4.11.2006
Ketchup?
I have spent several hours over the past two days brainstorming with my husband the perfect new gmail address. Given our new financial uncertainty and the large expense of high-speed internet, it seems prudent to move to web mail. It is independent from out ISP, it's free, and we can check it from the library when we are living in a box.
Like most families, we have multiple addresses. I have the professional sounding one to put on my new and improved resume, my husband has one as well, and then there is the frivolous family email where relatives and friends can deposit superstitious angel blessing chain mail and other assorted greetings. Well, the first two professional-sounding addresses were easy. The third one gave us a little trouble.
My sister likes to send those jokes and surveys and chain letters to a distribution list not unlike the one overstock.com uses to remind me daily that shipping is only $2.95. I read the names on her list with great curiosity...there's damnation_angels_whore666, crazy_error_dot_com, welcometothespectacle, and darktigger. I don't know who they are and am not sure I want to but I admire their flair for choosing an email address.
We have used the same user name for years, eeduo. It stands for a nickname given to us before we were married, the "double e duo." Well, we have added a new member of the family so, as beloved as eeduo was, it seemed time for a change.
You would think we were drafting our epitaphs or playing championship scrabble. It needed to be eloquent and witty. If we could throw in a pun or a double entendre - all the better! It needed to personify us to the throngs of people who don't know us yet will see our name on countless morality-affirming stories about the wisdom of children and puppies zooming around the internet. We tried cute phrases our son says. We tried incorporating things we enjoy as a family, we actually settled on snugglenuggle but it made us sound like dorks. Seriously, this went on for 2 days.
When it was far more frustrating than fun, my husband suggests we select the word 'ketchup'. Despite the fact it was probably already taken, there we had spent the better part of two evenings debating the merits of each other's suggestions and he was ready to throw it all out for 'ketchup!' It seemed so unimaginative, what would people think?
In the end, we chose something like eeduo that acknowledges the 3 of us. It's sweet and all but 'ketchup' would have probably aroused more interesting backstories to those left wondering. ¶ 23:57
Like most families, we have multiple addresses. I have the professional sounding one to put on my new and improved resume, my husband has one as well, and then there is the frivolous family email where relatives and friends can deposit superstitious angel blessing chain mail and other assorted greetings. Well, the first two professional-sounding addresses were easy. The third one gave us a little trouble.
My sister likes to send those jokes and surveys and chain letters to a distribution list not unlike the one overstock.com uses to remind me daily that shipping is only $2.95. I read the names on her list with great curiosity...there's damnation_angels_whore666, crazy_error_dot_com, welcometothespectacle, and darktigger. I don't know who they are and am not sure I want to but I admire their flair for choosing an email address.
We have used the same user name for years, eeduo. It stands for a nickname given to us before we were married, the "double e duo." Well, we have added a new member of the family so, as beloved as eeduo was, it seemed time for a change.
You would think we were drafting our epitaphs or playing championship scrabble. It needed to be eloquent and witty. If we could throw in a pun or a double entendre - all the better! It needed to personify us to the throngs of people who don't know us yet will see our name on countless morality-affirming stories about the wisdom of children and puppies zooming around the internet. We tried cute phrases our son says. We tried incorporating things we enjoy as a family, we actually settled on snugglenuggle but it made us sound like dorks. Seriously, this went on for 2 days.
When it was far more frustrating than fun, my husband suggests we select the word 'ketchup'. Despite the fact it was probably already taken, there we had spent the better part of two evenings debating the merits of each other's suggestions and he was ready to throw it all out for 'ketchup!' It seemed so unimaginative, what would people think?
In the end, we chose something like eeduo that acknowledges the 3 of us. It's sweet and all but 'ketchup' would have probably aroused more interesting backstories to those left wondering. ¶ 23:57
