In my previous post (long time ago), I write a lot about extrovert people who put nicknames that are more informative yet less relevant than Wikipedia. Nevertheless, after finishing Velina Collin’s ‘Finishing Touch’ module, I am convinced that maybe it is a good idea for many SMU student to start changing their MSN account. And when I say MSN account, it means the email that you usually used to sign in.

For your information, most SMU students use MSN as main platform of instant messaging (IM). One can testify that there is more than 95% chance that students will ask “What is your MSN!” instead of Yahoo! Messenger or GTalk or AOL or Jabber or maybe IRC #Channel! In addition, having suffer in SMU for almost two years, I could confidently put a random number of 90% to represent a portion of students who have MSN account before they enrolled to the campus that they love.

Based on my observation on numerous MSN accounts, I often found people with rather childish MSN account such as

Angelbusted_88@hot…
Baron_nitez@hot…
Great_grumpy_man@hot…
momotora@hot…
kokakolavenger@hot…
Life_is_kind_of_beautiful@hot
nyaaah@hot…

And the list goes on…

(the above list is purely fictional. Any resemblance to real account is either a mere coincidence or a figment of your wild imagination)

Ok. I do not intend to judge anyone. I just find people who do not properly identify themselves are a bit confusing - sometimes to the point of annoyance. After all, one cannot expect people with low memory cell like me to memorize 300+ emails associated with numerous nicks that keep changing depending on individuals’ hormonal change as they reach adolescence. In short, proper email address can help poor people like me to identify many of my friends.

Imagine…

Boy : “Hi. Nice to meet you”
Girl : “Nice to meet you too. Do you have MSN?”
Boy : “Sure. Just add me. HappyGayGuy@hotmale.com”
Girl : “Err.. ok. Bye. Cya” (scamper away to the nearest rest room)

Or maybe…

Boss : “welcome to the company kids”
Intern : “thank you”
Boss : “do you have msn?’
Intern : “Yeah. You can add great_slasher_samurai_X_1249832487@msn.com”
Boss : “… can you drop me an email on that?”

And the sure deal breaker (especially in the Middle East region).

Cust A: “Can we discuss this over internet”
You : “Sure. Just add our MSN. My msn: MyGODIsGreaterThanYours@hotmall.com while Joe’s is Israel_Rox@mesem.com”

Honestly, my msn account is neither the most informative nor politically correct. Yet, I guess in term of readability and professionalism, my msn email is reasonable and understandable despite a tinge of extra information on my religious background. ;p How about your MSN account?

Next… before you apply for your MSN account…

I am sure I am quite a normal IM user… at least I am not as brutal chatter as some of my friends who (he/she) regularly chat with 10+ people while appearing offline. Thus, I am quite pissed and perplexed when I receive the following error: ‘The following message could not be delivered because you have exceeded the maximum number of messages per minute. Please try again later.’ Not sure how many message per minutes are alloted to each user. Three lines per minute? Four lines per minute?

Do not believe me? See this yourself.

Some possible cause that I could think of includes

1. Microsoft servers put a quota of 5 messages per minutes per user
2. My computer has been infected with virus that sends plenty of messages to many of my contancs (anyone… please inform me. Cause I cannot check this)
3. Microsoft conspires to shut me from the rest of the world.

Quick google has not yield any answer except for a confused guy who could not comprehend many error messages incorporated into new msn version.

Oh well… being a standard IM protocol in Singapore, I guess I could only hope Microsoft put less adds in its platform and more allowance on messages per minute.

I am now looking for alternative to MSN. Stay tuned.

Worse come to worse, there is email.