Newsweek gives me special recognition for missing out on the booming multimillion-dollar market in Internet domains: When a Florida man, in anticipation of the naming of the new pope, registered the Web site BenedictXVI.com, the Vatican was in luck. Rogers Cadenhead, who has since used the site to publicize a nonprofit organization and plans to transfer control to the Vatican, could have been an investor looking to get in on a booming business: the domain market. Indeed, owners of similar sites such as ... read more
Everybody Carl Jung Tonight
A voicemail message received last week: Hey, it's Mancow, we're trying to get you on the radio show here. It's an Illinois guy, he probably knows this show. But he got the pope's web site. And the story is he's going to turn it into a porno ... I didn't get this message soon enough to return his call. I suspect that if he heard my actual plans for BenedictXVI.Com, I would have been a great disappointment to him. WashingtonPost.Com reporter David McGuire wrote a followup story yesterday about how the domain has ... read more
I did an interview yesterday with AVNOnline, believing the "AV" stood for audiovisual, like the A.V. Club entertainment site published by The Onion. I liked the final piece, although I thought it was odd for the reporter to quote another papal domain registrant talking about "nipples and snatch." That kind of talk hasn't appeared much in the media since the end of the Clinton administration. When I showed the story to my wife, she noticed that the ads around the piece were for X-rated sites and products (warning: ... read more
The owners of other Pope Benedict XVI domains are taunting me. Jacopo Di Trani, an Italian who got Benedict16.Com, has declared that pornographers and online casinos are welcome to buy it from him: The first time i didn't believed Cadenhead when he said "i'll never give my domain to gamble/porn site developers"! He's a very kind guy, but, first of all, his hair CAN'T be real, and, second, although i have respect for his decision to give for free his very valuable domain (with a billion of christians in the ... read more
Without interviewing me, Jacksonville TV newscast First Coast News reported Thursday that I was selling the domain: While the World Wide Web might not be a priority for Pope Benedict XVI, one local man hopes someone will think it's worth some cash to him. Roger [sic] Cadenhead of St. Augustine registered the domain name BenedictXVI.com along with other potential choices before the Pope selected his name. Cadenhead wants to sell it to the highest bidder. This was news to me. I had been telling all reporters the ... read more
Fame or Something Like It
I wasn't prepared to be famous for 24 hours, but now that my weblog traffic has subsided to normal levels, I can relate some of the experience. The rest has to be filtered through therapy first. For anyone wondering how I became a television personality as well-known for a day as the Virgin Mary grilled cheese, my friend Matt Haughey has digitized the interview on the Today Show where I talk about BenedictXVI.Com. After the Today Show, I began receiving calls from TV producers. Almost to a person, they were ... read more
A funny thing happened today: Modest Needs received more than five times the normal donations from people coming from BenedictXVI.Com. I'd like to think it has something to do with my understated good looks, which were revealed to me in an e-mail from a Today Show viewer this morning. But I suspect that people are simply gratified that I am not a pornographer. I will never be a pornographer, so please keep helping Modest Needs. I sent an e-mail to Pope Benedict XVI's new e-mail address today asking if the church ... read more
