Now I Know my ABC...

I’m not as much of a Luddite as some but I must admit I find it hard to embrace Google’s now default predictive search function. The ‘helpful suggestions’ it makes as soon as I start typing into the little box do nothing to help me keep up the delusion my searches are interesting and unique and not what several million other people are looking for at the same time. It’s also slightly creepy to see some of the things that I’m a mere slip of a lazy typing finger from bringing to my screen.

I noticed today that this function leaps into action even after one letter is typed, which got me interested as to what it brings up first for each letter of the alphabet. Unless being top of the list is something you have to pay for I’m assuming the results reflect the most popular searches by Australians right now (I was using google.com.au).

For your distraction I’ve listed all the default words below. For anyone not au fait with the Australian way of life I’ve added a guide so you can see what it is people here mean when they say they still haven’t found what they’re looking for…

A - ANZ (a big Australian and New Zealand bank)
B - BoM (Bureau of Meteorology, for well-informed inane chats about the weather)
C - Commonwealth Bank (another big Australian bank)
D - Dictionary (for spelling things)
E - Ebay (for selling things)
F - Facebook (for wasting time)
G - Gmail (for people too old for Facebook)
H - Hotmail (for people too old for Gmail)
I – i-tunes (for people who actually pay for music)
J - Jetstar (Qantas’ budget airline. Fondly referred to in our house as Shitstar)
K - Kmart (shop for cheap crap and feel slightly dirty)
L - Limewire (for people who don’t pay for music)
M - Myspace (for wasting time if you are in a band)
N - Ninemsn (to the internet what Channel 9 is to quality television)
O - Optus (penguin-exploiting Australian telco)
P - Poptropica (“a virtual world for kids to travel, play games, compete in head-to-head competition, and communicate safely” apparently)
Q - Qantas (Shitstar’s older, dowdier parent)
R - Real Estate (‘crack smoking, fudge packing, satan worshippin motherfuckers’)
S - Seek (“I’m looking for another job to hate”)
T - Ticketek (‘transaction chargin’ kitty pettin, baby kissin corporate rock whores’)
U - Utorrent (for people who don’t want to pay for anything)
V - Virgin Blue (Branson does Shitstar, with better advertising)
W - White Pages (for people who haven’t heard of Google)
X - Xe (see how much money you don’t have in another currency)
Y - You Tube (where weirdos of the world congregate to swear and spell badly)
Z - Zoo Weekly (another big Australian wank)