what'd you say your name was?

F pulled me, the mayor and loucypher together yesterday to tell us he's got doubts about meeting a jan 15th deadline. the problem is, he announced, that most of you people are out next week. i heard the emphasis; so did the mayor.

-- what do you mean, us people? - he asked.

-- oh you know. you christians.
the mayor's about as religious as me, which is to say not at all, and he was looking nonplussed.

-- us christians? and you're what, again?

-- muslim.

-- muslim?

-- no, not MUZ-lim. there's no Z.

-- muslim?

-- not MOOSlim. MUSS-lim!!

-- oh. but you don't have an equivalent of christmas?

-- well, we've got Eid, which is at the end of Ramadan.
at this point as godless as i am, i'm feeling very superior because i know all about Ramadan; and it's a rare day when i'm more cultured than the mayor. F continued.

-- and there's a holiday that sort of coincides with christmas. you usually give stuff to kids, like a buck or two.

-- a buck or two?!? no wonder you people are at war with each other! a buck. you know, you could make it a whole lot easier on yourselves if you just gave up and assimilated.

-- like we did when J made us give up our macs! -- i piped up cos i can never resist a cliched argument. everyone ignored me.

-- in high school, my coaches used to call me Foo, cos they couldn't pronounce my arabic name.

-- yeah, you gotta dumb it down for us - loucypher explained. take J. there's no way we can pronounce his name in chinese, so he simplified it for us. jay. simple. and edgar -- you think that's his name in filipino? fuck no. in filipino, edgar's name is... he looked around wildly and grabbed a long network cable the diameter of my thumb, and flung it to the floor where it landed with a smack and shirr of unwinding coils. THAT is edgar's name in filipino and there's no fucking way we can pronounce it, so he's edgar to us.

-- dude, doesn't your name mean "i pimp for satan" in polish? - i wondered out loud.

-- absolutely, but you can call me lou.

in gaelic, my name means "there are no Wiis for you, hortense."