Spring, and a young man's mind turns to golf (#17) and baseball (#12). And his young woman is clearly thinking about the prom.
Spring sports and spring holidays all saw growth on this week's Lycos 50. Let's start with golf, which had its biggest tourney of the year this week. The Masters (#8) finished one spot higher than last year, with golf itself rising five spots and the PGA nearly making the list (it finishes #53).
At this point, it is pretty clear that a winning day from Tiger Woods is nothing special. Tiger searches went up only six percent this week.
The other spring sport, baseball, got a huge boost from Opening Day, matching its highest ever non-World Series ranking. Searches for the video of Randy Johnson killing a dove with a pitch are still plentiful, although the incident falls off the Lycos 50.
PROM TIME: Meanwhile, searches for the prom are bigger than ever on Lycos. Prom dresses are up to #22 this week, while prom hairstyles enter the list at #35, their highest position ever.
Do the guys care about the prom? Maybe, but prom dresses receive eight times as many searches as all tuxedo queries put together, and a ridiculous 183 times as many searches as the phrase prom tuxedos.
EGGS AND MATZAH: Springtime means bunnies and bonnets, so Easter shoots up to #4 this week. Meanwhile, the Jewish holiday of Passover debuts at #23. Roughly seven percent of Passover searches ask for the holiday by its Hebrew name, Pesach.
BEIJING BOP: The Chinese spy plane incident (#29) really seems to have brought the military aviation enthusiasts out of the woodwork this week. 73 percent of searches for the episode specified one of the two planes involved, either the American EP-3 Aries (38 percent) or the Chinese F-8 (35 percent).
NEXT EPISODE: Yes, that is Star Wars at #49, back on the Lycos 50 for the first time since September. Searches for Episode II have been escalating lately even though the film isn't due until May 2002 and there is no trailer as of yet.
SHORT SUBJECTS: With no news story or holiday to knock it down, Dragonball is back at #1? With tax day one week away, The IRS (#2) and taxes (#10) each rise four places? Jennifer Lopez (#11) drops ten spots as interest in her Oscar dress lags? The latest pin-up to see searches rise thanks to an appearance in Playboy is Wild on E! host Brooke Burke, whose searches are up 140 percent over the past two weeks? He's hot and he's dead: Tupac Shakur has the #1 album in the country and rises to #37 on the Lycos 50.... 'N Sync staves off elimination by rising to #45.
NEW THIS WEEK: The Masters, Passover, spy plane incident, prom hairstyles, Destiny's Child, Digimon, Carmen Electra, Star Wars.
DROPOUTS: Academy Awards, Jennifer Lopez's dress, Randy Johnson, Daylight Savings Time, World War I, Mir, mortgage rates, Jennifer Love Hewitt.
BIGGEST RISE: Hot computer game Black and White, up 20 places to #21.
BIGGEST DROP: Adolf Hitler, down 17 places to #46.
ONE YEAR AGO: Novelty rock band The Bloodhound Gang debuted at #50 thanks to their comical hit "The Bad Touch."
TOMORROW: Mark Burnett's other show.
