Win some free business cards!

I received an email last week from a guy who works at allbusinesscards.com, asking if I'd like to give away some free product. I figured, sure! Why not? Who doesn't love free product?

But then he pointed out that I would have to come up with some way to decide WHO to give the free product TO, and so I started thinking. And I came up with this -- a little contest where the top 3 winners will receive a totally free set of 500 business cards.

I used to think that since I didn't work in corporate any more, I didn't need business cards. But then I had some made up for my book, and I thought they were pretty nifty. So don't downplay the card. Even if you're between jobs, you could always have some printed to read, "YOUR NAME: MAJOR BADASS" if you so chose.

Anyway, on to the actual contest and, duh, winning!

We're going to have ourselves a little naming contest. I enjoy seeing names that are plays on words or parodies of celebrities. This is why so many of the sign-offs in Learn Me Good are like that.

A few that I used in my book:

Val Yumm
Gene Yuss
Darth Grader
Mike Rosoft
Sal Monilla
M. C. Hammurabi

In my Work in Progress, I'll be using these:

Willie Maykit
Ben Afflactose
Add 'em Ant

So here's how you can win those cards. Submit your funny names in the comment section of this post. In keeping with my total modesty, I shall henceforth refer to these funny names as LMG names.

I'm looking at a calendar now, and I am arbitrarily selecting May 7th as the end date for entries. So on or around May 7th, I will select the 5 or 6 LMG names that I think are the best, and I'll put them up for a vote from you, the readers. The top 3 vote getters will win the business cards. By the way, the cards are completely free, and UPS ground shipping will be paid for as well. As long as you live in Canada or the US. Sorry, rest of world.

I should also say that by submitting an LMG name on this site, you are relinquishing any rights to that name, and granting me full permission to actually use that name in my upcoming book without bugging for future royalties in perpetuity. Though if I do use the name, I will happily credit you in the intro, thus granting you future fame in perpetuity (at least with the handful of people that will read the book).

Let the names begin!

What a spork!

Mrs. Math, another 3rd grade teacher, was sitting next to me at a meeting in the cafeteria the other day, and she directed my attention to a box of supplies sitting over in the corner. She said, "See if you can guess what my kids were calling each other today."

I scanned the printing on the box -- Napkins, cups, black sporks, trays.

Would you believe I guessed correctly? The kids were calling each other "black sporks!"

These kids will grab at anything to put each other down!

Well kids, if you are reading, here are a couple more suggestions of nasty names to call each other to REALLY burn:

Late Homework
Yellow Highlighter
Sticky Note
TELPAS Rater
Dirty Overhead Transparancy
Adopted Curriculum
Cum Folder

What's up with these names??

Saw a story from last Friday out of New Zealand about one of those odd names that actually was rejected by a court of law!

A married couple who was apparently born without pride, dignity, or basic common sense named their daughter "Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii." A Family Court judge in New Zealand made the nine-year-old girl (who was so embarrassed by her name that she told people to call her "K") a ward of the courts in order to change her name after a lengthy custody battle.

As a result, her name was changed to "My Name Was Legally Changed in Court." No, I'm kidding; the paper did not list her new name.

I have to say, this judge really did this little girl a service. Besides the embarrassment of her ridiculous name, just think about the other things he saved her from:

She'll never have to try to squeeze that long name onto a Best Buy employee badge.

When she marries a guy named Chad whose last name is Johnson Rides the Wave Boo Yah! her name will merely be long instead of ludicrously long.

Her hand will be less likely to cramp when signing autographs as a former child celebrity.

My question is, why aren't there more judges like this New Zealander??? We've got plenty of whacked out names here in the states! Why doesn't anyone else in a position of legal authority seemed to recognize "the very poor judgment which this child's parents have shown in choosing this name."

The article listed several other that have been approved by registration officials. These names are as follows:

Fish and Chips

Keenan got Lucy (when I first read that, I thought it said Keenan got Lucky)

Violence

Sex Fruit (these parents should be buried in a coffin under 6 feet of dirt)

Yeah Detroit

and my personal favorite -- Number 16 Bus Shelter

Call me Ishmael?

I've had an influx of new students over the past couple of weeks, but so far the best story to tell has to do with the one who showed up today.

Normally, when I post about kids here, I replace any and all names with the letter A. That just won't work for the purposes of this story, so I'll call this new boy Kevin. Kevin comes to us from a nearby school, and his arrival has been foretold for over a month. My partner, Miss Jenn Ed, had an ARD involving him last week, just so we could be prepared for his situation.

Several times, I've heard Kevin referred to as Kev by the teachers discussing him, so today, when I saw him in my line in the morning, I said, "Hi! You must be Kev!"

One of my other kids, A, immediately corrected me -- "Kevin!" So I asked the new kid, "What do you prefer to be called, Kevin or Kev?"

He mulled it over and told me, "Well, sometimes people call me Kevin, and some people call me Kev. But my real name is Bartholomew. My mom just likes how Kevin sounds."

Not once had I heard the name "Bartholomew" mentioned in any discussions about this kid, so I had my suspicions. I asked him, "What should I call you -- Kevin or Kev?"

He replied, "Bartholomew."

OK, we have a winner. For the next 10 minutes, I called him Bartholomew. "Bartholomew, do you have a pencil?" "Bartholomew, come and get a breakfast." "Did you do division at your old school, Bartholomew?"

At about quarter after eight, one of the special ed teachers dropped by to see how the new kid was doing. When I told her about the name change, her mouth dropped, and she took him out into the hallway to talk with him. A couple of minutes later, they came back into my classroom, and the little boy said to me with a sheepish grin, "You can call me Kev now."

Oooooookay...

If this happens again tomorrow, I might just make my own executive decision and start calling him the Hamburger.

Pimp My Name

You don't have to be a teacher nowadays to realize that many people in this great world of ours just can't handle the responsibility of naming a child. So many parents have taken to "tricking up" their baby's name -- choosing something that strikes their fancy, or that they think is "totally wicked awesome!"

Exhibit A – Kal-el Cage
Exhibit B – Apple Paltrow (Or is it Apple Martin? Or is that too close to Apple Martini?)
Exhibits C-E -- Any of Bruce Willis's kids.

But of course celebrities are not the only guilty party here. We get our fair share of kids at school named after luxury cars or royalty, or those with very inventive uses for the apostrophe.

So it occurred to me that with this increasing trend of parents naming their kids after things they like with no thought whatsoever as to the fact that it is indeed their child who will be forced to bear the burden of that name for the rest of his or her life, or at least until the age of 18 (deep breath) -- I think I have some idea of what names we can expect to start showing up in kindergarten classes in just a few years.

"Kal-el Cage" is just one example of a child named after a popular movie character. I expect we'll soon have classes that include at least one Legolas, Gimli, or Frodo. Of course, at MY school, it would be La’Frodo.

Free elements will no doubt make a strong entrance. Zirconium -- Zirc to his friends -- will be a popular boy's name, while Moly (short for Molybdenum) will be the hot new girl's name.

Expect Mazda and Isuzu to overtake Lexus and Porscha in the race for “kewl” monikers.

In about three years, here's the typical class roll call I expect to see:

Soduku
Jenny
Eowen
Jeauxsyff
All-in
McSteamy
da Vinci
Lauren
Magneto
Jar-Jar
Brittney
Cylon
Advil
Toyota
Kimberly
Nemo
Pyramid
Johnny.com
Catherine
Samsung
Rubidium

I can't wait!!