I remember the first time on the internet I was required to create a username for myself.Ah, ’twas a beautiful sunny day, and following the advice of a friend, I was creating myself a Hotmail account. Back then I hadn’t been exposed to any interaction with other jackass internet users so my mind was free from names that contained squiggly lines and alternating capitals such as ‘~@#dAwGz iN dA hOuSe#@~’ and I settled for a rather humble ‘jdalton@hotmail.com’. Hotmail, being the most popular e-mail service on the internet, refused it giving me the excuse that it was already taken. However, ‘Hotmail would like to suggest the following alternatives:’It gave me some bullshit like jdalton1995, jdalton007… I decided to enter jdalton2. Success! And so jdalton2 became my first username/nickname/alias on the internet.I shall forever be shamed by the following set of nicknames I chose.Thinking that jdalton2 was not 1337 enough as a nickname, out of the creative abyss of my mind, I came up with ‘Blue Fire’. At the moment, I’m cringing with disgust. How could I possibly invent such a horrid and corny nickname?

Wait! There is more crap to come! I soon got bored with Blue Fire and thought up something along the lines of a covert army operation. Perhaps I was inspired by the movie Mission Impossible. Or perhaps I was just being a dumbass. Either way ‘Mission Firefly’ became my next great nickname.

After being taunted (I don’t blame them) for such a name, I realised that, to retain my fleeting self-respect, it would be necessary to get a new nickname.

At this point in time, I acquired an MMORPG called Everquest (see Veteran Gamers) and was at a loss as to what to name my Half-Elf character. The Everquest random nickname generator then suggested the name ‘Wemvarder’! What a 1337 name! Well, at least I thought it was at the time. I started to use it as my MSN nickname and got responses from my friends almost immediately: they all rallied round and took turns to make a moronic face and taunt me by saying Wemvarder with an Indian accent in a mocking manner… (the bastards!).

*sigh*… on to the next one! I locked myself away in the deep, dark, murky, prison-like depths of my room (this is what it’s like on a good day) for days on end pondering over my next nickname. I was already having doubts as to how long this one would last.

Suddenly… a burst of light penetrated the ceiling and a holy orchestra of angelic singers came down to give me their praise and rid my home of the daemons that had for so long plagued me. A beautiful angel with long, lustrous, black hair (and a rather impressive bust) hovered closer to me and whispered, ‘From here on you shall be known as… Dragunov’. Ignoring the obvious bulge in my trousers, I cried out, ‘YES! - a message from the heavens!’

And so I ventured forth into the realm of the internet proudly displaying my newly found identity. Unfortunately, that treacherous angel has apparently visited a few others on the internet as they are also using MY nickname.

And here endeth the story of Dragunov and his Many Nicknames…

Please note that some of the events in this story did not actually take place but were merely written to make for a more interesting and amusing read