o namae wa?

It's said you get those moments of deep introspection when you're alone and in silence. Apart from the hum of my car engine, it was relatively quiet driving home at 12am last night. I turned off the radio because the Friday night airwaves largely consist of clubbing music, which for the most part, isn't my cup of tea unless I want to stand outside my car dancing with the music cranked up. Yeah.

Anyhow, my thoughts were like nomadic tribesmen, wandering, changing and relocating, but eventually settled on to Gregory Wong's Day Off. I remember writing funny 'whatever' posts such as Recipe for a Blog and This is Just a Tribute, along with the bitching posts like Ten Things I Dislike About You and Ode to S**t. It felt like aeons ago that I wrote these, and thinking about my material now...well, it sucks! All I ramble on about is what I get up to which is pretty run-of-the-mill average.

But enough of that negativity, "Think positive!" Vanessa would say. And so I did. Okay, I don't think it's easy coming up with something interesting to blog about but somehow I've managed to scramble something together in my head lying in bed this morning.

Funnily enough, where Vanessa's voice in my head told me to have confidence, she was also the inspiration for this blog. Good old 'Ness can't help herself sometimes, and basically whenever she opens her mouth, it gives either Victor or I great material with which to work with. Bottom line, she's a whole bag of zing! Haha thanks for being so easy to bag Vanessa, you definitely provide us with hours of entertainment! I think I'll give her the nickname ZB (ZeeBee) from now on, since she's basically a Zing Bag. Cool! And with that, I thought about all those nicknames people have, from the weird to the dirty to the insane. As such, I've decided to compile a list of these handles.

Bongo/Bongoey
Yes I'll begin this list with my own nickname. Although not everyone uses it, I've been asked many times to explain its meaning. Bongo was derived in Year 9, my first year at Melbourne High. Since my surname is Wong, and I was Asian (thus having by default a strong drug connection) Stephen Sharples decided to call me Bong for a while, but then later down the track the O was added since it rolled off the tongue better. Bongoey happened when one time in Year 11, Chris and I were at South Yarra train station after school and we happened upon a Tommy Hilfiger - Tommy Girl fragrance card. It was in his pocket and he decided to change the letters to make it Bongoey Girl, making it like a calling card that I could hand out to girls when introducing myself. Yes I know, but hey we were 16!

Chops
"What? That's not his real name? I thought it was like Madonna how he only had one name."
"Yeah, his nickname is Chops because he's studying medicine and he's gonna be a surgeon and chop people up right?"
Haha if only people knew that Chops actually has a real name, and that's Michael. *GASP* I hear the whole audience respond simultaneously. Yes, it's true, and its origins to me are largely unknown since, like most of you, I met him as simply "Chops." I suppose it's not hard to see once you find out that his surname is Lam and then you think about lamb-chops blah blah. So there you have it, another mystery revealed.

Ernie Dingo
HAHAHA, okay so I've only heard this the once, at Winnie's engagement dinner, but I can't get over how funny this was at the time, and still is for me. Talking about their travels in Europe, Steve Ta explained, in a really matter-of-fact tone that his Swiss relatives thought Sanji was an Aborigine. Then someone else told us that one of their friends thought Sanji looked like Ernie Dingo. Haha omg that stuff was too funny...

Ethy (also known as Marv and Stick)
Haha I know I'm gonna get owned for this but oh well nothing ventured, nothing gained! This nickname is obsolete now, since Ethy (short for Ethiopian) isn't skinny anymore, but actually, even by his own admission, is well developed and due to give birth anytime now. Either that, or he's got a beer pot. The old school Julz was as skinny as a Stick and reminded us of the South Park character Starvin' Marvin, hence the two other references.

Gamy
Ah Gamy, sounds like such an appropriate name for such a wee boy. But don't let looks fool you coz Garry is well known for his sharp tongue haha yeah you know it b**ch! This identity was created when Chris was writing 'Garry' on a birthday card and the two Rs were too close together and it ended up looking like Gamy. I still have an email Chris sent to me in November of 2001 that reads:

Dedicated to the great 'Gammi'.. heheh... i guess its gamine now... read on!!

Word of the Day for Monday November 5, 2001:
gamine \gam-EEN; GAM-een\, noun:
1. A girl who wanders about the streets; an urchin.
2. A playfully mischievous girl or young woman.

And the whole world is whacked out with fear of nuclear doom, except for Claire, a French gamine who is "living her own nightmare" and waking up in lots of strange places.
--Joe Brown, Washington Post, January 17, 1992

Like I said, so appropriate.

M&K Show
Haha I don't know how much trouble I'm getting myself into posting this, but I don't think there's anything incriminating at all. It's just a nickname I made up at the Mt Hotham trip of 2005. These two girls (whose names start with M and K) come in a pair, no more, no less. Together they shine as one entity, a symbiotic melting pot of humour and gentleness - everyone loves the M&K Show!

Nabi
What started as a follow on from a discussion about Arabia, Cliff decided to muck around and call Alice, "Allah Abdul Nabi." Eventually it stuck and even her friends call her that now. It's even been abbreviated to Nabs at times.

String Bean
Victor is a special kind of person, the one that's slight at the top. As Juzzy and I were discussing one time, Vic doesn't have broad shoulders and so we just decided that we'd call him a skinny string bean. It stuck at the cell leaders' retreat in Marysville earlier this year and we therefore present to you: String Bean!

And here are some others that I'll mention but won't go into:
A-bomb I, II and III
Alpha
Darth Vader
FB
Gonzo
OTC
Stiffen/Chi-Wen
Stink-eye
TCG
TB Full Stop
Tools Chick