diarrhea, breakfast of champions (champion parakeets, that is)

I like to browse through Google Trends; to some degree, it telegraphs one aspect of world consciousness and I like graphs. Recently, "carrie prejean sextape" topped the charts only to be ousted by "why won't my parakeet eat my diarrhea", Google's auto-complete phrase to "why won't..." based on popular searches for the beginning phrase, which spawned numerous blog responses that contributed to its rise in popularity.

So how does something like feeding your parakeet diarrhea become more interesting than Carrie Prejean's sextape when:

the worldwide interest in parakeets is declining

and there is virtually no interest in a healthy parakeet diet?

Apparently, the question of diarrhea as a viable dietary replacement for parakeets was first posed about 3 months ago (see the spike in the first graph) on Yahoo! Answers as "who won't my parakeet eat my diarrhea?" to which it was determined the best answer was "why are you feeding your parakeet diarrhea?" Readers of Amazon's Askville then wanted to know what was the range of responses to this, um, burning question. Here are some of the best responses:

"WTF??? Why the hell would you give your parakeet your diarrhea??? Are you trying to kill it for God's sake? Your diarrhea is your waste that hasn't been fully solidified yet. Why on earth would you feed your pet that? Would you eat your diarrhea? Do you know ANYONE who would eat your diarrhea? No, I didn't think so. "

"Actually, birds such as a parakeet will typically adhere to a strict diet of nuts, fruits and vegetables with no dairy. If you have eaten dairy recently, perhaps that's why your parakeet won't eat it even though people who know you would say your rather nutty, or fruity. Perhaps if the bird could talk, it would say, when you start eating my crap, I will start eating yours you silly bastard. ARK!"

"My parakeet, Petey, routinely eats my diarrhea. Perhaps it's to do with your diet or his feeding schedule. Do you adhere to a strict sleep and feeding routine? I recommend that you keep a routine, and familiarize your bird with the scent and taste of your diarrhea by mixing small portions of it with his regular food source. When he begins accepting the small mixed portions, you may expect that he wil begin to accept larger portions of diarrhea and ultimately, solely the diarrhea."

"It's common knowledge that Parakeets may be fed solely human waste. I have collaborated with several collogues that are avian experts that have recently compiled these facts into trusted, professional sources."

"Hmmmm, I'm not sure how it works for birds, but when I feed my children diarrhea, I usually try to flavor it with something such as mango, or vanilla. They go nuts for the stuff! Now it's every morning I hear, "Daddy daddy, can we have some vanilla water-poo?" I'm sure if you flavor it with something from your local pet store, it should have the same effect."

"I would expect a question of this caliber to be frowned upon by the fine people of this website. Sir, I can tell that your genuine artistic dream of training your parakeet to partake of Mother Nature's Milkshake by its own free will is dream that is truly inspired by your heart. I cannot even begin to grasp the kind of bond you will establish with your parakeet should you succeed in this daunting task. They are all going to laugh at you, but you must persist on with this research. It's quite possible that discovering and mastering this technique could be the most important advancement to the human race ever! Also, have you tried freezing it into tiny parakeet popsicles? Who doesn't love popsicles!?"

While these are all humorous, the sad commentary is that we Americans (see the first graph), including myself, comprise the only world region to find this topic intriguing enough to warrant further research.

This just in - Carrie Prejean's sextape is, um, back on top...but this time, we want to see it for free.