Remember that Hotmail account I used to use for MSN Messenger that people kept e-mailing me at even though I never checked the Hotmail e-mail inbox? Well, I got locked out of it (either somebody got into it and changed my password, or I changed my password at some point and forgot it), and when I tried to reset the password the security question refused to budge against either of the possible actual answers. I sent an account recovery request to Microsoft, but frustratingly, almost all the questions it asks you about the account to verify that it's yours didn't actually apply to my Messenger-only use of it, because they involved Xbox Live accounts or custom mail folders or subjects of recent e-mails you've sent. I tried to type "Can I please talk to a human being?" into one of the recent e-mail subject fields, but the only responses I got not-so-helpfully instructed me to please fill out the form again, until the last one told me I'd made too many account recovery requests and suggested I make a new account.

Long story short, if you want to IM me, you should use my new identity, which is just my Gmail account (antialiasis@gmail.com). At least this means people will e-mail me at the right address.

(Contrast this to when I lost my Gmail account in 2007, where I sent a freeform e-mail to Google explaining my case for that being my account and got it back a few days later with no harm done. As if I weren't annoyed enough with Microsoft after this, when I signed up again with the Gmail it reminded me that Windows Live has a sixteen-character upper limit on password length, which I hope to God is merely unnecessary and not because they're actually storing plaintext passwords.)

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