I've lurked for years - but feel I need to add. This 5L grab is definitely madness and could very well be a punchline to others. But the fact remains, these domains are being bought in bulk and fast - by the Chinese.
Until last week, I'd never missed handregging a domain by 45 seconds to someone in Beijing! At midnight! That's crazy!
I've been watching the drops going on three - four weeks now - mainly looking for premium 5L palindromes and triple repeaters. I had my pick for about a week. Then the Chinese were buying them and now all drop catchers.
I've done a ton of research on 5L, especially with Pinyin and Chinese provincials and cities. City and provincial abbreviations are flying. Good Pinyin acronyms like xyk (credit card), jcc (taxi), (ddd) take a taxi and czc (rental car) are gone.
Fact is the Chinese guy and his friends at the bar (in the post above) may be laughing about these purchases, even I laugh about it, these names are going fast. And, for every name that is bought in the US, ten are purchased in China.
Another two cents - vowels are not bad and v is a substitute for ü (as well as virtual, video, etc) . These aren't as bad as everyone keeps going on about.
