My wife texted me earlier this evening: Did you shut your blog down?

Never a good question. And I knew instantly what had happened. We've moved banks, which means we've changed debit cards, which means that my domain didn't auto-renew. Normally I'd have caught it within the 30-day grace period when I tried to post the annual Christmas letter (that's coming in a moment), but my life got turned upside down by a the biggest software development crisis of my career, so the letter was only finished a few days ago. That work crisis also worsened my already horrible email-checking habits.

So the middleclasstool.com domain expired. Then it got swiped by a pack of no 'count dirtbags who offered to sell it back to me for around $2000. There are things I would like to give them 2000 of, but none of those things are my dollars.

Let me be clear: This is my fault. I didn't update my payment info, and I am, as mentioned above, godawful at checking email. Almost as bad as I am at keeping this place updated. The fact that a 30-day renewal grace period exists for domains is wonderful. The fact that I didn't get the problem caught and fixed in that window is very on brand for me. The fact that people can engage in this kind of fuckshittery and call it a business model is, well, American. Very, very American.

So it was either give them my money or change the domain. I changed the domain. middleclasstool.xyz seemed fun but vague. middleclasstool.gay seemed hilarious but would have my wife answering too many questions. That left middleclasstool.wtf, which seemed to strike the perfect balance between meaningful, accurate, and amusing.

It may change again, who knows. Hopefully no time soon. Just, you know, if anyone asks why my older and better domain goes to hugedomains (a company I am forced to believe is all MAGA douchebags with mommy issues and dreams of farting their way into wealth and fame), help spread the WTF.