hackbash

Right, it isn’t interesting, but for the sake of background here’s the story behind Handolio. Back in 1998 or something when I was twatting around playing internet games at Bullfrog, I used the moniker Handles, after an accidental/deliberate mis-appellation in a record company rejection letter we once got.

But as the games got popular, more people ended up using a variation on Handles, and people used to ask if it was because I had love handles. I didn’t, at the time.

Casting around for a new, unique nickname and inspired by Beavis and Butthead, I became Handolio. I’ve used it online ever since, and the internet-obsessives at work even use it as my everyday name.

Forgive my vanity, then, but that’s kind of why I’m pissed off that it’s no longer unique. A few months back I had problems registering for a site, and ended up assuming I’d already done so and forgotten the details – an unlike-me thing to do, but more likely I thought than someone else using my beloved nickname.

Sadly not. Witness ebay’s ‘handolio‘, who’s been impersonating me for a couple of years now, quietly seeding rumours that I’d be seen dead playing golf.

I’m not sure why I care, but when the internet’s full of countless Dave_roadie_1976s and Mum29Yorks, having a unique name had always allowed me to feel a little smug.

And now, instead of indulging in my customary scorn, contempt and theatrical heel-dragging every time somebody at work (Charlie) bangs on about how a new site or service (Twitter) is going to change the world as we know it, I’m going to have to fucking sign up, aren’t I?

Just in case it does, and I’m looking on from the sidelines with numbers after my name.

Tags: identity, vanity publishing