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MaxMahem (at) cableone (dot) net

Origins of Max Mahem - July 18, 2006

First Shot With New CameraOnce, long ago, back before even the early days of the Internet, there was a young boy who was just begging to tried the yet still untested waters of BBS services and the like.  Also at the time, some of the coolest games on market (or umm... available on those same BBSs) were the likes of Commander Keen (made by ID before Doom), Duke Nukem (way before the 3D version), or Jazz Jackrabbit.  At that time, that young boy enjoyed those games and idolized their main characters, especially their catchy names.  So when choosing a 'handle' to use on-line, he decided he would use something of the same nature.  After some consideration, he decided that upon the moniker, "Max Mayhem."  This name combined both the alliterative power of Jazz Jackrabbit with the 'noun-descriptor' style name of Commander Keen and Duke Nukem.  The fact that he just become a the proud owner of a wonderful Golden Retriever, whom he named Max might have something to do with it as well.

There was just one problem.  That young boys spelling was terrible (and to be honest has not improved all that much even today).  And so Max Mayhem became the Max Mahem you see today.  This has had its pros and cons.  On the plus side, Max Mahem is generally read as Max Mayhem even though the spelling is incorrect.  A number of people don't even notice the misspelling and take the name as it was originally intended.  On the other hand, Max Mahem is a semi-acceptable handle to give out on professional occasions as it isn't actually Max Mayhem.  Also, no one else on the Internet seems to go by this misspelled handle, so I'm the top hits on Google for "MaxMahem" are all me.  Of course on the con side, people ask the obvious question likes, "Are you an idiot, that isn't how you spell Mayhem."  Which really isn't a question when you think about it.

On the whole I think it is a pretty good handle, and so I have stuck with it.  Lots of other famous on-line personas have stupid handles, like CommanderTaco of Slashdot .  I can't think of any that are misspelled right off hand, but I'm sure they are out there.  In addition, when I play on-line RTS games like Total Annihilation (which I haven't played in years, but used to love), the name can morph into "General Mahem," which is obviously super cool, misspelling aside.  It sounds like some sort of GI Joe name or something, and you really can't get any better than that, now can you.