X HANDLE WITH CARE X ___After a positive resonance on our idea to publish the backgrounds of some sceners' handles in Insomnia #2 it was clear that we wanted to continue that article-genre in this issue... ___But strange events occured on our quest for the truth behind those nicknames. Users we asked on IRC suddenly had to face system crashs, after their system had been running stable for several years. Others changed their e-mail address for no appearant reason or simply disappeared after we asked them for their stories. To make it short, people are very innovative in finding excuses when they are being asked to give statements for a diskmagazine... ___So we took the chance and made a BSE special, mainly interviewing people who attended that party, because it is much harder for them to run away or pretend amnesia when asked face to face! Prepare for the results... DARKHAWKX Being one of the organisers in Iris, it's his job to keep an eye on the other members, literally like a hawk in the dark! "I have to admit that my handle is a bit of a rip-off. Back in 1989 I was really impressed by the cracks of Blackhawk / Paradox and I was also looking for a handle at that time. Of course I didn't want to rip it 100%, so I simply changed 'Black' into 'Dark'... Many people think I got my handle from the Darkhawk comics, but actually I was named like that even before the comic appeared. Today I am still happy with this nick, especially since it is kind of 'old-fashioned' by now, and as a swapper I also got a name in the scene, so it would be quite a dumb move to change it now." SANTA CLAUSX While the real Santa lives on the northpole and delivers gifts once a year, this member of TRSI and Crux comes from Belgium and pops up on parties once in a while! "My first handle was Spads. I was in groups like Alpha Flight, Legend and Outlaws at that time, but at the Party 2 in Aars I had my first encounter with Irata / Red Sector - A meeting that also made me change my handle, because a friend from S!P and me were wearing Santa hats and had big 'official santa claus' stickers on our backs. When I came across a totally drunken guy (Irata), I asked him whether he was the real Santa, and he replied: 'No, I'm a fake! You're the real one!'. The rest is history I guess..." E-LIZAX Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Berkley and Elizabeth - Queen of England! We are about to find out whether this graphician from Holland shares her first name with these women! "It must have been during the summer holidays back in 1995, when myself and some friends were camping on a beach in Holland. Being into the graffitti scene, we ran around all day long and tagged every free wall we could see, yet I was without an own tag name, so I was eagerly looking for one. Sitting around the campfire one night, drinking and smoking, a friend suddenly jumped up and yelled: 'E-LIZA', because he thought it would be a good tag name with the stripe in it - and because I still like this handle I also use it in the amiga scene. And on the contrary of popular belief my real first name is NOT Elizabeth!" NONAMEX We can contradict the rumour that this German coder from Haujobb and Sector7 is too poor to buy himself a name - he chose to have none... "When I started in the scene, me and a friend were using the handles Jester and Cougar after watching the movie TOP GUN! But soon we realized that there were at least two other, more famous sceners with the same name, so we had to change it. I recall that the first musicdisk I had seen was coded by Unknown, and I had always liked that handle, because of it's understatement, so I started to search for a discreet name. Though this nick is always occupied by the Talent member on IRC, I still like it and have no plans for a change!" PGAX When we asked the Dutch graphician if he ever came across anybody else with that handle, his teammate IJS / Maximum replied: "Nobody would be THAT stupid!" "My first handle was PG, which are actually my initials, but soon I wanted to change this, because it was rather boring. In 1996 I got really addicted to a game called 'PGA Tour' (It's about golf -Ed.), which I played day and night for some weeks, so I decided to expand my handle to PGA. But I am keeping the option to change it, probably very soon, cause that addiction is definitly over and I don't want my handle to be connected to golfing anymore!" SNIPERX Being a coder in Nuance and Lightstorm Inc, he attacks us with his routines from behind a hedge when we least expect it! "For a long time I was using Rico as my handle, which is a short form of my real name! I was in LSI already at that time, and when I was about to release my first demo in 1996, R.A.Y convinced me to change my handle, as he thought my real name was not suitable. After some thinking I came across that film with Tom Berenger named 'Sniper', so I used it. There are also some other guys who use the same handle, but at the moment I do not have plans to change it!" CRISPX Of course we also wanted a main organiser of the BSE to speak out, though they didn't sell any crisps at the party place! "That's actually a weird one, cause a friend of mine was using this handle first, after watching a commercial for crispy and tasty crackers on MTV, but he soon dropped it in favour of a new one. About one year later, when I called my first scene BBS, I needed a handle, and I decided to pick up Crisp again, cause it fits both my figure and my preference for a certain piece of food... At the moment I have no reason to think about any other name and as far as I know there are no other persons using it." Besides the people at BSE we were also able to catch some sceners on IRC, believe it or not... 4T THIEVESX An English musician who is probably the only scener to combine 40 people in one handle - but where is Ali Baba? "My handle? Well, while wandering around a market in northern Poland, I came across a pirate music tape with a track by some band called '4T Thieves'. So, after much thought, I decided that it was just a great name for me, for my scene days, 4 for my first name, T for my second name and Thieves for the last name. And, I guess it worked, as people recognise it straight away, and nobody else will actually choose the same name... I've never met anybody who's used it" COLORBIRDX In case you don't remember this coder from Sweden - he flew out of the active scene already some years ago! "I selected my present handle in 1992 when I joined Razor 1911, I thought my old handle was a bit silly and when the I talked to the WHQ about joining I decided to change handle. I like the sound of 'Col' in english, it sounds rather cool I thought then anyway, but I thought Col would be a bit short, and since I had a very multicolor jacket those days Color was something that leaped to my mind, but there was already a Color in the scene so I thought of a word to add after color. During those days I had played the Bards Tale game quite a lot so I said 'Colorbard' to the Razor HQ, but he misheard me (Him being a German over a bad blueboxed line -Ed.) and asked 'Colorbird?'... That sounded very childish and I liked it and that's why I call myself COLORBIRD" ARCHANGELX The Archbishop of Canterburry? The Arch of Noah? Or the Arch of Triumph? No - just a musician from Norway... "About 7-8 years ago I really loved the B-TV action series like Airwolf and the A-Team (Hmm, still do actually), so when I finally decided to enter the Amiga scene in 1993 I just came to think about that person working for 'The Company' in Airwolf, and his codename was Archangel. I thought, nice name, and ripped it! So that explains, it doesn't it? I'm not a religious dude, nor have I ripped the name from the X-Men comics (Which I also really love reading), but a ripoff it is none the less - shame on me... The stories of my former handles would have been much more amusing, so maybe I can tell them some other time..." X by Grey & Excel (c) Insomnia'98