Why "death.au"?

Short answer: It continues to be available.

Once, when I was young, in the early nineties, the Internet was just starting to take off. I didn't have it at my house just yet, but I did have it at school. And my cousin had it. She told me I needed to sign up for an email address and helped me set up an account with a service called Hotmail. The first step was to choose a name, as using your real name was not a good idea (there could be predators on the Internet, or so I was told).

I stared at that input box, unsure what to put in. My cousin suggested I use the name of a favorite character. I chose "Death". Specifically, the character from the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett. He's your typical black-robed, scythe-wielding, skeletal depiction of the Grim Reaper who talks in sᴍᴀʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘs and rides a pale horse. The horse's name is Binky. There is just something about his fascination with the world and humanity that resonates with me. Sometimes he is so close to understanding, but misses something important. Like how his house is bigger on the inside, or how he knows there should be towels hanging in a bathroom, but no one ever told him that towels are soft and foldable.

In any case, it turned out I couldn't use "death" as my Hotmail username; it was taken. It suggested adding numbers and such, but I opted to add ".au" as I am from Australia (at the time, it didn't accept periods either, so I ended up as "death_au"). Since then, any time I sign up for something, I use "death.au" (or "death_au", "death-au", and occasionally "deathau" depending on username rules), and it is rarely, if ever, taken.

But... "death.id.au"?

One notable exception here is my domain name. It wasn't until relatively recently that top-level .au domain names were even available. But as soon as they were announced, I jumped on the waiting list. In the meantime, ".id.au" TLDs were available for Australian individuals, as long as the name you choose matches, or is an acronym or abbreviation of, your first name or family name, or your nickname. The first time I applied, I was rejected, but then I pointed out that I was death.au everywhere, and they approved.

Unfortunately, right before the application window for .au TLDs closed, the owner of the death.com.au domain applied, and owners of .com.au domains were given priority, especially as they'd owned that domain longer than I had owned mine. I still contact them every year around the renewal date (shout out to Beth King) to see if they'll let me have it, but no luck so far. So, I'm stuck with death.id.au for now ¯_(ツ)_/¯