What's in a name?
 

I've sometimes wondered where people's screen names came from. So, I'll start.. my given first and middle name are Tobias Lee, and this chick I used to IRC with a lot started using it as an adverb, as in "you're acting very tobiasly". So I started using it for login names, because it's never taken. Either that or "Toby-Wan", which my dad used to call me sometimes when I was little.

So, how'd you pick your screen name?

perth

yes, i know its technically a 'female' rune. i dont care.
also, i find it kind of interesting that _this_ is my 200th post.

~james

<b>D</b>avid <b>Ham</b>, employed at <b>SAIC</b>. So stunningly creative, I know.

The name that has really stuck with me is <b>becoming</b>, from Nine Inch Nail's <i>the becoming</i>. The song means a lot to me, the name fits... a lot of people shorten it to "bec", so that's how I'm commonly referred to in Q3/IRC.

Thanks Nic, although I figured this had been done a time or two already, but there's always new people along..

Dave, even though I knew (from various threads) your full name and where you worked, it took me like 6 months to figure out what the hell your name meant. Simplicity can be deceiving!

The Undertoad is from <i>The World According to Garp</i>. Garp takes his boys to the beach and they become terrified of this mystical "undertoad" in the ocean.

My name comes from the days when I was heavily into witchcraft. I was.. misguided. But man, I thought I could do everything.. My friends and I thought we were the equivalent of demigods. We had a very detailed religion of our own making, based on our explorations of the spirit world and what we discovered to be the heirarchy of the various planes of existence. The sad part is that <i>everyone</i> believed us and feared us. People came to me with thier life problems, and everyone I know wanted me to teach them. I had lots of students. Good times.

So, through a communion with the "mindstone", which is on another plane of existance (Necrala), we determined that my true name was Jujunaxidiouslyinixdel. That's what I was known by in the spirit world.

Or just 'Juju' for short. :)

I've radically altered my beliefs since then, and I now consider myself agnostic. I don't believe any of it anymore. Now i'm sort of anti-religion, because I understand first-hand how completely fucked up not using <i>reason</i> can make your mind.

All my friends that have known me for a long time still call me Juju, though. I enjoy being called Juju, because it reminds me just how <i>long</i> i've known that person in real life. So the name has just stuck.

Very interesting.

For me, religion is not only based on faith, but reason. That's probably because I'm a scientist at heart and strive to have everything explained.

I remember dissecting frogs, sharks, and fetal pigs in high school, and thinking "there's no way this just <I>happened</I>." Even if I had no faith, it is only reasonable to conclude that God exists.

At any rate, glad you chose to use a nickname instead of your full name. :)

Short shameful confession:

Back in my college days, I played a lot of netrek. I loathe Star Trek, but the game itself was addictive as hell (and still is -- servers are still out there) and requires no Star Trek fandom whatsoever.

In netrek, you have to select a character name of no more than 15 characters. I started digging through Jello Biafra's "Names For Bands" track off of "No More Cocoons," looking for something that'd sound good and fit the size limit. The best one I came up with was Video Sex Pope, which was the name I used the most in my college-gaming career.

Reduce it to its initials, and voila. It's been habitual ever since.

And now you know... the REST of the story!

Griff is 5/7 of my last name and my meat world nick. I figured I'd cellar for two weeks so why bother with creativity?

Sycamore's story can be found here.

Hello All,

I guess as I am trying to find my way around, being a newie and all, I thought this was the best thread to start on to get an idea of who you all are.

My user name is a nickname given to me by a friend years ago because of my surname which has the word rum in it so there for I became Bundy. I must admit to quaffing a few Bundy and Cokes in my time also. :D

Welcome.

Thanks Mate! :D

Hey, an Emo Philips tag! I'm a big fan.

Cool!!!!!! Me too LOL.

What are some of your favourites??

Mine are (Besides the one I have on my tag) -

I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming. They don't know I'm only using blanks.

Probably ... the toughest time ... in anyone's life ... is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil.

When I wake up in the morning, I just can't get started until I've had that first, piping hot pot of coffee. Oh, I've tried other enemas...

I love all of them really LOL.

My name isn't the most creative, just my first middle and last initials.

Most of my aliases are created by typing out long phrases in qwerty while in dvorak (another keyboard layout), thus messing it up fairly well, then I lift a small section and condense it and add letters to make a name.

Torrere is something of a made up verb that means 'a deluge of fire'. I created it while perusing the dictionary and combining meanings.

btw, juju - wow.

