Ego-Inflation And Consternation

Sitemeter stats are always a sure way to make me feel... something about myself. This snarky little blog has readers from San Luis Obispo to Lyon. Don't forget Pakistan, Hong Kong, Madrid and Meriden. Damn straight. Meriden.

And some of those people actually come here on purpose. I kid you not.

Well, there's inflammation of the false ego, and then there's amusement. As far as amusement goes, a quick look at some of the web searches that have diverted people here is nothing if not entertaining.

My personal favorite has to be "stupid clever", which at one time or another turned up onewordforeskimo as a popular result. I must be becoming too much of one or the other to still rate.

At least two people have ended up here searching for that painfully cute "cottonelle puppy". A couple more were looking for "tabachnik soup". Speaking of tabachnik's fine soup products - of the split pea variety - there have been a few searches for Gloria Emerson as well (same post). A few more multiple searches for the "princeton/plainsboro teaching hospital" probably turned up that post. House M.D. fans, I would imagine. At least I hope they're not NJ residents seeking urgent care.

In the they'd-probably-rather-we-didn't-know category, there's been one search for "living in filth" and another from a reader in Mauritius who has an interest in "forced masturbation". I doubt that post was what he/she was hoping for.

Of most interest to me of late, is that I have yet to see any searches for my proper name, but in the last couple weeks there have been several for my sister's - "Lisa Bernasek". I hope she won't mind my saying so here, but she recently got engaged. Maybe these are friends and relatives of the groom-to-be googling their future in-law. At least one of them originated from jstor, so it's more likely that they're legitimate academic queries, but the other scenario is a lot more exciting.

Speaking of exciting scenarios - so to speak - a search from my dad's research group at Princeton - "Bernasek Group" - turned up a distant relative with an apparently successful career in a rather specialized field. (Scroll down and BE WARNED!)