?)
• i want a big mac mcdlt a quarter pounder with some cheese (Sorry, you’re 20 years too late.)
• is knight rider on tonight (*checks watch* Sure. Come on over, I’ll pop in my DVDs. Which season do you want?)
• jack dunworth memorial pool haunted (This conjures memories of trenchcoats, long hair and fuzzy 8mm video.)
• kara and lee forever flying each other (What is that, some kind of kinky Battlestar fanfic?)
• mermaid forest hot tub episode (I’m starting to think that this post is responsible for half of these entries. And I’m loving it.)
• potato donuts + bill knapps (Potato doughnuts? OK, listen, I think you were on drugs at the time you searched for this.)
• subaru wtf (I think this must be the official tagline of Subaru’s design department lately.)
• windows number of updates ridiculous (It sure seems that way sometimes, doesn’t it?)
• “scott’s mystical head” (Thanks, now I have that damn cut-off timpani sound in my head.)
• how to reboot tv (Uhhh…just turn it off?)

And my favorite:

• “buy now, and we’ll never send it to you, ever” (This one’s for you, Billy Mays. Rest in peace.)

All right, we’re long overdue for one of those entries that lampoons goofy search queries. For the uninitiated, this is where I look at my server logs and show you some of the dumb stuff people have been searching for when they run across my site.

Why has it been so long since I did this? Back in September, my web host decided that they weren’t going to bother running AwStats (or any other statistics software) anymore, because “Google Analytics is so much better!” Unfortunately, I didn’t discover this until late November, because they didn’t bother to email this news of a reduction in service to any of their customers. That’s when I found the last two quarters’ worth of stats were never collected at all. Thanks blockheads!

Anyway, I dutifully signed up for Google Analytics as a replacement, but it’s taken a little while for some good stuff to land in the reports. Finally, I checked today, and I think I’ve got enough material for a post. So, without further ado…

• “bigger belly” thanksgiving (Usually in the reverse order…)
• “chii wa chii” (Pantsu…pantsu…)
• ’70s pontiac subcompact (What? The J2000?)
• acura tl ugly stick (Yes, those two definitely got together.)
• candid metro (A candid Eddie Murphy movie?)
• cw oddball (Does this have anything to do with the TV network?)
• electric biscuit shaping (Excuse me?)
• door knob out piece still stuck (I guarantee you that whatever component you’re referring to, its actual name is not “out piece.”)
• freezing downstairs vaulted ceiling (A little late now! Try a sweater.)
• gm is ready to do away with pontiac (GM is ready to be done away with, more like.)
• large cable box stupid (Yeah, it is stupid how big those things are. The Motos are of an especially absurd scale.)
• origin of “i’m not half bad” (Well look, it’s Mister Etymology here.)
• our old cablecard (You’re searching for this? Do you want to be reunited with it or something?)
• roofgods (If there are any, they were laughing at us last year.)
• seoul far so good (Wow. What a bad pun. I could have used that during our flight here.)
• should i write a sequel (I dunno. If you do, write it first. Makes it more interesting.)
• superman workout (How does Superman work out? Probably lifts semi trucks or something.)
• take cablecard out of box and put it in tivo hd (What will he search for next? “Sit down, turn TV on and watch show”?)
• who sang babararacucudada (The Barracudas! Specifically, in their 1980 song “Summer Fun.”)
• where to buy comcast cablecards? (Uhhh…from Comcast? And you can’t buy them, you can only lease them, so don’t get too excited.)
• truly nolen sucks (How blunt. But not entirely inaccurate, at least in Naples…)
• thailaaaaand (Yep…someone actually searched for this. Good thing I was here for them to find.)

The aforementioned were only a tiny slice of the keyphrases in my reports. The rest — pages and pages worth — were all related to one of these three topics:

1. CableCARDs, Comcast, TiVo and all the problems that result when you combine the three.
2. Discontinued Keebler Fudge and Vanilla Creme cookies.
3. A recipe for Bill Knapp’s chicken fricassee.

I’ve actually become somewhat of an authority on topic #1, thanks largely to the posts I wrote on the subject when I went through my own CableCARD hell. I have neither a secret stockpile of discontinued cookies nor a secret recipe for Knapp’s fricassee, although now that I’ve typed those words, a million more anonymous people will think I do, and the self-fulfilling prophecy re-ignites itself for another run. Wahooti fandango.

