What's in a Name?

Snowflakes in Hell mentioned he wish he had picked a different name for his blog way back when.

I can understand.

This blog might never have started at all if I hadn't thought up that name of mine.

The thought of writing a blog occurred to me, as I was beginning to take up shooting. The angle I chose was a natural. I knew I knew next to nothing about shooting and guns, I could talk about what I didn't know. There is a nigh-inexhaustible supply of crap I don't know. And I know how to type.

So that's the subject. A neophytes shooter's journey through the casual experience of hobby shooting. There is plenty of humor to mine, a dabble into my life and politics but not TOO much into either, and a serious aspect because shooting can be deadly serious at times. It's a focused and contained topic that won't get too far away from me. It's been a long time since I went a day without posting, and while I interject non-sequitirs at times, that off-topic post is usually AFTER a gun related post.

But all that fully formed concept would have been for naught if I hadn't thought up a halfway decent name, cuz I wouldn't have had the gumption to do post one without it.

Now there are blogs out there to help you choose your very own blog name.

Here are some good real names:

...Well, most of the names on my bloglist are perfectly serviceable. I’m not gonna list them as I love them all equally, but… Snowflakes In Hell isn’t happy with his, but that’s only HIS opinion. I kinda like it. SouthPark Pundit would have been SOL if SouthPark had been cancelled soon after he started his blog years ago. A good name is semi-descriptive and an indicator of what to expect. In BooksBikesAndBoomsticks I’d expect to read about all three. But would totally understand the dropping of a bit of motorcycle content if certain circumstances came about. Like a nasty bike lay-down. Or ‘dropped’. Or ‘crashed.’ I’m not totally up to speed on unhappy motorcycle event lingo. (From what I understand, and I don’t have all the details, Tam doesn’t ride a motorcycle as much since she had a nasty spill. The attitude may now be, “I’m gonna die some DAY, but I don’t want it to be Tuesday.” Ask her. Go ahead.)

I'm just glad Breda spelled her blog Breda Fallacy instead of Breda Phallusy.

Here are some Great names:

1. Beer and Loafing in Las Vegas, N.M.
2. Gypsies, Tramps and Steves
3. I Can Blog Anything Better Than You
4. The Legend of Bloggy Creek
5. It's Tuesday Somewhere
6. Ax Handle Illustrated
7. Pat Smear
8. Schadenfreude for Beginners
9. Let's Make Tomatoes!

New Jovian Thunderbolt isn’t a Great Name, admittedly, but it was at least half-inspired.

Name rejects for mine:

1. OW!! That’s Gonna Leave A Nasty Scar.
2. Pwned Boomstick N00b, kikikiki!!!!!1!!!11!!eleven
3. WTB: Shooting Skill
4. ZOMBIES!! No! Not the face, not the face!
5. 10 Thumbs Gunsmithing Services and Near-Sighted Shooting Instruction, Ltd.
6. My Dumb Shooting Journey
7. Guns N’ Stuff

Ok, I could pull off any of those names NOW, but not when I was tentatively starting out. Mostly, I came up empty. I was reading a lot of gunblogs including old Jeff Cooper stuff when I came across someone (I believe it was Cooper) talking about a shot in hunting, I think, that dropped the quarry, “like a Jovian thunderbolt, out of the blue.” Add ‘New’ to that, and voila. Where there was no blog name, there was, then, blog name. One that fit me, and satisfied my requirement not to sound too dweeby. And posting could commence.

I also made it pretty much anonymous. Secondarily, to not tip off burglars. Primarily so that someday, 15 years from now when applying for a new job, an angry and rabidly hoplophobic HR boss couldn’t google my actual name and come upon all this.

Anonymity bugs me a little bit, and I'd rather not have to in an ideal world. But I rationalize by thinking about the anonymous Federalist Papers. I’ll have to come clean someday. Like Bruce Wayne at a party. And then after all the guests and associates will be a target of the Joker…

I do try to own my mistakes. But I have a great excuse. I am LEARNING. The whole ‘n00b’ thing. Corrections from the peanut gallery are welcome here. If I make a HUGE mistake in a post and someone calls me on it, well, HEY! There is more blog fodder for me to write about. It’s a favor. Where once there was one post, now there can be two.