I'd like to add the origin of my user title, since no one ever asked me. :)

It's from a scene in the movie The Princess Bride, where Inigo Montoya asks the Dread Pirate Roberts, "Who are you?" -- to which he replies, "No one of consequence".

I was going to ask how you picked a chick's name (Juju), but I didnt want to come off like an ass.

Should read the book :o)

Well, *I* don't know any chicks named Juju. But anyway, the answer to your question is already in this thread. :)

My usual handle is Starship Trooper, but it is so incredibly popular these days (as is the short from I use, Trooper...even more popular than ST, as a matter of fact) that I decided to use Elspode. This derives from a name which my friends and I used to call each other in junior high school, Spode, which is itself a brand name of fine porcelain dinnerware. I added the "El" part, because, wouldn't you know it, Spode is also a widely taken name in these days of the Internet.

I really wish I'd been more diligent in using Starship Trooper during the early days of the Internet when you could still get a decent username with relative ease...it was my CB handle as far back as 1975!

Any ole name....
 

Just to throw my 'history' into the fracas -

I've gone by many names online, this one being the longest lived and most generally accepted. (It actually sounds like a real name you know)

Anywayyyy this particular name comes from a novel by Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged - The character's name was Dagny Taggart, and well, after reading the book a few times ( I think i'm working on 10 times) I realized I identified with the character. A minor spelling tweak so folks could pronounce it, and I was off and running.

Not so hard, now is it :)

Dagney

Oops. Sorry Jujunaxidiouslyinixdelexbealidoshus. I missed your previous post.

I know 2 girls/women named Julie or "Juju" (Jew-jew).

(slang hangs his head in shame)

So, in order to keep from getting them confused, do you refer to them as Jujuay and Jujubee? <ducking the inevitable shower of tossed unwanted little black licorice flavored gummy candies)

One Juju sets off the radar that I need to "run...Juju is coming this way".

And the other is pleasant. I never confuse them.

http://www.bulkfoods.com/pictures/2573_juju_fruits.jpg

Thanks, now I have to leave the cave in search of Juju fruits.

and don't forget "jujuvision" which is the sniglet for attempting to identify the flavor of the JujuFruit by holding them up to the screen during brightly lit scenes of the movie in an attempt to avoid the black licorice ones ...

Perhaps I'm just more in touch with my feminine side? I do have long hair, after all. :)

Re: Any ole name....
 

I suspected that!

I read Atlas Shrugged for the first time within the last year, on the suggestion of my boyfriend. I also identified strongly with Dagny's character.

I spent a LOT of time being pissed off while reading that book ... I would scream "BUT THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!" at particularly tense moments.

I'm trying to read some more of Ayn Rand's books. I just finished Anthem which also affected me strongly. Any other suggestions? I think I have a copy of The Fountainhead in my book closet, but I haven't seen it in a couple of years, so I may have to buy another one.

Duh---I didn't see this before I posted about it on the Chariot Racing thread.

Anyway, I hadn't been checking in on this thread... I really should do better at getting through ALL the cellar messages. ("Daddy, I'm Hungry!" "Be quiet, I'm reading The Cellar... we'll have dinner before bedtime, I promise.") But it's an appropriate place to mention this. The nickname I have even as I write this is in fact derived from my first initial and my last name. At the time I first signed up for The Cellar (probably 1991), I had no reason to worry about using my real name, and I didn't feel like coming up with an alias. I have now decided that I need to restrain the use of my real name online, and so I am changing my nickname. I'm not sure what the new one will be, but at any rate, you won't have this particular nick to kick around any more. :beer:

I was always hesitant to use my legal name in online communications. The first time I went to log in to the cellar, and that cursor was blinking at me, demanding a name ... I just up and typed "wolf" ... dunno why for sure. Well, there was this recurring dream image, and that DID have something to do with it ...

But dat's me.

Re: Re: Any ole name....
 

Atlas Shrugged is one of those books I had to force myself to read..the first time. The first 100 pages is somewhat slow, but after that, I couldn't put it down. It truly made me think. Of course, at the time, I was working for a company called Galt Controls, owned by a man who also owned a company called Rearden Metals *chuckle*.

I just looked on my bookshelf, and I've got a few copies of Rand books that have gone among the missing (ugh..a peeve of mine!)

Anyway, The Fountainhead is another good one. - I've got it on my list of books to 'replace' since it's wandered off. We the Living is another one that makes you think.

