<p>My official PS name is “Nosy Shaker”. Hey, that’s pretty good! :eek:</p>
<p>Anxiousmom, your name is hilarious! Any others out there? Curmudgeon, I know you have pets (I saw your picture of the cute dog that guards your ranch). </p>
<p>I think that if your first pet had a gender-specific name that is the opposite of yours, you should be able to use the next appropriate pet name.</p>
<p>I’d be Cuddles Arthur.</p>
<p>Hansel Egg Harbor here.</p>
<p>Actually this Porn Star name business reminds me of lawn care trucks I used to ponder about. One called Barefoot Grass, the other called ChemLawn. Both probably identical products, but makes me wonder about the marketing folks at the latter…</p>
<p>Hindoo was the 1881 Kentucky Derby winner. Don’t even ask why a middle-aged woman would choose this as her screen name!</p>
<p>Every CC parental screenname has a backstory. Here’s mine:</p>
<p>I chose TimeCruncher because of my conflicting relationship with Time. I consider Time to be my best friend… and my worst enemy. I use Time meticulously (hence, “Cruncher”)… and I squander it carelessly. I am exceptionally conscious of Time, specifically with regard to the manner in which Time sometimes seems to pass far too quickly… or seems to pass much too slowly. I am intensely aware of the manner in which Time relates to music, and so, I agree unreservedly with the old saying, “If you’ve got a bad drummer, you’ve got a bad band.” If supernatural powers existed, and if I could possess just one of those supernatural powers, I would choose the power to control Time, because whoever controls Time, controls All. </p>
<p>A more down-to-Earth reason I chose “TimeCruncher” is because I really like the way it sounds. I once contributed to a CC College Life thread in which I revealed that I have always despised my given name. My mother was pregnant with me at the same time Lucille Ball was pregnant with Desi Jr., and like fictional Lucy Ricardo–then pregnant with Little Ricky–my mother wanted my name to be “unique and euphonious” (I Love Lucy, Season 2, Episode 11, “Pregnant Women are Unpredictable”). I ended up with an unusual and discordant name that is hard for people to remember, spell, and pronounce. My name is even hard for me to pronounce. (The first syllable sounds like the beginning of a popular swear word, and the second syllable ends in a gag.) Moreover, my cursive-written name is filled with badly juxtaposed angles and loops, which makes signing my name a pain. Worst of all, my name suits me about as well as a violin would have suited the late, great Billy May’s big band. “TimeCruncher,” however, fits my physical appearance, my personality, and the manner in which I conduct my life. “TimeCruncher” is The Real Me.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, I’ve browsed the Internet to see if there are any other TimeCrunchers out there in cyberspace. I’ve found just one–a Kentucky-based mass transit scheduler who contributes to several mass transit and railway forums. I’ve learned a lot about Kentucky‘s “timecruncher” (he spells his screenname differently) from reading his forum posts; he knows mass transit inside out, and his favorite leisure activity is to travel to distant cities and explore their mass transit systems. (He has visited and posted photos of several urban mass transit systems I have ridden either as a resident or as a tourist.) The weird “separated-at-birth” element is that like Kentucky’s timecruncher, I am also an avid mass transit rider, enthusiast, and advocate, and train travel has also always been my favorite mode of transportation. (I grew up about a hundred yards away from one of four major freight/passenger rail lines which crossed my hometown; the train is the lead instrument on my childhood soundtrack.) I sometimes wonder if Kentucky’s timecruncher has also browsed the Internet, and has become curious about CC’s TimeCruncher. Perhaps someday, somewhere–out of sheer coincidence–timecruncher and TimeCruncher will be fellow passengers on the same bus, subway, trolley, or train. (For all he and I know, that might have already happened!)</p>
<p>I showed you my backstory. Now, you show me yours.</p>
<p>“I showed you my backstory. Now, you show me yours.”</p>
<p>I chose my screenname in 1979. As a kid I worked over twenty hours each week, and I saved every penny. At sixteen I bought my first car, a Karmann Ghia, and paid for a vanity plate: DNTW8UP. I still have the old plate hanging over my office desk, and I use my screenname for everything.</p>
<p>Great one, “Don’t wait up”! I like that! 
