BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

In theory, I suspect I am supposed to be posting a blog about how Martians are attacking Grover’s Mill, or going on about Orson Welles coming back from the dead because he’s actually from Planet 10… Wait… That would have been John Lithgow, and he’s not dead yet… wait… I’d better go check on that… (insert Jeopardy music here)… Nope, not dead.

But, never mind that anyway. I’m not really all about the April Fools stuff, especially given the incessant foolery I engage in on a daily basis. No, this should actually be my “no fooling” day… April Serious day…

So, let’s get on with the show…

As to the titular objection regarding my personal relevance, I should probably point out that there weren’t really any lawyers or judges involved. No darkly paneled rooms. No halls of justice… Or, justice leagues… Or super friends either…

Nope, it was just me. Well, me and a search engine… (I know, I know, the grammar police are on their way to get “I” right now so they can rearrange my sentence structure, but “me” wanted to write it that way…)

But, let’s dispense with all this April Seriousness and simply start at the beginning…

There I was, minding my own business, as usual… Another Sunday morning had rolled around, and 5 AM had reared its ugly head. Well, actually, I don’t find 5 AM to be all that ugly myself… After all, I’m one of those early risers, so I think it’s kinda cool. It’s quiet, I have the office to myself, and there’s nothing to distract me, except for those pesky chickens. Either way,  at 5 AM, believe it or not, I can actually get some work done…

But anyway… I was parked in the office, as usual, sipping my first “coff o’ cuppee” of the morn, while paging my way through volumes of email. Once I had perused, with great relish mind you, all of the advertisements for Lithuanian brides, generic Viagra, breast enlargement, penis enlargement, singles, doubles, triples, financial advice, free cans of “colon flush”, and all manner of other “hard to pass up” offers, I moved on to approving blog comments and the like. You know the drill. Just another Sunday morning.

Once finished with the comments and the like, I kicked back and surfed around. Being a bit of a “tweaker”… Not a mother tweaker, mind you. Just a tweaker. And, in case you are wondering, what I mean is this: I tinker about with my websites on a fairly regular basis to tweak them…

So, anyway, being a tweaker, once I was done with the comment stuff, I headed over to the listing of plug ins for WordPress. It wasn’t that I really had anything in particular that I was looking for, however, one never knows when there might be some kind of cool little widget, gadget, or flibbertyjibbet that would be fun to stick in the side panel. Or, more importantly, something that will make my life easier as far as maintaining my blog and website… And, let’s look at the facts here… I’m all about anything that makes my life easier. Of course, that begs all manner of questions, but we won’t go there… Not in this particular blog entry, anyway…

So, back to this whole plug in thing… As I scrolled through the listings, I happened to notice a “dashboard widget” for WordPress that was designed to let you know what your “Google Page Rank” happened to be. If you are unfamiliar with the Google Page Rank, it is a numerical value applied to your website by the search engine, Google… Hence the reason it is called a “Google Page Rank” and not, say for instance, a “Yahoo Page Rank”… Make sense? Yeah, I know, it confuses me too, but hey, it’s one of those things.

Anywho, the “ranking” is based on some manner of algorithm that I am not about to get into, what with mathematics not being one of my strong subjects. And, to be honest, much like the product ranking algorithm on Amazon, even Charlie Eppes from Numbers probably couldn’t figure it out, no matter how may chalkboards you give him. Suffice it to say, Google looks at your page, analyzes the meta data, content, links, images, linkbacks, embedded rhesus monkeys, flying purple people eaters, pocket lint, and every other damn thing it can find sitting there. Once it has done this, it assigns a numerical value that rates the “relevance” of your page.

Just for grins, I decided to install this little plug in. Why not? It didn’t take up much space, didn’t use any real intense system overhead, and wasn’t going to require much in the way of user intervention in order to get it to operate. Besides, it would be fun to see where Google had me ranked, right?

So, I did the clicky-clicky thing with the clicky-clicky thing attached to my computer. Lights flashed on the DSL modem, stuff flickered on the router, and somewhere in all that techno-garble, my computer did the download thing. I clicked install, a few scripts ran, and then the dashboard widget appeared.  Yippee! I must have done something right for a change. I had a look at the results and noticed immediately that it said, “mrsellars.com/mrblog has page rank of  zero“…

I paused. Certainly that couldn’t be correct. Just to be sure, I refreshed the screen.

The widget still said, “mrsellars.com/mrblog has page rank of  zero“…

Now, I have to be clear on something… While I’m a tweaker, I am not some kind of page rank whore. I will readily admit to being a marketing whore. I will even fess up to being “E Kay’s Bitch” most of the time.  That’s why it actually says “Property of Evil Kat” on one of my T-shirts. But, page rank whoring just isn’t my thing… Still, one would think that a domain named mrsellars.com, which has meta-tags about M. R. Sellars, a meta description talking about M. R. Sellars, with content about M. R. Sellars,  a blog authored by M. R. Sellars, internal links to stuff about M. R. Sellars, and external links to things that have to do with M. R. Sellars… Is anyone else seeing the pattern here? Good. Anyway, one would think such a pile of data  would probably have some manner of relevancy where M. R. Sellars is concerned. Know what I mean?

