Avatar Stories

August 16, 2004

Mine is the geocaching symbole (obviously) and serge the psychotic seal cub a character from AHHHH! ITS THE MR HELL SHOW. He had his family clubbed as a pup and he goes on adventures with his friend lucky (a rabbits foot) every so often he sees a person holding his hand over their head and he hallucinates seeing the Inuit that clubbed his parents...then he kills them...Funny show actually.

Whats your story?

38.2k · August 16, 2004

Mine is a painting of Continental Army soldiers. I switched to it for Independence Day and haven't bothered changing it to something else. Here are some other ones that I've used:

My first avatar, which was just a photo of me, looking very stern.

This is probably the one I've used the most. Its a famous painting called The Death of Jayne McRae. She was the fiance of a Tory officer who served under British Gen. Burgoyne duing the Revolutionary War. She was murdered by Indians hired by Gen. Burgoyne to terrorize the settlers in western Mass. and NY's Hudson Valley. When her scalp was brought back to Burgoyne's camp, her fiance reportedly recognized her flaming red hair and broke down on the spot.

They killed poor Jayne, not realizing that she was on their side, but this act inflamed the area's inhabitants and turned many formerly neutral residents into ardent Patriots and eventually contributed to Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga

This was my second avatar. It garnered lots of comments. Some people actually thought it was me .

This one grossed people out and I received several e-mails asking that I remove it. Same for the famous squid one which I stopped using after one day because of complaints and won't post here because it's been seen too many times already.

I used this one for quite a while. It's Rev. War Gen. Nathanial Greene. A hero of mine since I was a kid.

I used this one for about 6 months. It is actually the logo for a local ski area. I also have a couple of hats that have this logo, so it was cool wearing hats with my avatar while out geocaching.

I used this for short while. It's a Shawnee Indian called The Prophet (real name Tenskwatawa), who was Techumseh's younger brother. He fought with Techumseh against Gen. William Henry Harrison at the battle of Tippecanoe and lost. He told his braves that his magical powers will stop the soldiers bullets. Bzzzzzt, wrong! Gen. Harrison went on to win the presidency years later thanks in part to his supporters using the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too".

A painting of Revolutionary War Gen. Lord Stirling. I used this for several months. Gen. Stirling was a major figure during the Revolutionary War, though relatively unkown today. I've worked for years at an archaelolgical excavation at his Basking Ridge, NJ estate and have spent many hours cataloging and piecing together his household goods that we unearthed like plates, wine bottles, pitchers and chamber pots. Yes, I've touched Lord Stirling's chamber pot! I guess you can say that means I've got the poop on Lord Stirling.

A painting of Revolutionary War Gen. Hugh Mercer. I used this one for a month or two. Another key figure in the war, until his death at the Battle of Princeton. NJ's Mercer County is named after him.

This was used for a month or so. Its Revolutionary

War Gen. John Stark. Hey, is there pattern here?

Edited August 17, 2004 by briansnat

August 16, 2004

Mine is a little Playmobil Viking toy. I am of Norwegian Descent and have shelves full of books on Vikings and figurines of Vikings. The various ones used for my Avatars are all from the Playmobil line.

5.3k · August 16, 2004

Mine is the crossdressing chicken from a very bizarre Burger King online ad.

1.6k · August 16, 2004

Mine is the UK Testcard (a picture of a girl playing Tic Tac Toe) with a GPSr instead of a clown!

I'd like to change it but it's become too iconic

MarcB

Edited August 16, 2004 by MarcB

9.4k · August 16, 2004

My avatars almost always have a saxophone. That's because I play the bass guitar. No, really. I do play the bass guitar. Ok, I play the bass guitar, and the saxophone, and the recorder, and drums. Oh, and the piano. Happy?

Edited August 16, 2004 by Team GPSaxophone

August 16, 2004

Stunod you should use this one

Good stuff...keep going with the stories.

Niss

1.8k · August 16, 2004

For our church puppet team we occasionally binge on designing and creating puppets. This one is Mark, a two-man puppet. I've used one other so far, but there are several.

2.3k · August 16, 2004

Mine is a detail of a photo of Bandit (Siberian Husky), one of the leaders of my dogsled team. In geocaching circles, I am known as Lead Dog.

