Art of the Odd

Logged in to check my email on this account this morning, and the webmail interface looked funny. No matter. I remember Dreamhost said awhile back they were testing a new webmail system. So I put in my username and password, and… Why can’t I log in? I go check the status blog. And the discussion forum. No one’s saying anything about webmail problems. Odd. So I try the webmail for another domain. Yep, it’s fine… Weird. I wonder if I can log in to WordPress? “This domain is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com”? Huh?

Turns out, www.artoftheodd.com expires today. And I didn’t get the renewal notice why? Oh, because I’m a dork, and when I transferred my hosting to Dreamhost, I didn’t set up an account for the email address I had attached to my Whois record. Fine, I’ll transfer the registration to Dreamhost, since I have to renew anyway. What do you mean it’s going to take a week? Do I have to look at that “parked” page for a week?

(For the record – no, I didn’t. The transfer was complete in less than an hour.)

Moral of the story – know when your domain names expire, and make sure your registrar can actually get a hold of you to let you know that’s happening.

Today, I noticed that I had 666 email messages in one of my inboxes (yes, I probably should clear some of them out). Message number 666? An invite to join “GodlyPlaces.com (Where Christians hang out!)”. Now, I’m sure they’re very nice people. They’re reaching out to women in the ministry, and in looking over the site (which is nicely designed), I didn’t notice any of the hate content I’ve unfortunately come to associate with Evangelical Christianity. The unsubscribe link in the email actually seems to have worked, without any nagging about whether I was certain I wanted to unsubscribe. I wish them well in their endeavor — I really do. But — I’m not a Christian. And the contact email they sent the invite to is connected to a site with no Christian content — unless you count the article about John Lennon’s comment that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” or maybe the one about Jimmy Carter being attacked by a swamp rabbit. Normally, I find unsolicited email annoying. Sometimes it even makes me angry. But this time, I’m just confused.

I never expected to be spammed by God.