I thought it would be interesting to ask the membership how you came up with your "handle" or nickname for America's Debate.

Does anyone care to share why you selected the name that you selected?

As mine has been the source of much confusion...

My handle is my initials A M L

My last name begins with Lor

That gives us AMLor The "d" makes it make a bit of sense.

Hence AMLord.

It is lost in antiquity why I did not capitalize each of the A M and L and only capitalized the A.

My handle should be A. M. Lord.

Which is ironic since I am certainly NOT a morning person...

My avatar, the lion, is because I am a Leo (astrologically). Sometimes I even act like one...

I'm a freelance writer when between tech gigs and play guitar on the streets of Manitou Springs and Old Colorado City during the warm months. Let's just say that I would not have selected this career path voluntarily, but you do what you can to bring in the bucks. It's more fun than greeting people at Wal*Mart.

I've got two books published, both nonfiction. I'm in the last stages of my first fiction work and will be going through the agent->publisher route that I avoided for the first couple of attempts. The technical book sold a lot better than the second nonfiction, but eh, yah live and yah learn. I want the fiction book to bring in significant moolah.

If the tech gigs are still scarce around here this spring/summer/fall, I'll be shakin the bushes for small venue wallpaper music gigs. Not sure where this will go. Tried the music biz in the 80s and got sick of it all, but now I'm older, wiser and better, not necessarily faster. Been working on a CD for the gigs.

Anyway, if anyone here has a bug up the rear to get published, I suggest the following blog for the real skinny on agents and publishers, plus practical advice on how to approach writing and making queries:

Miss Snark's Literary Agent Blog

Bottom line: Had to change and the handle reflects this transition that's a work in progress.

So, one day my (then new) GF and I were standing by a traffic light and waiting for the green man and making funny noises at each other. One of these noises was the sound 'moif' which we found so funny that we kept repeating it to each other all day long... then all week, all month, all year.
With time, the noise came to mean the other person, and so my GF and I still, 13 years later, refer to each other as 'moif'.

The word has no real meaning but could be seen as a mutation of the word 'mouse' (in Danish, mus).

Heh, I thought it was because you were an AM radio junkie

I was looking for a name that would be appropriate given the fact that I can (sometimes) be pretty aggressive on line. Darth Vader didn't hack it. But, the spoof of Darth Vader in the Mel Brooks classic movie "Spaceballs" was perfect.

Here you have a guy that initially presents the image of Vader in the movie and then is quickly revealed to be the vertically challenged actor Rick Moranis who, during the movie, plays with his toys and cracks jokes while periodically playing the role of the "heavy".

Some of the lines from that flick involving Lord Dark Helmet are here:

Spaceballs Quotes

The "Lord Dark Helmet" character that Moranis plays is a classic in my opinion. It's right up there with his Doug McKenzie persona.

Take off, eh!

So now, you know the rest of the story. Good daY!

Billy Jean is NOT your lover!

I'm a drag king-male impersonator. For eight years I was exclusively a Michael Jackson impersonator and so the name is obvious, Except I spell Billy with a "y" instead of an "ie". It's the more masculine. Billy Jean has been my stage name, my alter ego for over 11 years of being on stage. Alot of people wouldn't know who the heck Denise is. I love Michael Jackson, I think he has issues, who doesn't, but his talent and influence is undeniable.

Suffering from a severe case of writer’s block, a lack of idle time after work hours and the capricious removal of access to websites @ work, this is one quick and easy response I can put together at the moment. =\

Lesly’s the name. Everyone gets it wrong. Lesley. Leslie. Leslye. Even my own father spells it wrong. He writes it Lezly.

I take the following story with a grain of salt. My mother is given to exaggerating truth and fiction. According to her, she liked Lesley and wanted to use it but removed the second e for fear that the government would reject it altogether as sounding too American.

I read somewhere that the name has Dutch origins and means vined castle. I prefer this story but use the former to help people remember the correct spelling.

Pigpen is my husband's callsign.

I'm often called Mrs. Pigpen in the real world, too. When he was 'hitman' I was the 'hit chick', which was a lot cooler.

