My name comes, of course, from the great swiss independence hero, Arnold Winkelried.
Arnold Winkelried - the picture
Arnold, previously known as Jacques Kilchoer
J’ai assez vécu pour voir que différence engendre haine.
Henri B. Stendhal
M.L.A.W. are my initials.
Well, I was sitting in a VERY small office with my assistant Ed. We were both goffing off, surfing the net on our respective computers when I heard Ed start to rant. When I asked what he was doing, he explained that he was on a message board based on “The Straight Dope” and was currently in an “aurgument” with some irrational person. Well, “cool” I said. I asked what his alias was and he said “ed”, then I decided to sign on as well and use my last name. ryan. Thats it. Nothing more than that.
“The universe doesn’t give first warnings or second chances”
My name is Daniel, and I joined just when the message board at straightdope.com started. I have several usernames I try to use whenever Daniel is taken but to find that it isn’t is a rare treat. After all, preferences and tastes from which usernames are chosen change but I’ll always be Daniel. So that’s what I use here and in email addresses whenever I can.
Not often enough, though. . . which is why I still do have backups (ones more memorable than “Daniel” certainly)
“I’m just too much for human existence – I should be animated.”
–Wayne Knight
My real name is Jennifer, which is fairly common. More than fairly common – there must be about 20 "Jennifer"s on my campus (which is quite small, about 500 people). In a semi-successful attempt to distinguish myself from everyone else, I go by “Jenn.” After a year of using it at school, I found myself using my nickname everywhere else too, including this message board.
My first name is Beth. As a sophomore in high school some years ago, a friend of mine was playing with this stupid eraser that was in the shape of a bat. Well, the bat had these beady little red eyes and he said, “Wow, this certainly is an evil bat.” From then on when anything bad would happen, he would say, “Must have been that evil bat!”
Anyway, I was always the one in our “gang” who got everyone else out of trouble (talking us out of speeding tickets, signing report cards so parents wouldn’t see them, providing alibis etc.) So it came to be that whenever I would get the “bad” things fixed, my friends would say that I had thwarted the evil bat. Eventually, with the “fight-fire-with-fire” reasoning, I became evilbeth.
My other handle on other boards is Kaeci. One of my pet peeves is when establishments whose names begin with a “c” try to be cute and use “k” instead (i.e. Kountry Kitchen, Kwik Stop, Krispy Kreme etc.) So I had previously used “K.C.” but then I found the spelling for Kaeci in a baby name book and used it instead.
Boy, this IS mundane, pointless stuff!
Born O.K. the first time…
About a year ago, I noticed one of my co-workers playing Hearts (during a break, of course). Being pretty good at showing up Pauline, Michelle, and Ben myself, I peeked over her shoulder to check out her technique. I was shocked to see that she was actually chatting with her opponents while she played (and they weren’t the stupid robots from MSHearts that you get with Windows). I found out about Yahoo Games through her, and since I wasn’t on the 'net myself at the time, she helped me set up an account and username so I could play hearts, too (when she wasn’t hogging the computer ;)). I chose kaylasdad, because I am, and I think she told me to tack a numeric onto it, so I picked the year of my birth, (19)56.
Fast forward to last April. My wife met an Earthlink technician at the local Braille Institute, and he persuaded her to get us hooked up. So, now I can play Yahoo games at home. For some reason, the board wouldn’t accept me as Kaylasdad56 anymore (it might have asked me for the e-mail address under which I was registered or something), so I re-registered as kaylasdad99.
Maybe I should just stick to smart-ass remarks.