Readers’ Expectations 5: Hemp George, Mexican Mollies, and Fat Babies with Mullets

 

What would provoke anyone to visit Scenic Route Snapshots, out of the millions of websites out there?  I like knowing the answer to the question, just as you do.  Here is the fifth installment of phrases that people typed into Google and other search engines to find this site:

“fat babies eating”- I thought it was safe to assume that most babies are fat anyways.  Is this from a hopeful parent wanting their baby to grow up to be a professional competitive eater?  That Japanese guy wins every year, but 2nd place isn’t a bad goal to aim for.  Good luck on that.  Mazel tov. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeru_Kobayashi

“van gogh starry night for kids”- Yes, because Van Gogh’s original painting of Starry Night contained a lot of nudity and violence, but the new Disney-endorsed version is safe for the whole family.

“What does being a Rubik’s Cube in a dream mean?”- One of two things.  A) You are feeling manipulated by the people in your life- like they are trying to “figure you out”.  2) It’s not a dream at all.  You’re currently on an LSD trip.

“hemp George”- Yes, President George Washington was indeed a hemp farmer.  But “Hemp George” sounds like a totally different guy altogether.  But hey, when you can’t track down Hemp George, there’s the next best thing- Sativa Steve.

“mullet baby ugly”- I thought all babies are beautiful.  And besides, a mullet doesn’t automatically make someone ugly.  Flashback to the ‘80’s, prime examples: MacGyver and Bono.

“singleness a gift I do not want”- This one is funny not because the searcher typed in something weird to find me, but because I happened to title that post exactly in the terminology he or she was thinking.  Takes one to know one: Singleness; The Gift No One Really Wants

“male mexican mollies mustache”– Definitely one of the most random searches ever to get to my website.  Mollies are a type of fish that unlike Catfish, do not have any physical features that resemble a mustache.  The four words “male”, “Mexican”, “mollies”, and “mustache” have nothing to do with each other.  And strangest of all, whoever searched that did so 7 times that day.

So that means 7 hits on my counter happened because someone searched something extremely random, not once, twice, or even thrice, but 7 times.  I am picturing a mustachioed Mexican man eating fish, and he’s very, very happy about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollies

The Randomness of Easter

Back in 2004 when I was in Bangkok, Thailand, I was riding in a taxi with my friend Jessie.  We were on our way to visit a Thai museum and she was asking me about American holidays.  Describing what Easter is to a Thai native is somewhat confusing when it’s said out loud:

“Easter is the day we celebrate Jesus coming back to life after he died on a cross.  But it’s also a way to stimulate our economy because everyone buys a bunch of chocolate candy, sends gifts to each other in ‘Easter baskets’, and purchases some sort of pastel colored dress or suit and tie for the church service that Sunday.”

She asked me, “But what do Jesus and chocolate candy have to do with each other?”

The answer?  Here’s the best I can do.

The LSD tripping Easter Bunny and the general populations’ collective excitement over the candy and the traditional gift giving serve as a vehicle to force the non-religious to identify that there is some sort of significant meaning behind Easter.  They may not fully understand who Jesus is, but they at least know that a lot of other people recognize Easter as the day Jesus came back from the dead.

Americanized Easter is a vehicle that is not against Christian Easter.  It points people in the right direction.

This past Easter it occurred to me just how big of a deal that Easter is to Americans, with or without the solid understanding of what the day is actually celebrated.  My wife and I spent the weekend with my family back in Alabama.  We literally had to leave the church service because there wasn’t enough room for everyone to sit.

So we left the Baptist Easter service and hung out at the Methodist church next door.  Because everyone that’s ever gone to church shows up on Easter.  It’s a major American holiday.  More major than I realized.

I kept hearing “Happy Easter” from everyone and seeing it as status updates on facebook.

Even last night Jimmy Kimmel was talking about his mom still giving him an Easter basket, though he’s now 42.  And he talked about how someone stole his friend’s seat before the church service started and all he could think about during the mass was punching the guy who stole the seat he was saving for his friend.

Funny.  And it shows that behind all the silly American traditions, that even the famous and influential Jimmy Kimmel recognizes there’s more to Easter than what’s on the surface.  In his joke he specifically stated that Easter is when we celebrate Jesus.

And I can relate to Jimmy.  I often want to punch annoying people in the face.