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Member Name Etymology


DonRocks

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I also picked this handle because I thought I wouldn't be posting. Normally I use "Beaker" or "Beakerhead". I have a cranium the same general shape as Beaker, the muppet, and the nickname stuck in college.

Ha! One of my good friends in college had the same nickname. In fact, we still call him that regularly. When his parents called and asked for "Jason" we'd be confused.

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Many of you know that I've been writing you individually, just for the purposes of trying to get to know you better. Sometimes, I'll nudge you to consider using your real name instead of a pseudonym, and as the years have gone by (Facebook has shown us this), real names aren't as "terrifying" as everyone thought they might be.

Anyway, it is with some sadness that one of my favorite pseudonyms - Twinsdaddy - is no longer (except in quoted posts - a lovable bug in the system that I'm grateful for). As much as I appreciate Bob Wells deciding to use his real name, forgive me everyone, Twinsdaddy is still the king.

So who are the twins, Bob?

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My actual name is Alonzo Fresco Dente. My parents are Dick and Doris Dente. My grandmother and grandfather Dente fled Vulgaria because of the hostile anti-dentites.

Ok, Al Dente was born... sheesh, about 11 or 12 years ago on eGullet after I read an article about the website in the Washington Post one morning on the metro. I was employed by a company I absolutely hated, and spent as much time as possible fuckin' around on eGullet instead of working. I started the social "On A Whim" thread which went on for about 2 years in the eGullet DC foodie community before being shut down by The Man. I had the pleasure of meeting tons of folks-- not only in the DC area but in NYC, Philly, Seattle, and Raleigh. Tremendous amounts of drinking ensued. Then I came over here to DR to let my freak flag fly. Tremendous amounts of drinking ensued. A year or two after DR launched I went on hiatus and put the plug in the jug (almost 8 years now). I miss the socializing, meeting chefs and other culinary pros, and spending money I didn't have. I have a lot of amazing memories, and I'm sure other memories that somehow got erased from my overly marinated brain. I don't miss the epic hangovers.

Anyway, I don't get out much these days (I became a dad, divorce proceedings, way too much time working, etc.), but I'm back and will contribute where I can.

Why Al Dente? I don't know, I just thought it was funny. I still do.

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My actual name is Alonzo Fresco Dente. My parents are Dick and Doris Dente. My grandmother and grandfather Dente fled Vulgaria because of the hostile anti-dentites.

Ok, Al Dente was born... sheesh, about 11 or 12 years ago on eGullet after I read an article about the website in the Washington Post one morning on the metro. I was employed by a company I absolutely hated, and spent as much time as possible fuckin' around on eGullet instead of working. I started the social "On A Whim" thread which went on for about 2 years in the eGullet DC foodie community before being shut down by The Man. I had the pleasure of meeting tons of folks-- not only in the DC area but in NYC, Philly, Seattle, and Raleigh. Tremendous amounts of drinking ensued. Then I came over here to DR to let my freak flag fly. Tremendous amounts of drinking ensued. A year or two after DR launched I went on hiatus and put the plug in the jug (almost 8 years now). I miss the socializing, meeting chefs and other culinary pros, and spending money I didn't have. I have a lot of amazing memories, and I'm sure other memories that somehow got erased from my overly marinated brain. I don't miss the epic hangovers.

Anyway, I don't get out much these days (I became a dad, divorce proceedings, way too much time working, etc.), but I'm back and will contribute where I can.

Why Al Dente? I don't know, I just thought it was funny. I still do.

You should open a restaurant with Sal Minella.

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Boy Howdy, do I have to disagree! I have a DVD of this show--which was taped for showing on PBS--with Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin, when they were young and at their very most beautifulness. Just astonishing! The theme song runs through my mind on many occasions. An ear-worm that is quite welcome.

Glad to hear it.  Let's not have any trash talking about this show, since my wife was a Stage Manager on it.

As for my name, well it's a long and complicated story.  You see, way back, over 60 years ago, my parents named me Stephen but I liked being called Steve better.  So, that's the name I use.  Got it so far?  The R. is my last name initial followed by a period.  I use this on mouthfulsfood.com, egullet and I used to do so on CH as well.  But then they changed the board, abandoning that state of the art software that we all found so endearing, and a temporary quirk in their site dropped my period.  So, as confusing as it is, my CH name is now Steve R -- with no period.   Life can be so complicated (& confusing).   By the way, it's even more of a mystery why I'm on this board, since I'm in N.Y. (well, trendy Brooklyn to be exact).  But, Don seems to be okay with it so...

