Google

Googling Bear Naked

/ Diane Henders / 36 Comments

It’s been a tough week and my idea bank was running low, so I consulted a ‘writing prompts’ site for some inspiration.  One suggestion caught my interest:  Check your site stats to find your three most popular posts, and write about the connection between them.

I checked my stats… and burst out laughing.

Excluding the pages of my official website, here are the blog posts that draw the most visitors, in order of popularity:

We’re All Free! And Naked!

Confessions of a Vegas Swinger

We’re All Naked

Gee, I wonder… what’s the connection here?  Let me think for a nanosecond…

When I went back and re-read those posts, the best part (as usual) was my readers’ comments.  Who knew that my blog would be the #1 Google result if you search ‘naked machete-wielding motorcyclist with fanny pack’?  Searches for ‘naked beer-drinking martial artists on motorcycles’ and ‘polar bear sex club’ also return my blog at #1.

I’m famous!  Or maybe ‘notorious’ would be a better word, but let’s not split hairs.  All this despite the fact that I’ve never been naked on a motorcycle, and my only knowledge of polar bears comes from viewing them from a safe distance at Churchill, Manitoba.

Black bears, on the other hand, are far more familiar than I’d prefer.

You know the saying, “Art imitates life”?  Well, my art imitated life; and now my life has turned around to imitate my art:

In Book 11, I wrote about a bunch of wackos who protect their secret compound in the woods by feeding bears to keep them near the stockade.  That was based on the true story of some folks here in BC who did the same thing to guard a marijuana plantation.

Yesterday I discovered that I now live in a compound patrolled by my very own bear.

I’m less than thrilled.

We just had an 8’ pagewire fence installed around our yard to keep deer out of the garden.  Our crew put up most of the fence, and then ran dogs through the woods to make sure no deer were inside the area before they closed everything up.  They finished Monday around suppertime.

Only a couple of hours later I was walking around the house when I heard a distinctive “Uuuhhhh.  Uuuhhhhhh…” and the sound of heavy footsteps crashing through the forest not far away.

A bear.

Shit.

I didn’t glimpse it, so I don’t know for certain that it was inside our fence, but it sure as hell sounded close.

Needless to say I’ll be cautious around here until the bear decides to leave and pulls down part of the fence to do it.  After we repair the fence we’ll probably be okay, since there’s nothing inside to tempt a bear to return… except maybe a naked motorcycle-riding machete-wielding martial artist wearing a fanny pack.

But that only seems to appeal to random Google-searchers; and since it’s hard to operate a keyboard with paws and 2” claws, the bear will never even know about the internet star on the other side of that inconvenient fence.

I think we’ll both be happier that way.

Have you searched anything interesting on Google lately?

P.S. Preorders are available for Book 12:  Kiss And Say Good Spy!  Click here for links to online retailers

This Week’s Been A Gas!

/ Diane Henders / 68 Comments

We’re slowly settling into our new place, but, like the nocturnal swamp shuttle, there are still a few kinks to work out.  Y’know, little issues like sewer gas.

Sewer gas wafts into corners and creeps along floors and trickles down stairwells, making it nearly impossible to trace its origin.  So I was nosing through the house snuffling like a deranged bloodhound and muttering, “Dammit, I smell sewer gas!” while Hubby, who lacks my sensitive sniffer, thought I was going crazy(er).

I finally figured it out by posing myself a simple question:  “What’s the stupidest thing our homebuilder could have done?”

Yep, nailed it on my first try.  They had routed sewer vent lines up to the second floor for the future bathroom, left the lines uncapped, and then installed the plywood subfloor over top.  So the longer we used the septic system, the more the house reeked of decomposing shit.

It wasn’t a huge chore to saw open the floor and cap the lines, but the whole episode definitely impaired my sense of humour for a while.

Then again, my sense of humour is usually a little messed up:

Hubby, my evil enabler, bought us three big bags of Kernels popcorn.  While we were happily munching, we noticed that their plain popcorn looks like home-popped corn, while the caramel popcorn is puffed up into near-perfect spheres.  (And aren’t you impressed that I didn’t even make a dirty joke about chowing down on tasty balls?  Good Lord, I must be growing up.)

Anyhow, I wondered if caramel corn is actually a different variety of popcorn.  Turns out it’s not; but I got as far as “why is” in my Google search when their top four searches popped (sorry) up:

What?!?

It makes sense that a lot of people might wonder about the sky; and since I don’t have kids I can’t knowledgeably dispute the importance of Caillou’s baldness.  But green poop is the third most common internet search?  Are that many people pushing out technicolor turds?

And I didn’t think the FBI showed up at people’s doors frequently enough to warrant fourth place; but even if they do, I wouldn’t have thought people’s reaction would be, “Oh, hang on, Mr. Cranky Gun-Toting Lawman.  I realize by the way you kicked down my door that you might be in a teensy bit of a hurry, but I just want to do an internet search before you drag me away…”

The next giggle happened when we were getting ready to configure my step-mom’s new FitBit.  I looked up the installation procedure, read the first step, and laughed.

Maybe I should kiss it first…

You’ve gotta love it when the first item on the configuration list sounds like a kinky sex act.

And speaking of dongles and related words, I ran across this vintage game in a little store:

From a more innocent time…

I probably wouldn’t have snickered quite so much if I hadn’t just researched gender reassignment surgery (don’t ask why; you know how my internet searches tend to go down oddball rabbit holes).  I discovered that they usually use a skin graft from the forearm to construct a new penis, and one of the potential complications is ‘hairy urethra’.  So you really can end up with a wooly willy…

Okay, I’ll stop now.

How’s it hanging for you this week?