On What People Want to Know

Someone, somewhere, thinks I’m an expert on something. Oh, maybe not the things that I consider myself an expert on. But that’s the joy of the internet — everyone’s anonymous, and everyone’s an expert about something.

So what do people think I know about?

That’s where stat tracking comes in.

WordPress has a nice plug-in that handles stat tracking, from number of hits per day to search phrases, to incoming and outgoing links. But it’s had some limitations. It only does results on a day-by-day basis. And it doesn’t log the Tags pages.

The latter hasn’t been fixed yet, but the former has. Imagine my surprise when I logged in, and found that I could look at my search phrase logs, with totals going back to May.

So what have people been looking for the past nine months? Since I haven’t done one of these in a while…

1) “led zeppelin christmas song.” That would be Fleming & John’s “Winter Wonderland.” Variants on this phrase turn up at 15, 16, 18, and 37. The great irony of the words “Led Zeppelin” being in my top search phrase hit (and four others in the top fifty) is that while I do like their music, I’m not by any stretch of the imagination a fan.

2) “anakin skywalker’s father.” Y’know, I regret ever explaining my theory that Qui-Gon Jinn is Anakin Skywalker’s father. This one, too, shows up multiple times in various word combinations at numbers 8 and 11.

3) “abducted by the daleks.” It’s the Dalek porn. And yes, I wrote a serious review of a porn. There is no redeeming value to Abducted by the Daleks. Except for the production values on the Dalek casings themselves. This one turns up again at numbers 44 and 48.

4) “new blackadder.” Blackadder, of course, is the BBC’s historical sitcom starring Rowan Atkinson. Three years ago there was some talk of a new series of Blackadder, and I wrote about it at the time. As best I can tell, it was an idea that was floated three years ago, and then went absolutely nowhere. But people think I know something. I don’t! This one also shows up at numbers 33 and 42. By the way, Blackadder the Third‘s “Duel and Duality” is probably the funniest half hour of television ever, with Father Ted‘s “Kicking Bishop Brennan Up The Arse” right behind it.

5) “things that happened on my birthday.” Let’s stop an consider this one. There is a person out there who types in the Google search box, “things that happened on my birthday.” Presumably, that person wants to know what happened on his birthday. (I’m using the masculine pronoun. I’d like to think that women are smarter than this.) Except Google isn’t going to tell him that. So let me speak to said-Googler.

Okay, doofball, Google isn’t a fucking mind-reader! Google has no fucking clue what your birthday is! Google is looking for the words you put in the box. And those are all words that I happened to use! So, doofball, you’re not going to find out the information you want. Because you are fucking stupid, you goofball prat. You want to know what happened on your birthday? Go to Wikipedia, do a search on your birth month and day. I am not your personal Google; I don’t fucking know.

Here endeth the rant.

This one turns up again at number 12, by the way.

6) “things that happened in 1947.” People, seriously. Wikipedia is your fucking friend.

7) “stephen fry doctor who.” Stephen Fry, actor and writer and man with a brain the size of Kent, had been announced as writing a script for Doctor Who. It’s not happening, sorry. What would the script have been about? Rumors abounded from Vikings to King Arthur to World War I to a Jazz Age piece. We’ll never know, though. Fry’s other connection to Doctor Who is that he was the Minister of Chance in Death Comes to Time.

9) “allyn gibson.” Those words seem oddly familiar. Also, number 29.

10) “burying a pet.” Several years ago a kitten was struck by a car, and I wrote a post about the experience. Damn, now I’m getting choked up thinking about it. Also, numbers 40 and 47.

13) “lego doctor who.” I love LEGO. I love Doctor Who. LEGO Doctor Who needs to happen. The comments on that post look like spammers, though. Who uses Windows Server 2003 and IE6 these days? This one turns up again at number 17.

14) “captain jack face of boe.” Before “Last of the Time Lords” I speculated on what Captain Jack Harkness’s secret was. Frankly, I love my theory, and it’s one I wish I could do something with. Because you know what? It’s fucking cool. Captain Jack as the Face of Boe? Not really a fan. You know why? Jack loves his penis too much to ever want to turn into that. And to spend five billion years as that. Also — 22, 34, and 43.

19) “incestuous symbiosis.” A personality thingiemajig. Has to do with John Lennon. And you know, I need to fix the HTML coding on that webpage…

20) “TARDIS.” It’s a blue box. It’s not a portapotty.

21) “doctor who font.” Go here.

23) “across the universe soundtrack.” Across the Universe is the Beatles-based musical starring Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood. Great soundtrack, it’s worth getting. In the two-disc version. Don’t settle for anything less!

24) “beatles christmas song.” The only Christmas song the Beatles recorded was “Christmas Time (Is Here Again).” However, I would recommend getting the Fab Four’s Christmas albums; it’s Christmas with a Beatle-y feel. 🙂

And we’ll wrap this up with…

25) “things that happened in 1957.” Again, Wikipedia is your friend.

Some other odds and ends. “De Baisch” is a frequent search hit on my website, as is “Monica Potter.” “Hobbit sequel” is another frequent hit.

Fascinating! My speculation on Jack Harkness is my top page hit, followed by Anakin Skywalker’s parentage, and then a 2005 post on House‘s first season finale.

I think I may need to come up with a new theory on Anakin Skywalker. Oh, I’ve got it! Jack Harkness is Anakin Skywalker’s father! Wait. On second thought, I can’t see Captain Jack’s loins producing such a whiny bastard.

Statistics! They can tell you so much and yet… so little. 🙂

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

2 thoughts on “On What People Want to Know

  1. What makes you think it was Jack’s face that evolved into the Face? Or that he gave up what you think he gave up? Take a good close look at Boe’s “hair”. An’ think about it.

    Yes, I’m not being very explicit here, because once you get the idea into your head you try not to think about it too much.

  2. Frankly, I try not to think about Jack evolving into the Face of Boe at all.

    Some people I know think it’s an absolutely fabulous idea.

    Me? I was like, “Wot?”

    Did you ever read DC One Million? There’s an idea in there that I thought they planted in “Utopia,” and I expected them to follow up on in “Last of the Time Lords.”

    Essentially, the Martian Manhunter turns himself into a planet to defeat Vandal Savage in the distant future. It’s a trap laid, and it’s going to take hundreds of thousands of centuries for it to come to fruition.

    When the Doctor said to Jack that, since Jack couldn’t die, he was probably out there among the last survivors of humanity, I thought that was where the story would ultimately go. Especially when the reveal of the Toclafane and what they were was made.

    I thought we’d discover that immortal future end-of-time Jack was one of the Toclafane. And he was able to turn the Toclafane fleet back on the Master. Billions of years, Jack had been waiting.

    The Doctor’s human aspect? It’s still a good idea. It’s still something I’d love to write. But it’s too inside baseball.

    The Doctor and Jack planning a trap for the master across hundreds of billions of years? Now, that’s an epic for the ages.

    A throwaway line about a childhood nickname? Nah. 🙂

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