But if you're interested on doing any research into the philosophy of Objectivism, I have some links around here somewhere I could send you privately.

Glad to hear you liked it...I've never been disappointed in any of her books.

Dagney

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;You're actually suggesting We the Living ??? That's a wonderfuly written and well crafted book. Only read it if you like pain. To my knowledge those are the only four fiction books Rand wrote.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As for my name, I use my real name, sort of. Whit is short for my middle name, Whitman. It's the name I answer to in daily life. It's an odd enough name that I can often use it online. Even my primary s/n is WhitoftheHills, because I live in the Ozarks. If you've ever been here you should know that the Ozarks aren't quite mountains as much as really big friggin' hills. I also was frustrated with trying to came up with one that someone else didn't already have...

Hey, I live in the Ozarks, too! Well, the extreme northern Ozarks. Okay, I live in Kansas City, but damn it, I'm still a hillbilly!

Absolutely. Anyone in Missouri outside the St. Louis area* is indeed a backwards, inbreeding, two-tooth hillbilly.

(*--Sycamore, a native St. Louisan, saw this as a perfect opportunity to harrass a resident of Western Missouri...all in good fun, of course :))

Hey, even we here in Cowtown call St. Louisians 'uppity Easterners'... :p

All in good fun, though. So, why did you actually leave St. Louie for the backwaters of Pennsylvania, anyway?

I've been waiting for a good place to post this hillbilly baby. Did your kids look like this Ep?

Hey! Where the hell did you find that picture of my kid?!!;)

Truth be told, I've never been to KC...the closest I got was Whitman AFB in Knob Noster. I hear KC is actually a relatively nice city.

I was sick of being in St. Louis. I love St. Louis and Missouri, and am proud to be from there, but I had just had enough. I graduated from UM-St. Louis in January 1999, and just couldn't find a decent job afterwards. (I worked for Commerce Bank prior to graduating, and wound up being stuck there for most of '99.) So, on August 15, 1999, I packed my life into a U-Haul and drove east to Washington, DC. Spent a year there, then Rho (my fiance) and I moved to Philadelphia, where we've been since.

I'm ready to move again though. Philadelphia's alright, but neither of us is having good luck with the job market here. Can't go back to Missouri though...they don't offer the type of dialysis Rho uses, and that would just be too close to my mother. I want to move to Chicago, Rho wants to move to Baltimore...we may have to compromise on Delaware. We'll see.

I take that back...I got one good job offer, just before I moved out this way: As a personnel analyst with the State of Missouri. But it would have required me to move to Jefferson City. No thanks.

BTW, the backwaters are griff and slang territory, though I've been in those parts a few times. It's actually scary how similar PA and MO are:

--A large city on each side of the state
--The city on the western side of the state is looked upon as being "lesser"
--Lots of mountains (though the ones here are slightly larger)
--Rivers of national importance
--Lots of hillbillies

Differences (other than foods):

--MO is larger, but has fewer people
--MO's gun laws are more restrictive than PA's
--The roads are better in MO (and no tolls)
--Beer and liquor are easier and cheaper to buy in MO

The things I miss most are generally food items...no Jack in the Boxes or Sonics in these parts. Cheesesteaks take away some of the pain though. :)

Do you eat the Pizza here? Hoagies? How does it compare?


Do you have White Castles out in Mizurah?

(I'm asking a lot of questions)

We had Jack in the Boxes here in the 70's, but they faded away. Sonics we have in glorious abundance...my wife and I hit 'em a lot in the summer for the groovy variety of drinks.

I'm a St. Louis fan...been there many times. There's about twice as many cool things to do it St. Louis as there is in KC, but KC is a beautiful city. More parks than you know what to do with, The Plaza is a gas even if you have no money, Westport can be fun and kitchy, blah, blah, blah.

The single greatest thing about MO is the fact that in two hours, you can be camping the middle of nowhere; in five hours or less you can be in an outdoor recreational mecca people frequent from all over the country.

I would love to go to PA, though...I've only been East of the Mississippi twice in my whole life, once to do the Dizzy World/Fla thing, once to go to Indianapolis, of all places. I've been West a lot, and I love the mountains, but I'm not real sure I could live anywhere but here. Well, maybe Hawaii.

I do, but only on occasion. As a whole, I don't care for it though. There are definitely some good places here in Philadelphia, but I prefer thin-crust pizza to thicker crust. (You may recall my post regarding Imo's in St. Louis and Ledo in the DC area.)

