Tag Archives: forum

I am Chuck Woolery

We’ve got a bunch of weddings of BNaBBT board members coming up, but I just realized I have yet to properly exploit one in particular for my own nerfarious commercial gains.

The bigbadbabynames.net forum has made its first love connection. Two long-time members who met on the site started dating, moved in together, and will be married May 20th, 2006. Several other BNaBBTeers will be in there, and, to make sure everything’s especially surreal, I have been asked to officiate. Seriously. I threw out, “Ha ha! Maybe I should perform the ceremony!” as a joke, and they said “Good idea!” So thank you online ordination! I knew it’d come in handy! (My grandmother’s both proud and confused by suddenly having a rabbi in the family.)

Oh yes, there will be pictures, and I’ve promised not to do anything to ruin things, like dressing in a Star Fleet uniform or doing the whole “Princess Bride” mawwidge thing. Or both at the same time. (Note from the future: I totally opened with “Mawwidge.” The bride OKd it. The wedding party all cracked up, but most of the audience just stared blankly.)

So there’s another reason for us all to come together in the love/criticism of bad baby names – you may find that special someone. Awwwwww….. Next step: setting up a celebrity boxing match between me and that eHarmony guy. I could take him. Congratualtions Hunter-Gatherer and Undine!

Share
Posted in Blog | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Spam spam spam spam SPAM!

So, the forum’s down again, and there’s an interesting reason for it this time. We’re getting spammed.

We were planning on shutting down for some maintenance some time in the next few days, but an adorable wave of some sort of spam attack made the tech guys decide to do it sooner rather than later. The board will be back up when it’s up.

One of those responsible for the attack, the “ringleader” as far as I can tell, has been contacted with an offer to have her and her friends stop any and all contact with the website in exchange for me not suing the pants of them. Hopefully she’ll let all her friends know and get back to me before my meeting with my lawyer; otherwise, IT’S ON! and a couple misguided netizens are going to learn that actions have consequences.

It’ll be a good lesson they can teach their kids: “Mommy’s crying because she has to pay the legal fees of that lady because Mommy committed 16 acts of libel instead of behaving like a grown-up.” I’ll keep you posted. (Update: They learned it’s OK to disagree, preferably on their own site, but denial of service attacks can have actual, legal consequences. And I don’t fuck around. And their kids’ names still suck.)

Oh, and Bay Areaegians should check out the San Jose Mercury-News this week for the fab article where I’m interviewed about why weird spellings on normal names don’t make them any more special than painting a landfill green and calling it a tree. I’ll leave to you to consider that confusing metaphor.

Share
Posted in Blog | Tagged | Leave a comment

Pictures from Cancer Relay

Huge, huge thanks to everyone who donated last month to Alison’s Cancer Society Relay for Life team. Thanks to BNaBBT readers and forum members, we raised

$573.69 

for cancer research. This earned us a mention in two Bay Area newspapers. Woo! Spreading the gospel!

Alison (right) and her friend Courtney don’t let a hot SoCal day stop them from fighting cancer.

Alex is from Britain, and he maintains his cultural identity in L.A. by having no tan at all. I’m allowed to say this because a) he’s my former roommate, b) through me he met Alison, and they dated for a long time got married, and c) I’m somehow even paler, despite living in California for 20 years.

 Alison and her mom, Trudy.

The whole team. Each team had to pick a theme that had something to do with music, and they picked “The ’60s.” Alison claims it was not a ploy to make everyone else wear tie-dye. I don’t think I believe her. This is like her vision of heaven right here. Hippie!

Thanks again to all our donors and everyone who helped out!

Share
Posted in Blog | Tagged | Leave a comment

Fundraising Drive!

I’m donating the usual bad baby names sponsor space to my friend Alison, who’s going to be walking in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life next month.

Alison and her family had one hard summer last year. In June, her dad was his usual affable self, then he noticed his left foot wasn’t working right. Just not connecting to his brain somehow. They go to the doctor and find out it’s a tumor – he has a very aggressive cancer in his kidneys that has spread to his brain, his lymph nodes, his lungs. He had surgery right away and started radiation, but in just three months, he was gone.

Alison, her sister and her mother are all walking in the Relay for Life – she says it’s helping them not feel so helpless. And this is where you come in. I told her I’d put up a fundraising link and she thought that was all nice and stuff, but I want to utterly shock them with the awesome power of bad baby names fans and how much they care. If you can donate anything at all, awesome. If you can get your friends to donate = even better. Everything is greatly, greatly appreciated.

As added incentive, everyone who donates through the site will be entered in a drawing for NIFTY BNaBBT STUFF! Thanks everybody!

Share
Posted in Blog | Tagged | Leave a comment