NOTM: Man Fails to Receive Google Alerts About Himself for Another Week

Gaithersburg, MD - While trying to figure out if any of the clearance bath rugs were actually worth purchasing at the Target in the Rio, area resident Morris Herlis glanced at his Blackberry and fell into a solemn stupor.

He was a failure in life for yet another week.

An artist's Minesweeper rendition of Morris Herlis' failure to exist in Google's servers.

"I just don't get it," he said.  "Why am I not recognized by the greatest popularity measurement stick?"  Morris was referring to Google's search engine.  He created Google Alerts for any mention of his name on the web, in the news, and in image captions.  "I do all sort of boolean search techniques based on my name and never even get a nod of existence in this world.  What do I have to do, land an airplane on the Hudson River?"

A pretty drastic way to set off Google Alerts about yourself.

Morris admitted to NOTM that he does not do much to increase his presence on the web outside of liking his aunt's vacation pictures on Facebook and ordering tube socks on Amazon.com.

"At least Facebook recognizes that I like things, sometimes other people like the pictures too so they sort of see me.  I'm not invincible ya know.  Or is it invisible?  I never keep those straight.  Whatever Wonder Woman is, that's me.  No wait that didn't come out right."  Morris probably meant her airplane.

How does Wonder Woman find her invisible plane?  Why use it if she's not invisible too?

NOTM visited Google's corporate office website in Mountain View, California.  Unfortunately, the travel budget did not allow for an in-person visit to see if that forwarded email of Google's office is legit.

Nevertheless, NOTM held an in-depth interview with Beth Steinkatz, senior global communications director for international human branding applications analysis for Montgomery County (MD) and Guam, about Morris' plight.

"I don't know who you're talking about," she said.

Beth Steinkatz (not pictured) did not appreciate NOTM's hard, investigative reporting about Google's practices.

After speaking with Morris, he moped along toward the front of the store, knowing that another seven suns had set without an Internet packet mentioning his name; that was until he reached the Target cashier.  

After giving the unnervingly always cheerful red polo-shirted employee his license to verity his credit card payment, he heard, "thanks Mr. Herlis and have a good day."