Echo40
Member
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2017
- Messages
- 4,039
- Reaction score
- 7,841
Here's a topic that came up on another firearms forum I frequent which proved to be most interesting, so I figured that I'd post it here as well.
This is actually the 3rd Username I've gone by here, but I'm going to skip right to my current and final one because the other two were just throw-aways I came up for in a hurry for lack of anything better.
Over the years posting on this forum, I've developed something of a reputation for the stories I would tell about my life experiences as well as my tendency to parody Wannabe Operators, Keyboard Commandos, and Mall Ninjas, which lead to folks asking me if I was Gecko45, (in jest or in earnest) whom I'd previously never heard of and had to look up.
For those who don't know, Gecko45 was the origin of the phrase "Mall Ninja" as he was a regular across multiple forums — most notably Glock Talk — back in 2001 who would tell tall tales of his career as a Shopping Mall Security Guard who was trained in Ninjutsu and regularly had to deal with all sorts armed robberies, hostage situations, terrorist attacks, etc which occurred inside his mall with the help of his elite task force of fellow mall guards.
For those who've read my posts, — especially in recent years once I mellowed out and stopped taking threads so seriously — the similarities are obvious. I worked for about three years as a Security Guard for a certain Retail Store, — which I won't specify both for the sake of privacy as well as the fact that I did have to sign a sort of nondisclosure agreement not to post details about it online — I do know a thing or two about martial arts including Iaido, and I had a few crazy encounters while working there with a variety of strange shoppers, dimwit thieves, and teenage troublemakers which I may have mentioned every once in awhile in threads. Last but not least, I've always been rather impatient with armchair drill sergeants who presume to instruct others on everything from selection of an "optimal" concealed carry loadout, to safe handling/storage of firearms, all the way down to tactics & training despite having at best dubious qualifications, which has lead me to often parody such individuals either to get them to dial it back or lighten the mood when everyone gets too uptight in threads on any of the aforementioned subjects.
So as of early this year I decided to change my username to Echo40 as a homage to the late (M.I.A.) great Gecko45 since so many users liked to tease me by asking if I was him, and so I shall remain because Handejector told me that he would never again indulge me in any name change requests, which suits me just fine since I feel this username is much more appropriate to my online persona than my previous throwaway usernames Dirty Harry Calahan and Forte Smitten Wesson.
What about the rest of you? Where did your username come from?
This is actually the 3rd Username I've gone by here, but I'm going to skip right to my current and final one because the other two were just throw-aways I came up for in a hurry for lack of anything better.
Over the years posting on this forum, I've developed something of a reputation for the stories I would tell about my life experiences as well as my tendency to parody Wannabe Operators, Keyboard Commandos, and Mall Ninjas, which lead to folks asking me if I was Gecko45, (in jest or in earnest) whom I'd previously never heard of and had to look up.
For those who don't know, Gecko45 was the origin of the phrase "Mall Ninja" as he was a regular across multiple forums — most notably Glock Talk — back in 2001 who would tell tall tales of his career as a Shopping Mall Security Guard who was trained in Ninjutsu and regularly had to deal with all sorts armed robberies, hostage situations, terrorist attacks, etc which occurred inside his mall with the help of his elite task force of fellow mall guards.
For those who've read my posts, — especially in recent years once I mellowed out and stopped taking threads so seriously — the similarities are obvious. I worked for about three years as a Security Guard for a certain Retail Store, — which I won't specify both for the sake of privacy as well as the fact that I did have to sign a sort of nondisclosure agreement not to post details about it online — I do know a thing or two about martial arts including Iaido, and I had a few crazy encounters while working there with a variety of strange shoppers, dimwit thieves, and teenage troublemakers which I may have mentioned every once in awhile in threads. Last but not least, I've always been rather impatient with armchair drill sergeants who presume to instruct others on everything from selection of an "optimal" concealed carry loadout, to safe handling/storage of firearms, all the way down to tactics & training despite having at best dubious qualifications, which has lead me to often parody such individuals either to get them to dial it back or lighten the mood when everyone gets too uptight in threads on any of the aforementioned subjects.
So as of early this year I decided to change my username to Echo40 as a homage to the late (M.I.A.) great Gecko45 since so many users liked to tease me by asking if I was him, and so I shall remain because Handejector told me that he would never again indulge me in any name change requests, which suits me just fine since I feel this username is much more appropriate to my online persona than my previous throwaway usernames Dirty Harry Calahan and Forte Smitten Wesson.
What about the rest of you? Where did your username come from?
