A rose by any other name

So I had some time to kill (I have no clue why, but The Phantom Tollbooth just popped into my head. I haven't thought of that book in years, and it's not like I never use "kill" and associate it with "time", so, huh.) so I went over to the computer lab, but it's been a while since I've used it, so I had forgotten my login name. (It's one of those annoying college things where they give you some combination of your first name and last name with some numbers tacked on, and I can never remember if it's four letters of my last name, or five. It turns out it's six.) So I went to the help desk to see if they could help me. I explained that I had forgotten my login, so could she please help me retrieve it. She asks, "Do you remember the password?" Now, here is where I made a mistake. I should have just said, "Yes," because even if it isn't the one I was trying, there is a finite number of other possibilities (11, I counted). Instead we go through this whole thing where she tries to tell me I need to be issued a new password which will take 3-5 days. And I try to explain to her that I don't need a new password, and I usually don't have time to stop in the lab, so if I can't use it today, I don't want it. It went back and forth for a couple minutes until she understood, "Oh, you just want to varify what your login is!" Yes. Very good. Of course, it was a different one than I was trying and my password was correct.

The point here is, I realized, it would be very easy for someone to steal my identity. As I said, there are 11 possible passwords. One is my short and sweet one that I use for several forums and Yahoo! games, but nothing else, because everything now adays requires at least 5 characters. (Yahoo does, too, but I got my account a LONG time ago.) So if I really don't care if anyone hacked in, and if I'm allowed, I use that one. Then there is the 5 character one which I use, well, now that I think about it, I really only use it for my Snapfish account. But it's still there as a possibility if I can't figure out my password. I can also do that one in 1337 speak, if numbers are required. Then there is the one I use the most. Six characters works for most things. (Just not PayPal and my bank account, I think.) And that one I do in regular and 1337 speak. The last one is v v long and can also be used in 1337 speak. And that's only 7. Hmm... Oh, right. There's one more that I only have as one thing, since it's also 6 characters. The only reason I used it is because someone scared me into changing my password. Which really pissed me off, because I had my short and sweet password on my AIM account until someone started harassing my friends. I liked that I had my sn for so long I only had 4 characters in my password. So that's 8. Maybe I counted wrong before? I dunno.

Err, I haven't even gotten to the point I was going to make and I have to go to the shrink. AFK.

Back.

Anyway, I have one nick that I use for everything. So it's always just a matter of figuring out which password I used. The problem with this is I am the only person on the internet with my nick. (Well, there may be one other. I'll explain.) So if you google my nick, EVERYTHING is stuff I have said in various forums. Or commented on various blogs. (The one that might not be mine is from like two years before I thought to google my nick, so the fact that I don't recognize the site doesn't necessarily mean anything. The comment is even something I would say. BUT the person pretending to be me said "your" instead of "you're". THERE IS NO WAY I WOULD DO THAT! I am a huge stickler for stupid stuff like that. Just TRY to say "anyways" in my presence. I dare you.

The result of this is my mother figured out that she could find out everything I've been saying. Normally this wouldn't bother me. But I've been thinking about it more recently and I don't want her to see some of the stuff. Not because it's bad. Just because it's embarrassing. (Yes, I have commented on WB forums. You can shoot me now.) Like this blog. I normally would've been signing it with my nick, but I quickly decided that JUST MIGHT not be such a good idea. So I have decided I must get a new nick for all forums other than the one or two I am currently active on. I will leave my original nick for sign in stuff to various different things. But anything I have to comment on, I will now be known as.... um..... Did I mention the other reason I have the same nick I had in 1998? Because I SUCK at coming up with names. I hate it. Oh, well. Maybe.................