CALL ME SNAKE

My tenant just got a job offer from Google today, which came in the form of a FedEx package. I accepted the package for her (though not the job) and that got me thinking of Google and how I hadn't Googled myself for more than two months (see "Googlesize Me," March 18, 2005). When I did so today, I received quite a shock: I'VE BEEN DOWNSIZED! In March, when I last went through this exercise, there were 2,600 results in all, 630 of which were deemed "most relevant." Today, I got only 2,260 results--a paltry 515 of which earned "most relevant" status.

I should say, by way of protest, that I consider this classification scheme highly subjective. That said, I can't explain my 13 percent drop in overall importance (as judged by raw statistics) and, more significantly, my 18 percent drop in "relevance." I thought I was doing pretty well, keeping a reasonably high profile, but the numbers don't lie: Apparently, I've passed my peak and entered the long decline that will continue until there's no further to sink at which point I will have reached my final destination, that being rock bottom.

ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE... For vanity cases who can't bear to miss a single reference to themselves, Google has a new feature, "Google Alerts," through which you can receive live updates via email every time you make it onto a new Google entry. Of course, the same technology could be used to inform you of every new listing on rutabagas, if that brand of turnip happens to be your main interest in life.