1.8k · August 16, 2004

Mine is from a painting by an Indian State Senator from Oklahoma. His name is Enoch Kelley Haney. The original painting hangs in the Oklahoma State Capitol (I believe). The image was also used to help raise money for a medical facility in Tulsa. The painting was named "The Power of Hope". There is a much better image of the painting here.

August 16, 2004

Mine is from an ancient pictish carved stone that was found not too far away from my home. It is known as the Ulbster Stone. As to what the carving itself means maybe someone else can tell me, Here is a picture of the stone here and a picture of the other side here and a little bit of history here

Cheers

Donnie

August 16, 2004

Well its a self portrait taken about a month before I started Geocaching. Amish are not much into taking pictures.

I used this one for a while. It was taken about 4 years ago with a crappy camera.

4.2k · August 16, 2004

Need I explain this one?

I had just seen one of the movies when I started caching and loved the Gollum/Smeagol character (or is it characters?!?!). Plus, it seemed appropriate as he was traveling all over and looking for the Precious.

Anyway, I changed it once to a hula dancer (my wife grew up out there for a while and we visit Hawaii every year to re-connect) but caught a lot of cr@p for doing it - people wanted the original back.

I think I'm actaully about to change it to a photo of our two German Shepherds.

Edited August 16, 2004 by Kealia

2.2k · August 16, 2004

Im a big video game fan. Yoshi (my avatar) had his video game debut as Mario's sidekick but graduated to be a video game star in his own right.

3.8k · August 16, 2004

I wanted an image that would instill great memories of great literature (like we see so often here in the forums).

Good topic.

August 16, 2004

Right now, mine is an impressionist version of the Olympic Rings. But my regular avatar is something I found online, the earth and a satellite - pretty self-explanatory.

4.8k · August 16, 2004

Most of my avatars are from the anime and manga Azumanga Daioh. The current one is "Osaka" with a cubs hat added. I have also used Death from Jill Thompson's Death manga based on the character developed by Neil Gaiman in The Sandman Vertigo comics series. When I first started, I had a pikachu and a few other misc. avatars. I have some from other anime and manga that I might use in the future. In particular, I am saving one that is a cross between Chiyo from Azumanga Daioh and Robin from the anime Witch Hunter Robin.

Edited August 16, 2004 by carleenp

August 16, 2004

<-------- This is me enjoying a well earned but crappy tasting cigar after finding "The Journal" cache back in April. Actually, there were four of us; Myself, SmtyColt, Duncan Idaho and Cybret. We had a little celebration after 10 hours and 13.2 miles of hiking some pretty rough terrain.

Scoob

August 16, 2004

I usually use Calvin & Hobbes due to my refusal to totally grow up and be mature.

I think the blatant expression of his feelings, his naive interpretation of the world around him, and the hilarious fantasy view of "normal" everyday situations reflects a lot of the discussions that arise here in the forums. A lot of the posts here show the same intelligence, creativity, and imagination of the comic strip, and we all enjoy a "secret world" that others don't see taking place before their very eyes. Ain't Geocaching great ?

I like the current one of "Supreme Dicatator for Life" Calvin arguing with the imagined insult placed against him by Hobbes, out of the pic. It reminds me NOT to fall for inflammatory remarks, real or imagined, because we all have our own influences on our lives. Thats what makes this interchange so great. What fun would it be if we all thought the exact same thing ?

August 16, 2004

I based mine on a photo my husband took of a huge black bear that hung around our cabin for a couple of hours eating the sunflower seeds we'd put out for the birds. He got bored eating and scratching at one point and just laid down and took a nap. Hence the name. My husband uses the same name for his homemade wines.

3.8k · August 16, 2004

<-----------Um, Sputnik

9.4k · August 16, 2004

<-----------Um, Sputnik

Maybe you missed the subheader of this thread

Why is your avatar what it is?

August 16, 2004

Whatever is funny or cool depending on my mood.

August 16, 2004

Started out with this one then started using that one as the front of my coordinate cards placed in a multi, then I tried this one, , but then I noticed someone else using Marvin, and he is a regestered trade mark, so I had to come up with something original, ssssoooooo, , but I was not happy with the original colors, and the new colors are not quite right, so guess I will have to change it again

3.9k · August 16, 2004

Mine is pretty self explanatory. I chose the happy devil so everyone wouldn't think I'm as evil as people say.

