It’s an interesting thing to suddenly realize one day that a name on a sign in your neighborhood…is a name you saw when you were living in another world entirely.
When I lived in Baltimore, I worked at a well-known VW/Audi tuner shop. This tuner shop sold go-fast software from APR (Audi Performance and Racing). APR is really well-known in VW/Audi circles. Huge. And their website is www.goapr.com. Now, just out of curiosity one day, I hopped on www.apr.com, just to see who had beat them to the punch for the domain name. It was Alain Pinel Realtors, and their website sucked…I figured they were just some rinky-dink operation that got the domain first. I thought it was funny at the time, and just kinda forgot about it.
Now I live in Silicon Valley. Several miles away from me, there is a small office building in a quiet little town, with a sign out front that says “Alain Pinel Realtors.” The office is in Woodside, the town that holds Steve Jobs’ house (and many other multi-multi-millionaires). Alain Pinel is a huge name on the peninsula, as they deal with the majority of the many-million-dollar homes, ranches, complexes, mansions, whatever the fuck you want to call them. Anyhow, I just think it’s funny to come across something like this, a name I would never have expected to see again.
Today, I’m working on a project, a website for a company that builds custom homes on the peninsula. The CEO’s name is Dick Breaux. I swear I’ve seen that name before, and I doubt it’s a common name. But when you hear of a man named “dick bro,” you kinda remember it. If only I could remember where I’d heard it before, I could make another fun connection.
But since I can’t, I’m reminded of another name that’s funny like Dick Breaux is. When I was working at the tuner shop, we got an order from a guy named Tom Gay. I could have ignored it, or gotten off with a simple chuckle…but his email address was through Cox Communications.
That’s right, gay at cox dot net. Poor guy.