Why 'dremu'?

Many years ago, the nerdherd I hung out in plotted and connived to do clever things with the Apple ]['s in the math lab at school -- as I said, many years ago. One trick was set the computers to sing songs (well, beep tunelessly) or display silly messages ("MISS SIMMS IS A TURNIP".) As we learned better coding (and after careful timing with a stopwatch) we were able to make messages bounce from one computer to the next, across the wall, then back again. Later we devised more elegant solutions which would wait until the next class period before singing and scrolling nonsense across the marquee.

One of these messages read "DRINK DR EMU", like Dr. Pepper, but with no pepper, and no period, and an emu. For reasons entirely unclear to all involved, I adopted that name as my online ID.

Please note I have no association with the domain of that name -- and in fact, no desire whatsoever to determine where, exactly, on the emu they get emu oil. I'd rather look on the ox for oxnards. Eww.

The bit about "...no pepper..." reminds me of of a comment I once made which, as I recall, worked out to "It's like a modem and a door, only there's no modem, and no door." Which, while being accurate in its description of whatever telnet BBS remote access I had in mind, is rather prescient of The Matrix. "What you must remember, Neo, is there is no door..."

As opposed to the time I walked into a room full of nerds and girlfriends, and blithely announced "Sometimes I have this urge..." and then proceeded to walk out again, thinking about something completely other. (Come to think, I never did find out what the urge was. I do wish people would tell me these things.)

and why the monkey?

Too many re-runs of 1975's "Return Of The Pink Panther", perhaps. ("But he is YOUR mihnke.") Actually, it all started when our then-Toshiba sales rep brought me this giant stuffed monkey at work to liven up my office. It is neon green and ... well, it garners attention quickly. As I tend to do things thoroughly, I soon had quite a collection of stuffed monkeys in my office, some of which were dressed.

I even got one batch dressed in Hawaiian shirts and khaki cargo shorts, my preferred summer clothing. I got them in the wintertime, however, and completely forgot about them. The rest are furry enough that their nakedness didn't bother anyone. In any event, one day I came to work and the guy across the hall, Ickybill, was laughing hysterically because I was dressed JUST like my monkey. It wasn't intentional ... just happened to work out that I had a Hawaiian and shorts to match my furry little friend.

So the requisite picture was called for. As Ickybill and I searched the hallways for a reasonably blank space to take the photo, the resident poof came sashaying down the hall. (He's a great guy, but he is SOOO flammable :) He took one look at the fashion faus pax unfolding before him, put his hands on his hips, and declared:

"That's just wrong. Capital R-O-N-G-E wrong!"

After we'd all finished laughing, Ickybill took the picture of me and off we went. This led to a continued series of photos -- to wit, the blue one -- and later a picture of me whacking the green monkey on the rear ("spanking my monkey") and so forth. Ahh, the fun that only geeks have.

And since caricatures of motivational posters are popular, here's a couple: