Your email address is your online identity. Nostalgic thoughts drift back, at primary school names were one of the things us children would poke fun at - the weird sounding, funny looking, foreign names (eg: Ben-jam-in, James Cho[de], Jun[ny] Ah). Many were ashamed of how they were labelled. Many blamed their parents.

Oh how stupid, we once were - and how stupid some are today. Many create email addresses, lacking thought. But without thought is thoughtless, dumb, as your email address is your name - you finally have the authority over how you are labelled as.

Changing an email can be a hassle. You have to re-establish who you are, and regain reputation under that new email address, people will have to re-remember that email address, people will have to update their address books, you will have to update your address book, people will still send email to your old email address, and so on.

Now it is time. Time to create the ultimate time-withstanding-email-address. Don’t do the don’t, and you won’t be not okay.

Numb3r5 - Avoid numbers in an email address, especially stupid number patterns, such as 123, or 666 (how evil) or 888 (if Asian) or 444 (if Muslim). Numbers tarnish the integrity of your email address. They are visual pollution. Some number patterns might be easy for you to remember but difficult for your new email/IM-buddy to remember.

Years - Following on from numbers, years are insanely difficult to remember. Not only does new email/IM-buddy have to know you on a personal I-know-when-your-birthday-is-so-now-invite-me-to-your-next-party level, but they are four digits long (well actually 2 digits if you ignore the ‘19′). Also if you’re like a female person thing, or are really old, you don’t want to reveal your age, so don’t be silly. You want to boast your age as a young’in, but just don’t work that way as you grow up.

Underscore - These_are_like_ugly. Use.dots.instead. (It’s raining right now, which is weird because it was really sunny this evening. Hmm, weather is forever changing).

Band Names - Band names are one of the main causes of I-want-a-new-email-address-because-I- no-longer-like-my-old-one-because-it’s-old-and-doesn’t-suit-me-any-more syndrome. Bands don’t last forever and you won’t generally like them forever. They can also lead to fights. For example, someone says ‘band-name-here’ is ‘gay’ then you retaliate and war begins! Also you can be subject to a lot of criticism - “Ben likes to listen to The Wiggles’” - don’t get me wrong, I actually do.

Your ‘insert-sex-here’ friend (sex as in like gender) - Like above, when you’re a young’in, you don’t love someone for more than 3 days, so it gets old. Can also lead into embarrassment.

Attitudes - Don’t create email addresses which display corny jokes, lame puns, pathetic fallacy, or the attitudes you have of today. For example: Harrison Kim, an associate of mine, has an email address: sexymonkeys@gmail.com and just this week created dirtyasianslut@gmail.com - He is obviously after attention, and also hasn’t read this brilliant guide. Imagine him using that email address in 2, 5, 10, 20 years time. Inevitably, he will have to obtain a new one.

Follow these simple rules and forever and email address will stay with you, forever. Just note that I am no email-address-creation guru, and myself will probably change my email address within the next 5 years or sooner.

So, so, yeah. That’s all folks [Warner Brothers ending theme song].