raging out at... passwords

Well, well, well.. welcome back to my own blog, ladies and gentlemen! My deepest apologies for the prolonged absence. My time away from you all had nothing to do with a lack of things to rage about (I can always find something!), but rather with the launching of a new site. So of course, the self-promoter that I am, I urge you to go check out Ladies' Locker Room when you're done absorbing everything over here.

The reason I bring up my other site and how terribly busy and important I am (besides the face that I am shameless) is that it led me to today's topic: Passwords. I understand the importance and need for passwords, I do. But sometimes they make my life just a little more difficult.

It all started simply enough. About 12 years ago, when my family first got America Online (saying I didn't have internet 'til I was a teenager is going to age me badly one day). I used the same password for everything. As the years passed, I began to accumulate more and more sites and programs that required a password. Eventually this led to everyone on the planet knowing the information to access virtually anything of mine. My mom, my brother, my friends, random people I've met once... even now I am sure 9 out of 10 people who have ever met me could tell you how to log onto my Facebook. This is not in my best interest.

So over the last year or two, I have been using a variety of passwords. It still amounts to about 3 different passwords, which equals out to about 7 out of 10 people who know me can log on to everything I have. Still no problem there. Perhaps I should stop giving people my account information.

The problem now becomes my inability to remember what passwords I used where and if I invented a new one for any specific reason. This problem is made exponentially worse by the wonderful browser feature that allows your computer to remember your passwords. Of course, I use this function, regardless of the fact that I will let anyone in the world use my computer... my brand spanking new pink laptop, that comes to me courtesy of one of my favorite people on earth.

This weekend, as I decided that the Internet Explorer that the computer comes pre-programmed with is a low-class piece of shit, I decided to download Firefox. Fantastic. All my passwords are stored in IE. I decide to log on and write a rageout about Betty White (I will treat you all to that later). Turns out I have virtually no idea what my password is. I hadn't typed it in so long thanks to these password memory programs that it took me SEVENTEEN TRIES to log in. SEVENTEEN.

Brutal.

You would think I learned my lesson but as soon as Firefox asked me if I would like them to remember the password, I of course accepted their assistance. Some things never change.

-stars