the timboucher experience

For the first time since I’ve been tracking them (about a month now, with at least a once-daily check-in), I discovered a keyword in the top 100 Google search terms of the day in the USA which is in not only another language, but another system of writing. According to the current reading, this term is #69 right now:

ITEM #1

飯島愛

Which Google translate tells me is Japanese for “Iizima Megumi”, a search on which yields some confusingly-phrased news items seemingly related to the death of a popular Japanese entertainer. One website reports:

Saturday afternoon, the entertainer’s former Iizima Megumi (36) was found dead in the apartment at the home of Tokyo. Shibuya, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said no major injuries, police said. The police are investigating the cause of death is more police.

Looks like a case of poor auto-translating software. The next paragraph continues:

According to police, around 3:15 Wednesday afternoon, she visited the apartment the woman was worried that not be in contact for several days with Mr. Iijima. Iijima was found to be lying in state in the living room of his stomach, police said.

Another website offers a similar helping of wordsoup:

Megumi was the 1990s, and popular TV variety show host in 2000, “Platonic Sex,” published. As the best-selling autobiographical novel of the life of his own confession, the movie was made into a TV drama. Ms. Megumi, who had a variety of talent, the last year to retire from show business.

Both sites, despite using “his” as a pronoun features pictures of a woman. The first calls him Mr., the second Ms. Hard to say for certain, not being a native speaker familiar with the culture what the most accurate information is here in this case.

ITEM #2

This one may be more prescient, or else a coincidence… Yesterday on this site and on related Twitter accounts, we spoke a great deal about clouds, cloud computing, cloud shamanism, cloud warfare, etc and we even spoke about divining the future. Today, we see as number 17 in the top 100 USA Google trends, “lenticular clouds.” So this is a direct hit, since I had downloaded two photos of lenticular clouds at that time to use in upcoming posts. Here they are:

And another non-lenticular formation:

And a weird raccoon dressed like a ninja:

ITEM #3

What any of this “proves”, well I have no idea. But I also posted about the Norse god Odin yesterday and “yggdrasil” is number 35 in the top 100. The details page for that particular item reveal the “related searches” as being, “import skynet” and “terminator scc.” (??)

In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil (”The Terrible One’s Horse”), also called the World Tree, is the giant ash tree that links and shelters all the worlds. Beneath the three roots the realms of Asgard, Jotunheim, and Niflheim are located. Three wells lie at its base: the Well of Wisdom (Mímisbrunnr), guarded by Mimir; the Well of Fate (Urdarbrunnr), guarded by the Norns; and the Hvergelmir (Roaring Kettle), the source of many rivers.

Four deer run across the branches of the tree and eat the buds; they represent the four winds. There are other inhabitants of the tree, such as the squirrel Ratatosk (”swift teeth”), a notorious gossip, and Vidofnir (”tree snake”), the golden cock that perches on the topmost bough. The roots are gnawed upon by Nidhogg and other serpents. On the day of Ragnarok, the fire giant Surt will set the tree on fire.

Other names for the tree include: Ask Yggdrasil, Hoddmimir’s Wood, Laerad and Odin’s Horse.

If I’m not mistaken, Yggdrasil is where Odin hung himself upside down to gain the secret of the runes:

Odin hung himself upside down upon the World Tree, the gigantic ash Yggdrasil ( a compound meaning “terrible horse”). After nine days of fasting and agony, in which “he made of himself a sacrifice to himself”, he “fell screaming” from the tree, having had revealed to him in a flash of insight the secret of the runes. Their initial manifestation took the form of eighteen powerful charms for protection, increase, success in battle and love-making, healing, and mastery over natural causes.

So that’s a pretty direct correlation to SOMETHING or other as well… though perhaps its just a seasonal thing, with some archetypal connection between Santa and Odin. Either way, Merry Christmas!

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