# Game: spot the obscure movie/book/etc.. references in doper's nicks **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2004, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544 "2004-12-01T19:00:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Ithaka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Ithaka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ithaka)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/101 "2004-12-02T11:10:47Z")
Mine’s from my favourite poem. (And it’s not the Odyssey - although I like that as well). ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/102 "2004-12-02T11:18:41Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > I thought we had an **Alessan** here, and there’s an Alessan in (if I remember right) Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. ? A fairly major character, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![auliya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/90db22/32.png) [@auliya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auliya)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/103 "2004-12-02T11:26:13Z")
Mine came from a great, not-a-bit obscure si fi novel which was made into a dreadful sci fi movie. Not sure if the name gets a mention in the movie - it’s pretty obscure in the book as well. ( it’s Islamic in origin) ---
**Author:** ![Arch\_Trout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9f8e36/32.png) [@Arch\_Trout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arch_Trout)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/104 "2004-12-02T12:12:19Z")
It’s threads like this that make me wish I had went with my original instinct and called myself “Arch Stanton”. Or did I try and it was taken? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/105 "2004-12-02T12:25:46Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > You sure? I remember a game called “Zombies ate My Neighbors” but not “Zombies ate my Brain” I’m sure, I Googled it. Could be that Zombies ate your neighbor AND your brain! Damn Zombies! ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/106 "2004-12-02T12:36:45Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > A fairly major character, in fact. You shameless egotist, you. I’ve been reading this thread to see if anyone’s had a go at my nick. I wish you luck if you do. (My usual nick, **Jedit** , is much easier to get. I picked my Doper nick before I started going by that name everywhere, though, and despite having requested a nick change here I haven’t got one.) ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/107 "2004-12-02T12:36:58Z")
Of the couple of people speculating on my username, the second was right. On the day when I joined up, I had just been listening to a song by Canadian comedy duo Bowser & Blue, called “A Dyke Named Spike”, in which the chorus goes: _I’m in like with a dyke named Spike Who needs me like a pike needs a bike And she never wears pearls when she goes out with the girls I’m in like with a dyke named Spike…_ That brought to mind the other way of saying that phrase. I like the silly and absurd, and I just put the two words together. ---
**Author:** ![GSV\_Consolation\_of\_Dreams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f1d935/32.png) [@GSV\_Consolation\_of\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GSV_Consolation_of_Dreams)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/108 "2004-12-02T12:39:01Z")
Mine’s not a literary reference as such. It’s a Ship name from Iain M. Banks’ Culture universe, I made it up for a fanzine competition Iain was judging a few years back. My Location at the moment is another reference to the Culture books as well. I have similar names made up and in use on other boards, so if you ever run into a GSV, GCU, VFP or ROU something something, it might be me. ---
**Author:** ![hildea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ebca7d/32.png) [@hildea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hildea)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/109 "2004-12-02T13:49:36Z")
**Ignatz** is [Krazy Kat’s](http://www.krazy.com/) great love. Or enemy. Or something. > [@Krazy Kat](#): > > There be those bristling of brain, deep of mind, and of great girth of cranium who tell us in wide and wieldy words, weighty with wisdom that the ‘moon’ is cold. > > So much for them. ---
**Author:** ![todd33rpm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@todd33rpm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/todd33rpm)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/110 "2004-12-02T14:00:19Z")
**Kaspar Hauser** was the little boy discovered on a street in Germany in the early 1800s, knowing only the words “I want to be a rider like my father was.” He was so sensitive that he could identify types of metal by touch. [Link!](http://www.feralchildren.com/en/showchild.php?ch=kaspar) **fishbicycle** wouldn’t reference the U2 song “Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World,” would it? Mine’s pretty easy and straightforward…my first name plus my preferred method of enjoying recorded music. From Robert Christgau’s _Rock Albums Of The '70s_: “The rise of the LP as a form…has complicated how we perceive and remember what was once the most evanescent of the arts. The album may prove a '70s totem…but for the '70s it will remain the basic musical unit, and that’s OK with me. I’ve found over the years that the long-playing record, with its twenty-minute sides and four to six compostitions/performances per side, suits my habits of concentration perfectly…I rarely sit at my turntable playing the same track over and over. In fact, my turntable is that bane of discophiles, a changer - to aid my work I even shuffle records before I stack them so I can be caught up short by some work of genius that I had mistaken for dogshit.” This pretty much boils down my point of view. Even now, I can’t quite bring myself to listen to a new CD all the way through, preferring to grab half or a third and treat it as an album side, then getting a glass of water or going to the restroom or something, anything to put that little intermission into the proceedings. As for my location, it’s a bastardization of something from Douglas Adams’ \*Life, The Universe, And Everything \*: “The songwriter was referring to meeting with a girl not ‘under the moon’ or ‘beneath the stars’ but ‘above the grass,’ which struck Arthur a little prosaic.” ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/111 "2004-12-02T15:05:46Z")
My own handle comes, of course, from the now defunct _Li’l Abner_ comic strip. Lonesome Polecat was a short, pot-bellied American Indian who made a bootleg liquor called “kickapoo joy juice” with his buddy Hairless Joe in a cave. Whenever the batch they were brewing needed more body, they’d throw one in. ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/112 "2004-12-02T15:27:01Z")
Is mine obscure? ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/113 "2004-12-02T15:30:03Z")
> [@todd33rpm](#): > > **fishbicycle** wouldn’t reference the U2 song “Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World,” would it? Somebody brought that up in another thread once, but no, I haven’t heard a U2 song since “Pride (In The Name Of Love)”. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/114 "2004-12-02T15:30:42Z")
> [@Cugel](#): > > Is mine obscure? No… Try changing it to **Jude**. > [@](#): > > fishbicycle wouldn’t reference the U2 song “Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World,” would it? I think it’s more likely to reference the saying about women and how they need men. ---
**Author:** ![av8rmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/115 "2004-12-02T15:51:21Z")
I’ll bet nobody can get my reference. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/116 "2004-12-02T16:16:48Z")
I don’t seem to have been mentioned yet. So, am I more obscure than I thought… or more obscure than I thought? ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/117 "2004-12-02T16:23:52Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > My own handle comes, of course, from the now defunct _Li’l Abner_ comic strip. Lonesome Polecat was a short, pot-bellied American Indian who made a bootleg liquor called “kickapoo joy juice” with his buddy Hairless Joe in a cave. Whenever the batch they were brewing needed more body, they’d throw one in. Hmmm, I always figured your name came from the musical _Seven Brides for Seven Brothers_. > [@](#): > > I’m a lonesome polecat > Lonesome, sad and blue > ‘Cause I ain’t got no feminine polecat > Vowin’ to be true > Oooh, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh > Cain’t make no vows > To a herd o’ cows. > Oooh, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh I wonder which one came first, the musical or the comic strip character? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/118 "2004-12-02T16:25:13Z")
> [@auliya](#): > > Mine came from a great, not-a-bit obscure si fi novel which was made into a dreadful sci fi movie. Not sure if the name gets a mention in the movie - it’s pretty obscure in the book as well. ( it’s Islamic in origin) Queen of the Damned? ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/119 "2004-12-02T16:25:36Z")
> [@av8rmike](#): > > I’ll bet nobody can get my reference. > > 😛 It happened at the World’s Fair? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544/120 "2004-12-02T16:26:33Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Queen of the Damned? :smack: I’m an idiot…Aaliyah PLAYED the Queen of the Damned in the movie. Although the description (great book made into a lousy movie) fit QotD too well… Dune? Although her name was Alia. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-spot-the-obscure-movie-book-etc-references-in-dopers-nicks/277544.md?page=7)