This week's Lycos 50 highlights holiday movies, holiday toys, and holidays of many cultures.

Lord of the Rings (#9) enters the top ten this week and will probably pass Harry Potter (#7) next week. Will it be able to make it past Dragonball (#2) as well? Time will see.

The more interesting story is slightly below these topics, where Playstation 2 (#10) has passed Xbox (#14) for the first time since the Xbox was released. Has Xbox fever slowed already? Well, we are still getting more searches for buy Xbox than we are for buy PS2, but we are getting more far searches for PS2 cheats than we are for Xbox cheats.

Our theory: Most of those who wanted to purchase an Xbox have now done so, and sales may slow down. That means searches will now be driven by those who want codes and cheats and information on games, and despite all the Xboxes sold in the last few weeks, it is clear that more homes have a Playstation 2.

MULTICULTURALISM: Hanukkah (#25) makes an appearance this week, but Kwanzaa is still short of the Lycos 50 at #69. Will this be the first year it makes an appearance on the list?

DECEMBER 11: Three-month anniversary memorials put September 11 (#48) back on the Lycos 50 this week, and Osama bin Laden (#5) goes back up the chart. But Afghanistan drops out of the Lycos 50 after 13 weeks, and anthrax drops out after 12.

LET'S GO BOWLING: College football (#19) searches stay high this week. The national championship Rose Bowl is the most popular bowl game this year, followed by the Cotton Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, and the Fiesta Bowl. This is the second straight year that the Cotton Bowl was the #2 bowl searched, behind the bowl which was the national title game (last year, the Orange Bowl), even though the Cotton Bowl is not part of the BCS.

SMOOTH CRIMINALS: American Taliban John Walker Lindh gets 35 percent more searches this week than shoplifter Winona Ryder.

SHORT SUBJECTS: Is Victoria's Secret (#36) still hot because of the ABC special last month, or because of gift searches?... The last battle for the caves of Tora Bora puts the Daisy Cutter (#32) bomb back on the Lycos 50... She doesn't make the Lycos 50 but Jaime Pressly, star of the satire Not Another Teen Movie, is very hot this week, with more searches than Angelina Jolie or Carmen Electra... Pokemon (#31) bounces back a bit.

NEW THIS WEEK: Hanukkah, Daisy Cutter, mortgage rates, NBA, September 11.

DROPOUTS: Afghanistan, anthrax, George Harrison, The Beatles, Usher.

BEARDTRACKER: Osama 50.5%, Santa 49.5%.

ONE YEAR AGO: The Internet was filled with stories about the randy young Englishwoman Claire Swire, who never suspected that a not-so-private email to a coworker would make her one of the most-searched people on Lycos.

NEXT ARTICLE: The Lycos 50 will return on January 2.