El Diablo

August 16, 2004

Oh, forgot to tell ya why I was using Marvin, originaly I was going to call myself, Marvin the marmetian, and use his dog as my faithful side kick, Willy. But my name aint Marvin, so I left off the marvin, and added "as always your friendly neighborhood Marmetion and Willy" to the logs I signed, and now ya know the rest of the story..... for what it's worth

24.7k · August 16, 2004

Once upon a time I saw a dragon used as a compass rose. I liked the idea for the GC.com avitar but never found another one and that one was too small to scan. I did have one I'd found that looked like a dragon outline on the moon, sort of. Then I found a photo of a piece of art darkened it up so it was mostly shadow with a white background and called it a day. I still like the original idea.

The current avitar is fairly round so it would work on a coin. It's on the list of things to do.

Edited August 16, 2004 by Renegade Knight

5.3k · August 16, 2004

Once upon a time I saw a dragon used as a compass rose.

Like this?

24.7k · August 16, 2004

Right idea, but the dragon itself was the rose. It was flying north.

August 16, 2004

Mine is one of my favorite pictures of my dog Sampson while out geocaching. There's cool mushrooms in the background and he's standing tall on a log and smiling as if he was having as good of a time as I was. After my next tattoo I might put up a picture of my back because I'm proud of them(don't worry I'll shave for the pic), and has something to do with my user name. My wife and I are about to have our first baby so I'm sure he/she will make an appearence on the ole' avatar then. You can see the image a little bigger on my profile.

Edited August 16, 2004 by mogolloyd

2.1k · August 16, 2004

I began with the rapping Gollum from a famous flash animation:

That was taken the wrong way by another Gollum-loving forum user and the pirate issue was going into high gear, so:

Ruffling feathers, I "pirated" a different avatar:

At this point, the idea to blender two avatars and see what came out (ala Conan O'Brien) led to my first hybrid:

When that felt stale and Jomarac was on his way out of the forums, I went to (Johnny B Good + Woodsters = "Good Wood"):

The hybrids needed funny names and "Pantee" (Pantalamion and Hydee)... :

Or the hybrid would be where my sig would link to a funny use of the same name:

But "Johnnie Watts" (Johnnie Stalkers and Sparky Watts) linked to an awful html site run by an African-American Real Estate agent in the west...and led to some confusion as to whether it was me in my signature or not...SO...

2.1k · August 16, 2004

(ran out of images allowed per post)

SO....I went to my sporting series:

<- I play hockey goalie

<- Pats winning the Super Bowl

<- Olaf Kolzig is my favorite in the NHL

<- Red Sox (either a great homer from Ortiz or a dud pitch by Lowe)

And finally that leaves us with this one.

If you have never tried to do a cache_ninja cache, you probably have a poor understanding that 6 = G and 3 = E...so my name is juggler when it's not written so 1334 (leet...elite).

Soon, there will probably be a return to hybrid images. Soon...stunod...soon.

3.8k · August 16, 2004

<-----------Um, Sputnik

Maybe you missed the subheader of this thread

Why is your avatar what it is?

Sorry, Sax. Here's the scoop. I was born in late 1957. My mom and dad were having trouble agreeing on a name for me. She wanted "Michael" he wanted "Mickey." She said, "You can't name someone 'Mickey,' that's a nickname.

My dad asked the nurse for her input. She said "You can call him 'Sputnik' if you want to." Sputnik, just launched, was in all the papers at the time. For a while there, it was a close call, Mickey or Sputnik.

Sputnik

BTW, I also play the sax (and a little guitar and piano). Maybe we can jam sometime.

2.6k · August 16, 2004

It's a weasel. Get it?

August 16, 2004

if you've been in AS, you've heard this... a friend of mine wanted a pinana for her birthday, so she bought one shaped like a donkey. the only problem was, she bought the ponkey a couple weeks early, and she started to get buddy-buddy with it, and she just couldnt allow "frank" to be smashed. so she made one in a couple days, and the outcome was something between a pig and a donkey, so we named it a "ponkey".

the ponkey in my sig is actually one from one of my parties, and i also have a penguin pinata av, and a short-lived cowboy bebop av. (i'll post them all sometime soon. too lazy now.)

