Oh, snap. Its ReRe.

My friend Graham has justly pointed out that he, too, has of teh blogos. Though he has pulled up his roots and ventured south to the great city of San Francisco, leaving behind the beautiful northwest, he's still pretty rad.

Graham was, in fact, the originator of my nickname as weirdbeard, though he points out on his blagoblog there that it is properly spelled WeirdBeard, and as the namer of the nick, I suppose I should defer to his call on this. But I've been using it all lowercase online for several years now, and I'm afraid its fairly well ingrained.

Graham is a nut. If free-association had a patron saint, it would be him. It is because of him that dim sum is now The Height of Service, our friend matt is sweetshat (SweetShat?), I am weirdbeard, and he, himself is ReRe.

We were hanging out one summer eve at matt's house, and we had planned for ourselves an epic evening. We had pooled together 4 CD players and were going to listen to listen to The Flaming Lips' Zaireeka. Probably at least twice. And it was going to rock. I feel like a total nerd for linking wikipedia on that, but really, whatever. I am a total nerd. So Zaireeka is an album on 4 separate CDs meant to be played simultaneously on 4 different CD players. Every machine plays at a slightly different speed, and you never hit play on all 4 at exactly the same instant, so each time you listen to the album its different, and each time its an event. I've only heard the whole thing maybe 6 times, and its easily one of my favorite albums of forever. So if you've never had the pleasure, you should really look into it. Also, I'm officially cooler than you, so take that.

Now, setting up a jambox, a discman hooked up to computer-speakers, a shelf-system, and a computer in a different room up to all play at the same relative volumes and all the other bs logistics was being taken care of by Graham and another friend josh. Matt was just kinda wandering around in anticipation. Rounding out the group was PJ. PJ and I took advantage of the brief wait by boring me to fucking tears with some turn-based rpg PJ was playing. As i stated earlier, I'm a total nerd. I've spent more hours playing Diablo II than I'm comfortable admitting, and I'm currently playing through the Super Mario Lost Levels on my wii (what was mario 2 in japan but was deemed to difficult for america and thus never released stateside until Super Mario All-stars. Also the fucking hardest game I've ever played), but really, turn-based rpg's can be left to wither and die in a pit of boredom of their own creation as far as I'm concerned. I just completely fail to see the appeal. PJ was totes into it though, and my non-enjoyment was clearly not on the radar. Its cool, we all do that.
Salvation! Graham says they're set. But PJ has one more thing to explain about the game! Graham is impatient! And then the moment of transcendental brilliance, as Graham calls from other room, "Dammit, Captain WeirdBeard, get the hell in here, SweetShat's out here and we're ready!" It should probably be explained that I was at the time sporting a very silly chinstrap-type beard, so the appellation was certainly apt.

Needless to say, I was impressed. I've never been a fan of the nicknames, in general, but somehow this just worked. After some discussion of the appropriateness of our new names,(I'll leave it up to you, dear reader, to fill in the gaps on why SweetShat was so clever), we somehow gave Graham the pseudonym of ReRe. It is, I feel, a testament to the good times had that night that I have no recollection of the origin of the ReRe, other than it was self-applied at our insistence that there be names for all. Graham, I'm sorry man. ReRe has a wonderful capacity for Snoop-Doggification, though. Sometimes its Re-to-tha-Dizzle and various rhymes thereof, sometimes the more self-sufficient RizzleDizzle, its all about the improv, naming as performance art. Sometimes we'll be talking and I realize that no real words have been used in 30 seconds. I've since been promoted to Rear Admiral WeirdBeard, though again, I'm not entirely sure why. Regardless of the underlying causes, when amongst civilians, I just drop the rank entirely, it seems somehow stilted and self-important, you know? Like i should be in dress-whites with full shoulder-boards (or circles) with my beard all hanging out weirding. But if you ever hear ReRe say something about The Admiral, you may now know with certainty that I'm The Admiral, and when the situation merits it, I will thank you to remember it.

Thus is the story of the naming, the story of The Height of Service will have to wait for another time, as I'm balls-tired.