Ever since I got networked (and that dates back to a time when RJ-45 didn’t exist, and I eventually disconnected from the family because I was fed up with my network screwing up every time a cable was moved across the apartment), I’ve been sticking to a personal computer naming scheme. Inspired by my school’s network, where machines were named after painters, and (so I think, and so I remember) each room had its own painting style or time period or something, I chose a domain I know better: female movie characters.

So I have to find a name for my upcoming Mac (but… isn’t it bad luck to name your child before it’s born? bah, lots of people do it). And it’s much more important than it seems: life has given my computers the destiny their names forebode.

Ripley^@, which was my main computer and is now a Linux fileserver, deserves to be named after a warrior; and its old case, and old distorted 14” CRT are quite a fit for the Alien “quadrilogy”’s universe.

Even more meaningful, Lain^@: my workstation, now permanently connected, eventually got a Matrox triple-head video card and the three matching 17” screens. You have to know Serial Experiments: Lain in order to appreciate the coincidence. There are no coincidences.

And there’s Blayac^@, who has now disappeared in a closet. Humiliated. (The Comtesse de Blayac is a Ridicule character quite akin to the Marquise de Merteuil.)

Goes to show how much thought I have to put into my new child’s identity. I’d rather save Dalloway^@ for a future, more powerful Mac, that’d be able to do more than just run iCal and TextEdit. So I have to find a female fiction character (movies or not, it’s not that important — and Lain isn’t a movie character anyway) who has something to do with writing, and can fit a small orange clamshell iMac G3/300. I have a few days left to find a name, but any suggestion is welcome.

Mmh, iCal and TextEdit. A secretary, it has to be a secretary. Tess? Too feminine (“Ripley”, “Lain” and “Blayac” are neutral names, that you can use in a sentence; until now I always avoided feminine first names). Parker? A bit too neutral now… Who’s there left in the bureaucracy department?

P.S. Hmmm, Benes… Doesn’t sound good, but it’s appropriate.