Explain your user name!

Captain Ridley's Shooting Party was the codename members of the Government Cypher School used to disguise their true identity, when moving into Bletchley just prior to WW2. These were the guys who broke the enigma code, amongst others, and were instrumental in winning the war, as the allies were able to pinpoint exact locations of axis ships and armour through decrypted messages (a member of the team, Alan Turing, is my "academic great-great-grandfather", which is quite rare, as he only had one PhD student).

The members of the shooting party were all middle aged mathematicians, chess masters, linguists, crossword experts, logicians, philosophers, authors etc. It wasn't a very effective ruse, given that hundreds of people, not at all looking like a shooting party, suddenly descended upon a small town, but there you go.

Do you mind explaining that avatar? It's kinda freaky. ;)

I believe it's a circus master character from a British comedy show (specifically, Papa Lazarou from The League of Gentlemen). It's sort of intentionally freaky.

ETA: Link

And it's been removed, as some posters thought it was a guy in old-fashioned blackface :!:

My sig is my explanation.

also...

I used to be in graphic design for print, but now I'm into CGI, 3D modeling, animation and visual effects. I thought about changing my name from what it was at the other board to something more relevant and profound, but ahh well... I like consistency.

PLUS, cmyk has two of my initials from my real name (the 'k' and 'c') and in the middle is 'my', so it's mine. And I've always been fascinated by color and color theory.

And you say the letters, it's not a word. see-emm-why-kay.

Ulfhjorr, Wolf-Sword, is the name of a character in the epic saga I've created in my head and am trying to get down into electrons. Who knows...it may actually happen some day...

Eddy, Teddy, and Freddy are the three senior (and VERY LARGE) cats in the ETF household (currently numbering one human, nine felines, and a whole helluva lot of books). That's Ed in my avatar.

I've also got a horse, Ben, but he doesn't live with the rest of us -- doesn't do very well with all the stairs in a townhouse.

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Originally posted by cmyk

And you say the letters, it's not a word. see-emm-why-kay.

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Sorry, but I pronounce it as a word. Simik. :D

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Originally posted by Julie

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Originally posted by cmyk

And you say the letters, it's not a word. see-emm-why-kay.

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Sorry, but I pronounce it as a word. Simik. :D

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No, no, no, it's pronounced ''smmick,'' with prolonged emphasis on the ''m.''

:mrgreen:

If you must, "smmick" (or"simik") will do. ;)

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Originally posted by wring

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Originally posted by Biggirl

I'm big and I'm a girl.

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waves madlyHi!!!!!!!! The brie is almost out of the oven, so the first official meeting here of the 'liberal but not a fucking lunatic society' can be start! I'll save ya a seat.

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Oh, good, you've still got it going! And Biggirl's arrived. I've got some coffee brewing, btw.

Mine's a dumb play on "Snoop Doggy Dog" (which is what he was going by when I first joined the boards).

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Originally posted by Muffin

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Originally posted by featherlou

When I first started needing a username on the internets, I had two cats, one named Feather and one named Lou. A friend suggested putting the two together, and lo, featherlou was born.

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That makes you a cat.

KITTY PIC TIME!

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As requested in this thread. :) (I don't have Lou any more, though.)

Clothahump is the name of the ancient turtle wizard in Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger novel series.

Way back in 2000, I signed up with the Motley Fool message boards. At the time, I was working with NEC in their undersea fiber optics division, so I chose my name based on that: submarine->sub, optics->light. The space travel/lightspeed-related meaning didn't strike me until much later, when I was wondering why SF discussions were coming up on my vanity searches.

I'm sure most of you are familiar with Lynne Truss' book Eats, Shoots and Leaves. It awakened my inner stickler a few months before I joined the SDMB and so I picked that name. I've mellowed a bit and have become much less of a stickler and much more of a whatever-works-for-me-and-you-er, but inertia's a powerful foe.

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Originally posted by sublight

Way back in 2000, I signed up with the Motley Fool message boards. At the time, I was working with NEC in their undersea fiber optics division, so I chose my name based on that: submarine->sub, optics->light. The space travel/lightspeed-related meaning didn't strike me until much later, when I was wondering why SF discussions were coming up on my vanity searches.

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I'm going to hijack this to say I love your avatar! It instantly makes me think of Japan.

I'm elelle on the SD, a name I've used for awhile in various places, it's a play on my initials, and a play on gender terms.

I've been wanting to change it anyway, so here chose "vrilles", a French botanical term for twisted tendrils. I'm a horticulturist, so it's apt for the way a plant's tendrils reach out into the world, and twine about the internet. So I'm thinking. But, in seeing how it reads, the i gets mashed up with the double ll's,(continuity,tried there too), so hard read. What do y'all think?

I'm glad to see so many great folks here.

My name from Over There won't fit (ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies). A few years back while trying to think of a yahoo username that wasn't already taken, I came up with Rabid Renaissance. It fits me, though rabid (as in fervent and enthusiastic) may imply a higher level of physical activity than I usually partake in, though my mind never stops. I am a Renaissance Woman, a lesbian, a Jack of all trades and a master of none. I have at least a low level of ADD. I enjoy and am interested in so many things simultaneously that I sometimes feel a little...rabid. I also think that as a species, we humans are in dire need of a renaissance of both thought and action to prevent us from turning into a complete cancer on this little blue planet of our's.

It's how you get to Neverland! I wanted a unique name and liked how it sounded, so there you have it.

I'm a Lady when I want to be.

Rest of the time I'm Mack.

Anne, here.

Kinda dumb, but I was sans wit when I registered, and figured there already had to be an Anne on here, not realizing that this place is fresh meat!

I joined several internet groups while I was living in Cairo, Egypt, and started using "CairoCarol" as both an indicator of my location and as a nod to "Surabaya Sue," a lunatic Scotswoman who in the 1930s brazenly descended upon Java, drove herself across the island to Bali (a remarkable feat at the time), and settled herself in, starting a guest house and taking up with the locals. She was imprisoned by the Dutch during WWII because of her advocacy for Indonesian independence. She wrote a book about her adventures, but much of her descriptions of her exploits seem to be a bit, ah ... inventive. However, in broad outline her story is true.

The name "CairoCarol" seemed an apt way to combine the fact that I was living in Egypt with the fact that my heart has always remained in Indonesia.

Mine's a reference to The Wire. There's a character named Jimmy McNulty, and one of the characters (Bubbles) pronounces his name in a way that sounds like "McNutty."

As a long time Doctor Who fan, my user name is based on a remark made by the 4th Doctor (Tom Baker) in Pyramids of Mars, the remark was something like "I'm a timelord, I walk in eternity, Sarah".

I liked the sound of it, plus I was bored with my old username, so I emailed Tubadiver and got it changed.

Now I'm Walker in Eternity on two sites.

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Originally posted by ivan astikov

I really did have a nasty cough when I joined the Dope, and I've come to like the name enough to keep it for here.

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I knew it. Good stuff.
Oh, and I'm this guy.

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Originally posted by Clothahump

Clothahump is the name of the ancient turtle wizard in Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger novel series.

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If you've ever explained this before, I missed it. Thank you for clearing that up!

I never could find anyone to jam with when I was playing guitar, so I got used to only playing the rhythm parts. Never learned how to play lead guitar.

Erguotou is a kind of Chinese firewater. I like alcohol.

Mine's from Harry Potter--Professor Lockhart's useless "Peskipiksi Pesternomi" spell. Read it as pesky pixie.

I first used the name back when I was writing HP fanfic (did I just admit to that? :shock:), and then when I signed up for other sites I wanted something I could remember. So even though I'm not in the HP fandom anymore, I'm peskipiksi everywhere I go on the net.

Elyanna is a character I made up when I was 13ish. She was pretty much a Mary Sue. Now it's just my other name.

fessie was my favorite cat, a Maine Coon/angora mix who died too young, from kidney failure.
I still miss him.

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Originally posted by Erguotou

Erguotou is a kind of Chinese firewater. I like alcohol.

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But dood, Chinese Firewater would've probably been the best username of all time! Missed opportunity!

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Originally posted by wring

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Originally posted by Biggirl

I'm big and I'm a girl.

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waves madlyHi!!!!!!!! The brie is almost out of the oven, so the first official meeting here of the 'liberal but not a fucking lunatic society' can be start! I'll save ya a seat.

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Oo I love brie. I have a recipe where you slice it in half and slather the layers with apricot preserves and diced jalapeno and crushed pecans before baking. Yummy.

Ethyl Mercaptan is the stinky compound added to propane gas so that it can be smelled when there's a gas leak. I figure that's a fairly good representation of my posting style - mostly harmless but leaves people wrinkling their noses.

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Originally posted by garygnu

Gary Gnu, of The Great Space Coaster television program.

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Oh holy blast from the past-I used to watch that all the time when I was a kid.


The Flame-you should know by now that I LOATHE S.T. in all shapes and forms. I'm a Star WARS girl all the way.


I don't think I've ever actually HAD brie, honestly.

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Originally posted by cmyk

Missed opportunity!

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Oh, well. Wouldn't be the first time...

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Originally posted by McNutty

Mine's a reference to The Wire. There's a character named Jimmy McNulty, and one of the characters (Bubbles) pronounces his name in a way that sounds like "McNutty."

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And when I first saw your username, I thought, "Man, he should have gone with McNulty for that. It's so similar."

My father used to call me "Liberty" because it's kind of like my actual (nick)name, Libby.

