About 20 years ago, I was rejoining a chatroom and wanted to change my screen name. I ended up focusing on the fact that I am a switch with the idea of "Aspects”... But, I also wanted layers of meaning and I thought that was too "on the nose" but I caught on to the fact that ”Asp X” actually sounds the same.

On top of that having read the autobiography of Malcolm X and seen the movie, I liked the idea of a last name having to be earned at some future point. I also liked the dichotomy that an Asp is considered to be one of the deadliest creatures on the planet but in some circles the term Asp is used to mean a non-lethal extensible baton (sort of like Kleenex is a term for facial tissues since ASP is a leading manufacturer of them).

So... Loving what I came up with I entered the room... and by about the 2nd interaction, the people in the room had dropped the "X" and I was just Asp. At this point, it is not just a screen or "slave" name.. it is actually a nickname I go by in real life that even my good friends use instead of my given name (my screen names always still includes the "X"... Just no one really uses it).

Microsoft pissed me off by switching from .html to .asp to .aspx as the extensions on their web pages (just like Emeril pissed me off when he started yelling BAM!!! On his cooking show... Which was actually my previous screen name). But, it has actually been a blessing because it makes it much harder to search/stalk me on the web, even though I have consistently used it everywhere. I also like that fact that it is completely unuque in that I am the only "Asp" I have run across in the 20+ years I have used it.