I used to be Catholic. I chose Vibiana as a screen name because she is the patron saint of single laywomen (which I am) and the mentally ill (which I am not, at least, I don't THINK I am. )

Doclotus has been my nome de plume on the Internet since 1994. It is a bit of a double entendre but only really in my world.

Early in my IT career I did break-fix workstation grunt work for a real estate firm. I was pretty good at what I did, so most of the people that I helped started calling me Doc. My glasses at the time likely were the inspiration I suppose as I kind of looked like Anthony Edwards character on ER back then.

When I started playing around more on the internet, I decided I wanted to create a moniker that would be unique enough that it was unlikley to be duplicated. I played with a bunch of different names but nothing stuck. Then I toyed with the idea of combining my nickname with the technology I worked most with at the time (Lotus Notes), and the name doclotus was born. Apparently I guessed well, because I can only recall one time where I saw the name being used by anyone else.

It was also a convenient name in my early gaming days as I tended to play monks a lot, so doclotus kind of fit well.

Not terribly interesting, I know, but that's where it came from

Likewise the Spaceballs theme. It's also been my handle for years in MMROPGs
Yogs

Around 5 years ago, I was in a band for about 6 months that was having a hard time selecting a name. Actually, the band was having a hard time doing anything. But anyhow, one day, while discussing names, the songwriter in the band blurted out "Nifty Drifty! What about Nifty Drifty?" Knowing this guy, the way he was, and the way he said it, it was so random, I just thought it was hilarious. It was (and is) a terrible band name. Most in the band hated it. but I and he began to refer to the band as "Nifty Drifty," anyway. And then I wrote "The Nifty Drifty Theme." The naysayers hated this, too. These events killed that band, pretty much. Oh well.

But the name lives on. Long live the name.

Mine is crashfourit (pronounced with an English pronunciation: crash "for" it). I was originally crashit4 but I changed it to what it is currently because one sight did not like numbers in a screen name. I made my original screen name when I crash a motherboard, operating system (accidentally by doing a defrag and lost two weeks of school work while at it ) and a few other computer related items. Since then I crashed another motherboard, burned up a CDROM, and accidentally crashed my car in a culvert parallel to the road on the right side.

My newer version plays with English homonyms (four/for) so it could be said like a command, "Crash for it!" (kind of like "Go for it!" but catchier ).

May the Schwartz be with you, Yogurt!

Make sure you keep up with that merchandising, merchandising, merchandising!

Just to make it clear to everyone, my name came from a girl named Bryn who I knew in residence during my first year of university. She gave me all sorts of nicknames (feeling Joe) was too boring based on my "irregular" personality. I've been "Blue-haired Joe," "Shoeless Joe," and lastly "Ultimate Joe" because I'm an avid Ultimate Frisbee player.

It is NOT a vanity issue.

When I was introduced to the sport in college (early '90s) it was Ultimate Disc.

Frisbee was a term that was severely frowned upon...

By the way, we had a horrible team, the Disc I's (or was it the Disc Guys, or the Disguise?). Those days are gone forever...

Most excellent game.

I’ve been tagged with the Fife and Drum moniker, or close variants, on a few occasions.

Junior year of High School our soccer team was in a heated battle for district. In a qualifier the week before I had been intentionally kicked in the back of my knee by a goon and it was bandaged up. In the first half of this game I had gone up for a header and knocked heads leaving a wound that should have been stitched. We came into the locker room down 2 - nil and I was whisked off to get my head bandaged.

I came limping into the locker room with the rest of the team, bandaged from head to toe, blood every where and as captain gave my “troop rousing” speech and continued to bark the theme while limp/running during the second half. We went on to win 3-2 and after the game the co-captain told me “Man, that was a great half time speech, you were like the guys carrying the flag and playing the flute and drums from the revolutionary war”. I asked “You mean the fife and drum?” They started calling me Fife until the variant of Barney Fife started.

Years later while managing a second level tech support team (any one who has done this can attest to the chaos) we were having a particular bad month. Upper management was sitting on their hind ends afraid to make a few major decisions that was creating the chaos and impacting the morale of our team. I always put my crew before me and marched into a meeting with the uppers and blasted away within ear shot of my team.

