Staking his territory

Last Christmas I bought a really cheap present for Graham.

It’s something he has never seen and never played with. It’s something he may never see or ever play with.

It will cost me about $10 a year for, well, pretty much ever, but I still consider it one of the best investments I’ve ever made.

Last Christmas I bought Graham his domain name. Most of you probably know what that means. For those who don’t, let me explain by saying that I now own the rights to www.grahamlastname.com . (I am avoiding spelling out his actual last name for privacy reasons).

I didn’t buy it because I wanted to be cutting edge or to give my son a leg up in the rat race circa 2030. (Though if the purchase does make me cooler and Graham more employable, then bring it on!)

I bought it because for all I know, there is a budding porn star out there who happens to have the very same name as my son.

Everyone knows that along with all the wonderful stuff on the internet (like this site for example) there is a whole boatload of crazy shit out there. Who among us hasn’t inadvertently done a Google search for some innocuous item/ person/ business only to fall down the rabbit hole into some bizarre world we didn’t even know existed?

I once stumbled across a whole community of people who swore by the health benefits of drinking their own urine. I surfed for an hour, slack-jawed at photos of normal-looking people smiling and hoisting their glasses. As repulsed as I was, I just could not seem to look away.

But I digress.

The world is changing so much. My parents bought me a top-of-the-line typewriter as a going away gift when I left for journalism school; I was handing assignments in on disc by my second semester. Little more than a decade ago e-mail was virtually unheard of and internet use largely the purview of people working in the computer field; now even little, old me has three e-mail addresses and a web site.

It seems quite possible that personal web sites (for social or business-related purposes) may well be the norm by the time Graham is old enough to care about that sort of thing. It just seemed like a good idea to reserve his spot in the brave, new world before some urine-drinking, porn star beats him to it.

And for Christmas this year? I’m toying with the idea of www.Dr.Grahamlastname.com.

What about you?