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This is a very silly thread, but I think it could be fun. When I was in the scouts, I had a friend who came up with a hilarious joke. My IRL surname is actually quite close to Haggis. All you need to do is add a letter and do some slight rearranging and you have the name of a traditional scottish food. I was called Haggis for quite some time after this. The Shuu part comes from a pigeon dating simulator called "Hatoful Boyfriend" and is the name of this character: I don't remember the context as to why, but eventually these were both combined into the nickname "HaggisShuu" which has been my online username ever since. As for profile picture, I am big fan of the film Porco Rosso, and traditionally I have used this frame as my profile picture: However lately I fancied a change and was inspired by the short fat kid from shrek forever after which is my current profile picture. His relentless determination to get what he wants, and solid bond with his father was truly inspiring to watch on the big screen.

Dude awesome thread.

Gen Alpha LDS snarky teens were going wild with the AI studio Ghibli generator. I had my pick: By the way, that AI generator was pretty cool. I turned some of our favorite family pictures into Ghibli art:

For the profile picture / avatar, you must begin with this comment ("Guest" in this interaction is @Carborendum's previous incarnation): ...and continue reading until the "sheathen" bit runs dry. (It seems to have taken a moment for folks to recognize that sheathen is just a female heathen.) It stuck around as a running joke across threads, and so I drew my avatar to match. (Yes, zil was me, but I clobbered that account back when I was having hard times, to prevent myself from using it, and apparently I did such a good job that it couldn't be recovered, so when I was ready to come back, I needed a new account, hence, zil2.) As for how I chose my user name... I inverted my name (the first time; the second time, I did as described above - added a 2). Sadly, the site's indexing appears to be broken, and badly enough that even google can barely find any instances of "sheathen". It's possible it took a couple weeks for the avatar change - which I might have made for this post (I drew the avatar): And because the site indexing is broken, I can't go back and relive all the fun referenced in this post: But I can see that we used to have more fun, per my previous opinion, and therefore we ought to have more fun again. I think we need to coax @Jamie123 to finish the adventures of Henry the vacuum cleaner: Which ended in a cliffhanger - ironically, at the bottom of a cliff (be sure to check out the second installment on page 2 of the thread).

Username: Don't recall why. I've used it for almost two decades in more than one location I like the look of leaves. Yup.

I think it is for a lot of us. It’s a virtual ward for me.

The application of my particular profession has taken me many places far from my home. Two things have always been of upmost importance in my travels. First to seek out and spend time with the Saints that are building Zion in those far-off places. Second (most important) is to find my way back home. My username is a reflection of both my physical and spiritual life. Growing up in Provo Utah in the back yard of Brigham Young University (BYU) I was shielded a great deal from things non-LDS throughout the rest of the world. Many professors and their families were a part of my daily experiences. Hugh Nibley was one of the more influential individuals I grew up knowing. Even in my youth I was fascinated with Brother Nibley’s concept of Abraham as a stranger in a strange land. I have identified myself in the mortal experience as the stranger in a strange land. I have never felt to belong to this earth but rather to some other place that is greatly different. I am the traveler far from my home. My only purpose here is to seek out Saints building Zion and to find a way back to where I belong. My profile picture is a device that combines a sextant, star chart, sundial and compass – It is my private symbolic Liahona. This forum is a safe harbor for me. The Traveler

This is my second name. I’m a huge University of Florida fan, and their mascot is an alligator. My first name here was “MormonGator”. The profile pic is an alligator who jumped on boat and it looked like it was waving. It did not happen to me, I found it on a random site somewhere.

Mirkwood is the forest of giant spiders and elves in The Hobbit. It is one of my favorite parts of the story. It was the name I selected on my first forum (the now defunct Rush Message Board) and what I have used pretty much everywhere ever since. I wear these two patches on my body armor under my uniform. I like boonie hats, sometimes I have a beard and I have a suppressed AR15. It kind of matches who I am.