Welcome back to another edition of “Search for $A, Find $B” at Oddball Update! This is where I get bored, look at my server logs and show you some of the dumb stuff people have been searching for when they run across my site.

In this, the first quarter report for 2008, we have Keebler’s discontinued Fudge Shoppe cookies continuing to dominate the field, with long-forgotten Bill Knapps recipes, TiVo CableCARD problems, red soda from the ’80s and Elexis Sinclair’s…um…”assets” rounding out the remainder of the top queries. Ignoring all of those usual standbys, here’s what I found:

• mass effect sarin (No, that’s Saren. Sarin is nerve gas!)
• escape naples (Sometimes I’d like to.)
• why does comcast require a technican to get a cable card? (Because they don’t want you to get a cable card.)
• computers internet blog (Wow, how many results did you get for that query — 600 million?)
• remember slice soda (Yeah, I do! The Apple flavor was kickass.)
• swap tuner tivo hd (Push the Live TV button.)
• latest update about operating room in 2008 (Sorry. I tried, but I just don’t get it.)
• voracity (Did you want a definition? I’m not a dictionary.)
• free match maker (Nor am I a dating service.)
• how do you get back to your buggy in orange box chapter title highway 17 (Wow. I hope you have an earlier savegame handy.)
• tivo slot 2 never works right (Then return it?)
• .com car muscle (Like Yoda you speak. Find nothing on Internet you will.)
• sin episodes beat duke nukem forever (Yeah, but it also got cancelled after one episode, so…it’s a wash.)
• lexus december to remember voiceover (Wahahaha! I remember trying to figure out who that v/o guy is, because he sounds like the Cigarette Smoking Man. Guess someone else is curious too.)
• perfectionistic (That’s me.)
• sister’s hot friend (Didn’t I say I’m not a dating service?)
• komcast (Hee, I like that! Damn commies!)
• hello my name is stickers (Hey stickers.)
• acrimonious (That is also me.)
• buy car in germany (Can’t help you, but have fun driving on the Autobahn.)
• i want to fuck t’pol (Wow, buddy. Just wow.)
• bullet witch fanservice pictures (Between this and the last guy…damn.)
• catatonic (No. That’s not me.)
• photos of catatonic stupor (I said no! Try your local mental hospital.)
• how to design forza (Ask Turn 10…)
• sequences of doing things (Seriously. What do you expect to see with a query like that?)
• motorcycle crash bodyparts (Dude, that’s morose!)
• mass effect vehicle stupid and annoying (Hahahahaha)
• nayt smith (That kid who bragged so emphatically about his Wolfenstein 3-D modifications that id Software actually issued a Cease and Desist?)
• vegas games update (Well, Kirk still won’t let Spock play them if that’s what you…uh…nevermind.)

And my favorite…

• how fast is 24 horsepower (About twice as fast as your 11hp 1970 Snapper Hi-Vac.)

Where did the time go? I was supposed to do the third quarter edition of this regular Oddball department back in September or October, but apparently time got away from me. Gee, what a surprise. Anyway, I’ve already cruised through the server stats, and have borne witness to the truly wacky, incredibly nutty, utterly bewildering array of search keywords people have been using to find my site over the last few months. Are you ready for a peek into the truly scary corners of the tubes we call the INTARWEBS? Then onward we go!

Because the list of funnies is quite long this time, I’m splitting it up by month.

