So the Christmas cards are in the mail, containing the first inkling that this website actually exists, so we'll see what comes of that. There's always a sense of anticipation around sending out Christmas cards, because you never know over the next few weeks which ones will come back marked "forwarding order expired". Just about everyone has done it to me at one time or another, but I'm not that easily dissuaded. The missing persons list currently consists of Messrs. Lauro and Frankenstein, but I have a cunning plan in both cases. Tony has no excuse other than sheer laziness, yet once you track him down it's like he never disappeared to begin with. Jeff on the other hand seems to be waging a campaign not to be found, such that if it were anyone but Jeff I'd start to feel paranoid that there was some grievous wrong I'd done him that I was being punished for. The only reason that makes sense is that there's some manipulative girlfriend calling the shots. Even the gored by a rhino excuse I made up a few years ago would've expired by now.



One would think e-mail would make this easier to do, but that hasn't proven to be the case. I get e-mail from people, and a month or so later I send something to them, and the e-mail bounces back undelivered. WTF? I've been able to track down Tony, Nina and a few others in the past by trawling the internet for information, but it doesn't work all the time, particularly with more common names. The Current Whereabouts page off the northwestern subdomain has a link for each person on the list, but most of them are other people with the same names. You'd think now that we're all 40-something we'd have made enough of a splash to be on a webpage somewhere in the world, even if its one's own, but sadly not.



It's not like I don't have anything better to do, but I do it anyway. In the end, most are generally glad I did, but it doesn't stop them from doing it again (and again and again in Tony's case). I'm inclined to think anyone else would've given up by now. But I refuse to take the hint.