Tuesday, April 7, 2009

The Internet Is Old

I came home tonight to find an email with the following subject line waiting for me in my hotmail: Hotmail Team says "thank you" for being with us for 10+ years.

Some of you probably have a similar email in your long-dormant hotmail accounts, but I found this email because I still check my apparently 10-year-old hotmail account every day. Several times a day. Yes, that's right. I still use the email address that I signed up for when I was 16.

"That's Right!" Hotmail enthusiastically tells me at the top of their firework-bedecked e-card. "You came to the internet too late to get a decent email address and too early for people to reject the idea of 'screen names' and use their email for professional purposes. And you continue to cling to that screenname--which wasn't even based on a real nickname--out of a combination of nostalgia and inertia, despite the fact that our service really blew until about 6 months ago. And for that we thank you."

And actually, hotmail is right. Lizard was never my nickname. Lizbo was. But thankfully I had the presence of mind to realize that "Lizbo" might not be the best internet handle. I would feel silly putting tha tat the top of my resumes. And what kind of blog name is Lizbo Writes?

2 comments:

Katie said...

Wow. Congratulations? Gmail just turned 5 this week, and Hotmail does still kind of blow, though significantly less than it used to.

Lizard said...

Hmmmm, I disagree, but that's probably because I've never known any better. New hotmail is like 1000xs better than old hotmail.

Sometimes when I give out my email address, I feel the need to apologize or explain. Like yeah, sorry, hotmail. I promise I'll check it.