[dmax]

CAREFUL WITH THAT DAMN AX, EUGENE!

[AnthraX101]

I started using this one in '95 (Thats right, before all the crazy stuff went down). I had a glancing familiarity with the band, but was really into "outbreak" style books at the the time. Ebola was too well known, this worked out better.

I gave this name up after Sept. 11th, but I was still receving a lot of flack from many sources from the few lingering instances of this name. Then, my post office tested positive for Anthrax, and I was wandering around NBC studios the week of their incident. So I decided to say screw what other people thought, and reclaimed my name.

There are a few places where I still use some other names.

AnthraX101

[Ozy_y2k]

But wait, what does the "steve" part mean?!?!?!?

[vpisteve]

I hope this isn't too complicated for people to follow:

vpisteve, when translated to a telephone keypad becomes 87478383, which, when you subtract 2 from each number becomes 65256161, which is an anagram for my old phone number.

No wait, it symbolizes the 8 Boeing 747's I worked on while working at Boeing as a painter, plus the year that my twin sons were born: 1983.

Wait, no, that's not right either. When added together, the total is 48, and we all know what that means.

Um, my alma mater, Virginia Polytechnic Institute?

My dad's company, Vintage Petroleum Inc.?

</me desperately trying to find some deep meaning to his nick>

[the42guy]

Okay, well, I'm a fan of Douglas Adams - specifically the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. So, I obviously know that the great answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything - is 42. (Read the book, if you dont understand. ) Anyhow, I said this to a number of people and just "grabbed" the42guy.

Although I usually use the42guy (heh, I coulda gone with the27guy because I'm a huge Weird Al fan too), I sometimes use Sephorus. This is my character in an online MUD/IEN (www.materiamagica.com)
Actually, the characters name is based on Sephiroth form Final Fantasy 7, it was once my friends name in a MMORPG he played. When he started a new character, I kinda yanked the name from him, and use it still.

So that explains the42guy and Sephorus.

One last story. When my friend was chasing me down because I almost "stole" his name (though he had stopped using it), he ran afterf me, waving a small plastic ax. It quickly broke before he hit me, and he yelled "Damn Ax!" .... Wait, I'm now the second person to do this, huh?

Sometime I may change over to Sephorus - It's more of a nickname then the42guy. Anyhow.... that's it.

[SpaceBass]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, before Scrappy was even born, when I first went online via 300 bps modem to connect with local BBS systems I picked a nickname that seemed to go with the handles I'd been seeing on the splash screens of all of my pirated Apple ][ software: Captain Midknight. Heh, get it? 'Cause with the "K" and stuff? Woo, what a great name...for a kid or a retard or, like me, both.

I steadfastly stuck by that nick through thick and thin username character requirements, creatively shortening it to fit into the less forgiving fields of say 8 or 9 characters. I harbored the kind of loyalty for my stupid nick that could only be equalled by my unfailing stick-with-it-iveness to the Apple ][ platform itself. As the world of technology marched merrily on without me, I found myself PEEKing and POKEing into the same old spots, which unfortunately had absolutely nothing to do with girls. Good lord, I was an idiot.

After a while, I decided computers were the tools of the devil and/or nerds and sought to disassociate myself from them. Needless to say, this added an uncomfortable layer to my relationship with the actual devil, who indeed had created computers without telling me. We've since patched things up, and I'm confident he tells me everything now. Anyway, I went offline for a couple five years.

My next venture online was via IBM PCs at this engineering firm where I used to work. The Internet was then up, albeit devoid of content by today's standards, but the company only had email accounts - no direct Internet access. I discovered the wonders of email-to-web and email-to-ftp gateways, thereby flooding the local mail connection to the point that nobody else could get a damn thing in or out electronically.

The company relented and gave me DOOM for my computer and all was right with the world. No wait, they got mad at me and took away my email account, forcing me to hack into other peoples' and nab the incoming emails directly from their holding directories on one of the unmapped NetWare drives, before they could get delivered to the addressees, who would have wondered long and hard how they had gotten subscribed to freaky mailing lists like "Alt.Sex.Fetish.Feet.Ungroomed" and "Rec.TELEPORT."

Eventually, the company installed a direct Internet connection with a limited number of IP addresses available. By this time, I had befriended the network administrator, due to the fact that almost every time an alarm bell went off in the network room, it was caused by me and, you know, after a while we'd start chatting when he came out to find out what the hell kind of exploit I was attempting now. He must have been drunk or something because he hooked me up with the 'net connection to which some of the Vice Presidents didn't even have access.

Well, let me tell you, after that it was a lot easier to find information about exploits and to download the proper tools with which to REALLY annoy the SysAdmin. Hahahaha, good times.

Anyway, PC gaming was on the rise during this time. Microsoft came out with their 'revolutionary' DirectX technology. One of the first games I ran across that really sucked me in was one of the original massively multiplayer games, "SubSpace," which was like a cross between Asteroids and the Gulf War II: Gulf War Reloaded. Man, what a great game that was...but you needed a nickname to register and, thankfully, I had outgrown my erstwhile nick, "Fat Ass." I mean, "Captain Midknight."

What to do? One night, during band practice (or, technically a break in the practice), I was noodling around, jamming by myself, and one of the hot groupie chicks who always watched (I think his name was Fred), said, "Wow, you sure play some spacey bass." That night, I quit the band and my job and moved underneath the Burnside Bridge, east side. Eventually they built a skate park over me, and so I shouted out, just as the neighbors were arriving, "DAMN AX!"

I'm sorry, what was the question again?

[bill]

You get two guesses, the first one doesn't count.

[Ozy_y2k]

"Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair."

[Elijah Snow]

Warren Ellis.
Best Damn Comic on the Planet.
The Fourth Man.
'Nuff Said.

[bermuda653]

Dave "Bermuda" Schwartz

[Dark Side Of The Moon]

Lol...nothing too earth-shattering here...I wanted to be a little mysterious and have several connitations go through everyones head all at once...so since I'm into astronomy, the possibilities of alien life and Area 51 references along with goverment cover-ups and whatever else, Dark Side of the Moon seemed to work real well for me...

Allright...PLUS I love Pink Floyd as well as Zeppelin, Beatles, Who and any other older classic Rock and Roll...lol....

I was originally known to some as Grave Matters...a play on words as well as an online wrestling persona that I controlled...but at the age of 38, I'd decided it was time to get out of that and do something different...and with Push, Nevada hooking me, one thing led to another and I became an ARG junkie and out went Matters and Dark Side was born.

Good question Varin!

[Myssfitz]

My nickname

[konamouse]

whence came the mouse?

[kingohugs]

Re: Meaning behind your username

[dmax]

story of my nick