I wrote a little poem this morning. If you were to go over to Yvonne’s blog, and click on behind the curtain, you will find it. Or if you want to cheat, you can just follow this link. I had several more minutes to work on it than the poem I did at Oneword, which I won’t even bother to reprint here.

Scrolling is the Enemy
I have too many people on my ICQ/MSN/AIM/YAHOO messenger lists. Whenever there are so many people (they like to call them ‘users’) online that can’t see to the bottom of the list (which, since I don’t know anyone whose name begins with Z, is inevitably Yvonne), I delete a couple. I wonder what they would think if they knew that, these refugees from my Trillian contact list? Probably don’t give a HOOT. And furthermore, I don’t list people under their assumed ‘handles’. I have no use for handles. Jackwrencher, Foolishpoodle, Righteousfist. You know who you are: Rob, Kirsten, Hal (and now so does everyone else). As soon as someone gets onto my contact list, whether it be someone I add or someone who messages me out of the blue, I always change how they appear on the list to their first name: I’ve had too many problems with meeting someone in real life. The conversation goes like this:

strange person: Hey Toren
me: Oh uh…hi.
strange person: It’s me, Jeff Farnsworth
me: Oh uh…hi.
strange person: I’m the guy from Calgary – I bought a t-shirt at your show last October.
me: Oh uh…hi.
strange person: You know HotWanker2000 on ICQ.
me: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

And that’s just not cool.