Google Gaming

“In Google we trust” , asserts a friend in his email signature.

And with its wonderful ability to quickly conjure information for every query known to man, Google deserves the goodwill. Or in this case, trust.

Ah, but it doesn’t stop at that, does it?

The curious species that we are, once we begin to trust someone/something, we like spending more time with/on them.

When that something happens to be a search engine that contains everything in the whole wide world, ever, it becomes a little distracting.

Distraction turns to engrossment, whereby the right side of the brain, aligned to fantasy, impetuously begins to wonder, “Could there be more I can do with this? probably come up with games to explore these 3 billion pages better?”

And at that precise moment, ladies and gentleman, the engrossment irreversibly turns into addiction.

Ask Dave Gorman.

Or even better, watch “Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack adventure”.

I did, the title doing just enough to raise the “inquisitive alarm”.

The beginning was hilarious alright, but the question on my mind, and now presumably on yours :p, was , “what the hell is a Googlewhack?”

The answer arrived in the time it takes for light to travel from the earth to the sun, and I was suitably enlightened.

Yes, yes, now so shall you. Allow me.

Googlewhacking is a game played using Google’s search engine. Now if you enter two words into the search box (no inverted commas) , google then goes out and searches over 3 billion pages and returns with results which have not one, but both of the words you typed in.

Normally, if you typed, say, Nokia phones, you’d get a result showing you 48,900,000 pages of information.

If, however, the result shows you one, and only one page of information, containing both the words, that there is a googlewhack.

There are rules, though.

1. No punctuations (inverted commas) to be used. Just two words typed into the search box. (In puctuations it’s a Googlethud!)

2. Both words must exist in the English language. Google indicates this by underlining words present in the dictionary when the search results arrive.

3. The words cannot be part of a words list. They must be present in a real website and written in context. (If they are present in a wordlist, it’s a Googlesmack!)

Ok, so what’s the big deal, you may ask?

The big deal is that when a balding, thirty something Britisher with a red beard and funny expressions questions your homo sapien identity with, “If you find out what a Googlewhack is, and you’re sitting at a computer when you find what one is, and you dont try to find one, you’re not bloody human!” you will sodding look for one, wont you? (Golly! Now I’m speaking British!:))

Which is precisely what I did. (After watching the movie of course, it’s too funny and dramatic to stop watching. Give me a blank cd, I’ll burn a copy for you!)

Only it isnt as easy as it seems.

I began with bamboozled spelunking (270 pages), onto heraclitean Gorgonzola (58 pages), then to whatchamacallit kyphosis (38 pages) and when tchotchke zugzwang returned 10(!) results, I admitted defeat and vowed to fight another day.

But wait. What I’d failed to mention was that when I was going through http://www.googlewhack.com – where all Googlewhacks are recorded, like a hall of fame- I happend to go through news about Googlewhacking.

Where I chanced upon another game, Googlefight!

Still smarting from the whackjack, I hoped Googlefight would provide compensation. And my word it did!

Let me explain.

Googlefight (to be played on http://www.googlefight.com) is a game wherein you compare two words or searches, say “hands” vs “feet”, and see which one registers the most hits. And while Google stacks up the numbers, two stick figures fight each other.

The figure of the winning search actually kicks the loser figure out! And when my first matchup produced the result that I wanted, I was delighted.

<>FC Barcelona 6,730,000

Real Madrid CF 2,410,000

You beauty!

<>Comparing your favourite foods, celebrities, teams does take time, but is worth every bit. Oh yes!
Funniest Fight: “me” vs “myself”

No Prizes for guessing the winner….

“Me!” :p

If that wasn’t enough, Google threw another teaser at me, this time in the form of a image quiz!

http://blog.outer-court.com/quiz the place to go, connect 5 images, answer and score points. Suited to those who enjoy quizzing, and I loved it.

You might find all of this to be a little trivial. Sure, there are better games to play on the internet but once you watch the movie, Google Gaming will stick on. 😉

For a while atleast.