"Try to pronounce these pairs differently: our/hour, hole/whole, Hu/who, your/you're, so/sew, cot/caught, bow/bough, night/knight."

David Weekly posted that line on his twitter stream, and I just had to laugh.

Aside from the fact that "Kris" and "Chris" have different pronunciations (no, not really), I actually DO pronounce cot and caught, as well as bow and bough diffferently. Cot is prounounced with an "ah" sound, with caught pronounced with an "aw" sound.

I'm told that's a Midwestern drawl that causes those words to be different, a lesson I learned way back at Amerigon when the telephone call speech recognition system never recognized my "call" keyword to initiate a call. I had to use "phone" to initiate a call.

They call it a drawl. I call it speaking correctly.

I've managed to correct some of Kris' speech patterns over the last decade. He forwarded an email from a friend who had written "one" instead of "won" in the email. He was laughing at the typo, even hours later when he arrived home. I asked him to pronounce the two words, one and won, only to be mortified as he pronounced "won" as "Juan".

It was my turn to laugh.

I have since fixed Kris' speech problems. He done do talk purdy now.

I thought for sure I had written about the pink boots when I bought them for Liza years ago. Mike, Liza and I were at a target, and looking for some shoes for Liza. I don't recall what kind Mike was looking for, but at some point either Liza or I found the pink boots and, although I hate pink, I LOVED the idea of the pink boots. Liza wanted them, too, but, well, they weren't what Mike was looking for, so "No."

But, well, I loved the pink boots, so I asked if I could buy them for her. Mike looked at me funny, but said yes, I could. So I did. Liza worn them non stop for a week.

Apparently, now that they've been handed down to Maeryn, SHE'S been wearing them non-stop. Gee, I love those pink boots. Sometimes (only VERY briefly), I wish I were 4 years old again so that I could wear tiny pink boots.

Best $20 i spent that year.

Okay, time to start evaluating registrars.

Requirements for my new registrar are:

1. Must host DNS.

I care little for the web interface, just that there needs to be one and it needs to work.

2. Discount for bulk regisrations

If I'm transferring a hundred domains over to the new registrar, there damn well better be a discount for the registrations.

3. Not too expensive.

See previous requirement.

4. Customer service has to be decent.

I'm going to call once in a long while, probably near once a year if that much. When I do call, do NOT want to have to scream "YES NO YES YES ONE FOUR NO NO OPERTATOR OPERATOR OPERATOR OPERATOR GET ME THE FUCKING OPERATOR" and hear an automated voice say "I'm sorry I didn't understand what you said. Please say one for billing. two for sales."

I hate those fucking automated voices. Essentially they tell me this business doesn't give a flying rat's ass about my issues. You don't care about my issues, I go elsewhere for services. Simple as that. Since I call so infrequently, I'm not one of the 10% of customers needing 90% of the handholding, so, yes, I do expect you to help me out when I call.

New ones I've just added, since I just started searching:

5. Must allow @ and * and . host name in the DNS.

I mean, really, you want me to adjust the DNS every time I want to add a development server to my site pool? Yeah, not going to happen.

6. Must have a decent reputation.

GoDaddy unbelievably fails on this one. Their website is all about selling you crap (crap you don't need, but you don't know you don't need that if you haven't experienced it before, which just goes to tell you their market), instead of helping you or even enhancing the services you have purchased. Instead of offering reasonable add-ons based on what you've already purchased, they provide a scattershot approach, maybe a fan and shit approach actually: throw enough at the blades and something will stick.

Phew.

That said, first up: 1and1.com.

Summary: 1and1.com not so good.

Issues:

1. Doesn't display customer number on an original order.

I used an email that wasn't set up properly. The order email from them bounced. This wouldn't have been an issue if, after I set up my account when I ordered the new domain, they displayed my customer number. Instead, they showed me a screen that said "check your email for login information." Doesn't help me if I can't access that email.

2. Suspicious lack of security.

This might be more "suspectible to social engineering" than "lack of security."

When I called customer support (+1 that I was able to talk to a person quickly), I told them what happened, and asked for my customer number. I received this information, without verifying the accuracy of any of my data. I didn't give my credit card number or telephone number to verify I actually had just made the purchase.

And the deal breaker: why I won't transfer any domains to this registrar, and actually will be transferring my single domain here away:

3. Can't have multiple @ or * subdomains

They host the DNS (+1). In the host names, they don't handle CNAMEs and A records correctly. They don't allow @ or * host names. AND they have a limit of only 20 hosts ("subdomains").

Nope, won't be continuing here.

Next up? Probably dynadot.

Gah. I feel like I'm always washing dishes.

Sure, I'm cooking a lot, which makes sense that there will be lots of dishes to wash, but good lord, I am tired of washing dishes.

Scooting over to work from the South San Francisco Caltrain station, having only my trusty phone for a map, was an, uh, adventure. The distance wasn't so long, actually. I'm glad I used the scooter instead of walking. It was fun, too (if you ignore the winds). The bridge was fun, and in one very small space, there was nature!

Now, on the way over, I saw a road that, according to the map, was a more efficient way to travel. Always on the lookout for a more efficient route, I took the other way back to the train station.

And learned the "note to self" lesson of "What looks easier in two dimensions, is not necessarily easier in three."

Hoo boy.

The road I took went up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down. The ups were long and arduous. The downs were quick and steep, so it's not like I could hoof it up the hill and glide down it. Oh, no.

When I stopped to ask a guy if I was going in the right direction for the Caltrain station, he directed me back a quarter mile to the shuttle bus station. I kept thinking, "Dude, if I wanted the shuttle bus, I wouldn't be on the freakin' scooter, would I?"

So, I wasn't so happy with the ride home.

The station is way too industrial for me to feel particularly safe, but I made it to the station in time for my train. Score one for pedal power!