For userid and passwords, I do a double-whammy of unlikely words. I use obscure words or proper nouns and purposefully misspell them. There is no dictionary in the world that would have any of my passwords. My userid is a misspelling of the stone known as carborundum. I came across it in a lab in college. We were trying to grind down some concrete to a specific dimension. And we were using a stone that resembled a volcanic rock (with all the nooks and crannies of the stones that looked like charred sponges). I asked the crew if anyone knew what this stone was made of that could withstand grinding away at concrete without seeming to wear itself at all. I can't be sure what a classmate said. He may have said it with the "u" sound, but what I heard was "carborendum." That was what stuck with me. (It is used as a grindstone because it has a hardness of 9 to 9.5 on the Mohs scale.) As the blogosphere got bigger and social media was a thing, I figured I needed a unique userid. None of the "add some number" to make it unique. I wanted it to be unique. So, I chose "Carborundum." But, of course, to make it truly unique, I purposefully misspelled it. And I like the sound better anyway. As I described the rock form as being like the porous stone, the crystal form is a sight to behold. So, I did a web search for images of carborundum and found my current avatar.

I’ve always liked your screen name. Same with @mirkwood

Salt Lake and neighboring valleys are also home to at least 7 of the people on this board, you know, in case you wanted to attempt to meet any virtual person in real life. You could plan for 2027, when the Salt Lake Temple open house is scheduled... (At least, I think it's 2027. I highly recommend against trying to come during the Olympics - I fully expect the Lord to burn Salt Lake City to the ground during that event (presumably He'll preserve the temple, though)... )

You make a far better pitch! I would like to see temple square and do some temple work, and if we time it right, a session of general conference. But I don't want to overdo it on the Church front. I've seen youtube videos and the mountains constantly in the background make it look like a fairytale land. I'd like to spend as much time soaking up that outdoor scenery as possible as there is very little like it in the UK. We have the Peak district (a national park famous for mountains) and the lake district (famous for lakes, which is ironically home to Englands tallest mountain - not the peak district) where you can look over and see mountains as part of your back garden view. These are very nice places of course, but don't look much like Utah.

Salt Lake area along with most of Utah is high altitude desert which makes this a unique place. There are similarities to Israel and the Holy Land – except Utah is roughly 1,525 meters elevated. Bear Lake topography is much like the Sea of Galilee. Utah has incredible mountains which lends to skiing, mountain biking, four wheeling, white water rafting, hiking and many other outdoor activities. My brother has a land yacht, but that is an extreme sport activity. There are some profound paved cycling routes following rivers and other unique routes. The desert mountains are far more scenic than Disneyland, much less expensive (like free) and void of annoying crowds (with the exceptions of Zions and Arches National Parks). As a member of the LDS faith, you may want to visit and do temple work in one of the Pioneer era temples. I regret that you will not have an opportunity to attend a live session (they are a thing of the past). I also regret that none of the old meeting houses of my ancestors have been preserved. You ought to visit Brigham Young University – If you come in August, you can attend education week. This is basically 2 weeks of experts (mostly professors) presenting lessons in LDS history, theology and other subjects of interest to LDS. If you visit Utah, the only unique food is fry sauce that you can get with your patio fries and hamburgers (or fish and chips). Visiting temple square is also a must. If someone is into tourist traps and standing for hours in lines – Utah really sucks. The Traveler

I can't say I fault you.

This is devastating news for me. I must admit, as a true Bri'ish citizen, with very bad teeth. My knowledge of what Americans are like come from the following sources: The discovery Channel The Tabernacle Choir All the America fast food chains which are suddenly popping up in the UK Florida man articles Not likely a balanced view on things.

Then you should be able to relate to @Jamie123's cartoon!

I’m with her. My wife and I have annual passes. Like I’ve mentioned my Melissa and I are hosting a 15 year old German girl. We took her on a road trip for Spring Break and went from Florida to NH to Kansas City to Florida. When we told her she traveled over 4000 miles and saw less than half the country she was stunned.

My wife and I both want to visit USA at some point, but both for different reasons. I want to go to Salt Lake, she wants to go to Disney World. America is too big to see both in one trip! We got family in Utah who says it sucks, and the Salt lake is Gross. Which is not helping to sway the wife to my side.

Yes and no. We have 22 million people in our state so sure, we’ll have more bad apples than Iowa or West Virginia. We also love our freedom down here. When I go to Rockville (a large music festival) you’ll see people crowd surfing and moshing holding signs that “ban” both activities. Also, Tampa and Miami are known for wild parties, especially when our sports teams win . So do we like to party? You betcha. We also have all types of people down here. Florida is enormous and the cultures are very different in this state. You’ll have small town kids who have never left the county (true) living in the same state as the typical cosmopolitan elitist in Miami, Jacksonville, etc. Not to mention we have academics in world class universities, rich athletes, poor people, Cuban migrants, old people…. So, if you come to Florida thinking all of wrestle alligators, commit felonies, and live in trailers you’ll be very disappointed. On a personal note, no, I’m not a Florida man. I can’t change a tire, have never been arrested for a felony, attacked an alligator or rescued kayakers from an upcoming hurricane. Sorry bro.