However, with a page rank of zero, basically Google was saying that mrsellars.com is in no way relevant to the subject of M. R. Sellars.

Of course, this seemed a bit odd to me. I figured that the plug in must not have been working. But, rather than delete it immediately, I decided to go check. Jumping on the next swell of DSL to come by, I road the crest, shot the tube, shredded the wave and surfed myself right on over to Google and ran a check.

Much to my surprise, according to Google proper, my page rank is zero…

So… I guess it’s official. I mean, what with Google being the benchmark… The yardstick by which all other search engines are measured… Hell, it’s even a piece of our vocabulary and culture… A proper noun that has been morphed by society into an accepted verb, adverb, adjective, and overall linguistic addition, which is now so deeply ingrained into our culture  as to define a generation.

Yeah… Google… (Insert heavenly sounding music here…) The  multi-colored, content caching, logo changing, power that be on the world wide interwebs…

And, so, Google has decided that M. R. Sellars is irrelevant. I feel so… um… so… well… I guess there’s no other way to say it. I feel irrelevant.

You know, in my way of thinking, this whole irrelevancy issue doesn’t seem all that fair. I mean, I’ve always spoken so highly of thos Googlites…

Hmm… I suppose I should start using a different search engine. Maybe they will appreciate me…

More to come…

Murv

There are times when you have to clean out the old brainpan. Get rid of excess words, phrases, clauses, and other ridiculous stuff. It’s a battle writers fight constantly. Generally we do it because if we don’t get the unsaleable crap out of the way, then we can’t put the saleable crap on the paper.

Kinda like freeing up a log jam, so to speak.

So, I’m sure you are probably wondering what qualifies as a writer’s soluble fiber for the brain… The Ex-Lax for the cerebral cortex so to speak…

I have no clue.

All I can say is that when it takes hold, all manner of nonsensical BS  – AKA Brain Sh*t – will spew forth. If you don’t believe me, just read the other entries in this blog… I mean, it isn’t called Brainpan Leakage for nothing, ya’know…

So, anyway, on this particular day in history, my grey matter was cramping a bit, and the next thing you know I had… well… you know… an urgent brain movement.

Not having time to get to the blog, I took advantage of the first receptacle I could find… What follows here are a series of inane, nonsensical, brain sh*t expelling tweets sent forth from my Twitter account this morning, all including their original hashtag – #WTF…

BTW – I received three comments in the wake of this leakage – one person was horribly confused, another enjoyed them immensely, and well, the other commented by simply unfollowing me. Guess I was just a little too intense.

I wasn’t concerned when she pulled the handcuffs from her overnight bag. However, the spatula and pinking shears gave me pause… #WTF

There was only one way out that didn’t involve a body bag. Now, all I needed were some high heels, a spark plug, and a can of peas… #WTF

The stilettos, she had, even if they weren’t my size. It was the spark plug and canned veggies that seemed out of my reach… #WTF

The room smelled like toast, and she looked like prepackaged sex. It was when the pizza arrived that I understood her plan… #WTF

It was thin crust, with double anchovies and extra cheese. The aroma was intoxicating, but somehow I knew it wasn’t meant for me… #WTF

“You’re late!” she screamed. The pizza guy cowered, but it was too late. Now the pinking shears protruded from his chest… #WTF

If only there had been black olives on that pie, then perhaps I could have made my escape. But, the peas were still eluding me… #WTF

My luck held. She grabbed the spatula, then went in search of another victim. “Be right back,” she said, as she exited the room… #WTF

This was my chance. Maybe I could do this without the peas. But wait, what about the shoes? Damn, she was still wearing them… #WTF

I resigned myself to whatever fate had in store. Even if I could get by without the peas, the high heels and spark plug were a must… #WTF

I had just given up when the hotel detective entered the room. “Am I interrupting?” he asked. “Yes, but please do,” I replied… #WTF

It seems they had found her in the lobby, spatula in hand as she served cheesecake to the guests in her own special way… #WTF

“What tipped you off?” I asked, absently rubbing my wrists where the handcuffs had been cinched tight…. #WTF

“She wouldn’t let anyone have seconds,” the hotel detective replied, offering me a cigarette… #WTF

I lit the cig and stared off into space while muttering, “You know, if she’d left the shoes, I’m sure I could’ve escaped.” #WTF

The hotel detective shook his head. “Not likely. They were fuschia.” I looked at him sideways. “Fuschia?” #WTF

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “If they’d been red, maybe. But fuchsia, not a chance.” I nodded my own head in agreement… #WTF

“So, how did this all start?” the hotel detective asked. After correcting my spelling of fuchsia I looked out the window and sighed… #WTF

“Well, you see,” I began. “There was this pair of handcuffs…”  – 30 –  #WTF

More to come…

Murv

Note: If you Twitter you can follow me @mrsellars. Be careful, I might follow back…