6.5k · August 16, 2004

We have a lot of cats (4) around the house. In fact I told Shadowgal that the next stray she brings home labels her 'crazy cat lady' by the neighbors so she better be careful what she does because I don't want to be know as the guy married to the neighborhood 'CCL'.

They all like to get into my stuff.

I like beer. (I like other stuff to but that's for another thread.)

I share the same last name as a famous domestic brewer, and it's not Miller.

PS hey artb-is a pinana a cross between a fierce toothy South American fish and the Mexican candy carrier?

2.6k · August 16, 2004

In fact I told Shadowgal that the next stray she brings home labels her 'crazy cat lady' by the neighbors so she better be careful what she does because I don't want to be know as the guy married to the neighborhood 'CCL'.

Ha! Last summer, I was out mowing the lawn (something I don't do a lot of, I hate yard work). The neighbor's kid across the way came bouncing over and introduced herself. They'd lived there for several years, but we'd never met beyond waving.

"We never see you out here" she chirped, "but of course we see your cats!"

I didn't have cats. I had one cat who had died three years before.

Uh oh.

9.4k · August 16, 2004

<-----------Um, Sputnik

Maybe you missed the subheader of this thread

Why is your avatar what it is?

Sorry, Sax. Here's the scoop. I was born in late 1957. My mom and dad were having trouble agreeing on a name for me. She wanted "Michael" he wanted "Mickey." She said, "You can't name someone 'Mickey,' that's a nickname.

My dad asked the nurse for her input. She said "You can call him 'Sputnik' if you want to." Sputnik, just launched, was in all the papers at the time. For a while there, it was a close call, Mickey or Sputnik.

Sputnik

BTW, I also play the sax (and a little guitar and piano). Maybe we can jam sometime.

Nah, you're too long-winded to be a sax player

Just kidding...I'd love to jam with you

August 16, 2004

Mine is my personal dragon, Malystryxx. Maly's just kinda been what's represented me for the last five or six years, she's the creature that all of my friends have come to assiciate with being "me." I guess she's kinda like a guardian spirit, or something. Anyways, she's a dragon with two tails, so she's unique and I like her.

My friend Neogeen drew this current picture for my birthday this year, and it translated really well into lineart for a stamp. I had Sissy n' CR's make it into a stamp for me, and now it's what I sign all of the caches I find with.

This one is another one of my common avatar images, done to kinda look like stained glass (by Cynthia Reep)

There's more of Maly-dragon in the following links

http://peachtails.com/junk/Maly-inks.jpg (inkwork for my tattoo, by Hannah Spute)

http://peachtails.com/junk/maly-tatt.jpg (alternative version of the tattoo, by Hannah Spute)

http://peachtails.com/junk/malydone_2.jpg (colored version)

http://peachtails.com/junk/malycircle.jpg (another one by Cynthia Reep)

http://peachtails.com/junk/malybadge.jpg (name-badge, by Jeremy LaMar)

August 16, 2004

Well, to know about my avatar, you need to know about my team name:

I am the leader of the mighty Team Yatta (and the only member that reads the forums!). Yatta is a Japanese term that literally means "We did it!" but it's similar in context to someone shouting "Alright!" or "Woohoo!" in English.

There is a song called "Yatta" that was performed by a Japanese Comedy Group called "Happatai" (English = Green Leaves). The song was first performed on a Japanese television show called "Silly Go Lucky". Silly Go Lucky is a sketch comedy show by the same group of guys that perform the song. So of course one day during a sketch they performed "Yatta!" and the rest is history.

The song and now the group have made it really big in Japan with the song going triple platinum in weeks. Green Leaves has also spawned it's own cartoon series.

If you want to see the video and hear our team theme song, you can visit the link below. Be warned that the guys in the video are wearing nothing but shoes, tighty whitey underwear with a green leaf attached to the front and nothing else. I wouldn't recommend watching the video unless you are on a cable or DSL connection.

My avatar is a screen grab from this video.

The Yatta Video

August 16, 2004

I am fascinated by the possibilty of the existance of Bigfoot, Yeti, Saquatch whatever. My fantasy football team is named the Ypsilanti (MI) Yeti, and I have designed my own golf apparral named "Yeti Golf." Of course, I have no copyright, etc. so you can all steal it if you'd like! (For referance, I haven't sold anything, just for personal use!)

