What's in a Spame?

Three months ago, throughout the night, I began to receive spam from Asia every twelve to 18 minutes. Like most things from Asia, it’s kind of quirkier and more awesome than what we get in the states. The spam itself is completely unintelligible, but they addresses are all from addresses with first and last names. Delightful first and last names that give me no end of pleasure. Seriously. I can’t empty my spam box usually until I’ve checked if there are any lovely names waiting for me.

Usually spam comes from someone like nbx2att4pn6wrlm-ny@booksable.com or b4enaifsno2a8h-8be@pagejewel.com. But these came from real sounding, though ethnically confused, names. Names that seem like real people. I love the attention to detail it provides. People like Frederic Dutton, Pansy Herrington, Nadia Downing, Hilary Prescott, Ollie Cormier, Julia Guevara, Rosa Dowdy, Ivan Velez, and Nora Hogue. Names of people that I might want to use in a novel I might someday write. Not a novel about a group of lovable but slightly detestable spammers going through life, love, and mid-20s-angst, but some international psychological thriller with Nadia as my heroine. Or perhaps Nora. Nora Hogue, international secretary for a WHO exec who gets murdered just as an odd but attractive man shows up in her life at a gala.

And there are more. The evocative but inscrutable Penelope Lanier for instance. Her lovable but meddlesome neighbor, Frankie Lambert. And Sebastian Washington is just waiting for a Dickensian novel to come give him his rags to riches story. Maura Simms, neglected child of avid online second lifers. Latisha Denny, daughter of immigrants or mixed parentage or just a small town girl who craved an exotic name change when she came of age? Herschel Knight, Jewish? Chivalrous? Lovable but prudish, Teddy Pritchett. Everyone’s pal, Bobbie Guy. Or the round-faced man of mystery, Owen Napier. The erudite trucker, Liechtenstein Fenton. And, finally, the fabled, many-faced Lazaro Potter who stars in daytime soaps opposite Tisha Williams.

Remember Rosdan?

Well, this is son of Rosdan.



I hereby present the Next-in-line Custodian of Scotland, Jr., the Right Honourable Socrates Caligula Trevor Trevor Trevor Faux Fur For Fox Fur Ford Faux, Esq.

Name That Baby!!!

Over the weekend I was considering letting myself be defeated by a bad man and an American stick insect. By the time I had decided to not be defeated, the deadline for this had already passed. But I'm submitting this anyway. And I must give credit for the inception of this idea to my sister, Catherine, and brother-in-law, Eric. It's a joint submission to the contest, really.

I am proud to reveal the family fun game to solve all your baby-naming woes. How can a child with a name like Liz or Hannah or Rose or Bess ever be truly unique?! How can you expect little Spencer or little Jordan to develop into an independently-thinking individual when others share his name?! The only chance for our children to be individuals is for them to have one-of-a-kind names. Duh.

The game is simple... it contains two multi-sided dice, much like the one below.

Rather than numbers, each face of the die is imprinted with a syllable, e.g. "brin," "bay," "car," "egg," "lee," "eff," "tay," "burp," "cat," "hat," "rat," "mat," "tin," "pin," etc. Simply shake the dice and combine the two syllables to create your new childs unique, one-of-a-kind name.

What's Your Name?

Please click on the link to play. Best if listened to with headphones or decent speakers.

What's Your Name?

Tuesday Mourning: My Future Nom de Plume/Child?

Challenge the Belated Third

Ahem. Sorry this is a bit late...the whole moving to Salt Lake thing, the going to DC thing, and the Christmas thing sort of slowed me down. Nevertheless...here you go...

The root of this challenge lies in the spelling of my nieces friends' name: Tailyr (pronounced Taylor). Every time I see her name in print I feel the small Tailyr knot in my stomach seize and get a little bit bigger...why spell it that way? This, of course, leads me to my next name-themed question: why name the child that at all? in reference to such stories as this or this. Granted, many of these are proven to be urban legends, but that still leaves us with the weird naming trends common these days. My new landlords name is Bliss. Among mine and my sisters' acquaintance alone there are children named Brynleigh, Boston, Lero, Kamlee, Kyson, Kamlyn, Tamlyn, Sway, Krew, Dansko, Honey, Hazen, and Ela. I have a family of distant cousins whose names are Angel, Bliss, Cupid and Dolly. My sister went to high school with a girl whose first name started with the letter of the word "heaven" that corresponded to her place within her family's line up of six kids. I'm not sure if that made grammatic sense. But you get the idea.

And so, I hereby issue the third challenge. The parameters are the same as the first two, but in addition to picking the next challenge, the winner will be awarded an additional prize, the likes of which have never before been seen throughout all the history of Aed the Whelpe. You have until Saturday, 17 January, at 10 pm.

Happy Thanksgiving and the Berlin Wall Challenge the 2nd is Over

The winner is Liz with 5 votes for her masterpiece collage "While the Rest Of Mankind Rejoiced".

Congratulations. I thought about deducting points because she posted her entry twice, but whatever, its cool.

We had a great Thanksgiving together with Ben, Rose's bro, and roasted a turkey in our toaster oven. It was cool and fun to do a Thanksgiving dinner without a real kitchen. (Toaster ovens and hot plates!) Yeah, we're awesome.

Anyways, Liz gets to choose the new challenge. I think everyone knows the rules, so tally-ho! We can open up participation if you want to a wider scale, but I'll leave that to Liz's discretion. See you in a couple weeks Liz.


-- Jordan