Mishmash Musings

I was just talking yesterday about how I think “best of [insert current year]” lists shouldn’t be compiled until the current year is actually over, and this is one of the reasons why: for the past couple of days, the top search on Google Trends has been Layla Kiffin, wife of newly appointed Tennessee Volunteers coach Lane Kiffin.

Sure, two days’ worth of buzz would hardly be enough to drive Layla Kiffin to the top of the year-end search rankings, but it could conceivably happen with another hot topic, so I still think people should lay off these lists until the end of December or the first week of January!

Anyway, what’s so special about Layla Kiffin that is making people search for her like this? Well, apparently, she’s pretty hot as coaches’ wives go. Could be because she’s significantly younger than most head coaches — and because Lane Kiffin is pretty hot himself. They make a good-looking couple, that’s for sure!

(SF Chronicle Photo/Michael Macor)

Hot on the heels of Black Friday, yesterday was Cyber Monday, where online retailers offer huge discounts on everything from DVDs and video games to furniture, kitchen appliances, and bridal lingerie in order to entice shoppers to make purchases over the Internet.

The only problem — at least for me — is that these deals aren’t organized in a single place, so it’s very hard to track them down. Sure, I can go through my favorite websites in my bookmark tab, but then I’ll only get to see the deals that those particular stores are offering. Most websites don’t advertise Cyber Monday deals on television or in newspapers, and I only saw a handful of online ads for these discounts on neutral websites.

So I didn’t end up buying anything yesterday, just because I wasn’t interested in anything my usual online retailers had to offer. I sure do wish there was an easy way to check out a bunch of new sites on Cyber Monday, though!

Here we are barely into December, and yet the there are already several “best of 2008″ lists being published. It seems that these things come out earlier and earlier every year! Why can’t people wait until the end of December to publish these things? After all, this month is still part of the year in question, right? So how can you have an accurate “best of” list when you don’t even take the entire year into account?

Anyway, I just read a list of the Top 10 web searches of 2008, and was surprised by only one entry: Naruto. It’s hard to believe that a fictional/cartoon character made the list, but I guess it just goes to show you how many fanboy geeks there are out there!

Here’s the list, as compiled by Yahoo! Buzz:

1. Britney Spears
2. WWE
3. Barack Obama
4. Miley Cyrus
5. RuneScape
6. Jessica Alba
7. Naruto
8. Lindsay Lohan
9. Angelina Jolie
10. American Idol