Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I miss Koko Crunch. Best cereal ever.

What's Koko Crunch? It's what the ears are made of....

I share a great deal on my myspace page - and I sometimes pay the price for it. However, lunatics aside, I refuse to change the way I live my life because if I do, they win. And that's unacceptable.

I don't have a blog per se...but on this & other forums I have always used my first name - which ironically people thought was not my real name (which is Mary). Now I just use the beginning of my full name....m for mary, e for elizabeth, and the first few letters of my last name. I guess I never worried about anyone gaining too much info, because the info is out there anyway...somewhere in the cyber world. I've never felt that anything I've written (or will write if I ever have a real blog) is something I wouldn't share with anyone. I am who I am...take it or leave it!
As far as strangers recognizing you out in the 'real' world...well...that's happened to me offline...I've had people come up to me & introduce themselves because they were a friend of a friend...etc....so it can happen online or off.
Just be true to yourself.

When I first moved to SF, I had a guy come up to me and say "Oh hey, you're Kitchenbeard!"

"ummm. yeah, have we met?"

"Oh no... you're just ojne a friend of a friend's buddylist."

It creeped me out sufficiently that I immediately went back and got rid of a lot private stuff on my blog and began seriously filtering what I talked about. That being said, I put my face on it all the time and assume I'll eventually get recognized again.

I been postng to forums and blogs since 2003. I have always been Jerzee tomato. Anyone who knows me in real life knows that is the best way to convey who I am. I hope ,as do most people who enjoy speaking with our peers in an online forum, to listen and to respond and to become a member of this fine assemblance of foodies.
There are not many places where I feel I fit in. But I feel comfortable here.
I like Ed and his cohorts and am glad that I was invited to join this blog.

Another reason I do not use my real name, I use real life stories when I convey kitchen disasters. People who knew I told these stories to other people would be quite peeved.

Been blogging since 2000 and always have used a pseudonym. Many reasons including:

1. freer expression
2. not wanting work related people finding it
3. things are on the internet FOREVER and you never know who is Googling you or where your future will take you
4. friend Googled another friend and found some very, um, things you wouldn't want to know about your friend posted all over the internet under his real name
5. just safer

I've had business sites where of course I used my real name and information, including one that still is up and running. I just figure that if I want to write about anything, I should only be sharing with complete strangers. Makes a lot of sense, right? ;)

I can think of two reasons:

a) a pseudonym allows for freer expression
b) don't want their employer/parents/partner/children to find out

I will tell you that when I am interviewing people for jobs I do google them and what I find out from their blog or other data does affect if I would hire that person or not (but its usually not the only reason)

I use a pseudonym, even if is very simple to find my real name...
Why? At the beginning it was because I didn't want my clients (I had a catering company) to know about my blog (it is about what I eat at home, so not really catering wise). At the moment, I don't own any more a catering and I don't have any problem to share my real name (Sara Maternini), but my pseudonym is much easier to say: even Italians have problems to understand my surname!!!
I've never thought of a "parental guidance" of what I write, mainly because my parents don't go on the internet, don't speak English and have problems to understand what a blog is... Every time I show it to them, they marvel about the pictures and that's it...
And at the end, I found my actual job thanks to the fact that my boss was a regular reader of my blog and we share the same view on food, so...
As long as you say what you really think and you share your real point of view I don't think the name is what matters...

I use my real name and photos of myself, but I'm careful about what I write. I NEVER write about my job except in the most general terms - "I had a long day at work" or "I know this isn't the job I want to have when I retire, so I'm thinking about what my next adventure might be" is as far as I'll go. When I was in Human Resources I worked on the case of a woman who got fired for writing inapropriate comments about co-workers and clients.

Sometimes I do worry about the safety issue. A few years ago there was an article about me in a newspaper, and I got a few phone calls from strangers. None of them were threatening, but they could have been.
-Lynne
www.hundredthings.com

Yeah, you're right Matt. Its just weird that I'm getting referrals from sex sites! That just creeps me out. but who know, transvestites are foodies too.

-Steamy Kitchen
www.steamykitchen.com

Strawberry jam with my PB. Nothing else.