Thread: Avatar as Signature

Hello, everyone:

I am curious about what each SRP member’s avatar represents. The avatar is part of the member’s signature, his or her identity, and is frequently chosen to reflect just that.

My avatar, for instance, is a symbol of my Assyrian heritage. The human-headed winged bull, known as Lamassu, was a mythological being that was sculpted in massive stone. Its full name was Sheedu Lamassu, which means “the repellent of evil.”

Lamassu represents the supernatural power the kings of ancient Assyria had to ward off evil spirits. Lamassu had the body of the bull (sometimes lion), the wings of an eagle, and the crowned head of a human.

In ancient Mesopotamia, the general area of present-day Iraq, where the Assyrian empire was located, the actual bulls were known to have been massive and their awesome power reflected that of the king's. The eagle, the most powerful bird in the sky, symbolized the king’s power as he looked over his empire. The crowned human head symbolized the king’s intelligence and, therefore, Lamassu’s face was made to represent that of the reigning king's. The horns in the crown are symbols of the king’s divinity.

Lamassu has five legs: looking at it from the front, it appears standing firm and strong. From the side, it gives the impression of being in stride. These god-like creatures guarded the gateways of palaces and the doorways of crown rooms always in pairs. The Lamassu in my avatar is the photograph of the one, weighing about 30 tons, that was excavated from the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon II (721-705 B.C.) in Khorsabad in the present-day northern Iraq.

So that’s what my avatar represents. What about yours?

Regards,

Obie

but my avatar is scarface, which represents me as newbie. To be honest I haven't cut myself too bad yet but I thought it was a fun avatar (I didn't think too hard and it was an image that was on my hard drive while looking aimlessly for one) that represents where I am with straight razor shaving. On top of that I love the film and Tony Montana's character somewhat reflects my objective as a straight razor shaver - very high ambitions to learn more and become better (though I hope without the tragic ending!). Some day (soon I hope) I'll do a post entitled 'say hello to my little friends' and show the razors I've acquired. Right now however it only consists of one (there is more in the post ) so it wouldn't be worth it.

My avatar is from one random chat session. I was trying to remember the name of the tragus, which is the little nub front middle of your ear that you can push back to plug your ear with. Someone took a guess as to what I was talking about, and linked to the picture in my avatar (which is from Wikipedia and doesn't say "meatus" in red). I, probably sleep deprived at the time, saw the word meatus and thought it was hilarious. "Meatus" became, for at least that session, a very common word in chat. I later looked it up and saw it is not pronounced as I first thought (I though two syllabuls, not three), so I grabbed the picture, wrote "Meatus" on it, and made my new avatar and title.

Before that, I had a synthetic nagura with a face drawn in sharpie that said "Mini-Lee." That was because, one time in chat, I was looking at 330mate's website and talking with Lee about various hones. He kept telling me how funny he thought the "pet rock" in the images was, so I started linking images where it was partially obscured behind hones and saying it was playing hide-and-go-seek or whatever. Pet rock lead to pet nagura, and somehow I was reminded of "mini-me" from Austin Powers, and thought of Mini-Lee. So when my hone came with a free synthetic nagura, it was instantly dubbed mini-lee.

Before that, was a photo I took of my own shadow while standing on a low rock wall at Warner Castle, here in Rochester. Photography is a hobby of mine, and that was one of my more recent pictures.

Other avatars have included me holding a straight razor in my teeth (I think I used two different ones) and a photo I took of an emu through a chainlink fence at a little restaurant my mom loves somewhere around Santa Fe or Madrid, NM (it's a cool shot, the there is a link right between it's eyes so there is a diamond around each side of it's head).

I figure I should represent myself for you so my avatar is me and except for a few brief exceptions, it always has been. This is how I dress sometimes. Frequently actually.

Oh, and this.

My avatar is a chimp dressed in a space suit.

Originally Posted by Blade Wielder

My avatar is a chimp dressed in a space suit.

I thought that was you dressed in a space suit...My mistake.

Mine's a little fun for this forum. It's taken from the Wellcome Trust's image awards in 2008. It's a colour-enhanced electron micrograph of red bloods cells leaking out of a ruptured blood vessel. Having suffered my fair share of nicks over the last few years, I thought it was an apt and fun image to use! You can see a larger version of the photo here with an explanation: Wellcome Image Awards 2008 - Gallery

The Wellcome Trust does these image awards every year and some of them are truly wondrous. The 2009 award winners can be found here: Wellcome Image Awards 2009 | Winners' gallery | Scientific and medical images

Cheers
M.

My first avatar was Stuie from Family Guy shaving his bottom..! I'm a huge fan of the show, and my name is Stuart and I like to shave so that was why I picked it.

My avatar now is a picture of me taken whilst on holiday in Cyprus. Not especially imaginative but true to real life...!

My user name came from my nickname at school. We were studying AA Milne and a mate started calling me Winne the Stu, which became Stubear and the rest is history! I think I'll try and find a bear related avatar next, I've had the Cyprus pic up for a while..!

My avatar is Felix the cat wielding a straight. I use it because when I was very young I remember getting up very early to watch Felix.
My avatar title, Usagi Yojimbo, is Japanese and it literally means bodyguard rabbit but it also says samurai rabbit which is my preferred definition. It was a sixties cartoon in Japan. My mother is Japanese. My father used to call me Crusader Rabbit; a cartoon that was popular when he was a boy. Between what my father called me and my mother being Japanese I thought Usagi Yojimbo was a perfect fit.

YouTube - Felix The Cat 1959 The Magic Bag