The alt.house missed opportunity. Prof. Muller of IsThatLegal writes:

Reading your archives yesterday, I saw that back in January you experimented a bit with names for your blog, and settled on "Althouse." I'm sure the decision is now long behind you, but for some reason in the shower this morning I had an idea: you should call your blog "alt.house" (alt-dot-house), which simultaneously (a) uses your name, (b) uses "house" more directly to suggest a place, (c) is a cyber-pun, riffing on the old "alt-dot-whatever" names for usenet newsgroups, and, relatedly, (d) with the "alt" prefix, implies the ever-so-slightly offbeat nature of what you write about and how you write about it.

The original name for the blog was Marginalia. The reason for abandoning it is that someone else had already used the name for a blog. The reason for originally picking it is explained here, which is the first post ever.

UPDATE: Another missed opportunity, even more belatedly recognized. Prof. Muller's message was the perfect set-up for a menopause joke!

UPDATE WRITTEN 9/4/04: I cannot understand my own update. I have no idea what "menopause joke" was once within reach! If I were writing this post today, I would have commented on the fact that Prof. Muller was thinking about me in the shower! But menopause? What could that possibly have been? And I write the update as if any reader, given a little prod, will see the joke. Ridiculous!

UPDATE WRITTEN 5/24/07 (as I'm going back adding labels). Actually, now, I easily see the joke: "Althouse" is menopausal compared to "Alt.house" because it doesn't have its period.