Here’s what I learned from Googling the year’s 10th month
Nonsense | by Stephen Whitworth
We sure had a lot of weather leading up to our Tuesday, Oct. 11, 6:00 p.m. press deadline. According to a Google search, Saskatoon had a 100-year-record-breaking snowfall before the Thanksgiving long weekend, with 17 centimetres dumped on the city on Wednesday, Oct. 5.
Google also informed me that careful driving was recommended in the southern part of the province.
You can learn a lot of things from Google.
I wonder what would happen if I filled this hole in my newspaper by writing about the things I learned by Googling “October”?”
Let’s find out.
THE 10TH MONTH One of the top results for October that wasn’t weather-related was the month’s Wikipedia page. According to Wikipedia, October is one of seven months with 31 days. In the northern hemisphere it’s associated with Autumn. Below the equator it’s springtime. So if you’re wondering why Australians are so smug, that’s probably why. Well, we’ll see who’s laughing in May.
BIG DEAL DAYS October also has a significant number of special days associated with it. Two obvious ones are Thanksgiving and Halloween, but there’s also Fire Pup Day and National Homemade Cookie Day (Oct.1), National Taco Day (Oct. 4), National Fluffernutter Day (Oct. 8), National American Touch-Tag Day… hang on a second, these are U.S. holidays. Well, at least I know what a Fluffernutter is now. Oh: also, today (Oct. 11 in my spacetime) is National Coming Out Day, which seems to be celebrated here too, at least on Facebook.
MUST-SEE MOVIES I guess it’s not surprising Rolling Stone magazine shows up on the front page of a Google search for October. The Google overlords always had a crush on Rolling Stone. Anyway, according to Rolling Stone, the movies you should see this month include The Birth Of A Nation, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, and Chan-Wook Park’s The Handmaiden, which it describes as “another tale of betrayal and secrecy.” Not in the Rolling Stone article but on MY list: Godzilla: Resurgence.
REGINA LEAF PICK-UP All this Googling about October reminds me that I got an press release from the city of Regina today about leaf pick-up. Leaf pick-up will begin Thursday, Oct. 13 and continue to Oct. 26. This will be of less than zero interest to Planet S readers, who generally do not live in Regina.
DIMETRODONS AREN’T DINOSAURS One of the things that happens when you Google October is that it gets very boring, very quickly. When that happens, you need to Google something else to stay awake. In my case, this “something else” was dimetrodons, the awesome prehistoric sail-backed animal that many people think is a dinosaur. According to Google, “many people” are mistaken: dimetrodons went extinct 40 million years before the first dinosaurs appeared. Another thing about dimetrodons: they’re more closely related to mammals than they are to dinosaurs, which I didn’t know — they belong to the evolutionary clade Synapsida.
Also, most dimetrodon fossils have been found in North America and there are 13 confirmed species of the animal.
In conclusion, no one expects you to dress up as a dimetrodon this Halloween. This is your chance to blow them all away with the prehistoric world’s most unexpected costume. Do it! You’ll win all of the prizes.
In conclusion, Googling October isn’t very interesting but it IS a good way to fill in a blank page at the last minute.
Happy National Feral Cat Day (Oct. 16)!