I had always assumed it was an artistic replica of the Liahona, not a real life item. Very cool.

Good point. @Carborendum's response has good points as well.

I believe this is a semantic argument. From a layman's perspective, that is essentially all it was. Consider the following. DIFFERENCES From your link: I don't see a whole lot here that says that it was any different from the common flu in any meaningful sense. From a practical perspective, it was a severe flu. You can pick nits all you want. And you'd probably be right. But from a layman's perspective of the effects for over 90% of the population, these items listed above indicate that the effects we see as patients resemble the flu with heightened levels of severity in several ways. And the level of severity is not sufficient to really treat this with much more scrutiny than a common influenza virus. These are good points. But they are outliers. They primarily affect those who already have health issues especially those who are already hospitalized. And some claim that was only for people who got the vaccine. (This is unconfirmed, of course. But we really don't know.) But the flu also causes more dangerous symptoms in the elderly and those who are already weakened or hospitalized. But the "more symptoms" are simply "different". Whether they are "more deadly" is part of my conceding that it was a "stronger than average level." These few differences may or may not be enough to induce the average person to consider additional protocols. But I consider the shutdown of the entire world to be overkill. And the grift that ran rampant throughout the entire era is enough for me to say: That was too much! Wouldn't it be great if it were possible to actually get the real numbers of deaths and hospitalizations so we could compare? That would tell us volumes about how much of it was hype and how much was necessary. But because of the way they funded everything, the level of grift during those years caused it to be greatly exaggerated. So, we may never know.

Also probably the very tall quakers from the moon. If you want to figure out who the English man is. Get a Welshman, Scottish man and Irish man in a room with an English man, and the English one will be sat in the corner while the others point and laugh.

That’s cool. I get the British confused with the Irish. The Scots. The Welsh. Those from Jupiter.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Florida jokes make us cry. All the way to Disney. 😜

Same invasive thing in the US!

I have some thoughts on this concept of "Same 10 people" In my ward at least, it is 100% the case. The current Bishopric, YW presidency, EQ presidency and Primary presidency are all comprised of not just the same 10 people, but the same family (This happens to be my wife's family, so I guess I'm also part of the same 10 people). This is a serious issue in our ward, and I'm not sure how much of it is other people rejecting callings, or if it is uninspired nepotism. From studying the addiction recovery steps I've come into some uncomfortable truths. For those who don't know, each step in the ARP has a purpose, and the chapters consist of a general description of what you can expect while working on this step. A section of Action points (changes you can implement in your life right now) and a study and understanding section, which gives each step grounding the scriptures. I'm currently on step 6 which is to have a "change of heart." One of the action points is to build connections with people at Church. Which is something I've struggled with lately. I happen to be on the inner circle of that "same 10 people" and at times it has lead to some toxic attitudes. The more you see nobody else accept a call, run an activity, or even help to clean up after the activity, it begins to feel less and less like service, and more like a joke is being played. This is not the only issue, other members of the ward tend to criticise the family for hogging leadership positions, or being too insular, which then leads to resentment among the family, and other members of the ward. What's worse is there doesn't seem to be a clear path out of this current situation. I remember when our current bishop was called and people groaned, which was a tad cruel. I think the point I'm trying to make is the "Same 10 people" syndrome, leads to toxic attitudes of entitlement and resentment, and should be avoided wherever possible. But it is also not the fault of the same 10 people to some extent. The Elders Quorum and Bishopric are both callings that come from Stake, and so the Stake should try its best to help break up the cycle, because for people trapped in it, it's exhausting. There is one man in the family, who attends church now, but won't take the sacrament, won't accept an assignment or calling and won't socialise, because he feels he has been taken advantage of and treated improperly from spending years on what I call "the calling merry-go-round"

Is the Florida man stereotyping at all accurate?

Seems like a good tool for Youth Sunday school lessons or family home evening to be honest.

Just because even ending in a cliffhanger this thread deserves another read, I'll add this addendum... Since the Henry desktop vacuum (see previous comment) apparently sucks (because it doesn't suck), I got this orange cat desktop vacuum instead, which is fabulous! I use it to pick up eraser dust. It also picks up cat hair off the desk, but not off paper - very annoying how cat hair appears to be designed to glue itself to paper. Battery lasts forever, despite daily use.