Absolutely...the hoagies here are great! Though back home, we generally call them "subs" or "poor boys." We have a neighborhood in St. Louis called The Hill, which is the Italian part of town, and features many excellent restaurants and sandwich shops. Though the best shop in St. Louis is a little spot called Mom's Deli, on Jamieson Ave. in the Lindenwood Park neighborhood. That was one of the first places I hit when I was in town 2 years ago.

Lots of 'em. We used to have 2 here in Philadelphia, but they closed down about 2 years ago. There's still one in the area, over in Palmyra, NJ (just across the Tacony bridge).

All this food talk is making me hungry again.

Hey, don't all the restaurants in your neck of the woods close at like 7pm? You'll have to resort to some microwave slop from Wawa/7-Eleven/Casey's/whatever convenience chain you have out there.

(slang dreams of a bacon and lettuce sub without tomatoes)

There's a place here that makes great BLs. I had to train them how to make them correctly but now they can't be beat. They only cost $3.75 too!

And the pizza. Pizza Hut pan pizza, all meat toppings is the absolute best although I almost never order it now because I have turned into the world's cheapest gentile and I actually try to eat somewhat healthily.

Christ. I dont even drink beer anymore either , but a Becks with a grease drenched pizza sounds awesome right now.

The fast food places normally close at 10 during the week? I make it a point not to be in their vicinity while they are open though because I am weak for good fat food.

An hour after I eat the burgers and stuff , I dont feel right and I have less cash in my pocket to boot.

Do you guys have Aldi supermarkets out there? Aldi is the cheapest place to buy food. It's owned by an Amish company. Eighty bucks worth of their food can hold me a month! It's not bad tasting either.

Jesus Christ...I spend about $70 a week on groceries.

We have a few Aldis in the area (there's one down the road from me). Truth be told, I haven't shopped there in forever...they used to be populated in St. Louis by...ummm...the underclass...and the stores were always dirty. That being said, it's pretty good stuff, and cheap.

The weird thing is, I haven't done standard grocery shopping since Rho was hospitalized in the spring. I usually go every couple of days to buy things...amazingly, I tend to save money that way...cut my food bill by $15-20 a week. This past week, I actually did a week's worth (well 4 days) of shopping and had to pick up some extra stuff (toilet paper and paper towels, which I buy in larger packs; and deodorant, which is rather expensive)...my bill came to $60, which wasn't too bad for us.

Aldi is definitely cool, but I still don't get the paying 25¢ to use the shopping cart ... surely that amount does not discourage the homeless from wandering off with the carts? I did hear once that the old chromed carts used to cost the markets like $500 each.

And Syc, sometimes the members of the "underclass" are entertaining as all get out. Also, while shopping at Aldi, you can always reassure yourself that you're doing it because you want to, not have to. Works for me.

True enough...and I would imagine the one by my place is pretty decent. A good portion of the stuff I buy isn't carried at Aldi, though. (Or at least they didn't a few years back.)

I don't mind the underclass...I've been there before. But it would help if they wore some clothes...and didn't smell. :)

Aldi
 

I feel like an elitist...my wife and I shop at Aldi, but only when we look over the bank account and decide that we're too poor to go to the giganto market.

Nothing in the world wrong with their products, though. Their ambience leaves a little to be desired, though. I mean, the mega store we shop at has a giant Bose subwoofer cannon hanging from the ceiling. Now *that's* elevator music with an attitude!

I did a report in high school -- way back in the mists of time ... I think it was '87 -- I thought the Gray Fox's name was kind of neat. Urocyon cinereoargenteus. It means "Dog with tail".

Uryoces sounded Greek -- yeah, well Latin. The "es" made it sound like a dragon's name, and I corrupted the spelling to make it mine. I pronounce it /You-roh'-sees/.

Food is good, aw yeah!

"You say Uryoces, I say charoses. . ."
 

Sounds like 'charoses' (pronounced /ha-roh'-ses/), which is a delicious middle eastern melange of nuts, apples (and other fruits) and red wine, typically eaten in the U.S. by Jews at Passover (who will put anything on matzoh to improve the taste).

Wolf might say it sounds more like 'neuroses' (plural for neurosis; pronounced /noo-roh'-sees/), which is fitting because of the overlap between these types of traits and those who celebrate Passover. Hey! I can say that; you can't!

I think Ciara is Aleutian for "too lazy to work."

I'm late on this, at this point the topic seems to be more about food. My name came from my name Dano and the fact that I am indeed a bear. Well hairy as one anyway.:D