Search me! (The Google Search Meme)

A few days ago, Rick, over at Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice & Sunsets, came up with a game based on Google search.

It goes like this:

Open-up a browser window to Google and enter a string of words (that are NOT your blog title) that still delivers your blog as the top-ranked search result.

Rick had so much fun with this, he decided to turn it into a meme. He tagged Eric at The Other 95%, and then Eric tagged us.

Now, to be honest, we're not particularly fond of most memes. We usually cringe when we are tagged and -- since we are salty ol' curmudgeons -- most often politely decline to play. This time we accepted, because this one really sounded like fun.

So then, here are a dozen terms that yield pages of The Right Blue in the number one spot on Google search results:

1. Jerry dives
2. clinging crab
3. dainty bryozoans
4. humpback jackknife
5. lizardfish bling
6. vocal visitations
7. cross-eyed cone shell
8. ninja divers express
9. Puako petting zoo
10. reef sexy stuff
11. tiger shark landlord
12. exotic underwater nudies

Note that when you search on 'exotic underwater nudies' Google coyly asks, "Did you mean exotic underwater nudes?" But of COURSE we didn't mean THAT!! What kind of blog does Google think we're running here?! There's nothing NSFW here on The Right Blue!

As Eric observed, "to be a meme it has to be self replicating" -- which means we now need to tag a few other bloggers. We hereby tag Andrew, Chris, Will, Sheila, and Lavenderbay to participate in this meme, if they would like to do so. And if any of our other readers would like to play, please do join in -- and tell us in the comments so that we all can visit your blogs and marvel at the amazing terms that bring you search traffic.

---

UPDATE Mar. 3, 2009:

• Andrew's response to the Google search meme has been posted on his blog, A Darker View.
• Lavenderbay, another meme participant, has posted her response on her blog, Voice of the Turtle.

Meme: Link 5 (with a 'Right Blue' twist)

My friend Cathy, whose blog Keeping it Real at 66 Degrees North Latitude is about her life in Kotzebue, Alaska, has tagged me for a meme called Link 5. Except for weekly participation in Wordless Wednesday, I've never before done any kind of meme on The Right Blue, but I have agreed to do this one. According to Cathy, here is what the Link 5 meme is all about.

The rules for this meme are as follows: Go through your archives and link to five of your favorite posts that pertain to the following categories:

1. family
2. friends
3. yourself
4. something you love
5. anything you choose

Then pass it along to five other bloggers, two of whom should be people you know but could stand to learn something about, and the others can be new friends.

I'm going to cheat a little. I'll do the first part now, i.e., the five links to pages on this blog. But instead of tagging five unsuspecting people, I think I will ask around first to see who among my blogger friends would be willing to participate. I just don't feel right about springing this on someone by surprise, much less five someones!

I will add updates to the bottom of this post as I identify five good sports who are willing to play along with the meme.

Here are my five links -- previous posts from The Right Blue that fit into those categories -- but I've decided to put my own twist on this. Since The Right Blue is built around photos -- some stand-alone photos, and some photos that have stories -- I will think of those five categories in terms of photos.

1) Photo of Family: Regular readers of The Right Blue know that my favorite underwater model is my husband, Jerry. One of my favorite pictures of him in that role is this one: Jerry is posing with a comb jelly.

2) Photo of Friends: This one is very easy, since I've recently been reminiscing about old friends here on The Right Blue. Here is a post that is a photo essay about what some of those friends did on Easter Weekend, 1974.

3) Photo of Myself: The are not too many photos of me on The Right Blue, because I'm usually the photographer. Here's one, though -- and naturally, it is a picture of me stalking a stingray and a bar jack -- so that I can take their picture!

4) Photo of Something I Love: This one was tough to choose, because so many of the photos and stories on The Right Blue are about things I love. Out of many possibilities, I chose a photo that exemplifies something I love about underwater macro photography. This picture shows a tiny little fish peeking out from under the edge of a mushroom-shaped coral where it was hiding. I never saw that little fish until the photo was enlarged!

5) Free Choice Photo: That would be the photo on this page, a previously unpublished photo taken on the same day, and at the same place, as the photo that is in the header of The Right Blue. The fish are Bigeye Trevally (also known as Bigeye Jacks). Back in November I wrote about these schooling, swirling fish in an article called You don't know jacks... (starring Jerry, of course).

There. That wasn't so difficult. Now, to find five bloggers willing to play Link 5...