Passwords, other words, and (ultimately) paranoia

Someone drew my attention to the fact that all of us are accumulating way too many passwords and other items we're supposed to memorize. It used to be bad enough -- trying to keep track of your Social Insurance Number, your Driver's Licence number, your phone number, your bank account number -- heck, those were plenty!

Only now, all those bits of necessary information seem to have grown beyond anyone's expectations. It's sort of like Harriet Beecher Stowe's character, Topsy, who just 'growed.' Most people now have at least three telephone numbers: home, work, and cell.

I'll admit, I've finally started writing things down -- things I'm supposed to be keeping in my head. I've got just too many sign-in IDs, user names, and passwords to be able to carry them all around in my poor brain.

But here's where the paranoia comes in. Somebody steals into my room, finds the secret hiding place where I've got these weird little phrases stashed away. So what have I done to protect myself from the wrong set of eyes? Coded 'em, of course. Drawn a bunch of pictures that are supposed to trigger my brain -- so I (and only I) will know what kind of goofy licence plate mishmash I intended. Sound complicated? Ask me in a year. We'll see how many of those numbers and words I can retrieve. We'll see how many of those accounts I can still access. Ahem.

And speaking of words, I've got 10 new ones circling around in my head. They're this year's words from CV2's 48-Hour Poetry Contest. If you'd like to find out what the words are, and how this crazy contest works, take a peek here. But don't tell too many people. I'm working on a nutzoid piece of writing for it, and face it -- I don't want too much competition.