Google amazes me

"We all enter this world in the same way: naked, screaming, soaked in blood.  But if you live your life right, that kind of thing doesn't have to stop there."  --Dana Gould

I am an amateur writer (amateur meaning I rarely even finish stories, let alone publish them). One of my current stories centers around a French hit man. As I was writing yesterday, the hit man received a minor injury and swore. Dissatisfied with "Damn it!" or the like, I decided it would be more convincing for him to swear in French. Since I don't speak a word of French, and the only one of my friends with any knowledge of the language knows only what little he remembers from 9th grade French class, I did what any aspiring writer too lazy to do actual research would do: I hit the internet.

A Google search for "French profanity" yielded exactly what I needed on the third result--a page titled "French Swear Words: My 10 Favorites", written by Julie Blakley and hosted, oddly enough, at FranceTravelGuide.com. (If you go to FranceTravelGuide.com, you can find it by typing "swear" in their site search box.) It listed common swear words, meanings and contexts, and (very helpful) pronunciations. You can read it here.

My problem solved, I returned to the story. My assassin was waiting for his victim to appear so he could strike. But then it struck me--just how plausible was it for a hit man to stand in an alley, waiting for his victim to walk by so he could blow him away? Not very. I racked my brain for a better scenario, trying to think of all the assassinations I'd seen in movies or read about in books, but the two recurring themes of this train of thought were grassy knolls and ninjas--neither of which was much help. Since I am not an assassin, and (to my knowledge) I am not acquainted with any assassins, I turned once again to the internet, and while I ended up solving my plot issues independently, some of the bizarre results of my search I feel are worth posting for posterity. Upon Googling "assassination how to", I found:

• The Handbook of Assassination v1.0, by Acidous. While the utility of this document is questionable (to put it politely), I found it to be an entertaining read. Of particular amusement to me was the matter-of-fact listing of "ninja sword" under the "Assassins Equipment" [sic] chapter, and the way numbers were presented: "Always plan at least two(2) escape routes", for instance.

• An article entitled "How To Assassinate a Third World Despot With Only a Butt Plug and a Litre of Raspberry Coulis" on Everything2.com. While I object to some of the methodology (and the misleading title--it leaves out that you need a wild animal), I must admit it's a rather interesting idea--hell, I might even use it in a story.

• A purported CIA manual on the subject of assassination, dating back to the 1950s. While I don't know whether or not this is genuine, having read through it I believe that genuine or not, the information it contains will come in handy for my future writing endeavors.

• A website for a book entitled "How To Kill", authored by Kris Hollington.

• Several news articles on various assassinations.

• An eHow article guiding company "whistle blowers" on how to deal with character assassination.

That's just the first page of search results. Truly, Google and the internet are strange and awesome in terms of sheer reach. I would like to extend my gratitude to the creators of Google and the authors of the various documents and web pages, for providing me with information, entertainment, and food for thought.