Amazon, D.C. Novelty Stores Hit With Run On Magic 8-Balls; Page Group Pushes Back, Calls For Closing Down Congress
Millions of computer users around the world this morning where stunned to find that the Google Search Engine was unavailable, that it had crashed. A one-line message, on an even more barren home page than the usually sparse Google offering, read "Unavailable To Perform Task; Server Down".
The cause, according to a Google executive, was due to a "tsunami of searches", concentrated on Google's infamously whimsy "I'm Feeling Lucky" search bar, from IP addresses traced back to the Capital Building, the White House and an undisclosed alcohol and drug rehabilitation clinic.
'This is really unprecedented," offered a beleaguered Marissa Mayer, the company's vice president for search products and user experience. "We've never really experienced this before ... The system was strained around the time Princess Diana died, but that was when we were very young and not nearly as big ... We've had some other scary spikes - we get clusters of people looking for when Rosanne sang the National Anthem... Or, very recently, Senator Allen's Macaca incident... Also, our "I'm Feeling Lucky" on Google Iraq has been running at near capacity for the past three-years."
Mayer says that company engineers are "on the case", and that Google is contemplating firing up new servers, in their still-under-construction server farms up in the Pacific Northwest.
Other search engines, including Ask.Com, MSN and Yahoo report average, to slightly above-average search inquiries.
Among the "I'm Feeling Lucky" searches that crashed Google, include;
-Crisis + Save Job?
- Plausible Alibis
-Hastert home address
- Democrats + IM's + Congressional Pages
- Woodward home address
- Meeting denials
- Timmy + Congressional Page + Florida
- New Smears
- Scandals + Best + Placing Blame
- Gay Democrats
- Images = Nancy Pelosi + Barnyard Animals
- Famous Nazi Appeasers
Mayer indicated that "Gay Democrats" and "Images = Nancy Pelosi + Barnyard Animals" were the two most searched items, from late yesterday afternoon, into the early morning hours, and just before the system crashed, "Crisis + Save Job?" was flooding the "I'm Feeling Lucky" search bar.
Mayer was emphatic that the crash of Google has nothing to do with any type of "click-fraud" and, that it won't affect the planned Google Government Search program that is in the works.
"I knew they were burning the midnight oil," offered David Aaronson, editor of What Color Is My Coat Today?, the Capital Hill Newsletter that tracks politicians who turn on their own party, "but for something like this to happen, they must have bused the entire RNC in here."
Coincidently, Amazon.Com, as well as novelty stores in the nation's capital, as well as the surrounding D.C. area, have reported an unexpected run on Magic 8-Ball's. An Amazon spokesperson said that the company "came pretty close" to setting a new record for overnight, next-day delivers, while the novelty stores indicated a steady stream, beginning yesterday morning, and staying strong from the moment they opened their doors today.
