Not Entirely Useless

Weekend Assignment #98: "List the most useless website you have ever visited.

"Extra Credit: Tell us all about why you can't stop going there."

Oh, come on. Who has time for such things? I know, I know: lots of people. But not I.

Listen, I'm an accountant, and this is February. That means I'm struggling to get year-end stuff done at work. On her way out the door tonight, sometime after 6:30 PM, my boss had to tell me to go home. "You look tired," she said. Well, yeah. I am. And you know I'm overscheduled in the rest of my life, too. I keep going on about it, talking about my lack of sleep instead of, you know, sleeping.

So I don't make the rounds of joke sites or discussion sites or fan sites or cool-stuff-done-in-Photoshop sites or flash sites or what-have-you. Yes, I'll glance at Worth1000.com about once every three months, usually because John Scalzi just linked to it again. But that's pretty much it for useless time-wasters. Even if I had the time and interest to browse around, my dial-up would discourage me from going to anything video- or flash-intensive.

That said, there are a few sites I've been to more than once, trying to figure out why they exist, why they look like that, and how anyone, including the site owner, can possibly benefit from them. Mostly these are link farms, created by spider to drive traffic to, well, somewhere, except that I can't see it actually working. I occasionally come across them while Googling Mâvarin-related words. Here's one I found with the name Fayubi in it, as written up in my LiveJournal:

There was also a link farm [in the Google search results] - well, sort of a link farm, except that it doesn't have much by way of links:

The Seer And The Sword Supersite

Fayubi the (and Fabi the Innkeeper) - Fayubi the (born Fabi Stok) Art by Sherlock
First Appearance: Heirs of Mâvarin up and go over to his saddlebags, ...
auctions.dunningadvertising.com/listings/the-seer-and-the-sword.htm

Actually following the link in that one brings me to some truly deightful gibberish:

Fayubi the (and Fabi the Innkeeper) - Fayubi the (born Fabi Stok) Art by Sherlock First Appearance: Heirs of Mâvarin up and go over to his saddlebags, where his was. He began to pack his gear as if nothing.

not to mention

Strange Author Encounters - I'm still writing the 4th THE book, PLAY. Should hit the 100 page mark today if I get busy writing. A week ago I had a great time at an annual children's writing conference in Los Angeles.

and

The Brahan - His Prophecies - He applied to a local female , who informed him that he "would die by the " (le bas a chlaidheamh). This appeared to be improbable in the case of such an old man, who had taken part in so.

and


Fish --spotted spanish mackerel - CuttleFish --- Red-Snapper --- Emperor --- Moon Tail --- -Fish --- -Fish --- King-Fish --- Trigger-Fish --- Reef-Cod Squid --- Chilean Sea Bass --- Red Fin Bream --- Sea-Crab.

Okay, guys. I'm sure that's all really helpful to Victoria Hanley fans - especially since none of these snippets have live links!

Also, according to this page, Victoria Hanley is the author of the book "The and the."

I just went back to look at the site again. The Fayubi references are gone. The fish list is still there, though.

Whatever, guys. You just ceased to amuse me.

There are also a couple of pages I've personally posted that couldn't possibly be particularly useful to anyone. (Is that enough alliteration for you?) One was an explanation why having magic in my books doesn't make them anti-Christian. This is hardly a burning issue, not until I have books to be burned, that is. At least one person saw it, though, via a search for "immoral magic." The other is the tribute page to my mom. I thought nobody but me and my brother Steve would ever see that page, but I didn't figure on people researching genealogy or Googling "Dr. Ruth" (my mom was Dr. Ruth Anne Johnson). Result: that page get more hits than any other mavarin.com page outside the St. Michael's subdomain. It's also become a useful place to store and disseminate info on my mom and other family members as I learn more family history.

*******

My brother is in the hospital. Congestive heart failure is suspected, but I don't know who came up with that. I'm waiting to hear more from my Dad, who flew to Cleveland this afternoon/evening.

Steve is only a month shy of 56 years old. He has no health insurance.

If you believe in prayer, throw one in for Steve-O, will you? Thanks.

Karen