Like those people who stare at the dead bodies of fallen birds, or road-squashed raccoons and other animals, I have trouble resisting looking at the domains I see sold -- and thinking it means something more, under the surface.

I'm autopsying the sales of domains.



Of course it usually does mean something, and often not good. For instance, the hatemonger Milos Yiannopolll — oh help Teal, I can’t spell that — just purchased the domain name Hatred.com. Or so I read on a forum. He paid $138,000, so they say. Just imagine what a good, friendly, non-whining website he will make of it. Ack.

Another instance of a weird thing is that I found a trend among dentists, who chose to name their practices using the word “Excel” in them. There are tons of them, which you can see if you just google "excel dentist." After searching, I felt pretty sure that there was a tooth whitener called Excel, and maybe they were getting partnership/branding benefits by agreeing to use this name and popularize it. Still not sure.

Then I found doctors naming their medical practices using “Excel” in the name. There are too many of them for coincidence. What’s going on? There is at least one big company called Excel-Medical, but you usually only choose a name with a hyphen if you can’t get the one you want. I wonder why they didn’t try a different version. Apparently “excel medical” is precisely the phrase they wanted. When I look up some stats on the searches, I don’t find people looking for that phrase in high numbers. Why would anyone search for a phrase like "excel medical" or similar, anyway? (unless you're me.)

I’m still asking myself why doctors want to use this word to name their practices. What is the benefit? It is not naturally associated with medicine.

And then — but this is more natural — there are all these fitness centers using the word “Excel” in their names. This is a much more logical thing. After all, fitness devotees are looking for self-improvement, self-perfection, and want to excel, almost as if they were competing with themselves.

But all this use of the word starts to make me darkly suspect a plot, somewhere, somehow. Social Darwinism and all that. That we will be weighed in the balance and judged… That someday in the future we are all going to be expected to excel, not merely exist —

and we will get driving privileges and voting privileges and medical care only if we have demonstrably striven to excel and be our very best selves…..

and if we don’t….

Okay, time to stop this nonsense and get a drink. It’s brandy o’clock.