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Well, I think the bolded names* might have something to do with it ;-) For a matinee in DC with no actors of note, not so much. Well, maybe if they had stopped at the first act! But the tunes are catchy, so maybe I'll try to catch this recorded version. Thanks for the tip.

*I saw her in Follies last? fall and she definitely made the show for me. I think she can elevate anything!

Yes, they do. But I also saw it with Marianne Plunkett in the lead &, in my opinion, it was still very good. I think I saw it without Mandy P. as well. At any rate, apropos of absolutely nothing other than I have this information, you may (or may not) like to know that it was a one act off Bdway and the 2nd act was written to take it to Bdway. Lots of folk bridled at the addition, as it is somewhat disconnected from the 1st act, but I liked it. Of course, I'm a sucker for a good laser show. Better than elongating the 1st act's premise to make it a 2 act play I guess. One more thing: a re-make hit the stage here in NYC several years ago and I thought that they did a good job with that as well. No stars in it -- at least that I recognized.

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Nautical proclivities?  Prandial invulnerability?  Maybe both, once upon a time.

P.S. loved me some BITNET, but not so much ephemeral university accountnames

Are you kidding? This is from P.D.Q. Bach?! That book is literally less than two feet away from me as I type - it is *hilarious*!

Ha! Ha! Ha! This is on page 137!

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Wow, going back through this thread has given me a complex.  Such disdain for the name Liz.  I can tell you that I am called Liz b/c it beats the shit out of primarily being called Lizard for the first 17 years of my life, which is the name my loving 5 older siblings christened me with.  Although in the 4th grade I tried to be Beth.  Got a tshirt in Myrtle Beach with the ironed on letters that said Beth and everything.  But it didn't stick. 

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Wow, going back through this thread has given me a complex.  Such disdain for the name Liz.  I can tell you that I am called Liz b/c it beats the shit out of primarily being called Lizard for the first 17 years of my life, which is the name my loving 5 older siblings christened me with.  Although in the 4th grade I tried to be Beth.  Got a tshirt in Myrtle Beach with the ironed on letters that said Beth and everything.  But it didn't stick.

I feel for you- I call my beloved daughter 'Lizard breath' -I hope she doesn't harm me, I say it w/ affection.

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Wow, going back through this thread has given me a complex.  Such disdain for the name Liz.  I can tell you that I am called Liz b/c it beats the shit out of primarily being called Lizard for the first 17 years of my life, which is the name my loving 5 older siblings christened me with.  Although in the 4th grade I tried to be Beth.  Got a tshirt in Myrtle Beach with the ironed on letters that said Beth and everything.  But it didn't stick. 

I beg you to let everyone in on the secondary pun.

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Wow, going back through this thread has given me a complex.  Such disdain for the name Liz.  I can tell you that I am called Liz b/c it beats the shit out of primarily being called Lizard for the first 17 years of my life, which is the name my loving 5 older siblings christened me with.  Although in the 4th grade I tried to be Beth.  Got a tshirt in Myrtle Beach with the ironed on letters that said Beth and everything.  But it didn't stick. 

you would think I wouldn't even want to go by Elizabeth - I have two older brothers and lived through a number of not so cute iterations, including Elizabreath and Elizabelch, and variations on Lizard. My dad calls me Ish or Ishkabibble, no idea why that ever started. My mom's generation and before her all had crazy nicknames that had nothing to do with their given names, and stayed with them forever, such as Boozie (mom), Nookie (aunt), Dit (grandmother), Lemon (uncle), Tiny (aunt), Til (aunt) -- a visit to the family's burial plots is actually good for many laughs.

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I don't often notice these threads because I usually check in on the portion of the site dealing with restaurants....but here goes.

Kibbeh Nayyeh (كبة نيئة) is the Middle Eastern dish that features raw meat (lamb or beef) ground together with burghul and spices. It is my death row meal, and my comfort food, having grown up with a second-generation Syrian mother who could really cook well. It is the national dish of Syria and Lebanon.

Kibbee Nayee is the colloquial way that we kids growing up in Pennsylvania would pronounce Kibbeh Nayyeh.

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My dad calls me Ish or Ishkabibble, no idea why that ever started. My mom's generation and before her all had crazy nicknames that had nothing to do with their given names, and stayed with them forever, such as Boozie (mom), Nookie (aunt), Dit (grandmother), Lemon (uncle), Tiny (aunt), Til (aunt) -- a visit to the family's burial plots is actually good for many laughs.

Funny, my father called me that, too.  Ishkabibble.  Generational or geographical thing?  Pop's nickname for me was "Lizzle", which I didn't mind.  It never caught on, though.

