Identify Yourself: The World of Handles, Monikers, Passcodes & More

I often find myself sitting behind a car at a stoplight, trying to figure out just was the personalized plate means.  This also happens on the freeway at fifty or sixty miles an hour or while stuck in a freeway slowdown (much safer).  YAKTYYAK.  OMG MOOV  URBHND.  Sometimes it takes a while to cypher them out.  Sometimes they get away without resolve and of course I can't remember them by the time I get home.

This started me thinking about all the places we use ID Monikers these days.  Passwords and email addresses.  Cell phone locking.  Security codes.  Passwords are the best.  They say never use PASSWORD.  Duh.  What about DROWSSAP?  Probably not.  123456 is not good.  I use three main ones with slight variations.  All are mixes of letters and numbers.  

But there are those sites that require a symbol.  I usually use the same symbol, but sometimes I forget I use it.  Then I end up changing my password yet again.  Especially for a site I don't use that frequently like Social Security Admin, or Zillow.  Even for sites I do use a lot, like Facebook or Google.  That's a pain.  I did create a list and printed it out put it in a top secret place.  Its very handy, especially when I can remember the top secret place.  

When I create a list of my passcodes and monikers, I usually put a password on the document on my computer and pray I remember it.  That's when I use one of my favorites.  But even then, if I forget, I guess that documents is rendered useless.  

How about names?  Many years ago when I was with Earthlink (remember Earthlink?) I had to chose a "handle".  You know, the name that comes before the ".com"?  For some reason it was more common not to use you real name.  So there I was, staring at the keyboard, wondering what to use.  The top row of letters on the keyboard begin with QWERTY.  Hmmm.  Not exactly right.  So I came up with QWERKI, because, as staid and stodgy as I feel like I am, I thought might be nice to be thought of as, well, quirky.  It stuck.

At the time QWERKI was uncommon.  I even had a personalized license plate with QWERKI1 on it.  That was fun, but expensive, so I surrendered it.  Anyway, I left Earthlink and went with AOL for a while, then Google came along and I went with Gmail.  Somewhere in all that, I duplicated the Qwerki too much, so I had to become Qwerki.rob.  The rest is history I guess.  TMI maybe, but I think its funny how these things progress.

I just did an Google search, oh, wait, now we say we "googled" it.  So when I googled it the word "qwerki"  I found a site that offers advice on Reddit, a site on Twitter that offers a "Qwerkibox is a Monthly Mystery box full of goodies from Movie, TV, Animation, DC, Marvel, Starwars, Funko Pop".  and a singer calling himself Qwerki on Reverbnation.com with two recordings.  You can sample it by clicking here: Qwerki Playlist.  Not bad actually.  I think its techno-rock, so listen at your own risk.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about this morning when I sat down to write this blog.  I'm sure there's a moral to this diatribe, but I haven't figured it out just yet.  Maybe it's just to learn to accept change, go with the flow and live in the mystery of never knowing why anyone would put ZYXWVUT on their license plate.

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