DajerryGuy writes:
- “I’m a new member, Les. Would you share with me the origin of your site’s name? You are certainly not stupid. I will withhold judgment on “evil” for a while.” - Jerry
This is one of those questions that gets asked from time to time and the answer is spread around in a couple of different threads, but I think I only addressed it in an entry directly once and even then I didn’t go into great detail on the why. Here’s what I said at the time:
Different name, same bad attitude.
I changed the name of my blog today after putting a lot of thought into it. Some folks who know me will probably understand my choice for a new name immediately while others who think they know me will wonder why I picked a name that has such a negative, and potentially offensive, connotation. For the latter folks I’ll just say that after spending any amount of time reading the news these days the new name pretty much describes how the “masses at large” seem to view me. If anyone bothers to ask, I’ll try to go into greater detail later.
Originally my blog was named Wandering Randomly Amongst The Blogs, which is a pretty stupid name in retrospect, but an apt description of how I was learning about what was a relatively new trend at the time. I kicked quite a few names around for awhile before settling on SEB and one of my favorites was: Young Militant Santas For A Better Tomorrow, but that seemed a little too seasonal. I debated going with an old standby from my days of running a BBS system and just calling it Les’s Place, but I wanted something that would grab people’s attention.
It was reading the newspaper that eventually brought out the name. It had been full of stories that day that simply pissed me off and I turned to someone, I don’t recall who, and said something like, “Ya know. Based on the stories in today’s paper, these people must think I’m some sort of stupid, evil, bastard. The politicians think I’m stupid enough to believe the bullshit their shoveling. The religious nuts think I’m evil because I don’t believe in their fucking fairy tale and I play games like Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and/or video games. And if I speak up and complain about being perceived this way then I’m just being a bastard on top of it all.” I believe the jocular reply I got was: “Well, aren’t you?”
Well, yes, I suppose by some people’s standards I am a stupid evil bastard. I’d certainly been called one or more of those things many times in my life. It’s certainly an attention grabbing name and it appeals to my sarcastic side. For those folks who take the time to get to know me, either in real life or by reading this blog, it’s quickly apparent that I’m none of those things, but for the folks who meet me in passing or who only hit one or two pages here due to a Google search I’m sure it seems a very apt description. I also like the self-depreciating nature of it and I think it shows I try not to take myself too seriously. So it just seemed like the right name to use.
If I ever get around to finishing up the layout for the FAQ section I started I’ll move this entry into it so it’s a bit easier to find.
But you’re not just *a* stupid evil bastard, you’re *our* stupid evil bastard. And we’re glad.