Same thing in my mother's family.  She was known as Pudge.  No idea why, she was never overweight.  There was also an uncle Oggie, though presumably that was from Oleg.

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My Grandfather's family had all sorts of weird nicknames, there were a lot of them (he was one of 11 from his mother and had 8 half siblings)  Toots (Myrtle), Tuud (Sylvanus), Tudd (Sullivan), Mayb (Geraldine), etc.  They all had one.  The nicknames went down through the next generations with varying degrees of success.  I wonder what it was about the nicknames.  

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Because Don asked...

Those of you paying very close attention may have noticed that I recently changed my signature line to include my maiden name.  It was my attempt to address the etymology of my own screen name.  No great mystery, it's just my "5&2" (first 5 letters of last name plus first 2 letters of first name) which was my assigned user ID at a long-ago company.  I started using it as my default username for every web site that required one, and did so when I signed up for this web site.  At the time, I didn't realize my log-in name was going to be so widely displayed.  If I possessed the creativity to come up with a better "foodie" related handle, I would ask Don to make a change, but alas, I am creativity challenged.

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Once upon a time, on other sites, I would use handles. Decided to use my real name as a way of keeping myself in line. Surprising how it restrains me when I am drunk and/or irate, knowing that I can't hide behind a handle. I no longer engage in flame wars. As Well, an online community has it, we own our words.

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I am a man that used to make pizza.  Also, I am a superhero

I am a woman who used to make pizza.  5 years. having flashback. getting uncomfortable.

I am also a super hero (not really but my son thinks I know everything).

I am from New Orleans Lousiana and my hometown suffered a pretty bad hurricane. "Caine" makes it sound like a real name though so I use it for loyalty programs and my alter ego gets a lot of junk mail.

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Another one who's been using this handle since the mid-90s. I have a one-syllable name, but many family members called me "Leelee" as a nickname. My parents call each other "Boo" and called me "baby boo" or "Leigh-boo" when I was growing up, so I combined the two into my handle. Not that interesting.

The origin of "Boo" for my folks is more fun. Apparently there was an old commercial for pantyhose in which the actress complained, "My pantyhose bag at the knee. Boo." My mother did a spot-on impression of this (I've been told), and so my dad started calling her "Boo." I should see if I can find that commercial anywhere on these here interwebs. Hmmm. Down the YouTube rabbit hole...

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Just before my senior year in high school, my family moved to Dinwiddie, VA, population 200 (we raised the population 4 percent by moving there) when my father took over the Episcopal parish there.  When I went to college in Los Angeles California, people started calling me dinwiddie and the nickname stuck.  So . . . .  when I started on different food and wine boardsin the late 80's where pseudonames were common, I became dinwiddie and I've used it ever since.  Of course it lends itself to some variations that I am not particularly fond of (Yes, I'm referring to you DR among others) but I'm used to it.

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Just before my senior year in high school, my family moved to Dinwiddie, VA, population 200 (we raised the population 4 percent by moving there) when my father took over the Episcopal parish there.  When I went to college in Los Angeles California, people started calling me dinwiddie and the nickname stuck.  So . . . .  when I started on different food and wine boardsin the late 80's where pseudonames were common, I became dinwiddie and I've used it ever since.  Of course it lends itself to some variations that I am not particularly fond of (Yes, I'm referring to you DR among others) but I'm used to it.

Did I rename you as dimwitted for your birthday? :)

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As someone who spent the late 90s and early 2000s having a little storefront/Internet book business on the side (in fact, that's where my user name comes from), I can say The Hersch's advice is spot on.  As a dealer you were looking for that sweet spot of an undervalued book to buy, especially if you specialized.  Conversely, you wanted to be pricing the book enough to give you a profit margin but not so high that it will never sell.  In those early days of the Internet it was easy to poach things off eBay in my speciality area (books of and about Ireland), but much harder now.  One reason is the websites cited above are today much more widely known and the other is that places like Amazon have aggressively gotten rid of the middleman like the book dealer I used to be and gone into business themselves.

How does "Seanchai" relate to a book store?

I have my Rick Steves "Ireland" book and copies of James Joyce's "Dubliners" and "Ulysses" you can have. In fact, I might even pay you to haul away Ulysses. :)

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No worries, the "why' was just a lead-in to the link explaining the word choice.  After starting the business with my wife, I did at times regret going with the traditional spelling in Irish of "seanchaI" as opposed to the more phonetic "shanachie".  I had a lot of people calling about books asking for Mr. Sean Chai. :)

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