I took my screenname back in, oh, before the dinosaurs roamed - when DD was a HS junior and I was a little anxious about the whole college admissions and paying for college deal. I am now anxious because she is flying in from Armenia this evening and she has been traveling for many hours and I worry that she will get deep-vein thrombosis. See? I can worry about anything! She has GRADUATED from college, and we did pay for it just fine, and she is headed to Turkey, soon, so I will have many other things to worry about. ;)</p>
<p>Doesn’t get any better than “Heidi Dickens.” Surely someone in New England grew up on a street named after Bowdoin’s own Henry Wadsworth __________. A great porn surname.</p>
<p>like MOWC, this is the only forum where I have “mom” in my screen name. On another (food) forum my screen name is boisewinesnob.</p>
<p>My name doesn’t have anything to do with being a parent.</p>
<p>It has to do with my “job” in life.</p>
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<p>This reminds me of a problem I was given in a critical reasoning course in college.</p>
<p>“You are in a boat with your mother, your spouse, and your newborn baby. The boat is taking on water fast and there is no way to save the boat. You have just one life vest and can only hold onto one person and are far from land, so you must choose just ONE person to take with you. Who do you pick?”</p>
<p>Now the rules don’t allow just giving the vest to the spouse and having the spouse take the baby, say. It’s supposed to be a logic problem with a “logical” answer. Any guesses as to what the professor felt the “correct” answer?</p>
<p>Oh, and if I am ever stuck in snow-covered mountains with people here, I will eat them in the order of worst answer to best answer in <em>my</em> opinion (as if I can choose the menu, only my opinion counts, right?).</p>
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<p>Thanks for clearing that up, Hindoo. I thought that maybe you were Hin-du.</p>
<p>Thumper1, having way too much time on my hands, I did an “advanced search by user name” and found that the original Thumper hasn’t posted since December of 2006; I think the mods should bequeath the name to you if you want it–you’ve certainly earned it!</p>
<p>I chose mine about 10 years ago when my now “senior in college” daughter was a serious ballet student growing up in a town where participation in soccer was the source of all social activity. I initially used it to post on dance boards and just kept the name when I moved on the CC.</p>
<p>My screenname isn’t too creative–it’s the first initials of my name and spouse’s name and the last two digits of the years in which we were each born–so you can tell we are REALLY old; not telling who’s '50 and who’s '52!</p>
<p>. . . and I thought the porn name was supposed to be your middle name plus the name of your street–Lois Highland; not very snazzy.</p>
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<p>Interesting, as I have never liked being known as “child’s name”'s Mom. I have my own name, my own identity outside of being a parent (though am also happy being a parent), and prefer to go by my own name. Nobody ever introduces me as just “husband’s name”'s wife without adding my first name after that, yet they introduce me as “child’s name”'s Mom with no first name following time and again. I had a friend of many years (who met me via a homeschool group; both our children are at MIT now and living in dorms next to one another) and she noted how her daughter asked her yesterday, “Did you call (my son’s name)'s mom yet?” I have a name other than “so and so’s mom”, but people don’t seem to care to use it much of the time. When I ask my son if he’s called a friend’s parent about something, I use the parent’s name “Mr. or Mrs. Whoever” if he knew them before college and usually their first name if he met them after going to college, though sometimes I’ll even use the first names of the parents whom he has grown up knowing since he is now older and it seems appropriate to make that switch and those parents are flexible with what they are called).</p>
<p>I am happy to be our son’s mom, but I am also happy to just be me, and prefer the acknowledgment of just being me to the acknowledgment of being our son’s mother, I guess.</p>
<p>Remember when people chose really “poetic” names for their email addresses? I am glad that doesn’t really happen any longer, but I do know someone who still uses waterlillies for her email name!</p>
<p>My backstory:
The screenname refers to that time of the day when your brain is just fried. When your thoughts can’t deal with anything more complex than “Fire bad. Tree pretty.” Since that’s the only time when I tend to look at these threads, it seemed apprpriate. I expect some of you will recognize the source of the sentiment.</p>