So what's with the name Grot?
There's a story behind the name "grot.com", It's a reference to a late '1970s BBC television program called "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin", starring Leo Rossiter. It is a funny, timeless, and all too
true-to-life look at corporate life. I saw it on PBS back in the 1980s.
Midway through the three-season series, the main character decides to open a store called "Grot", in which sells useless items at high prices. Having intended it to be a deliberate failure, the shop fails him
in an unexpected way: it's a stunning success! Well, anyway, for more information about this, you'll need to go to Reggie Online, the web authority on this particular subject.
How long as this been going on?
- I first used grot as an internal hostname for a computer that I had cobbled together from various scraps while I was employed by Motorola's Computer Group. This was probably in 1991 or so. The name was a good fit for the computer.
- By 1992, grot had moved home with me and I had registered it in the old dialup networking scheme as grot.uucp.
- By 1993, I had lost my uucp connection with Motorola, but grot lived on as as grot.starconn.com.
- In 1994, grot.com was registered as a proper Internet domain name. Back then, you were supposed to be a company if you registered a domain name, so I pretended to be Grot Shoppes Ltd. It's still in the domain records that way.
Grot glut:
Yes, there are other grots..
- www.grotinc.com is an electrical contractor in Lexington, KY. Apparently, they pronounce it "grote". Yeah, and I pronounce my name "shar-day" :-).
- www.grot.com.pl is an ISP in Poland. For a while, I was getting tons of email from people who forgot the ".pl" part.
- www.grot.pl is another Polish firm. This one used to make and repair agricultural engines, but now makes stylish architectural products from stainless steel and aluminum. Nice stuff, check it out.
- www.grot.co.uk is someone's attempt to make a Grot Shoppe. Alas, I think this one might actually be a failure, but wouldn't that make it a success?
- www.mgnet.karoo.net/grot.htm and another one...
- la.apartmenttherapy.com/la/redondo-beach/grot-009776 there actually is a grot shop, on the Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo Beach CA. They contacted me about my domain name some time ago. I'd like to visit this store, it specializes in mid-century modern stuff (which I don't consider to be the least bit grotty).
- Speaking of domain names, someone whose surname is "Grot" contacted me to see if we were related! Seriously, they were a bit upset to find that I had registered their family name as a joke.
Please send me a note of you find more grots out there!
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