Upon returning the team lead, an ex Army Ranger (who knew his history) told me that it was like watching/listening to the fife and drum corps, which are unarmed (the corporate equivalent of yelling at upper management), march into battle for the morale of the team.

Thought it would be an appropriate handle for this themed site.

My name is based on the name Thomas Paine, whose views I tend to agree with. His thoughts are clearly explained, and his methods of getting to the root of a problem is admirable. His justification for American independence, as explained in his work "Common Sense," is a remarkable explanation of the origin and purpose of government, the case for democracy, the case against a constitutional monarchy, and the viability of independence.

Ever since he published his views on religion, which was highly critical of Christianity, his reputation as a national hero was smeared. I feel that everyone, especially American citizens, should know who he is, and at the very least read Common Sense. Thus, I feel that we should all at least Know Paine.

My avatar is a statue of him, located in New Jersey, depicting him with his gun on his lap and his pen in his hand. I find that depiction very poetic.

Elspeth is a medieval form of the name Elizabeth, which means "consecrated to God." As such, I felt it to be the ideal name for a fantasy roleplaying character I created for playing AD & D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) computer games.

The particular character is a paladin, a knight-in-shining-armor who fights evil for the sake of goodness. I would like to be a hero in everyday life, but I'm just an ordinary, middle-aged woman with Quixotic dreams who settles for battling dragons and demons that appear on the computer screen.

The nice thing about this online name is that it is unusual enough that I do not have to put a number after it to distinguish myself from any other.

I was previously unfamiliar with Ste. Vibiana. The patroness of single laywomen and the mentally ill, eh? That about sums up the Church's attitude toward women.


Oh - for those who don't already know, Wertz is my surname.

A bunch of my friends used to get together on Thursday nights and play a networked game called MIDI-Maze. Around the same time, Orbital had a techno song called The Mobius, featuring a sampled quote from Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation: "There is the theory of the mobius: a twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop." At some point, I chose The Jobius as my screen name in the game (my first name is Joe), and it stuck.

My avatar is a möbius strip, and the darkest line looks a bit like the way I write the "J" when I sign my name.

Long before there was an Internet, I made up "Victoria Silverwolf" as the name of my alternate personality. (Yes, I live in a fantasy world.) Over the decades, she has somehow transformed herself into a vegetarian Goth werewolf. Don't ask me, she just lives in my head.

I vary my avatars from time to time, but I usually use either a wolf (obvious) or something representing her Goth nature. (Morticia Addams, Vampira, the Corpse Bride, or Carroll Borland from Mark of the Vampire.)

My signature line comes from an anonymous graffito I saw at a science fiction convention. It pretty much sums up my philosophy.

I was introduced to it back on the UC Berkely campus when I was in... what... the 7th Grade?... yes... so that was early 80's and they called it simply, "Ultimate."

entspeak...

In 1996 – my god that's already 10 years ago! – I was racking my brain for a nickname to use for my very first email address. Ents came to mind – I'd read the Lord of the Rings trilogy earlier that summer. As described by Treebeard, Old Entish "is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to." I thought it would make a perfect, if somewhat ironic, email nickname considering the "hasty" nature of emails. It has been one of a couple of nicknames I've used online... mael being another and kashiwagi, yet another – both are fictional characters from literature and I've mainly used them for online gaming.

I still have the email address – though, now I have 6 others as well.

This is an old name(I created it for LiveJournal)

Jaded is a Green Day song.

1:10 is actually the time I created the LJ account. Hence, jaded110.

I am of course named for the 1970 SS Limited Custom Edition CHRISTOPHER.
An exceptionally rare model featuring sleek lines and minimal add ons --no hair on my head -- to reduce drag.
I am set to run in SuperPerfectMode -- unfortunately there are some glitches which is the reason for the limited edition.


Oh and byethabye Frisbee Golf is THE game.

