Sometime in 1996, our network administrator decided to change our e-mail addressing scheme, which was no problem except for one thing, he didn't tell anybody he was changing the addresses, or what they were changed to. By the time we finally figured out what was going on and told everybody our new e-mail addresses, they changed again. I had quite enough of that, and I registered for a free e-mail account at netaddress.com.
I quite happily used my usa.net e-mail address until July, 2001, when netaddress informed me that they were switching from a free to a pay service model. The new rate was $30 for the first year, and $50 for each year after that. I didn't want to risk switching to another free account and having it close, and I also didn't want to pay for my e-mail.
Upon looking into it, I found that I could buy a domain name and host my own Web site for a very reasonable price. I figured it'd be nice to have my own site to play around with, and I'd never need to worry about changing my e-mail address again. My next goal was to choose a domain name.
I wanted a name that was easy to remember, and mildly humorous. One afternoon, I sat down with the whois search and a thesaurus and tried to come up with a good name, but everything decent I could think of with was taken. I sunk back into my chair and let my mind drift. I thought back to the year before when I helped my fiancé (now my wife) move to her new apartment in the city of Detroit. The place we returned the U-Haul to was in an economically depressed area of Detroit. On the way back, we drove past a wig store with a sign that boasted, "Wigs Made of Real Hair: Human or Yak," and the rest writes itself.