Yesterday was a day intended to delete accounts on an unnamed by-golly-it’s-popular corporate owned site, and I was pumped to delete mine because I don’t use it and dislike the idea of being a citable statistic (the Today Show had a segment explaining that one in four people, statistically, is a member of this website). When you sign up for this particular website, your URL isn’t a personalized name that you choose – it’s a number. That’s pretty telling.

Anyway, when I went to delete my account, I was told that I would receive a confirmation email allowing me to end my membership; however, the email address I used to register was from my internship in the summer of 2006 and has expired since then.

This is a common problem I come across daily – I answer all the forgotten password emails that come in to Xanga’s inboxes – but I never thought I’d have to wait for one myself.

I sent a detailed email yesterday morning, explaining that I wanted to update my email on file because my current address had relapsed, and thanks-for-your-time-look-forward-to-hearing-from-you-soon-kbye!

And while I realize it’s completely my fault for not keeping my email
update, it’s still completely frustrating to not even receive a “we’re
working on it – get back to you soon!” message.

Haven’t heard back yet.

I promise, my dear forgetful Xangans, that I will not make you wait in vain. I shall answer all emails as quickly as humanly possible so you can get back to blogging ASAP.

xoxo, etc., your friendly neighborhood password provider and help desk representative

I’ve been enamored with the name Cameron for a while now, and my
favorite way to see whether or not a name is reasonable is to use it at
establishments and see how it feels. The crew at my most frequented
Starbucks rotates every few days, so I can use a couple of different names
and nobody will know the difference as long as I use cash or my
Starbucks card.

I think it’s an easy enough, quirky name that can work for either boys or girls, so I was Cameron this morning.

. . . or Carmen. I guess it’s not as easy to remember as I thought.

Anyway, while going through gajillions of entries trying to find featured content, I read an entry about bad baby names, and one user recommended Nymbler as a way to find new names for incoming blessèd babes. I tried it out and had a blast – so, of course, I called Andy that night and asked him what he wanted to name his kids.

Based on the names you input, they find names that are evidently
similar, sometimes with disastrous results. Andy’s list yielded Jan,
Moses and Bram for boys’ names . . . (“now Moses, put down your Game
Boy!”)

My list looks a little more normal (see above) but I cannot name a child Tamsin with a good conscience – it looks like the name of a drug you would have in an IV to initiate contractions. Gregor just makes me think of Kafka and bugs; Alistair will perpetually remind me of Cookie Monster’s Monsterpiece Theater and Elspeth bothers me because of the lsp crammed together.

My poor children-to-be.

What up 12-year-old self,

Don’t worry. In the future, you’ll have a cell phone; also, it’ll be cool to wax nostalgic about The Little Rascals, you will live in New York City and you’ll grow so that the rest of you will catch up with your extra long arms. Just wait.

XOXO, etc.,

Future You

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

Office Hours has come a very long way since Monday; the first day, we started with a soundless vid feed of me sending emails at my desk, and today, we chatted (with a pimpin’ camera and good sound) with people from Dubai, Germany and across the office.

I’ve vidchatted in some capacity for 13 hours this week, and boy, are my arms tired! [rimshot]

Really, though, if you’ve dropped by in the past week (especially if you’re a regular – you know who you are!), thanks. You’ve made an intrinsically strange experience much more tolerable than I thought possible. Word up, also, to Eugy and Jon, who made sure that we always had something to talk about and helped diffuse some of the long silences – you guys are amazing.

Seeing Cloverfield and Cassandra’s Dream tomorrow – AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

1) AMERICAN IDOL
TONIGHT
SO EXCITED
CAN’T WAIT

(message me or IM me if you want to talk Idol once things really start up . . . so . . . in March)

2) Thanks to everybody who came out to chat yesterday . . . we had a blast trying to come up with things for chrischoi to do and you all made me feel like less of a dork for just sitting there, answering emails and occasionally eating chips. Hope to see the same motley crew today.

