a shiny gold star for LJ
When I discovered one of my email accounts had been compromised, I contacted the provider, trying to resolve the issue. As mentioned before, not much happened initially. I started with the provider, and only after realizing it was pointless started asking LJ if they could alter my "initial primary" email address (paid account should count for validation, no?).

My interactions with the email provider over the last ten days can be summed up as follows:

Me: My email was compromised, it's an old account, I'm not sure how to validate myself.
Prv: Please provide name, dob, ssn, cc#, security question, etc.
Me: As stated before, this account was created in 1996. You did not collect such information then, so it will not be on file.
Prv: Please provide name, dob, ssn, cc#, security question, etc.
Me: Here's all sorts of info. It will not match your files since you do not have this information.
Prv: What you gave us does not match our information on file.
Me: Indeed. Here is some more info, but as described, you will not be able to match it.
Prv: What you gave us does not match our information on file.
Me: ...

LiveJournal, though, was swift once I contacted them. Name, billing address, four numbers from the credit card, and they patched up both my paid account and my unpaid (and delinquent) merle_food account in a day and a half. Over the weekend. Not only that, but after they sent email saying it was fixed, I sent a quick "thanks for taking care of this so quickly!" email out.. and got a "you're welcome!" reply!

I am formally impressed. This account was the main concern I had. Honestly, the email account was ancient and got thousands of spam messages a day. It was neat to have, but I can live without it: a dozen years is a rugby fine run down the endzone. I still want it back to purge it, but that's looking less and less likely as time goes on.

In other news, new work place is going along fine. I discovered an Indian restaurant somewhat nearby. The resultant almost-coma from an extra spicy vindaloo that kicked in during the after-lunch meeting almost did me in, but it was well worth it.