xbox name change
Yeah, so I dropped a sawbuck to change my Xbox gamertag (username) away from my real name. (If I understand correctly, current Xbox-friends needn't adjust anything to compensate.) While the tag now points at my domain name, it adds just enough abstraction-distance to make me comfortable while staying within a global namespace I don't feel silly or false in using.
After buying "gold" Xbox Live memberships for myself and classicaljunkie, I quickly concluded that having my full legal name being my handle wasn't at all like using a full name in an internet forum. Basically, when I would sit down to play Uno with XxHiReDhItMaNxX, WLD BLDOG 1980 and BLOODYSTOOL69 - or whomever - I would essentially be inviting them all to address me by my real name (out loud, via their headset mics) while their pulsatingly macho American handles kept me from doing the same. This made me feel more than a little creeped out, and reminded me of nothing so much as the time I lost my official plain-red Cohasset Youth Basketball League T-shirt, back when my parents had signed me up for basketball, and so I played a game wearing a red T-shirt my mom found that had my name on it, making me the only kid on my team wearing his name. This would be the last game of basketball I would ever play, my friends.