It seems you can't say
nothing to nobody without getting in trouble. So before
I say anything let me explain a little something.
Kathy Griffin was at the
Chicago Theater. I'd never seen a performance at the Chicago Theater. I'd
been in it, up in the catwalk, on stage, back stage, down in the boiler
room, in the plenum chambers, the projection booth, even the Green
Room. Sat in the seats too, just never saw a performance. Jeff
(not his real name) got us the owner's seats. Also got us in using the side
door to avoid the lines.
After making our way to row eight through a crowd of
diminutive perfectly groomed young men with their sweaters tied aroung
their necks and settling in, I turned to Nancy (not her real name) and
said: "There are alot of Gays here tonight." Oh boy.
"What did he
say?" came from the confrontational, yet waifish, young Gay on
her left. Puh-leez-uh.
There were, after all, alot
of Gays there that night. Kathy Griffin even asked them all to stand
up and cheer. Maybe by recognizing them I was ruining the suprise, I
wasn't "outing" anybody*.
If stating the obvious is
wrong, then I was wrong and I apologize. I'll state the obvious here,
and hope not to offend anyone, at the risk of being wrong again.
I manage client
websites and several of my own, they have registered domain names that
come up for renewal each year. I get 90 Day, 60 Day, 30 Day and 3 Day
notifications concerning renewal. I also get some junk mail.
Domain Registry of America
sends me junk mail, not email, when a domain name registered to me
comes up for renewal, "As a courtesy ". How nice of them.
Thing is I do not use
Domain Registry of America and they are not the Registrar of the domain
names they remind me about. They make it seem like it, even make it look
like I owe them money when I don't. They want me to transfer ownership of
my $15 a year domain name to them so I can pay $35 a year. They would
also like me to buy similar sounding domain names from them for my benefit.
Jonathan Waltz (not his
real name) from Flex Media Domains knows that I have dragonboat.us registered, and says "it
is recommended .....to own both the singular/plural versions".
Nice guy to look out for me like that. Jonathan says I should buy the
rights to dragonboats.us , with an 's' at the end, the plural, to
avoid "confusion". They have a link right in the email so I
can go to their website and bid on the rights. Except that neither
Jonathan Waltz or Flex Media Domains owns the rights to dragonboat.us. So how does this work? Do I
bid against Jonathan's imaginary friend until Jonathan rents dragonboat.us so he can sell his rights to
me? I can go buy it right now for $15, why should I bid?
People
do buy/rent domain names speculating that some company will want them and
pay big bucks. www.sex.com sold for $13,000,000 in 2010. In
2004 Microsoft sued teenager software writer Mike Rowe for the name www.mikerowsoft.com after he rejected their
offer of $10 to give it up. Microsoft said Mike Rowe Soft
was looking for a big payday. He wanted $10,000.
Internet
Corporation Listing Service sends letters too. Theirs say right on them
"This is not a bill", maybe because it looks so much like a bill.
They offer to list websites in "up to 25 established search
engines" using "up to eight search words". Hello!
This is free, Google does it all by itself. If it makes you feel better you
can pay Google.
I'm
not "outing" Domain Registry of America, Flex Media Domains, or
Internet Corporation Listing Service as shady characters. All I'm saying
is, you can blame a guy for trying. That's why Attempted Murder isn't given
a "do-over".
Maybe
you think "No harm, no foul.", maybe you think
"Attempted Robbery", that's your call, and that's Cocktail
Talk.
