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Author Topic: What does your avatar say about you?  (Read 8512 times)

pilgrim

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What does your avatar say about you?
« on: May 13, 2013, 11:44 AM »
I am sure that many of you, like me, have looked at some of the avatars on various forums and wondered about their origins.
Sometimes if the person has a particular interest or likes a particular celebrity or even animal their choice of avatar is fairly obvious, but that is not always the case so I thought I would tell you about mine and if others feel inclined they could follow suit.

Despite what certain people have suggested my avatar is not a self-portrait but reflects back to the time I spent in cloistered surroundings.
It's a time I remember well, albeit with mixed feelings.

We were a relatively small order, in fact I was only one of two who were over five foot six, we mainly passed our time in prayer and meditation and study, as well of course of doing the many chores required to keep the place going, growing and preparing our own food for instance.

I was a prolific reader in those days and I very soon exhausted our own library, fortunately the Abbot gave me a special dispensation to go into the local town every couple of weeks to use the public library.
He considered me to be quite studious but it wasn't strictly true. In one of our unused storerooms I had found a big old copy of a commentary on the bible, you know the sort of thing, leather cover and a clasp to prevent it coming open. I cleaned it up and carried it everywhere but what he didn't know was that I had hollowed it out and used to use it for storing books by authors like Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton, and D.H. Lawrence, none of whom were on the order's list of required reading.

My visits to the public library carried on for some time but they sadly came to an end when I took out this young librarian. Unfortunately we were seen by Big Brother, he was the Abbot's 'enforcer', six foot six and nearly as wide.
Nobody ever talked about their lives before entering the order but there was a rumour going round that he used to be a bouncer for Mothercare and got put off for frightening the customers. It might well have been true, just by looking at some of the younger novices he could cause them to have a 'natural disaster'.
The Abbot went mad, I tried to tell him that it was only a temporary lapse, after all she had to be returned in a fortnight, if she had been 'overdue' that would have caused even more trouble. But he wasn't having any of it.

There were a number of forms of punishment, one of the worst was working in the laundry, they had these big vats with fires underneath and you had to stir the contents with long sticks to get them clean, the contents that is not the sticks.
It might not have been too bad if you were overweight as you lost several pounds a day. It was really hard work, I tell you for people who preached righteousness they had some really filthy habits between them.
He decided in my case that wasn't suitable, I was already quite thin, so he put me in the kitchen where I had to shave the hairs off of last years gooseberries, he must have thought I was some sort of fool, but I wasn't going to be trifled with.

We lived a fairly reclusive life most of the time, on rare occasions we used to have exchange visits with the local convent a few miles up the road, co-ed they called it but there was too much ed and not enough co for my liking.
The Mother Superior was a right tartar, Attila the Nun we used to call her.

It wasn't too bad a life although it could be hard at times especially in the winter, going out to break the ice on the cattle trough to have a bath got to be a bit much after a time.

In the end I decided to leave, I think I'd reached my cell-by date. I think the Abbot was sorry to see me go as he accompanied me to the door and I still have the impression of his sandle on the seat of the trousers I was wearing where he helped me on my way.


This is another extract from Pilgrim: A Brief Hystery.
I spent 25 years training to be an eccentric then I woke up one morning and realised that I'd cracked it.
I've not had to try since.

I wonder what happens if I click on thi

TaoPhoenix

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #1 on: May 13, 2013, 12:51 PM »
You know you embedded several cute jokes in there Pilgrim!

Meanwhile, my avatar was a type of Rube Goldberg thing, but avatar pics don't do well with big animated pics, so it didn't come out right. So all it says about me was "botched it, was gonna do a new one, got distracted by OOH SHINY!"
:)

So I'll do a new one in a few days/weeks!

app103

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #2 on: May 13, 2013, 06:49 PM »
I think mine explains itself.  ;D

And since I tend to change mine from time to time, and this post could cause confusion if I do so, gotta put a copy here for posterity.

pccat.gif

Tinman57

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #3 on: May 13, 2013, 08:09 PM »
  My nickname when I was in the Air Force.   :D

Giampy

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2013, 03:05 AM »
I tend to change my avatar from time to time.
Until now the two avatars (the two images) I used here in DonationCoder tell my passion for mountain, an environment that gave me wonderful unforgettable experiences.
"A refrigerator without beer is like a body without soul"

Josh

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2013, 03:26 AM »
That I enjoy annoying people!

Tuxman

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #6 on: May 14, 2013, 04:35 AM »
I like puns.

tomos

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #7 on: May 14, 2013, 06:22 AM »
I like puns.
LC_12-BANDY-web.jpg
your avatar reminds me of a photo-collage series shown in The (Manchester) Guardian in the 90's Lost Consonantsw (except yours has gained a consonant).

avatar_49822.png

............................................................

my avatar btw might be a portrait of me - it's by my niece anyway - aged six (last year)

Screenshot - 2013-05-14 , 11_19_53.png
Tom

Tuxman

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #8 on: May 14, 2013, 06:25 AM »
Neat - "Lost Consonants" was pretty new to me.

mouser

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #9 on: May 14, 2013, 10:30 AM »
I think I've had this same avatar since the site started in 2005.. I think that accurately suggests that I am somewhat averse to change.  Also that I like cartoon cats.

xtabber

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #10 on: May 14, 2013, 02:10 PM »
Herman Hollerith invented the punch card in 1888 to allow mechanical tabulation of the 1890 US Census.  The company he founded became the nucleus of IBM several decades later.

In 1906, Hollerith devised a wiring panel system that allowed one machine to be used to tabulate many different jobs. This was not the first example of programming (see, e.g., the Jacquard loom or Charles Babbage), but it was arguably the origin of modern information processing.

I came along a few years later and stole his avatar.

pilgrim

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #11 on: May 15, 2013, 03:18 AM »
TaoPhoenix
You know you embedded several cute jokes in there Pilgrim!

Cute? CUTE!
I think that's the first time that word has ever been used in my direction for any reason.

app103
I think mine explains itself. ;D

One of the things that has long fascinated me is animated GIF's, I keep intending to have a go myself.

Josh
That I enjoy annoying people!

Surely not?

Tuxman
I like puns.

The first time I saw that I was reminded of something that used to appear as graffiti when I was a kid:
"Jesus saves, he's with the Woolwich".

xtabber
I came along a few years later and stole his avatar.

Good job it wasn't Apple or MS, they would have sued for copyright enfringement by now.
I spent 25 years training to be an eccentric then I woke up one morning and realised that I'd cracked it.
I've not had to try since.

I wonder what happens if I click on thi

Edvard

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Re: What does your avatar say about you?
« Reply #12 on: May 15, 2013, 07:38 PM »
That I'm a freekin' toy robot, out for a stroll in the grass, what else?

I've wondered lately about changing it, though.  Maybe to keep with the robot theme, but with a beachy twist:

robot_crop.png


BTW - Source for my avatar: http://www.flickr.co...rocosmos/1265783338/
« Last Edit: May 15, 2013, 08:06 PM by Edvard »