August, 2007

• apogee games zz top (Was Frank Beard in an Apogee game? More like Perigee…)
• what causes an engine’s revolutions to drop? (Taking your foot off the gas?)
• keebler classic collection chocolate fudge sandwich cookies (Seriously, ever since I made that post about discontinued foodstuffs that I miss, people have been coming here in droves looking for all of it. The Keebler cookies take the win, with Bill Knapps chicken fricassee a close second. Seriously.)
• where’s my cake?.com (BAHAHAHA! Must be Harvie’s homepage.)
• haircuts for 12 year olds (Uhh…try Fantastic Sam’s? What do you want me to say?)
• mazda sv7 (Now every time I get in Apple’s car, I’m going to imagine it asking: “What were you doing in the hopper?”)
• vista sleep fails (Yes. It does. It certainly does.)
• babararacucudada (Hehehehehe)
• history channel’s nation divided problems with vista (What does Windows Vista have to do with the History Channel? I’ve heard of people blaming Microsoft for everything, but this is ridiculous.)
• play dead or alive (If you want to play a game, why are you on the Internet?)
• more warhead remastered (What?)
• gunbuster jung boob (Huh?)
• what happened to rotiboy in thailand? (I asked my sister-in-law, and she said they went out of business. Dude, I knew that was gonna happen — why do you think I ate so many roti buns last time I was there?)
• william schallert arbor drugs (Next search: william schallert tribbles.)
• mustang cobra sv7 (What’s with all of these cars turning into supervocs?)
• which auto shops are open on sunday (Uhh…call ‘em and ask?)
• dell fails to deliver (Yeah, you got that right.)
• breast animation (Freudian slip? Or somebody else playing DOAX?)
• superboy deodorant (WHAT?)
• neighborhood witch (Seriously, what are people expecting to find when they search for this stuff?)
• mylanta’s slogan (Bored much?)

September, 2007

• cannot find an owner for that domain (Well, I own this one.)
• system shock owned bioshock (I’d probably agree with you…)
• teh dead (Neologisms aweigh…)
• different serial number on xbox repair status page (It means your Xbox is now in Mexico doing tequila shots. Seriously, there was a huge spate of Xbox failure related searches after I posted about my Xbox dying. One dude even registered just so he could comment on my entry here.)
• does hitomi kiss lei fang (Dude, please get out more. Please.)
• red soda from the nineties (Well, now that’s being specific!)
• tartan films cease and desist (Did they put the legal smack down on somebody?)
• saleen sv7 (Sigh. It’s the Saleen S7.)

October, 2007

• elexis sinclair (Are you guys still going on about her?)
• panty (I think you want Victoria’s Secret; it’s over there, straight down that tube to the rest of the internets.)
• donut town redford (Yeah! But: It’s Donutown. DONUT OWN.)
• review smackdown here comes the pain (My review is: It sucks. Go away.)
• asuka strikes tab (Somebody wants to play Evangelion soundtrack on the guitar? SHIROH SAGISU TRIBUTE BAND!)
• knivey (Eh?)
• forgotten 80s food (’80s food? Okay, how about “Fruit Burple”?)
• soft rock saxophone solo with a synthesizer (Speaking of ’80s…)
• doughnuts bill knapps (What? Bill Knapps didn’t have doughnuts! …Or did they? Wait, weren’t they serving breakfast there for a while? I seem to remember oatmeal. With brown sugar. Whoa, trippy memories.)
• tahitian treat addictive (Jesus, I sure hope it isn’t…my boss just bought me a case of the stuff!)
• malevolent management (Have you tried talking to HR about this?)

November, 2007

• a dramatic reenactment of the doom comic (Oh my God. You don’t want that. Seriously, I have it, but you don’t want it.)
• sailor moon chat beseen (NOOO! NOOOOOOOOO!)
• deus ex invisible war lags after 10 minutes (How about, “Deus Ex Invisible War sucks after 10 minutes.”)
• is there going to be a 2008 mach z (What the hell is a Mach Z? A Nissan with a shaker hood?)
• keebler pizzeria discontinue (“Keebler Pizzeria”? I was talking about cookies!)
• thai hachiban ramen (It’s oh, so tasty! Get the roasted pork noodle!)
• robot chicken turbolift (BAHAHAHAHA! Seriously, WTF?)

And the number one most baffling entry in the list:

• sputnik and american garage door openings

Uhh…CCCP soda!

Hello, I’m just back from two months in the future, where I got chased by a pack of kids on hoverboards and then went blind from staring at too many chrome license plates. Or, rather, I simply neglected the site and didn’t bother to post anything. You can believe whichever excuse you like. For the present, however, my friend Pooch reminded me that it was time for the second quarter edition of “Search for $A, Find $B,” a regular department of looniness here at the Oddball Update.

And so with that, let’s see what crazy search terms people have been using to find this site, shall we?

