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Username: Satellite O Love [My one and only name. I will never change it unless I can somehow finagle Gaia into letting me be the Satellite Of Love]

Reference: You get automatic love for understanding what I'm referencing. I get asked all the time if my name heralds back to Satellite Of Love by Lou Reed. To those of you who have asked or have even been mildly curious, congrats for knowing that song because I was not aware of its existence before people asked me about it and my username. No, my Satellite Of Love reference is quite nerdy.

--Joel Robinson and, later, Mike Nelson are trapped on the Satellite Of Love, stuck in outer space and forced to watch terrible movies as part of an evil science experiment. The only salvation for these men is their uncannily cynical minds as they riff each and every terrible experiment with the help of their robot friends (Tom Servo and Crow mainly).--

Yes, this is the plot of Mystery Science Theater 3000. But don't worry if you've never seen it, the plot is really just a frame for the show's content. 2 hours or so of three guys talking through a movie and acting out little skits inbetween. It's actually less obscure than I ever thought, but it's still not a terribly known show among this crowd probably because it officially ended in 1999. I was a kid during most of its run, but I still fondly remember getting up early on Sundays to try and catch an episode on SciFi with my sister. One thing I've learned is that it is most definitely an acquired taste. My mom thought it was mildly amusing, but my Dad couldn't stand it back in the day. You either get it and love it or you don't.

And I do think that the Satellite Of Love they're stranded on is probably a reference to the Lou Reed song.

General Nicknames: Sat, Sate, Satty, Satalite, Love, O Love, sol, SOL SoL, solly.

Preferred Nickname:: SOL [SoL, sol] (only certain people call me solly)

Acceptable Nicknames: Satellite, Sat, Satty, SOL

Eschewed Nicknames:: O Love, Love, Satalite [or any other misspelled version of my name]

Digression: I've been a member of Gaia for quite some time now, and I have been called a great many things. Mostly Sat or Satellite, which makes sense and is a fine name if you don't know me and just want me to equip cat, ghost, and keen already. But I feel there's a great distance between me and the other Gaian if I'm continually called Satellite or Sat. As I tell anyone I've known for more than a minute, I prefer being called "SOL" no matter how you capitalize it. In MST3K, they refer to the Satellite Of Love as the "S.O.L." which is something of a pun - People have remarked they don't want to call me that because it means "s**t outta luck," and that's the state the hosts of the show are in on the SOL (thus the pun). I honestly don't care if that's what it makes you think, it's vaguely amusing because, at times, I am S.O.L. in the sense of the colloquialism, especially when playing zOMG. But I do prounounce it "sol" as in the world for sun that is a homonym of "soul."

It's not an obvious nickname so it's kind of nice because I know how well someone remembers me by how they refer to me. If it's "Satellite" then they probably don't know or remember me well > D. So even if you've read this and you don't know me well, you can feel free to call me "Satellite" till you feel you're comfortable nicknaming it up.

As for the nicknames I don't like, they are the ones people get from the end of my name. I shudder when someone calls me "O Love" because...just because. I also prefer that no one calls me plain "Love." It's not only strange to be called a term of endearment by a complete stranger (though if it's a Brit, that's totally cool), but it's also massively confusing. There are so many people on Gaia who have "love" in their name, and even more than that I have found lots of users who are so close to someone else in the crew or circle of friends that it's an appellation (as in "get div and halo, love, because you're my little angel <3 <3 <3" wink . So I tend to not respond to being called "Love" because I assume someone is either talking to their buddy or "loveholic 18" in the crew pane right above me.

In Conclusion!: I prefer being called SOL.

Shameless Plugs: You can still see a number of episodes of the old MST3K on Youtube if you do a search and you can purchase DVD sets (though they are admittedly not cheap) from several venues. If you have Netflix, you can stream a number of episodes from there. I would recommend catching some of the best rated episodes but, more than that, you can see some contemporary work from the makers and writers of the original series in two different venues.

Joel Hodgson (Joel Robinson, the original host and creator of the show), Trace Beaulieu (Original Crow and Dr. Forrester), J. Elvis Weinstein (Original Tom Servo and Dr. Erdhart -- note that he wasn't acting on the show for very long in case you don't recognize the name), Frank Conniff (TV's Frank), and Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester) all riff together live as Cinematic Titanic. They do only a few shows a year from what I understand, but they're definitely worth seeing.

Mike Nelson (Second host, head writer), Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo and Bobo), and Bill Corbett (Second Crow and Observer) continue to do the same in Rifftrax where you can download audio tracks to overlay on many movies you've heard of and seen, but their real jewels (in my opinion) are the On Demand titles you can stream and download where they do the old standby of riffing on terrible moves that no one has seen before. They also have about one live show a year you can see in theaters because they stream it around the country.

I sound like a commercial, and I do apologize for that, but I think it's important to spread the word whenever I can. I've always appreciated what the makers and writers of MST3K do. I believe that if you get even a shred of amusement from their work, then you should send a few dollars their way and buy a movie every now and then.

This is exactly why I rarely do journal entries in anything. I start out wanting to write 100 words or so and end up with 1000. Congrats if you got through this~!