D.T. Krippene

~ Searching for Light in the Darkness

D.T. Krippene

Category Archives: The Humor Zone

Villainous Nyms and Roller Derby Girls

29 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by dtkrippene in On Writing, The Humor Zone

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Aptronyms, Charactonyms, International Rollergirls, Roller Derby Names, Villainous Name

Roller Derby 7 Wildhart Studios

Art by Wildhart Studios

I was looking for some good villain names the other day, and stumbled across an article I wrote in April 2014 (amazing what one forgets). I checked the analytics and found it to be one of the more popular articles I’d written, and worthy of a shameless reblog. It may not spark an evil nym for you, but it isn’t for lack candidates from the women of Roller Derby. 

 

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Everybody loves a good villain, even better, a good villain name.  To find a villain name that over time becomes a trademark of evil, the very mention of which instills a chill, is every author’s dream. Hannibal Lector, Darth Vader, Count Dracula, Cruella De Vil, Freddy Kruegar, Dr. Doom, Adolf Hitler – to name but a very few. Marvel and DC comics popularized pseudonyms to associate functional similarities like, Magneto, Dr. Octopus, Mystique, Joker, or Blackheart.

For me, the most inventive process of nomenclature for faux villains are pseudonyms used by Roller Derby girls with altered famous names, such as aptronyms – a name that matches the occupation of its owner, or charactonyms – a name suggesting a distinctive trait.

Everyone has his or her favorite name play-on-words. Rusty Bucket, Crisp E. Bacon, Solomon I. Lands, Dee Lyn Quint. One of my favorite primary school jokes of a fake library book: 50 Steps to the Outhouse, by Willy Makit; Illustrated by Betty Wont. Sophomoric for sure, but we loved it. Example of an aptronym could be Sally Blizzard – Meterologist, or an auto salesman with the name, Henry Ford Carr. Charactonym examples are more common, like Mistress Quickly, Dr. Horrible, or the famous Long John Silver.

Leave it to a once obscure sport to reset the bar on villainous name selection. If you’ve never watched women’s Roller Derby, you’ve been deprived. A main stay for us kids kept indoors on a midwinter Saturday afternoon when television had only four channels, it’s like speed skating with the aggressiveness of hockey and pro-wrestling. What makes the game even more fun is the cornucopia of pseudonyms used by the players. 

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Still Pining for the Old Days?

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by dtkrippene in The Humor Zone

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Holiday Fun, Holiday Humor, Remembering Christmas Past, Vintage Advertisements

xmas-vintage-b

After surviving this past year’s extended edition of the Barnum & Bailey/Nintendo reality game, Jumbo the Elephant versus Donkey Kong, I decided to substitute my usual introspective, holiday missive with a festive infusion of humor.  I thought a trip down memory lane of what used be considered acceptable holiday advertising in days gone by might fit the bill.  I’m a big fan of vintage advertisements, and follow a few Pinterest pages dedicated to it. I was born in the early fifties, and some ads invoke warm flashbacks of when I was a tyke (and no, I didn’t ride horseback to school, we had cars). We had a different mindset inherited from the earliest days of the twentieth-century. Looking back, some of those ads now have me ROTFL.

Back in 2012, I was asked to guest post a holiday article to cheer folks up during difficult economic times. I blew the dust off it, and added a couple more graphics.

To quote a cigarette campaign from 1968, “We’ve come a long way baby.”  Enjoy.

Original Guest Blog Post – Blame it On The Muse, December 12, 2012

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xmas-vintage-d

Many folks long for the good old days, especially holidays filled with nostalgic childhood memories of crackling hearth fires, and family gathered around a decorated, live-cut tree. Mom served eggnog in her new apron. Dad lit up a Lucky in his favorite chair. The kids wore their Sunday finest, jiggling with impatience for Santa to come.

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Happy Hallothanksgivingmas

16 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by dtkrippene in The Humor Zone

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Holiday Cooking, Holiday Humor, holidays, Humor, Thanksgiving, Writing Distractions

Woman with a Christmas Turkey thanksgiving

From: DepositPhotos.com

Did anybody notice I missed October?  Who could tell? When I went into Walmart a few weeks ago to get some Halloween treats, the seasonal aisles had Christmas decorations. I found broken bags of candy in a bin near the exit.  What’s that all about?

Hey, I’ve been chin-deep in a sci-fi story. Went upstairs the other day to refresh my caffeine drip and discovered October had come and gone. I didn’t even put out a pumpkin.  All those damn doorbell chimes a couple weeks back?  I thought they were church solicitors with an urgent need to save my soul. The Halloween candy I bought is still on the counter. I’m surprised my front door didn’t get egged.

thanksgiving-9

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Writing Life

30 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by dtkrippene in On Writing, The Humor Zone

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Tags

AncestryDNA, Annual Letters, Family Roots, Geneology, Marion Roach, Memoirs, Writing, Writing Memories

Lots of old black-and-white photos

From: V. Niktenko – Depositphotos.com

A social group I belong asked a while back if I’d offer a few tips about writing an autobiography. Who me?  I’m more into making things up in fiction. Couldn’t think of a worse candidate for the job.