• oddball eggs (I wouldn’t eat those.)
• red holman pontiac service department review (Well, in 1998, I took my Grand Prix there, and they somehow embedded the oil fill cap in the underside of the hood. Since it is now 2007, your results may vary.)
• elexis cool (Yes. I guess she is, because you nutjobs will not stop searching for her.)
• serious challenge for this oddball (Excuse me?)
• journey to the center of the mind movie (There was a movie?)
• anime doug’s dugout michigan (I wish I knew. And ha, by posting it here, I’ve re-upped the search results for this term for another quarter!)
• phendimetrazine (Honestly, I don’t know either. According to Wikipedia, it’s a psychotropic drug used as a weight loss treatment.)
• engine oil light in my gto (That means you should either change it, or turn the ignition off and pray — depending on which oil light it is.)
• pharmacy (Just check your email; I’m sure you have about sixty spams from one.)
• joe sputnik (Weird. That was the name of a fictional ’50s diner I designed a logo for in college.)
• eb games resurfaces discs (Do they? You should probably thank them, given the condition of most of those trade-ins.)
• spockie (Mister Spockie’s Performance Corner? …Inside joke)
• chevrolet sv7 (So GM makes Supervocs, now?)
• rene auberjonois pronunciation (It’s “ruh-NAY uh-BEAR-shun-waa”.)
• haptic oddball (Oddball sense of touch?)
• uvanov dask (Ha! This made me laugh for some reason. Probably because it makes it sound like “Uvanov Dask” was one person.)
• latest update on s. fl lovebugs (Uhh…they really suck? Seriously, what did you want to hear?)
• apogee games zz top (Hahaha! This sounds more like a Perigee game! Play as Frank Beard!)
• beyond wolfenstein smith (This sounds really funny all by itself, but Wolfenstein old hats will remember the add-on “Beyond Wolfenstein 2″ by Nayt Smith, who received a cease and desist letter from Kevin Cloud of id Software for distributing the registered game’s graphics with his project.)

And by far my favorite, for undeniable laugh-factor:

• adolph hitler’s uncontrollable flatulence

Seriously. I saw a History Channel special on that once. It was called “High Hitler,” and for one hour, it focused exclusively on Hitler’s oddball drug therapies that Dr. Morell gave him to, among other things, cure his uncontrollable flatulence. I’m totally not making this up. Well, maybe History Channel was. But I’m not.

Tune in next time for more zany search terms, kids. I know I will.

And now, because I know you love it, and because I said I would start doing this quarterly instead of annually, here are the goofy search terms people have been using to find this site over the last three months.

• dead or alive xtreme volleyball 2 christie’s breast (Last I looked, she has two.)
• definition of oddball (This might help ya.)
• breast suspension (About now I’m slapping myself for writing that DOAX2 post.)
• president bush star trek (I know the ratings have been bad, but that kind of guest star ain’t gonna help.)
• the definition of happiness (People actually go looking for the definition of happniess and wind up here? Man, I hope somebody was manning the suicide prevention hotline that night.)
• husband died splurge (Everything in moderation…)
• splicing cassette tapes (Easy; get yourself a Post-It note, a pair of scissors and some scotch tape. Good luck.)
• haunted hotel miyako (I suppose that might account for the sex noises I heard coming through the air duct in the shower.)
• embarq wedding (So that’s what those mysterious extra charges were on my last bill. I had my line disconnected.)
• rename taurus screw up (That’s mostly what people are calling the resurrection of the Taurus — a screwup.)
• oddcast dynamics processing (It’s just an MP3, nothing special.)
• how to play doa4 (What, didn’t you get a manual?)
• rikku playing blitzball (She have a spread in Maxim magainze?)
• wednesday pin-up blogging (Huh?)
• automobile snob (Who? Me? …Yeah, I guess.)
• ferarri (A hint? You might get better results if you spelled it right.)
• babararacucudada commercial (Ba! Ba! Ra! Ra! Cu! Cu! Da! Da!)
• bullet witch fanservice (I’ll leave that one to Pooch. Any comments?)
• visible panty (That might sort of defeat the purpose.)
• sailor moon room chat (Please, don’t mention that again.)

And my favorite:

• my lines my lines i can’t remember my lines detroit zoo commercial – video

Hey! That one was actually relevant!

