How did you come up with your nickname?
 

I think this is an interesting topic and probably easy to tell for many!?

I have to admit that my nickname doesn’t necessarily require much explanation... But I definitely wanted to include the name Alizée in it. As well as to express that I am a her big fan and I am from Finland!!! So the result was AlizéeSuperFanFIN.

So I may not get great stories about it for future generations... :hello::w:- But I like it...! :p

But what about the others? What is the history of your nickname... Where does it come from? And what is it based on? How did you come up with it? :dance:

If you want, :D let us know, many are probably interested in... :13:

Ok!
There is no particular reason for my nickname.
The first time I heard the name “Joe Banana” was in some joke back in the days, I forgot the joke but the funny name stuck in my memory.
I later learned that this is a character from a movie played by Carlo Pedersoli better known as Bud Spencer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHQARGct32M

I first used a poster from that movie as an avatar, but later changed it to the one I use today due to a potential copyright infringement on my YouTube channel.
My tribute videos aren’t that important but I have a few interviews with Alizee on the channel that I would like to keep.
i love pictures of alizee as an avatar but i don't use it for practical reasons because i want to be easily recognizable on other sites. :)

Even though I was born in the upper midwest regions of the US, I moved to Texas as a young adult and spent three decades there. When I decided to move back to the midwest, old and new friends started calling me "cowboy" because everybody knows that if you lived in Texas, you ride a horse instead of driving a car. :rolleyes:

I was out one night with my friends and I said something that one thought was clever, and he said that "I was one clever cowboy". The others laughed and it stuck since.

So I'll explain my name and my icon at the same time because they are connected. Scruffydog comes from the fact that Scruffy was one of the four dogs I had when I was married. It was at a low point financially in our lives. I had been working for a regional airline in Florida. We were a feeder for a major airline (Eastern) and when they shut down, we shut down. After a few months of being unemployed, we were living in Florida at the time, I found a job in Savannah, Georgia with Gulfstream, working on their beautiful business jets. We were low on money at that point. We moved into a trailer park and the trailer we had wasn't one you want to write home about. It was in a rural location.

We had 2 dogs at that point. We used to see a "scruffy" looking dog walking down the dirt road every day. We heard from others there was a cemetery down the road that home less dogs used to hang out at. One day my wife heard animal control had picked up the dog. It probably would have been put down if my wife hadn't gone quickly down there and say we wanted the dog.

After getting her home, we found she had a bad case of heartworm and the vet said the treatment to kill them might kill her, but we didn't have a choice but afterwards, we had another addition to our family. Our situation improved very well in Savannah. We got a nice home in a nice area. We also added another stray, to our family.

EDIT: I just remembered that picture of the dogs and the cat, who was also a stray was taken soon after we took Scruffy in. The other dogs wanted nothing to do with her, trying to get as far away from her as they could for this "family" photo. Soon, Scruffy and Jenny, the German shepherd mix would become best buds and accomplices in crime. The cat, we named Kip, who preferred to be called Kip, Kip, kitty, was also a stray.

Now Scruffy was a wallflower. The others would be rough housing, fighting and barking but Scruffy would be sitting next to the wall, smiling, wagging her tail, the perfect angel, but if one of us left the front door open by mistake, Scruffy would be the leader of the pack running out that door with the others in close pursuit. They'd return about an hour later, covered in mud from the local marsh. They came home because they were tired and hungry.

So Scruffy holds a special place in my heart.

As far as the 777. I think you all know I worked for an airline up until I retired about a year ago. One of the airplanes I worked on was a Boeing 777. In fact on my last night of work, I had the simple job of replacing a nav light on one. I also worked on B75,767,737, MD80, A300 and the A320 family while working for this company. In fact, I had worked on the 767 that first flew into the World Trade center on 9/11. That plane flew out of Boston where I work that morning. I'm also sure I had worked on the B757 that flew into the Pentagon. So the 777 and it's connections, has some extra meaning for me. The image on my icon is of the cockpit of a 777.

