Let's go egosurfing now, everybody's learning how

Please pardon me in advance - this entry is all about me. Or, rather, about my name.

I think that everybody searches the web for their own name every now and again. This practice is so common that it has its own name: egosurfing. (It's also called autogoogling, which sounds vaguely unsavory.) For me, the fun part of egosurfing isn't finding references to myself on the web - I already know what I've done on (or to) the web. The fun part is finding references to people with the same name as me who aren't me.

Here are some of the references I found to people named Dave Till who aren't me. Some of them may refer to the same person; I'm not sure. All I know is that they refer to somebody with my name.

• An executive MBA graduate from Lancaster University in England, who was happy enough with the program to write a testimonial about it
• An entry in the Internet Movie Database
• A Scottish Hill racer
• A publicity manager for Universal Hall in Scotland (this Dave is also a poet)
• The area manager for the Langdale/Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team
• A horn player with John Wetton's first band
• Spiderman in costume
  
• Why be a Responsible Business? (a PDF file)
  
• A Regional Programme Manager for Rural Action, Business In The Community (this might be the same Dave as the one above, seeing as how it's about business and all)
• A Scottish bed and breakfast (the page just lists Mrs Till as the proprietor, but the Google entry lists a Dave Till, so I'm counting this one)
• A man selling a heavy anvil that had been in his grandfather's barn
• The Creamer Company extends its sympathy to Dave and Jim Till for their loss of a son and nephew (PDF file - this one was spooky, as my father's name is Jim)
• Somebody selling used medical equipment

And there's a few for my given name of David Till as well:

• A retired professor of computer science
• Another Internet Movie Database entry
• My namesake has married Maureen Galvin (may they have many happy years together)
• The publisher of the Jerusalem Medley (Instrumental Pak)
• A participant in a Taiwan exchange program

There's also a singer named David Till from Malaysia, but his page is gone, alas. And there's my second cousin Dave from Wisconsin (hi, if you're reading this!).

When I lived in the Beach district of Toronto (from 1996 to 2000), I used to get phone calls for another Dave Till, as I was the only one with that name in the phone book. I found out things about him - one phone call at a time - but I never met him. I can tell you, though, that he was a stage manager living in Toronto, and he had an old buddy named Ern who lived in Hawkesville, Ontario.