I like rats. 
:eek: I am in total awe! I love Jeopardy and got through the try-outs one time…but life intervened so I never got to play.
A five-time champ… wowza!
bristlesage:
<resume hijack> I now live in Central Arizona (high desert on one side of town and pine/juniper forest on the other… go figure) but I grew up in Phoenix and I LOVE the desert!
Ratty is also the coolest character in Wind in the Willows.
On the TV show Forever Knight, there was a vampire character who fed on rats and died from an infected lab rat. At a charity auction the prop rat came up and one fan bid so frantically on it that the guest auctioneer shrieked, “Who are you people?!”
She won, and is now known as ‘Libratsie’; the prop is affectionately known as ‘The Ratsie Wot Kilt Screed’. 
Mine came from the main character of The Man who Never Missed. I wasn’t feeling too creative when I chose it, the book was open and so I typed it in.
::hangs head:: So many deeply intellectual and fascinating names here, and how did I pick mine?
Hell Comes To Frogtown, with Roddy Piper as Sam Hell.
hee hee Commander Toady…
I am a huge fan of professional wrestling and in particular a wrestler named Jeff Hardy. When I started out online, I found out hardygirl was taken so I changed the spelling to hardygrrl.
I am also a huge punk rock fan, so the spelling “grrl”, which became popular during the grunge era, fit nicely.
I have my very own Elven name, came up with it myself.
It’s not for the phrase “Great Caesar’s Ghost”. When I signed up, in EE10 (Enriched English 10) class we’d just finished reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. I fell in love with the play, especially Mark Antony’s speech after Caesar’s death.
My favorite character was/is Brutus, but Caesar’s Ghost just seemed more creative and I could never stop giggling at the idea of this poor Brutus, just going to bed, when all of a sudden the guy he killed appears, in a toga splattered with blood (usually) threatening that he’ll see him again at Phillipi. It cracks me up. Don’t know why. The performance I saw of it was especially humorous, even if it isn’t actually supposed to be. Poor Brutus.
Brutus: Art thou any thing?..
Speak to me what thou art.
GHOST: Thy evil spirit, Brutus.
BRUTUS: Why comest thou?
GHOST: To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.
BRUTUS: Well; then I shall see thee again?
GHOST: Ay, at Philippi.
BRUTUS: Why, I will see thee at Philippi, then.
I’m the evil spirit! I’m the evil spirit! Yay!
5x… From now on, you must phrase all of your posts in the form of a question.
Well one time I
I was reading Don Quixote when I registered.
Mine is unimaginatively derived from my real name, though the folks on IRC used to think it meant that I s_stuttered.
I’m a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. The SCA does medieval recreations. Sort of like RenFaire, only a slightly earlier period and not for profit.
In the SCA folks develop personas, and there’s a slight tendency for people to have names beginning in ‘A’, because they start reading medieval name lists and find something cool on the second or third page.
So I started at the other end of the list. What I was looking for was a name that sounded slightly like my real name (Sharla), so that I would recognize it if someone called it. That part didn’t work, but I eventually learned to respond to Yllaria. It’s a variant of Hillary, which is a tribute to laughter (think hilarity), which I find appropriate.
The whole name is Lady Yllaria Gyngyvere. Gyngyvere was because I once won a medieval cooking contest with my pickled ginger. They used to ‘pickle’ it by seeping slivers of it in wine and then draining it and packing it in honey. Suitable for sprinkling over a dish of wine-poached pears.
:::hijack::: You got a word for the children of your siblings? I’d like one that includes males & females. I currently use ‘niblings’.
:::end hijack:::
My name is simple, I enjoy seeing the darkest shades of purple
People tell me I look like a gopher. I do not. But I like the nickname. So there
And no, I don’t go dig stuff up out of people’s gardens for fun.
I hadn’t had a new online name in quite some time, although the one I usually use, I love, but sometimes, I just like something a little different, ya know? Well, I was signing up for a friend’s board when I decided to add a new personality to the list, and VDarlin was born. It’s not terribly interesting, however. My SO’s name starts with the letter V, he’s from the south, and he calls me “darlin”, so, it’s basically just a shortened version of “V’s darlin”. Where I’m from, “darling” is usually only used facetiously, so it took a little getting used to, but now I fully accept it, although, only from him.
I think the fact that the letter “V” is my favorite letter has a lot to do with it, as well. Don’t believe me? Well, if you will, all three of my children have a V in their name, or…for the most part they do. My oldest son’s name is actually Stephen, but he goes by “Steve”, so there’s the sound, and the letter does show up in written form with the shortened version. My daughter’s first name starts with V(and those two, are my children with my ex-husband, no V anywhere in his name), and my baby’s first name also starts with V, as he’s named after his dad. We call him by his middle name, however. Oh, and while my baby has his dad’s last name, my older kids’ last name starts with the letter D, so yes, essentially, my daughter is VD. I’ve always joked that we should have named our son Steve with the middle name “Thomas”, so we’d have STD and VD, but, it was only a joke.
Alright, enough lunacy from me.
~V
She should record the song “Annie Christmas.”
And here I was hoping that you’d turn out to be Fred Grandy so you could tell us all the amusing anecdotes from behind the scenes of the Love Boat. Darn.
Mine is fairly simple. I found the SDMB shortly after I had been on a vacation. The vacation included Canyon de Chelley, Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, North Rim Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and some other magic places.
I have had several trips to that region before and it is definitely my favorite part of the U.S. We started and finished that vacation in Las Vegas, NV. I have to agree with bristlesage and squish that the desert areas are beautiful. Try Red Rock Canyon just outside Las Vegas, or try a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon.
So, I love the canyons, thus my username.
I’m from Denver, and I’m a bear. Thus D-bear was born.