August 16, 2004

Best video ever!!! Even some good Engrish thrown in. Now I really want to go to Japan. YATTA!!!!

August 16, 2004

My normal avatar is:

Which is a cropped version of:

Which was my first attempt at the "fire effect" using Photoshop...

I have also used the following:

For Traffic Safety Awareness Day:

For Cartoon Avatar Day:

For Moon Landing Appreciation Day:

For Cachemobile Day:

For Chicken Day!:

And my current avatar is in recognition of the Summer Olympics:

All of them are originals...more to come...as the avatar days do...

2k · August 16, 2004

Most of my avatars are related to my geocaching name rusty_tlc the tlc is for Toyota Land Cruiser which has some serious body rust. The hallmark of the FJ40 series Land Cruisers.

I like the jackalope avatars just because I like jackalopes. Very nice with stuffing and cranberry sauce.

August 16, 2004

Kitty called me "Mr. Boo" one day and it later got shortened to just "Boo". Where GeoCaching is concerned, it makes me think of Boo Radley from "To Kill a Mockinbird", who traded SWAG with those kids.

But... Boo! is also what ghosts say. The GC virtual cache symbol makes for a cool looking, cache related ghost, so I saved it to my desktop and re-uploaded it as my avatar.

FWIW, I don't particularly care for virtual caches.

3.5k · August 16, 2004

<-------- This is me enjoying a well earned but crappy tasting cigar after finding "The Journal" cache back in April. Actually, there were four of us; Myself, SmtyColt, Duncan Idaho and Cybret. We had a little celebration after 10 hours and 13.2 miles of hiking some pretty rough terrain.

Scoob

I resemble that remark!

This was my first avatar, "Sitting Duck." I never thought I'd change it, but eventually did:

I think the one I've gotten the most responses about was this one. It's my son, Connor dressed in something I was given when I was born (ugh..it's a little older than me):

My current avatar is me on some playground equipment near this cache in Peshtigo, WI. I've received some interesting comments about this one (as well as a couple requests for the full-sized shot). What was that about?

Bret

August 17, 2004

Avatars are fun.

I'm a (currently inactive) member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and my avatar is supposed to be an approximate representation of myself in early Renaissance garb (No comment as to the accuracy of this representation...). It's a 3D image rendered using the POV-Ray ray-tracing engine - a nice bit of software which I've been tinkering around with for about 10 years now.

I have fun playing around with the basic avatar file to reflect various special occasions and "special avatar days":

Normal avatar, Cinco de Mayo, Tinfoil hat to deflect the mind-control lasers, 4th of July, Canada Day, Sock Puppet Day

Cartoon day, Chicken day, 35th Lunar Landing Anniversary, One-man satellite uplink unit, Traffic Safety Awareness Day

...and a few other assorted avatars:

My original "TF" logo, "Safety cache", Mother's Day, Cartoon day, Olympics, Picasso Day

As you can tell, I get a kick out of playing around with my avatar.

I've also got a good stockpile of avatars I haven't used yet, as well as a number for upcoming holidays and potential "special avatar days" which may or may not happen in the future.

4.7k · August 17, 2004

mine's completely boring. they are both paintings of mine (acrylic on cardstock). the summer one is grass print on primitive landscape, and the winter one is the view out my back window. if i get ambitious maybe sometime i'll make some for the other four seasons.

August 17, 2004

It's....um....me! With a....um....perplexed look on my face.

OMGLOLWTFBBQSAUZ!!!!!!1111oneELEVEN

3.1k · August 17, 2004

Mine is a sketch I just threw out in college once. It became my signature when I signed peoples' whiteboards in the dorms. A story evolved around it, and he was eventually dubbed "Alonzo Neffertitti, the Dino-Super-Prophet". When I signed up on the site, the graphic was handy so I made it my avatar and shortened the name.

Like Seamus, I've often adapted it for events and holidays, though I haven't done so lately.

U-M Football, Halloween, Santa, MiGO logo (look closely), Leprechaun

Matrix, Smurf, Mt Rushmore (Presidents' Day), Ceasar (Ides of March)

And local favorite, Blackout 2003 (not sized well to post directly)

Edited August 17, 2004 by Dinoprophet

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