CruisingRam was my very first, and remains my only, alias on the internet. I am a big mopar (for you non-motorheads- the old chrysler corp parts department) fan, and race cars of this genre. I drive dodge trucks only- and they are called a "ram". Lot's of guys 4x4 thier "rams"- but here in Alaska, the hiway in the winter is challenging enough. I drive my "ram" 75 miles each direction to my "retirement" property- so I go "cruising up to the property in the ram"- so "CruisingRam".

ge-- is the first 2 letters of my first name, and ro is the first 2 letters of my last name.

Now I feel boring...LOL

Well, I like racing bikes. I used to be "cyclist" on the message board: www.straightdope.com which I don't follow anymore but is still a good site. In America, especially prior to Lance Armstrong, and even more so in Texas where I used to live, cycling isn't exactly a "man's" sport. (Despite the fact that we suffer more than anyone and the Tour de France is the hardest physical event in the sporting world). So in order to add a bit of masculinity to the name, I combined "psycho" and "cyclist" and got, psyclist.

My other name on WoW and elsewhere is "Namejs" that Latvian King who united Vidzeme, Kurzeme, and Latgale which is now present day Latvia. He understood that the regions must stop acting independently and fight together in order to repel the Strangers . In the spirit of 'united we stand, divided we fall', he said: "We must stand together against the Strangers...and when they're gone we can squabble amongst ourselves."

I'm 50% Latvian and Namejs' pessimistic quote sounds exactly like something I'd say. (Even though I'm an optimist).

During the week, I'm a bona fide nerd and family man. Every other weekend, not so much.

So, I wanted a screen name that would not reveal my highly secret undisclosed location that is nowhere near Lat/Lon: 40.0° N 84.6° W and reflects my truly introverted lifestyle when I'm not working as a controls and software engineer.

Oh yeah - and IHaveAnEnormousPenis was already taken.

Mine is pretty simple. I have always had a mischievious look about me and have a history of getting blamed for things.

I have one of those born guilty faces that has lead to all sorts of (ahem) adventures.

You have the best avatar on the board too, IMHO (and my son's: he loves monkeys).

My favourite avatar would be Hobbes'.



Thanks but I think a moving gif avatar or one that changes pictures would be more exciting than the one I have.

Mine came about in 8th grade; back when I was heavy on philosophy. It came from what I feel are the two greatest paradoxes in this world: Life and Death= deathalive

Does anyone care to share why you selected the name that you selected?

In my working days, I would complain about not being called by my name and I would get told I should be happy that I wasn't "called late for dinner." That I was never able to get anyone to call me by name was driven home on my last day of work. Someone spoke to me by name, and I was asked, "Why did they call you that?" I explained that it was the name my mother wrote on my birth certificate. She woke my dad up that day and said, "It's time to go to the hospital." Dad left for the hospital. A neighbor drove mother to the hospital. Mother had worked for years for the doctor that delivered me, and when she was told that he had died before he could sign the birth certificate...she started to sign his name. By the time my father reached the hospital, I had been born, the doctor had died, and I had been given the name of the doctor who delivered me. I think I know what name I was supposed to have, but I never really learned to respond to that name.

When I was growing up in Grand Rapids, one of my favorite newspaper columnists was "The Old Curmudgeon." He rode to and from work on the Cherry Street Bus, and always included something in his column that he overheard on the bus.

I've looked up the definition numerous times, but a curmudgeon is basically a grouchy person. with a connotation that he is typically an old man.

I have reached an age where I told my daughter on my last birthday that she could buy an over the hill candle for my cake, as they don't seem to make them with ages older than I was turning.

I have fought a lot of strange battles in my life. (And won a few.)

On the day that I joined AD, I had listened to Paladin Elspeth read what she was writing in response to what I perceived as a personal attack on her. I was having a bad enough day as it was, and I felt that I needed to join in and defend my wife. :knight in rusty armor smiley: (Having read and listened to several hundred of her posts, I now realize that she is far more capable of defending herself than I ever will be.)

Anyway, I had to choose a name that I was comfortable with, and I was basically uncomfortable with the fifty odd nicknames I had acquired over a lifetime, so I chose Curmudgeon on the spur of the moment because I was feeling like a very grouchy old man that day.

I was on the site only a few hours when I got welcomed aboard as "Mudge." In my PMs, I am called that far more often than I am called Curmudgeon, so I have learned to respond to that as well.