3) I’ve babysat three times in the past four days (and have my last gig for the week tonight) . . . I felt very old when the 9-year-old I hung out with last night didn’t know the song Bye Bye Bye. Do kids today know that JT used to be one fifth of *NSYNC? I guess not.

4) Starbucks people: have you tried the Misto yet? It’s my new drink of choice, I think – saying “grande drip” every day was getting old. It’s brewed coffee with steamed milk, so it’s the texture of cappuccino but with the taste of regular coffee. Cool.

5) Netflix just opened up their “view movies online for free if you’re a member” option – I love them for it. Cue the Hallelujah chorus.

. . . okay, that’s it for now – see you guys this afternoon!

Been going through a lot of blogs lately that have said that their authors have “ditched Xanga for [Facebook, MySpace, other site]” but that many of them are coming back to Xanga (yay!).

In your experience, are there sites online that are mutually exclusive? I’m on so many websites that I can hardly keep track of them all – Xanga for everything, Facebook for school, MySpace for . . . nothing (why am I still on there? I don’t like it and it breaks all the time), last.fm for music, etc., etc., etc. Maybe I’m just a multi-tasker and can handle all of these sites at once.

Such a slacker . . . I should be doing these far more often. (thx, ayca, for choosing such fun questions lately!) Some of the answers are pretty short, but you get the idea.

Are you an Internet addict?
Is the Pope Catholic? I’ve had a computer in the house since I was born (right, Dad?) and would spend hours playing games like Mixed-Up Mother Goose and all of the old Carmen Sandiego games on our computer . . . then, when the internet hit, I got my first email address and found the joy of Usenet groups. The fam and I also served as beta testers for the short-lived Wow! (oh, CompuServe) and would spend way too much time waiting for our dial-up connection to load glorious websites like ty.com. Beanie Babies are not worth hours of load time.

So, in short, yes.

What would you do if someone broke into your home while you were sleeping?


This is my dog. I do not anticipate any problems with predators.

If you had to name the one thing that most frightens you about growing old, what would it be?
Being out of touch.

What is your opinion on adoption?
I don’t think words can describe how much I am pro-adoption, especially after the escalation of some family matters this past summer. I’ve seen first-hand how important placing a child into a home where he will be loved, cared for and taken care of can be, and I can’t stress enough how, despite the inherent red tape and possible legal issues, it is completely worth it. Ask me sometime.

What is your dream job and why?
For right now, I have it! I get to help people learn how to use a website I’ve been using for almost five years – interacting with other users I’d never meet otherwise has been interesting. It was surreal to come into the office for the first time and realize that such a small group of people (24, I think, is the current count) can keep such a huge website running and still manage to play ping-pong after lunch every day. So life is good.

As for my future dream job, I want to write books, be a segment producer on This American Life, write sketches for SNL, appear in the NY Times, be a pop star and travel to the moon, and I’m serious about all of those.

On a completely different note, here are my top 20 movies from 2007. I agonized over this list and settled on this order . . . so let’s debate! Some may be from 2006 in all technicality, but they hadn’t made it to Columbus/NY in time. Here we go.

20. The Lives of Others
19. 2 Days in Paris
18. Black Snake Moan
17. The Darjeeling Limited
16. Reno 911!: Miami
15. Enchanted
14. Shut Up and Sing
13. Breach
12. Year of the Dog
11. Disturbia
10. High School Musical 2 (okay, so it’s a TV movie and wasn’t as good as the first one, but it was seriously for You Are The Music in Me)
9. I’m Not There
8. Czech Dream
7. Music and Lyrics
6. Hairspray
5. Michael Clayton
4. Once
3. Paris Je T’aime
2. No Country for Old Men
1. Juno (obviously)

My list this year is much more poppy and fun than last year’s and Roger Ebert and I agreed on our top two (which is unusual, but I’ll take it.)

Last, it’s almost 55 degrees here today. SUMMER NOW, PLEASE. Also, American Idol starts in nine days, which means that 94% of my entries will pertain to a flash-in-the-pan pop sensation. Get pumped.

ETA: here’s my mix for 2007! I was going to make an iMix, but . . . no.

What a disjointed entry. My bad.