David Ng at the World’s Fair has come up with a new game for net-enabled procrastinators everywhere: the “I rank number one on google” meme:

I’d like to suggest a meme, where the premise is that you will attempt to find 5 statements, which if you were to type into google (preferably google.com, but we’ll take the other country specific ones if need be), you’ll find that you are returned with your blog as the number one hit.

This takes a bit of effort since finding these statements takes a little trial and error, but I’m going to guess that this meme might yield some interesting insight on the blog in question.

This was actually a more time-consuming exercise than I thought it would be, since for reasons that escape me some of the more obvious combinations (like “Highly Allochthonous” or “Chris Rowan geology”) all seem to point to ye olde blog rather than the current incarnation. Still, here’s my five:

• palaeomagic
• pom victoire
• gone drillin’
• trilobites didn’t go extinct
• “splendiferously titled”

Personally, I’m not sure whether there’s any interesting conclusions that you can draw from that selection. On the other hand, I was rather amused about how appropriate the first hit for professional doom-mongers was…

After this month’s fiesta of epic death and destruction, Kevin Z of The Other 95% has chosen a more cuddly theme for the next geoblogging extravaganza:

I will be hosting a special edition of the geology carnival, The Accretionary Wedge on November 15. The theme is “Geology and Life” or “Between a Rock and a Squishy Face”. This is a themed carnival asking bloggers to dig deep into their souls and write about how geology affects biology or biology affects geology. I want to hear about personal experiences, current research, field work, anything that crosses these seemingly disparate but all too entwined disciplines that I hold dear to my own heart. I am planning a special post for its occasion as well.

So, not so much ‘Life on Earth’ as ‘Life and Earth’. I’m sure palaeontologists like Brian and Julia will be relishing the opportunity to tell us why they think fossils are so much more interesting than the rocks they’re found in; but hopefully some of the more squishy-thing-inclined around here will also be tempted to contribute. Check out the bottom of this post for instructions on how to contribute.