This Punk Took My Soul!

I was the victim of an illegal act of identity theft. OK, it probably wasn’t illegal at all…but it still has me pissed off like when Sid Bream scored that run against the Bucs to advance the Braves to the World Series…that pissed off, deflated then depressed feeling. Granted, my name and SSN seem secure. Other than a few charges on my credit card from that Myrtle Beach trip that I am a little foggy on, all assets seem in order. This theft went to the core…down to the seeds that when you were little you actually believed that if you swallowed an apple tree would grow in your gizzard.


When I was a freshman in college (and good God if that doesn’t sound like the start of a Penthouse Forum letter, “I was a freshman at a small mid-western college and I never thought this would happen to me.”) a guy Pete on my floor started calling me Hotfire Meyer. The nickname was pretty cool sounding but alas its origins were less than nefarious. Apparently there was a boat in Cleveland where Pete was from that had “Hotfire” stenciled across its stern. Well, all these years later, it has stuck. I have friends who use the name, or even a nickname for the nickname, HF, a preponderance of the time.

But, onto the pillaging. Tooling around the internet one day (ever hear that joke…if they took porn off the internet the only website would be bringbackporn.com) I typed in http://www.hotfire.com/. I have to tell you that if was available, I was going to snag it. Behold, up pops the website of one Dino Antoniou. Can someone tell me what the fuck he is doing with the website hotfire.com? After a little investigation, it appears well-coiffed Dino is quite the thespian…actor, model, voice-over dude, musician; and all around jack of all things that usually lead to a career in waiter-ing. To top it all off, Dino doesn’t have an email address! To get in touch I have to write, on paper, a letter to one of his two agents, one in the US and one in Canada.

I plan on keeping it short and sweet…and definitely sending it to Canada. “Dear Jagoff, unbeknownst to you, I am Hotfire. Cease and desist the use of my name on your girly looking website so I can use it to post links to cool things like hockey fights and Coldplay bashing. Ignore this warning I will curse you with a week without a brush and hair gel. Sincerely, Hotfire Dave Meyer.”