The 3701 was my prisoner number when I got arrested at the Summit of the Americas protests in 2001 in Quebec.

Taken together, they make kind of a lame generic4321 name, which I don't like sometimes, but it's the name I've used for 8 years, and I'm the only one out there.

My user name identifies a political ethic, namely that rights accrue from the private ownership of property.

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Originally posted by Liberal

My user name identifies a political ethic, namely that rights accrue from the private ownership of property.

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It seems that the word liberal has a differnt meaning in the UK than the US. Here we tend to think of liberals as permissive rather than being in favour of private ownership accruing rights. That seems more like the ethos of the Tories than the Liberals here.

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Originally posted by Walker in Eternity

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Originally posted by Liberal

My user name identifies a political ethic, namely that rights accrue from the private ownership of property.

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It seems that the word liberal has a differnt meaning in the UK than the US. Here we tend to think of liberals as permissive rather than being in favour of private ownership accruing rights. That seems more like the ethos of the Tories than the Liberals here.

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It normally means what you think it means in the U.S., too. Liberal is just using the traditional definition, which is more similar to modern-day Libertarians than anything else, really.

When I was signing up for my first online service back in, oh, 1993 or so (AOL, as opposed to dialing directly into BBS's and such), I was frustrated at the "choose username" screen because all of my first choices were taken. Naturally, I wanted to avoid the dreaded numerical suffix that would testify to my lack of originality ("'Janus' is not available, would you like 'Janus15809'?"), but I was running out of options. Then, while sifting through my brain, I came up with the name you see here. It was invented by my brother, who was at the time running a move-by-mail role-playing game, and this was the surname for my character, a prince and heir who had left his castle and was traipsing across the countryside trying to uncover some conspiracy or other. Naturally, nobody else had used it, so it went through without the numbers attached. I signed up, and have been using it ever since. I've kept it because of its uniqueness, which makes vanity searching, both on message boards and the Internet generally, much easier; like sturmhauke, I'm the only one on the web. That kind of long-term historical utility is pretty rare in cyberspace, so I'm likely to keep using it for the duration.

I just did a Google search for "Vox Imperatoris". It gets a lot of results from Mafia games I hosted on xkcd (I kind of introduced it to that board) and one for a Diplomacy game I'm hosting; none from the Dope, though, which is odd, since I'd assumed that it was supposed to be searchable now. I seem to be the only one of my kind of the web.

The most embarrassing part, though, is that it shows my Pandora station as the first result, especially since that is my casual email address (as opposed to the one I use for official things, which is my first and last name).

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Originally posted by Lady Mack

I'm a Lady when I want to be.

Rest of the time I'm Mack.

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SQUEEEE! You're here!

My old nick, Little Wing, was picked in desperation (I was drawing blanks) when I was signing up on SDMB. I took it from a SRV CD that was sitting on my desk at the time. I've wanted to change my nick for a while but posted so infrequently that it wasn't worth the effort.

Cranky Old Broad. I'm cranky*. I'm old**. And I'm a broad. Pretty self explanatory. 8-)



* Actually I'm fairly easy going. It's only when the hormones take over (I'm pre-menopausal...oh joy) that the crankiness comes out.

** I'm 45 but sometimes I sure as hell feel older.

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Originally posted by troubleagain

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Originally posted by Lady Mack

I'm a Lady when I want to be.

Rest of the time I'm Mack.

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SQUEEEE! You're here!

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;)

*mwah*

My new user name is a reference to The Simpson's season 5 episode "Homer goes to college". It's always been a personal favorite reference.

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Originally posted by Vox Imperatoris

I just did a Google search for "Vox Imperatoris". It gets a lot of results from Mafia games I hosted on xkcd (I kind of introduced it to that board) and one for a Diplomacy game I'm hosting; none from the Dope, though, which is odd, since I'd assumed that it was supposed to be searchable now. I seem to be the only one of my kind of the web.

The most embarrassing part, though, is that it shows my Pandora station as the first result, especially since that is my casual email address (as opposed to the one I use for official things, which is my first and last name).

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So you're already a Mafia veteran? Are you holding out on us for any particular reason? Does Santo Rugger smell so funny that you haven't wanted to come out and play? It may not be much reassurance, but I will do what I can to keep him from peeing on you...

Back in 1982 I chose "LoneWolf" as a CB handle (I was only 16. Feel pity for me). This became corrupted over the space of about a year to "LeanWilf". It's pretty easy to remember, rarely taken as a User Name and it's far less pretentious than the original which makes me smile.

... Well you see there's Zombies!

... And they're At The Window!

It's meant to bring to mind the terrible voice acting of the original Resident Evil for the PS1. I know they don't say the word "Zombies!" at any point, but if you imagine one of the characters blurting this out somewhere in the mansion, you get an idea of what was going through my head at the time.