Search Query Weirdness

[m u r]

So, I have added a search query (?something=#) to the swf URL and used actionscript to tell my movie to do something special based on that search query. The puzzling thing is, when I visit the page for the first time, it acts as though the search query doesn't exist. If I hit refresh, it does what it's supposed to. If I leave the page and come back later, it works fine. ?HUH? If anyone has any ideas, this is really driving me nuts.

I'm basing it on this tutorial: http://www.kirupa.com/developer/actionscript/tricks/passingvariables.htm

and this actionscript:
if (movie==1 or movie=="") {
trace("default");
}
if (movie==2) {
getURL("http://www.yahoo.com");
}