It’s Hard to Fondle Penguins, and Other Domain Names

You can now reach this blog via itshardtofondlepenguins.com There’s no good reason: I collect domain names like I collect app ideas. There’s no way I’m going to do anything with more than a few of them. But still, sometimes I fancy a name, and yearly registration is less than the cost of…well, almost everything else. So I register them on a whim and then try to figure out a use for them, like pointing to my Medium page.

“It’s hard to fondle penguins” is an inside joke interpretation of MIT’s informal motto acronym “IHTFP” (though I’m sure it’s hardly exclusive to MIT). ihtfp.com was already taken, so I registered itshardtofondlepenguins.com, breaking my rule of only registering domains that are easy to type. I made that rule after working at a startup with digitalchameleon.com and discovering no one knew how to spell chameleon. So maybe it’s just a spelling rule.

Some of my other domains:

philipchu.com — Again, not my first choice. I would have preferred philchu.com which is shorter, and for some reason, a lot of people misspell Philip (sometimes two l’s, and sometimes starting with an f, believe it or not). But there are a lot of Philip Chu’s, so I still lucked out.

technicat.com — that was my first domain, picked because I needed a name for my first domain. Yet again, it wasn’t really my first choice — I wanted technocat.com, which was taken, but by now I think technicat is just as good or better.

fugugames.com — because I was watching a Food Network segment on fugu (the poisonous Japanese puffer fish delicacy) and thought that would make a good game label. Tasty, with a hint of danger. Also, I liked the alliteration.

slowgamer.com — because I’m a slow gamer. Ask any game designer or tester I worked with.

illusivity.com — this was a domain name I picked as a replacement for digitalchameleon.com after a lawyer representing a Canadian comic book colorist sent us a letter. I registered it for myself recently when I saw it available because I still like it, although I have no memory of how I came up with the name.

omoapps.com — like fugugames, you can blame TV for this one. I watch a lot of Korean drama, and the characters often utter “Omo!” which is kind of like OMG. So I just thought omoapps sounded cool.

wholebraingames.com — another game domain, this one is a form of protest against one of my pet peeves, people talking about left-brain vs. right-brain. I’ve even seen an HBR Review article on it, but it’s unscientific and the type of stupid thing that right-brained people like to indulge in. Just kidding. But really, it is stupid. Also, I like how wholebraingames sounds.

talkdimsum.com — this is the closest one to a rationally derived domain name. I have an iOS app that helps people order dim sum by displaying photos and descriptions of dim sum dishes and providing Cantonese text-to-speech so they can practice pronouncing the dishes. So I called it Talk Dim Sum.

I have a few more, but some of them fall out of favor and I just let them expire. The ones above I still have hopes for.