I google pretty much everything.
“How many winter sweaters do I really need?”
“Does canning decrease the amount of nutrients in organic garbanzo beans?”
“What was the original value of [snooty neighbor K’s] house?”
“Best phrases to inform guests that they need to stay at a hotel?”
“[Grandma B’s] phone number?”
Seriously – there's almost nothing that isn’t in my search history. Scary, yes. And sure, sometimes I scoff at the results, or feel guilty for not thumbing through the phonebook/encyclopedia, as I was taught to do. But, ever since my first mind-dulling job in corporate America, the search itself is truly instinctive.
And perhaps, I'm too good at internet searches. During my obligatory, collegiate computer class, the balding professor gave an assignment: “List three things you cannot find information for, on the internet.” He would teach us, during Monday’s class, how to find our “unfindable” information, by using better search terms.
Um, stupid much? We were a class of breakneck overachievers, who had (long before) learned how to live off of Google.
But, I was naively determined not to forego a single “participation” point. So, 72 hours later, I was desperately googling, then scribbling, the names of particularly upright students + various henous crimes. (“Ariana Saunders” + “1st degree murder”) There was nothing else, on the internet, I couldn’t find.
Unforeseen snag: Some sensor in my college’s network flagged my unusual googling, and so the staff worriedly forwarded my searches to the dean, who quizzically called me to his office, and asked for an explanation of my odd search patterns. I explained the (idiotic) assignment to the dean, who sensibly chuckled and dismissed me (and, presumably, the concerns of the IT department).
So, stunned and disoriented was I when I googled “How to name a blog” and this pitiful smattering of vague resources flickered onto my screen.
What? Really? No clear parameters beyond “Don’t use your name, unless you want people to know who you are” and “Make your title easy to spell”?!
Oh, thanks. Because I was totally about to misspell my title.
Slate, naturally, had a decent article – though none of their parameters inspired ideas; the thesis of the article was “How NOT to name your blog.” Witty, always. It’s Slate. But, since none of my original ideas violated any of their rules, I was left with this listless hesitance – a sureness that I wasn’t completely stupid, but a vague dread that I was insipid.
I have no “expertise” about which I blog. I’m not writing a book, or testing a theory, and I’m still squeamish about publically berating co-workers/bosses, or discussing pregnancy fears. I have a journal and girlfriends for that. The internet is public. (And I can vouch for how utterly searchable it is.)
So, I guess I’ll just name my blog after myself – minus my name, of course, since all the search engines agreed on that. And I’ll post about life, and learnings, and whatever else I may have googled that day.
