Google Me This

I'm aware that Googling yourself and your friends is a common practice. I have tried out most of the people I've ever known just to see if any of them popped up. I wish I had a heartwarming story about finding my long-lost half-brother, sold to the gypsies to pay for my leg braces, but alas, my life has been remarkably free of semi-siblings sold into slavery so far.

It has, however, had heapings of horrible alliteration.

I tried it out on my own name recently, trying to figure out if a curious administrator from Valley could find my blog through such a search and thereby read my unending statements to the effect that I don't like teaching, I don't want to teach, and I plan on leaving the teaching profession as soon as humanly possible.

Now, I'm not a vain man, but I took a bit of pleasure in thinking my name was somewhat unique. This turns out to be false.



My current profile image reveals my appearance from my travels in the past; this photo depicts my future. This Michael Slusser is a doctor of philosophy at Duquesne University, a specialist in "Christology, soteriology, and the doctrine of the Trinity." Man. It's not like I could find a Michael Slusser who was a ditch digger with poor hygiene and a history of weasel smuggling (though one is taxed to imagine what such a Michael Slusser would be doing with a web site [www.ditchdiggerwhosmugglesweasels.com]). No, it has to be a respected theological scholar at a prestigious university who's published papers on the early church fathers. Way to make a guy feel bad.

I'm not as jealous of this Mike Slusser, as I've no desire to be a sports writer. Still, he's a published writer. That's not helping, either.

Once past these, however, one does arrive at the wild tribes deep in the American midwest and south, living close to my cousins in Kentucky whose farm is devoted to rusted equipment and a large, vicious dog named Queenie. The Michael Slusser listed here is a merit badge counselor for a Boy Scout troop in Kansas, in the field of auto mechanics. That's not so intimidating, though I am completely hopeless around cars and could well do with an extra dollop of mechanical skill, and he has real marketable talents, so really this guy is further up the food chain than I am, as well.

The first actual mention of me comes on page three of the search results, a listing for an online Old English encyclopedia formed haphazardly by the students in my first Old English class at the University of Toronto. If you like Beowulf, there's a small chance you'll enjoy "Human-Like Beasts or Bestial Humans? The Slippery Monsters of Beowulf (my first stab at an academic-sounding title for a paper). Despite the suggestion, none of the monsters is actually slippery (save for Grendel's mother, who lives in a lake, after all). Despite calling the fairly major character Wiglaf by the name of "Wulfstan" in the paper, it's still lingering online five years later. Sad, really.

On page six of the results you'll find my listing at Community Christian College, whose new website is much more slick than the old one, which actually required you to input computer cards and record your results on reel-to-reel tape. No, my picture is not featured on the page; I'm buried amidst the listings of degrees at the bottom of the page.

As a long-awaited closer, if you find listings for George Slusser, he is of no relation. He, too, is a doctor (in comparitive literature--sigh) who graduated from Harvard and teaches at UCR, my alma mater for my undergraduate degree, who is a curator at the library and established a science fiction collection. People always assumed I was his son or nephew while I was there. Never met the man--too full of insane jealousy. I wish all my bretheren well.