del.icio.us--Week 6 Thing 13

Wow, people come up with some interesting tags. It's even more interesting when people post seemingly unrelated tags. For example, you have to know Gina Z to know she tagged her Pennsylvania Polka pictures 'oceanscapes' because she had 'escaped' a bad marriage and her 60-year-old Aunt Ethel cheered her up by entering her in the annual Lady's with Liver Spots dance contest. Now, before you all Google Gina Z, I made her up. But hers is the sort of voyeuristic, Deer-in-the-Headlights-compelling, personal drama I found myself stumbling into by following the labyrinthine tag paths on del.icio.us. Really, I can see the fascination. Though disturbing. Sooooo disturbing. Who knew polka could go so wrong? My PC needs a serious cookie purge. It will never be clean again!

Anyway, yes, I can see it as a personal bookmarking tool. Emphasis on the personal. I'm not entirely comfortable with it as a reference tool. I'm actually rather creative, really, I am. But I can't figure out how to use del.icio.us for solid, fast reference. I'd be terrified to use it in a formal setting. Heaven forbid I try to answer a customer's question about finding a local sewing circle with del.icio.us and stumble on a punk site with high quality graphics. Far better to use the tried and true.

That said (yes, yes, here it comes--the part where she contradicts herself. Pick an opinion and stick with it!), I did sign up for an account and am using it for bookmarking. How long will I last? Beats me. But I'm game.

I originally chose the username bosilovicious, but realized what worked for Sid might not work for me. Did I mention names are hard for me? Is there such a thing as being name deaf? I thought a cool, hockey-sounding, Slavic name for my son would be Sergei. How great a match is that for my last name? Then my brother pointed out that the poor kid would get called "Sir . . ." well, you know. At school. So he's Ethan. Much better. But if anyone wants to check out my del.icio.us, there it is.