I have an elderly relative who loves to tell stories of his youthful escapades, over and over and over, infinitum. He’s not a bad story teller, and it isn’t the repetition that gets me. It’s an overwhelming fear that I will end up doing the same thing when I reach the golden years (or is it platinum, now that we’re all supposed to live thirty years on average after retirement?). Oh, and his epilogue after each tale, where he insists his life would make a great story. “I should write it”, he’d say. “My autobiography would make a great book.”

life-old-man

From: Pinterest

Cue in scene: Honey, it’s getting late.

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Song of Fire and Smoke

31 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by dtkrippene in The Humor Zone

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

BBQ, Grilling, Humor, Prehistoric Carnivores, Smoking, Summer Memories

From: Ampack - Depositphotos.com

From: Ampack – Depositphotos.com

It’s August, and that time of year when I walk away from the word processor, kick back, and spend quality time with my two grills and smoker.

Yo DT, shouldn’t you be adding pages to that sci-fi story you’re stuck on.

Damned muse. Always giving me shit when I’m not focused on important stuff – like finishing the book. Annoying little bastard, but easily silenced with a couple cocktails and fibbing that it’s world building research for a dystopian tale I’ve been trying to finish since last year. Or was it the year before?

Exactly when humans began to burn meat over fire remains controversial. Scientists originally believed the early meat eaters ate sushi style, fresh off the bone, and didn’t start barbequing until 800,000 years ago. Then in 2012, a South African Primatologist examined evidence from the Wonderwerk Cave, where sediments revealed presence of burned bone in a campfire over a million years old. Sure hope it wasn’t a fellow hominid.

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My Big, Fat Mediaphile Life

25 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by dtkrippene in Social Media, The Humor Zone

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Cable Programming, Facebook, James Poneiwozik, Media Overload, Mediaphile, Pinterest, Smartphones, Social Media, Time Magazine, Twitter, Visual Media Addiction

From: Bicubic - DepositPhotos.com

From: Bicubic – DepositPhotos.com

Are you a media-phile?  I’ll bet you are and don’t even know it.  What’s a “mediaphile”? Someone who has the same excitement for pop culture media as a bibliophile has for books.  No, it’s not just TV stuff like America Has Talent or Game of Thrones, it’s all the “screen” time we spend on TVs, smart phones, audio streaming, gaming, and social media, which may or may not include the aforementioned programs.

When I read James Poniewozik’s, The Paradox of Television’s New Golden Age, and You Don’t Have Time to Watch it; (Time Magazine, The View, June 22, 2015), it had me pause for introspection.  Am I a mediaphile?  I mean, sure, I do social media, check emails on my smart phone, chill out with a few tunes and stare at nothing, watch a little TV at night. The suffix –phile, seems rather extreme, like foodophiles, Potterphiles, or spermophiles (okay you pottyminded-philes, it’s not what you think; see below).  Mediaphile conjures visions of attending weekly Media Anonymous intervention meetings.  Hi, my name is DT. I’m a mediaphile. Of which fellow participants somberly greet, Hi DT, followed by a reminder to turn off our smart phones.  Sidebar questions like Have you seen the last three episodes American Horror Story, are greatly discouraged.

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Your Shirt Just Ratted You Out

27 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by dtkrippene in Future Trends, Sci-Fi Themes, The Humor Zone

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Biomedical Monitoring, Remote Patient Monitoring, Remote Telemetry, Textile Telemetry

From: Whitenoise - Depositphotos.com

From: Whitenoise – Depositphotos.com

Thinking back at all the science fiction I’ve read over the years, real-time biomedical telemetry is rarely a major theme in the story line.  Dr. Leonard McCoy of Star Trek fame pioneered scanning tools with computer assisted diagnostic tech, all so he can report:     He’s dead, Jim.

Sure, a few stories touched on “vitals” monitoring.    He’s still dead, Jim.   

Intelligent pills have already hit the test market, ready and able to snitch on you from the inside. Now, scientists have developed textiles that can monitor and transmit wearer’s biomedical info (Sparkonit, December 2014).  If you thought privacy was an issue with smart phones, wait until the healthcare industry starts insisting on textiles with biomedical remote telemetry.

