.NL Zeitgeist, fast and furious, unsung B-movie hero

As is the geek-norm, I subscribe to a whole plethora of newsletters, mostly of the announce types from people such as Google, Mozilla, NTK, popbitch, RedHat and Debian. I also receive a UK based contractor newsletter which reminds me (weekly) how the future of my IT career is, and will increasingly be, outsourced to India.

One of note this week was Google with the results for June’s “Zeitgeist”, and a section for the search results in the Netherlands. Any clues as to the content of the culture I’ll be entering are a help at this point, but Oh woe!

The Netherlands, Popular Women, June 2003

1. jennifer lopez 2. christina aguilera 3. shakira 4. aaliyah 5. beyonce

Popular Queries, June 2003

1. eminem 2. jennifer lopez 3. christina aguilera 4. charmed 5. ajax 6. 2 fast 2 furious 7. harry potter 8. vakantie 9. voetbal 10. dolfijnen

Oh well. At least “dolphins” as search at number 10 was a pleasent surprise.

Google’s Zeitgeist

Incidentally, The Fast and the Furious was recently revealed to me (thanks to Melbourne’s channel 31) as more than a testosterone-fuelled, autophillia, boy-racer-wannabe piece of forgettable Hollywood, but was actually once a rather cool 50’s movie.

A suspected murderer on the run kidnaps a woman race car driver, in her sexy 50’s Jaguar. A tense cat and mouse chase ensues and our heroine, plucky racer Connie eventually falls for the moody, male chauvenist pig Frank Webster.

Frank Webster was played by a man called John Ireland whose prolific if B-rated movie career spanned six (yes six) decades, and is documented here.

I liked his dark bulging eyes, and large imposing nostrils.