Prepare for an offbeat column today.
Lance Armstrong has been a hot topic ever since he won his second Tour de France in July. Somehow we got to looking at other Armstrong searches.
So here's a chance to test your pop culture knowledge: who are the world's most popular Armstrongs?
Here's who showed up on last week's Lycos search logs, along with the percentage of all Armstrong searches they received:
37.1% Neil Armstrong
30.5% Lance Armstrong
22.1% Louis Armstrong
3.3% George Armstong Custer
1.8% Tina Armstrong
1.5% Herbert W. Armstrong
1.3% Billie Joe Armstrong
1.1% Garner Ted Armstrong
0.7% William H. Armstrong
0.6% C. Michael Armstrong
Nice to see that 31 years after walking on the moon, Neil Armstrong still pulls 'em in. Truth is, he represents a double whammy of dependable Web interests: homework and space. (NASA, #47 this week, is consistently on the Lycos 50.)
Lance Armstrong comes next, thanks to his recent Olympic appearances, followed by late trumpet great Louis Armstrong. "Satchmo" is the most-requested jazz man nearly every week; last week he came in just ahead of Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Billie Holliday.
At #4 and #5 we have a pair of battlin' Armstrongs: General George and Tina. Custer is famous for his last stand, of course, and Tina Amstrong is a fictional wrassler in a video game called Dead or Alive. (Hey, she can't do any worse than George.)
Down in the lower echelon we find two religious figures -- the father-son combo of Herbert W. and Garner Ted Armstrong -- plus a musician (Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong) and an author (William H. of Sounder fame).
AT&T honcho C. Michael Armstrong brings up the rear, which is no surprise: with the exception of Bill Gates, captains of industry just don't seem to stir up much interest online.
Bottom line: if you yourself hanker to be a famous Armstrong, you've got stiff competition in the top three. After that it's pretty much clear sailing.