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A Little Progress On My Wish List

04 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by dtkrippene in Future Trends, The Humor Zone

≈ Comments Off on A Little Progress On My Wish List

Tags

Best Inventions of 2014, Future Trends, Futuristic Life, Futuristic Transit, Science Fiction, Time Magazine

From: DepositPhotos.com

From: DepositPhotos.com

Last year about this time, I waxed curmudgeonly on Things I’m Still Waiting For, like interplanetary ion drives, flying cars, hover boards, to mention a few.  Time magazine’s recent Best Inventions of 2014 review, has some interesting items for consideration.

First out of the chutes is a real-life hover board, not unlike the one I drooled over in the movie Back to the Future. Not exactly the fly anywhere version Michael J. Fox used, but it’s a start.  We’re still shooting objects into space via 1950’s style ballistic missiles, but it’s getting cheaper.  India just parked a satellite in Mars orbit for the paltry sum of $74 million.  Hell, that’s less expensive than retiling the old Space Shuttle.  Fossil fuel sourced energy is more popular than ever, but Lockheed’s development of a High-Beta Fusion Reactor, just might get us closer to the holy grail of nuclear fusion.  Molecular X-Rays (images of body at molecular level) might bring Dr.McCoy of Star Trek, back in vogue. The humanitarian invention of the year is a filtration system that scrubs Ebola virus from the blood stream.

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Are You Going To Eat That?

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by dtkrippene in Musing, The Humor Zone

≈ Comments Off on Are You Going To Eat That?

Tags

Holiday Humor, Overeating, Prehistoric Diets, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Table

From: DepositPhotos.com

From: DepositPhotos.com

Diehards nationwide are lining up to run in the holiday Turkey Trot.  Imagine a marathon of a different kind.  Participants hop about like caged rabbits on too much caffeine, flabs of steel barely contained by Kevlar reinforced spandex. It’s a record crowd of sumo wrestler contestants with tattooed contest numbers emblazoned on their foreheads, waiting for the starting gun for this year’s Blubber Trot.  First hundred finishers get to be first in line at the communal Horn-of-Plenty table.  Those who don’t finish, have to watch Hunger Games 3 without popcorn. Paying spectators will be allowed wander the leftover carnage and ask, “Are you going to eat that?”

It’s my annual humorous take on what I blithely refer to as the advent of blubber season (see last year’s article, Tis the Season to be Gluttonous).  The holiday season is like no other time of the year.  We dust off the George Bailey personality left in a drawer from last year, greet everyone like family, and gorge like our prehistoric forbearers did when they felled a mammoth.  Would you like leg meat or trunk? 

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Just Ctl – Alt – Delete Me

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by dtkrippene in Social Media, The Humor Zone

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Computers and the Elderly, Internet Frustration, IPhones, Password Insanity, Technologically Challenged

From: DesignPicsInc - DepositPhoto.com

From: DesignPicsInc – DepositPhoto.com

“Grandpa, No. Double click the Internet Explorer icon, then download the updated App. That should fix it.”

 

This is supposed to be the time I help the younger generation, drawing on lessons from decades of life experience. Unfortunately, I’m too busy trying to keep up with ever changing technology, code words that come with it, and service websites that have become minefields of ineptitude.  Synchronizing the new TV to the internet requires a college course on WiFi gobbledygook. My cell phone is about as intuitive as programming a satellite launch. Passwords now require mixed characters. Took a month to set up my website, and I used a preexisting template on WordPress, but why do I have to learn HTML code?  Don’t get me started on widgets.

I know, we’ve been down this road before (see Texting – Conversational Spam), but technology and the software it comes with, is supposed to make life easier, not drive us to excessive use of pharmaceuticals. No, it’s not a sign of my age, wishing for a simpler life.  It’s that embarrassing call to kids still in diapers, to sheepishly ask for advice when things go haywire.

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About DT

dtkrippene

dtkrippene

A native of Wisconsin and Connecticut, DT deserted aspirations of being a biologist to live the corporate dream and raise a family. After seven homes, a ten-year stint working in Asia, and an imagination that never slept, his muse refused to be hobbled as a mere dream. A member of the Bethlehem Writers Group and Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, DT writes apocalyptic science fiction, paranormal, and parallel universe science fantasy. DT has published several short stories. “Hell of a Deal”, in the paranormal collection, Untethered, and most recently, “Man’s Best Friend”, in the 2021 Best Indie Book for Fiction, Fur, Feathers, and Scales. He also appeared in the Write Here – Write Now short story collection with his middle-grade paranormal, “Locker 33C”. An active member of the Bethlehem Writers Group, he’s been a featured author in the BWG Writers Roundtable Magazine, and will appear in the July 2021 Summer Issue with “Hot as Sin”. His latest project is an apocalyptic tale of humans on the edge extinction, and a young man born years after surviving humans had been rendered sterile. You can find D.T. on his website, Searching for Light in the Darkness, and his social media links on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

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