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With access to my Web host’s logs, I can tell a lot about my readers. Sometimes, I can tell more than I really want to. For instance, if someone finds this Weblog via a search engine, I can tell what words they plugged into the search engine. Usually, they’re just looking up “josh reads the comics,” but sometimes their search terms are more … disturbing. I’m not sure what’s more alarming: the fact that someone searched on Yahoo for “miss buxley in a bikini,” or the fact that this Weblog was the number 11 result for that query. Anyway, in an attempt to embarrass and alienate my readership, I promise to post the most bizarre search queries to the blog.

Incidentally, I’d like to give a linkback to Tube City Almanac. I’m not saying that the author of this blog found my page by searching for pictures of Miss Buxley in a bikini, but I’m not saying that he didn’t, either.

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Garfield, 9/7/04

Oh, that Garfield! With the laziness and the obesity and the … um … hey hey. One of the more opaque aspects of this cat’s personality is the arbitrariness of his bloodthirstiness. He smashes spiders with a particular savagery; but, while he doesn’t seem to like mice very much, he can’t be bothered to do them any harm. My cat has the opposite tendencies — she’s killed mice, but insects don’t interest her — so maybe this is a realistic insight into cat psychology. Or maybe it’s incredibly lazy writing. You make the call.

Incidentally, I think one of the things that Americans hold against the French is their aura of cultural snobbery. In the interest of promoting international friendship, I’d like to point out that, during my recent trip to Paris, ads for Garfield: The Movie (or, as they call it there, Garfield: Le Film) were literally everywhere. If we take density of advertising as an indication of importance (and I can see no reason why we shouldn’t), then this movie is considered to be the most important film release there since Truffaut’s The 400 Blows.

And yes, that is the emaciated face of an Olsen twin peeking in from the left.

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Mark Trail, 9/6/04

Superman was crippled by Kryptonite. Wonder Woman lost her powers when tied up. So it makes sense that Mark Trail, too, has a weakness. But who would have thought that the passion for the environment that makes him such a great outdoorsman would also undermine his ability to ferret out evil?

As you can see, in the today’s episode, our hirsute yacht captain is charming Mark by demonstrating his environmental awareness (and yes, it’s sad that not dumping trash directly into the sea qualifies as “environmental awareness”). The respect shown for Mother Earth even moves Mark to unleash an “as you know”-prefaced chunk of exposition. Meanwhile, he’s ignoring an obvious fact: that the captain has a beard, and (in the universe of Mark Trail, anyway) is therefore obviously evil. His villainy is confirmed by the two shaggy, swarthy fellows in the final panel. Hopefully Mark will be lulled out of his eco-friendly complacency in time to deliver his knockout punch.

For the record, today is Labor Day, and there were not one but two woman-going-into-labor-on-Labor-Day jokes in today’s comics section (B.C. and Gasoline Alley).