Why indeed. A few years ago I was hanging out with my buddy Steve Sloan in his office and David Bowie’s “Young American” was playing on his CD player. He told me that the song reminded him of me. Since I’m not going to be young all my life (only most of it), I figured that I’d borrow from Tom Petty’s “American Girl”, and www.americangirl.com was born!

Unfortunately for me, a company that will not be named (publishers of a magazine called “American Girl”‘a8 and various other merchandise) didn’t appreciate that I had americangirl.com, which they wanted for their own Web site. They had their lawyer send me a nasty letter. I called Stan Bunger at New Media News and he interviewed me for TV. And I didn’t give up the domain name.

So after another month, the company had Network Solutions (AKA the InterNIC) put www.americangirl.com on hold for “trademark infringement”.

The InterNIC said I could pick another name for simultaneous use, so I chose americangrrl.com, which has more of an edge than my original name (LynnB trivia: I thought of that name during the movie “Fierce Creatures”, which features many growly animals). I registered www.americangrrl.com. The company wanted the right to approve my new domain name, though, and when I told them my alternate choice they about had kittens.

So I didn’t hear from them for a few weeks until Monday, Feb. 24 at 9:10 p.m., when there was a knock on my apartment door. I opened it and there stood a guy who hadn’t washed his hair in a month, wearing a T-shirt that hung to his knees and was screened with large brown splotches with the charming caption “Who Farted?”. He looked at me.

“Lynn Benson?” he asked.

I squeaked back, “Yes.”

Woo hoo, I got served. Deeeeelightful. At least the messenger got lost on his way to my apartment and had to drive around for an hour.

So, in order to keep them from being “entitled to sue” me “in Federal Court and to recover from” me “damages, including all of [the company’s] attorneys’ fees incurred in prosecuting its lawsuit”* against me, I canceled both my americangirl and americangrrl domains, replacing them with “motormouth.com”, which has nothing to do with my citizenship or my gender, and is actually the nickname bestowed upon me by my father when I was two years old.

Aren’t you glad you asked? But I’m not bitter or anything.

😉

*Quoted from a letter from Farella Braun and Martel LLP, dated Feb. 24, 1997, and served to me by Prince Charming

Whew. I’d like to apologize for the horrible attitude displayed in my Valentine’s Day column. Lest you all think that my beau deserted me, we did go out to dinner on Feb. 13th.

Valentine’s Day Eve is a much better time to go out, anyway. Most importantly, nobody goes out the night before V-Day, so getting a reservation is no problem. I mean, how can you be romantic when you’re surrounded by other couples overtly exuding romance?

Also, if you’re into public adoration (you might have noticed by now that that’s one of my favorite things), it’s more fun to go out on Feb. 13th because the other folks in the restaurant will look at you and your significant other and think to themselves, “Oh, isn’t that sweet!”

So I’m feeling much better today. It’s the Tuesday after a three-day weekend. The best thing about a three-day weekend is the subsequent four-day work week!

It’s time to go running now. Later!

P.S. Let the record show that the beau in question came over the night I wrote this, and that there were flowers involved. 🙂

Valentine’s Day used to be my favorite holiday. I loved the fact that there was a day where you could get presents and cards and chocolate without anyone having to die, a day where love was the answer, a day where…

…nevermind. Anyway, that was obviously then and this is obviously now.

Can you tell it was a bummer day? This is how I spent the evening of Friday, February 14th: Watching “Crusty Demons of Dirt II” (a dirt-biking video) for the third time with my roommate and his buddy Blaze as they ate all of my Valentine’s candy that I bought for myself to ensure that I’d *get* Valentine’s day candy, and it’s a good darn thing I did because there were no flowers, there was no candy, there wasn’t anything other than dirt-bike racing on the TV as I sat back and thought to myself “There must be more to life than this?”

This wasn’t my worst V-Day ever, though. The worst one I ever had was when I was a sophomore in high school. I’d had my wisdom teeth dug out of my head the day before (on Friday the 13th of February), and spent Saturday in pain and bleeding. I’d broken up with my first ever real boyfriend a few weeks before, so there were (again) no flowers, no candy, hell, not even any crusty demons of dirt.

Sure, there have been good Valentine’s Days. Probably the best one I’ve had (with no offense to anyone I’ve ever spent Valentine’s Day with, you know who you are) was when I was a sophomore in college. None of my friends had plans for the evening, so I had a Feb. 14th “Anti-Valentine’s Day” party. Everyone was required to wear black. The drink of the evening was Mountain Drool (Mountain Dew, lemon and vodka), which made for a bunch of really hyper drunk people. Next thing I knew all the smokers were over by the window, the drunks were over by the punchbowl, five people left with the 12th floor Residence Advisor so she could get them all stoned, and two people disappeared for 20 minutes — I later found out that they’d gone back to a dorm room, had sex and come back to the party. Ahhhh, youth. The door prizes were these little toy sheriff’s kits, replete with spurs, badge and handcuffs. Yee haw.

So, isn’t it time for Easter yet? I need to catch up on my free chocolate consumption. At least the Easter Bunny won’t let me down…