My Voice Is My Passport: Verify Me.

If you're an incredible spazz who is stuck blissfully in the not-too-distant past, you will know that the title of this blog post is taken from the super balls-awesome movie "Sneakers," a film that boasted some incredibly cheesy music and a bangdaddy cast that included Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, the late River Phoenix, Dan Aykroyd (whose last fucking name I can never spell right without help), Robert Redford, and Sir Ben Goddamn Kingsley.

It's an incomprehensible combination of technology, humor, thrillerism and snappy dialogue. It was one of the most quotable movies of the 90's, but only if you're a total fucking dork.

"...Well, we could wrap you in a full bodysuit of Neoprene heat-resistant rubber, or we could just raise the temperature in Cosmo's office to 98.6 degrees, which is probably what we're going to have to do because the Neoprene would suffocate you."

And yes, that's not from IMDB. That's from memory.

Go ahead-- un-follow me. Just make it quick.

I was thinking about "Sneakers" today because of an article I barely read in the New York Times (aren't I special?) about passwords people use ostensibly to protect their privileged information online. We've all got approximately ten thousand eight hundred and eleven different passwords to different things-- our Shutterfly accounts and our bank accounts, our online veterinary tech classes as DeVry University, our cellphone companies that have a death-grip on our wallets/genitals, fucking Facebook-- I think I might have written a blog post about passwords a while ago, but I can't remember.

Lily will probably remember, though.

An elephant never forgets.


Anytwee, the article I read claimed that, in 2008, the most common password for chicanery and surfology used by Americans was "12345."

"No shit!" you say. "Shit," I say.

It seems, however, that Americans are, in this age of security-consciousness and identity-theft, smartening up. The most popular password for 2009?

"123456."

Other super-pops passwords were "iloveyou," "Michael," "Ashley," your dog's goddamn birthday, and, the perennial favorite: "password."

I have a great idea for what I feel should be, and hope will, be the most popular online password for 2010:

"stealmyidentitydrainmybankaccountandfuckmeintheasstwice"

I know, it's a little long and unwieldy, but I think it has its merits.

Most of you know that, every morning, almost against my will, I watch "The Today Show" for 1/2-an-hour, scoring some intense cuddle-muffin time with the missus on the sofa, sometimes while she snoozes with her head thrown back and her mouth open. God, I love her. Anyway, in between pretending that TMZ is a reliable source of information and presenting Meredith Vieira as someone you shouldn't want to stab through the neck with a Dixon Ticonderoga product, they love to present stories of down-on-their-luck schlubs from middle America, seated at their kitchen tables, pouring over mountains of bills, tapping on a calculator while an earnest voiceover talks of how they were scammed by hackers and other assorted internet prowlers who "somehow accessed their personal information online, destroying their lives."

Well, that's sad and all. But, seriously-- if your password is "123456" I won't be shedding much of a tear for you.

If you really want to fool hackers, come up with some really weird shit that they'd never think could be the password of some house-marm in Des Moines, or a blogger in suburban Southeastern Pennsylvania. Come on, people-- you've got to work at this-- get really creative. Your online identity is at stake here, and you don't want some industrious, highly-intelligent, high-school drop-out hacker getting his grubby digits on your money. So, you need to think of some pretty crazy passwords to outsmart these fuckers. Here's some ideas to get your brains working in the right direction:

"hackersrgay"

"mythumbsmellslikebutt"

"olivianewtonjohnishot"

"inailedtiger"

"montanaismadeup"

"iwaxmytaint"

"tasemebitch"

"ihavenomoney"

"sirwhoresalot"

"mrapronissexy"

and, your number 1 ticket to online security:

"ihateblackpeople"

Remember: your online identity is precious: protect it like it was your little bitch.

It's My Masonic Apron's 200TH BLOGDAY!

Praise be, my little darlings-- I never thought we'd get here.

Certainly not together.

Today marks 200 posts on this here bloggy-doo, and I'm grateful to you for sticking it out with me. Some of you have been with me since the old Pudd'nhead Nathan days-- you dealt with the abrupt cancellation of that blog, and you dutifully tied on your masonic apron and followed me along this path.

You've waded through countless posts about anxiety, personal incompetence, home ownership, dead cops, lost friendships, home ownership, suburban inferiority, a nice, chunky sampling of some Dear Apron ire, and the sporadic rant.

You've even continued reading after I made the decision to stop spending hours of my time searching for funny hyperlink pictures.

Well, shit-- you're all kinds of swell.

Funny thing is-- my 200th Blogday almost didn't happen today-- because I couldn't remember my blogger password for a minute or so there. No password? No post.

Actually, it's kind of a good thing that this happened, because I didn't know what I was going to write about until I forgot my password, then remembered it, then realized that this minor event underscored a uniquely 21st century dilemma that I have no doubt a lot of us are having-- and what better way to celebrate a 200th blogday than by bitching about something that affects not just me, but you, too? Here's the dilemma:

I have too fucking many usernames and passwords.

I mean, Jesus Christ. What the dick?

Here's a short list of all the institutions/websites I frequent with at least moderate regularity that force me to keep track of a username and password:

Auto Insurance website

Credit Card website

My bank's website

My cellphone company's website

Health insurance website

Student loan website

Online class website

PayPal

Ebay

Photobucket

Shutterfly (yes, we do both-- one for business, one for pleasure. Yowza!)

Email

Work email

Facebook

Amazon

And, of course

www.blogger.com

And Icerocket, the blog tracking software I use so that I know when I am visited by Guelph, Ontario or Fishers, Indiana or Elmhurst, Illinois. Hi, y'alls! I see you!

And that's just a sampling of websites that require username and password entry. There are at least eight or nine that I have to use for work purposes that I can frequently never remember. I just had to ask my boss how to log into the Theatre Alliance website because I couldn't remember the username and password. Pretty sad.

But, seriously, how's a brotha supposed to keep track of all his skeez like that? Are we supposed to write it all down, every username and every password for all our websites-- even our financial institutions and such, so that any petty pilferer or day laborer who happens to be working in our house can access anything and everything online? I know we're not supposed to make all our usernames and passwords exactly the same, because then, one someone has one, they have them all.

Right?

This isn't just me, right?

So, I make them slightly different, but then I can never remember which variant of which username or password goes with what website. And, of course, the credit card website is the one I can never remember, and it's one of the few websites that, if you get it wrong three times, sorry! You're locked out until tomorrow. Try again, please.

How did it come to this? Sure, usernames and passwords are good ideas in theory, but sometimes all this security blows up in our faces when we try to pay our credit card bill online. We ought to be rewarded for "going green" and getting paperless statements-- instead we're forced to commit to memory dozens of usernames and passwords until they start leaking out of our ears. I mean, yeah, we're young and virile now, but as Generation Y or whatever the fuck we are ages, we're never going to be able to remember all this shit.

Will "Password Retrieval Services" start springing up all over the place, created by some enterprising bastard wishing to capitalize off the graying of America's online generation? Will websites start charging you a dollar every time you can't remember your password, like your R.A. used to do when you couldn't find your dorm room key?

Speaking of higher education, I think the first online password I ever created was in college. This demonstrates how old I am. My freshman year, I was shoved in a cramped dorm room with a shoulder-tufted leviathan who grunted instead of speaking, showered in Aqua Velva and possessed a remarkably cro-magnon forehead. The dorm building was one of the oldest on the campus, the windows only opened a crack, there was no air conditioning and the floors were movie theatre sticky. The dorm's name was Walz.

My online password for all of freshman year?

ihatewalz