Ryan McKern, my go-to tech-geek, music-recommender and culinary-philosopher, recently rounded up a list of the top search terms that brought people to his personal website, and tried to identify why those search terms brought people there. I felt inspired to do the same, as there isn’t a day that goes by without me noticing a bizarre phrase or two that brought people to mindpollution.org.

Since this is something I’d like to do on a regular basis (probably monthly), I’m going to get the entirety of 2008 out of the way to kick things off. Here are the top search terms that brought people here last year and why (I believe) that occurred:

1. “rick marshall”

- Well, this one is pretty obvious, but it’s worth noting that there are other places people can go when they search for “Rick Marshall” — and I’m darn happy my little soapbox ranks among the most popular destinations.

2. “mind pollution”

- Okay, this is another obvious one. Not a great start, I know, but it gets better.

3. “laser cats 3″

- I really enjoyed this “Saturday Night Live” skit. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one.

4. “bo cafe dobbs ferry”

- Who would’ve thought so many people would be searching for information about my friend Karen’s former wine bar and cafe? I’d like to think that they were marveling at my amazing gallery of photos from Bo Cafe’s grand opening event.

5. “beulah cumberland presbyterian church”

- Um, what? I had to do a search for this one in my archives, to be honest. It turns out that this is from a site I referenced in one of semi-regular link dumps — a Photoshopped competition between rival churches’ sidewalk signs.

6. “encouraging quotes”

- This one took me a little while to track down, as a search for “encouraging quotes” within the site here doesn’t yield any results. However, when I searched the web proper for the phrase “encouraging quotes,” a post I wrote after leaving Wizard appeared on the third page of results. I’m kind of fascinated by this fact, as I don’t think I tagged it with that phrase — so someone else must have done so. This… is very cool.

7. “wizard entertainment”

- Yeah, this one probably doesn’t need an explanation — not if you’ve been reading the site for any length of time, at least.

8. “youtube spiderman”

- This one probably comes from a post in which I embedded a bootleg version of the Spider-Man 3 trailer. Man, remember when I didn’t feel compelled to spit every time I mentioned that “movie”?

9. “tim gray murder”

- Here’s a somber note on the list, folks. You’re probably better off reading up on this one to see why it appears on the list here.

10. “wizard entertainment” + “gareb shamus”

- Heh. Apparently, my musings on life during and post-Wizard are a big draw.

Finally, here’s a quick roundup of five search terms that weren’t among the most popular ways people found their way to the site — but were worth mentioning all the same.

“how cocaine is made”

- It all comes back to this post, folks.

“our lady of martyrs catholic church”

- See term #5 in the previous list for this one.

“joaquin phoenix”

- This one comes from an awesome video featuring the aforementioned actor walking out on an interview when the reporter laughed at his future plans. I just think it’s funny that my site is one of the results when people search for “Joaquin Phoenix.”

“rickslist”

- I try to pay it forward and get people jobs. This is one example. Here is another.

“satanic porn”

- The scary thing is, I knew exactly what this term was pointing to when I saw it on the list — but I think it’s too hilarious not to mention here. This one points to an interview I conducted with Devil’s Panties creator Jennie Breeden. I just think it’s awesome that people searching for “satanic porn” end up here — but I hope they’re not too disappointed.