We thought that Elf Bowling was strange. We thought that the Claire Swire scandal was stranger. We thought nothing could top All Your Base Are Belong To Us when it came to unexpected, inexplicable Internet fads.

We were wrong, wrong, wrong.

Last week, we briefly mentioned the Taiwanese politician Chu Mei-Feng, who made #45 after a secretly shot video of her adulterous liaison with a Taiwan businessman turned up for sale around Southeast Asia. We figured it would be one week on the chart for Mei-Feng, then adios.

Instead, Mei-Feng rocketed to the top of the Lycos 50 this week, with more than twice as many searches as perennial chart-topper Dragonball (#2).

Mei-Feng searches went up 1500% this week. Thanks to the variety of rules for spelling Chinese names, she gets searched in about as many ways as Nostradamus did back in September (the top ones are in a bonus list this week). The scandal also led to searches for Taiwan going up 550% and Taiwan news going up 1240%.

Why so many searches? Well, we actually have a theory. When we wrote about this scandal last week, it was picked up on numerous Asian news sites as well as in newspapers like the South China Morning Post. Could articles connecting this scandal to the Lycos 50 be leading searchers back to Lycos?

We're not sure, but we do know that the searches are all legitimate, but mostly from overseas. Normally, we don't worry about how many searches for something come from outside the U.S., since Lycos is primarily an American network. But the Chu Mei-Feng scandal has flipped that idea on its head.

We tried to check where the searches were coming from. We couldn't categorize the country of origin on about one-third of the searches, but of the searches we could track the most common country of origin was Singapore (23%), followed by the U.S. (14%), Thailand (12%), and Malaysia, Australia, and oddly Spain (4% each).

Perhaps the strangest turn of events: only 1% of searches for Chu Mei-Feng on Lycos this week came from the country where the scandal originated, Taiwan.

BACK AT HOME: While the world pondered a sex scandal, the United States was busy with business scandals. The embattled Enron makes the Lycos 50 for the first time this week at #25. Embattled Enron (embattled is, we believe, now part of the company's name) almost made the Lycos 50 in early December, fell back a bit, and then saw searches triple this week as the scandal hit high gear.

Another company in financial trouble, Kmart (#26), also has its searches triple this week. This week Kmart's stock price plunged amidst rumors the company would go bankrupt. In order to recoup its losses, the company has placed Penny Marshall on blue light special.

BLACK HAWK UP: The war film Black Hawk Down is the latest Lycos 50 One to Watch to appear on the list. Back in early November, we noted that searches for the film were much higher than the usual for post-holiday fare. This week, while the film can't top Lord of the Rings (#8) on the Lycos 50, it does top it at the box office.

Two stars of the film, Josh Hartnett (#31) and Orlando Bloom (#24), remain on the Lycos 50 this week. Bloom, of course, is more famous from his role in LOTR, but he does have a small role in Black Hawk Down.

LOTTO FEVER: Powerball (#37) will only get hotter this week, as the jackpot passed $80 million last week with no winner. Four winners will share the $85 million Florida Lottery jackpot, which nearly makes the Lycos 50 at #54.

SHORT SUBJECTS: Taxes (#10) and the IRS (#6) both make the top 10 this week, and Lycos has a new tax filing center set up to help those who search for either one... Final Fantasy (#12), driven by the new Final Fantasy X, falls back, but the controversial Grand Theft Auto 3 (#13) is as strong as ever... Thanks to a Discovery Channel documentary, the motorcycle customizing company West Coast Choppers nearly makes the Lycos 50 with more searches than Angelina Jolie or Halle Berry.

NEW THIS WEEK: Valentine's Day, Enron, Kmart, Powerball, Super Bowl, skateboarding, NASCAR, Aaliyah, Black Hawk Down.

DROPOUTS: Xbox (after 12 weeks), rock band Linkin Park, Beautiful Mind subject John Nash, the euro, World War II, Shakespeare, Detroit Auto Show, the late Dave Thomas, American Music Awards.

APOCALYPSE WATCH: The Chair 51%, The Chamber 49%. The two shows together receive only 25 percent as many searches as Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have A Dream speech. MLK himself is #4.

ONE YEAR AGO: Two items made their Lycos 50 debuts: Lord of the Rings, which is still going strong, and the XFL, which is not.

TOMORROW: Big Sexy returns.