As far as my own image. That is a picture taken in Paris. I met up with several other Alizée fans including Jenny and RMJ at a time of an autograph session for Psych. We all got together and walked around Paris. This was a group photo, taken near the Eiffel Tower, but I cropped myself for this icon. Unfortunately, because it was someone else's photo, I couldn't find the original, but I'm still looking for it.

Attachment 3400

Alrighty...

RedRafe...

It's a "hangover", so to speak, from my "military" days, and its down to "call signs" that I was once known as/by...

Depending on the area where I was deployed, I usually had a certain unit comms "callsign". In "Central" areas I was designated as "Red", or "Red 1", "Northern" areas "Wolf" or "Wolf 1", and in "North Eastern" areas, "Bear", or "Bear 1". You get the idea...

Well, most of our NATO allies seemed to have an absurd amount of trouble with pronouncing my name, they used to absolutely "mangle" the pronunciation, so, to simplify matters, everyone called me "Red"...

And it "stuck"...

When I was "up North", similarly, to simplify matters, everyone called me by my particular given "callsign" for the area, which was "Wolf", which was very quickly, and affectionately, changed to "Rafe", which purportedly stems from the Old Norse, Germanic, Saxon, Northern European usage meaning "words/counsel of the wise Wolf", which probably originated from the Old English usage, Raedwolf, as in "rede of the wise old wolf"...

So RedRafe...

Wise old Wolf... :p ;)

It fitted what I was doing at the time, exactly... :) ;)

Wow! There are great stories here! :yay:

Maybe a small comments... :)


I probably hadn’t even heard of it, but Bud Spencer I “knew”...!

Admittedly, I’ve never really watched his movies! :13:

That part of Cowboys was “easy” to guess in that sense because I like western movies and most of the cowboys are from certain places in the US, of course! :cool:

The rest of the story is a nice and fun unique story!

So I thought Scruffy’s story could be long! And so it was. And my guess of how the Scruffy dog was behind the nickname was pretty close, but the story was ultimately very exciting and thankfully happy! Thank you Dave and your wife for rescuing Scruffy!! :thumb:

The image of the aircraft cockpit was difficult to understand at first because the image is small. But now it's clear! And of course the 777 is related to airplanes, even though I hadn’t even had time to think about it much in the past.

I remember reading that you have a military background, so someone might conclude that the name comes from there, of course. But I really wouldn’t have directly guessed :D and nice when you told us more!

By the way, I have heard several stories from abroad and also from Finland that soldiers often watch J'en Ai Marre's iconic performance. Do you know in more detail that is whether it quite common in many armies, etc.?

My family is all from the state of Alabama, in the U.S. My dad was in the military, so I was raised all over. But since all my relatives were from Alabama—and most stayed there—I always thought of it as “home.” So...that’s where the “Bama” part comes in. And the “girl” is kind of self-explanatory!

Edit:

Great story about “Scruffy,” Scruffydog! I can almost “see” that sweet little doggy and all her pals!
Your story about the planes is very meaningful. Being there in Boston on 9/11 must’ve been an unspeakable experience.

I am male and I name myself with the feminine name Elise, after the Japanese biscuit company where Alizée did the advertising video. I thought it has some link with Alizée while not being too obvious. Well I just gave it away now...

I think we have over 20 members who start their name with Alizee which is a feminine name so using Elise for it's Japanese (Alizée in Japan that is) roots, is not an issue and that was a great little chapter in her life. It also brings to mind the great Beethoven song "Fur Elise", which makes it even better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAsDLGjMhFI

At first I thought I wouldn’t come up with a background for your nickname, :13: Although I tried to think of it sometimes, but then I read someone’s message that revealed that you’re from Alabama.

1 + 1 = 2 :D

Then I realized almost immediately that it could come from it! :thumb:

At first I thought you might be a woman. :p

Then I thought most of Alizée’s passionate fans are men, and maybe you’re a man after all. :w::13::secret:

But when I thought about it, :)(: I did not remember at all that Elise was that biscuit brand in that ad! Good reminder. :))