I thought I’d also mention that people are still coming here, every month, looking for Elexis Sinclaire and the recipe for Bill Knapps’ chicken fricassee. Sorry guys, I have neither. You can get some Elexis over here though, courtesy of Bianca B…uh, no, I won’t print her name, else people will be coming here looking for her. And I guarantee there will be a lot more of them…

Have a good night kids, and don’t forget the quote of the day: “Those that don’t listen…get a monster!” (You want to hear it, go there and click the animated girl’s face repeatedly. And speaking of that site, I guess I better keep my Oddcast on the down-low, lest they serve me a lawsuit.)

About a year ago I posted a humorous sampling of some of the search engine keyphrases people are using when they stumble across Oddball Update. This seems to have become an annual tradition, so here we go again — I’ve culled the best of the best from my 2006 statistics archives. Bon appetit.

• bill knapps chicken fricassee (Join the club, brother.)
• super pachinko sexy reaction screenshots (Didn’t I talk about that years ago?)
• knight rider christmas (“Michael, I am not a reindeer.”)
• key hard truck apocalipse (Need a dictionary?)
• christmas music for wiolins (Is that you, Mr. Chekov?)
• lana impregnated smallville (Well then, I think we’d better abort it.)
• gruppo sportivo rock later (Huh?)
• final fantasy x skip cinematic (Sorry, pal. You can’t. We already tried.)
• the fat superboy lana (Okay, listen. Can you stop with the Lana stuff?)
• why can’t you be nice to me? (You’re asking me this?)
• agony booth (Down the hall and to the left, but it’s occupied. Stan’s in there again.)
• drywall strikes fear (Does that mean you’re afraid of drywall?)
• panty bandit (No, wrong number. You want some other bandit.)
• i cutup my toys r us card (Good for you. What’s that got to do with my site?)
• ninja magic nipple shock (Uhh…)
• oddball the pain game (Is this related to that last one somehow?)
• holy fucking shit it’s a dinosaur (Dude, you want YTMND.com.)

Also, somebody needs to stop searching for way-too-young naked girls. That’s just gross. And to the FBI: No, I don’t have any such pictures here.

About a year ago I posted a humorous sampling of some of the search engine keyphrases people are using when they stumble across Oddball Update. I happened to find that post by accident tonight (uh…this morning), and thought that the time was ripe for a second round. Except this time, I’ll actually go back through the logs for every month of 2005 and cull the best of the best.

This year I find that most of the search keyphrases actually mean something, since I have been talking a lot about my GTO here, and people are often led here while looking for GTO info. Thankfully, though, the log is still full of goofy keyphrases as well, so I give you: Search for $A, Find $B: 2005 Edition. From Milton-Bradley.

• oddball salvage
• christmas games in medievel times (Ho ho ho, merry health potion?)
• panty waistbands (Well, that didn’t take long.)
• testarossa maintenance costs
• stupid people (Not like they’re an Oddball exclusive.)
• 2005 christmas list xbox 360 -amazon -peace -heaven (WTF?)
• listen to this thing mustang
• birty dird (Huh? Somebody searched for that? /me looks over shoulder)
• mr.bikini .com
• nobody wants xbox360 bundles (I did.)
• whoa! i don t touch anything gta (Okay, okay, simmer down.)
• immobile obese (I know I am of a “husky” build, but please. I get around.)
• revving engine blown video (Which led to our next gem…)
• blown head gasket is it safe to drive ()
• stupid people photos
• what did nero accomplish (He burns a hell of a CD. What do you want? Violins?)
• chicken bacon ranch papa good (No, but how about Vader Crisp?)
• oddball holidays
• lexus december to remember composer (Was the music on those ads really that good? I was always more interested in the identity of that guy who does the voiceover for Lexus. It sounds like the Cigarette Smoking Man.)
• xbox dashboard badass codes (Aw yeah! I can cheat at dashboard!)
• world s most expensive 1968 dodge charger
• to buy xbox360 for 300$ (To buy you a brain for free.)
• office space video game tps reports red stapler
• cover story 36 volts battery
• 1993 grand prix se (Aww. I’m touched.)

The award for the most popular search keyphrase of 2005 goes to: stupid people. It appears multiple times in the log for every single month. Wow. You love your dumbasses, America. Congratulations.