My poker teammate @davor27 on the DJC Team (along with @jsock we bring war to the @spl, in case you didn't know) hit me up for the steemit name challenge. Since he is a great teammate when he isn't hitting trip queens against my pocket cowboys I accepted.

As I understand the rules, I'm supposed to fess up to my real name and explain what my steemit handle means. So let's get started.

My Real Name

Some people don't like to hand out their real names here, but I don't care it's already in my blog homepage. Kris Schafer. I was blessed by my parents with a name I have to spell out to everyone. It usually goes like this: Kris, no with a K not a Ch. Schafer, no one f and a c before the h, only one e, no I have no relation to the Schaefer brewery, if I did I would be rich and I wouldn't bother talking to you. Something like that.

My mother chose Kris with a K because she liked the singer/actor Kris Kristofferson. Isn't it ironic I think his music sucks? She should have named me Ozzy, that would have been awesome.

My Steemit Name

So now we move on to my steemit handle, @chops316. We have two parts here, chops and 316. Each have their own story. Prepare to be astounded or bored. I'm leaning towards bored, but don't let my opinion influence you.

Chops

I picked up the nickname Chops way back in the early 90's when I was in college. No, I am not a black belt in karate. No, I don't work for the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Yes, I have heard both of those guesses in the past.

In the days of my youth I decided to grow some sideburns. Not wimpy little things like those shits on Beverly Hills 90210, majestic manly sideburns. The kind of sideburns that let people know you don't care what they think. The kind of sideburns that tell people you came to drink beer and fight, and you're almost out of beer. The kind of sideburns that say 70's Elvis was the best Elvis.

That's right, Pork Chop Sideburns.

Inspirations

Ozzy during his Black Sabbath days. That's the kind of roll model you should be naming your kids after.

Quint from the movie Jaws. Quint knew how to grow sideburns and how to drink a beer. Jaws is one of my favorite movies and Robert Shaw owned this role.





There's a reason this man was known as the "King". He knew how to rock some sideburns.

Lemmy. That's all that needs to be said.

Andre The Giant. Feel free to tell him you don't care for his sideburns. Then take your beating like a man.

When you sport sideburns like that, you are going to pick up some nicknames. Porkchops was the one that stuck, eventually it came to be shortened to chops. Or if you are one of my friends' kids Uncle Chops. My actual nieces and nephew don't use that name, I wished they would.

Right now I got the full beard going. It's been a long winter, so if I don't trim it soon people are going to think I'm homeless or touring with ZZ Top. I haven't made my mind up yet if I'm going keep the beard this summer or just the chops. What I do know is it's a man's duty to have at least some facial hair and I haven't been completely clean shaven since 1995. I foolishly shaved for a job interview I didn't end up getting anyway. Man was I dumb back then.

316

On to the second part, 316. My friends started calling me chops around the same time the world wide web was coming into our lives. Naturally I used chops as my name for various internet shenanigans. The problem was chops is a fairly common nickname, so I had to add something to it. Usually it was 17, because I was born on the 17th. I never really liked chops17, I don't know why. But then I was called by the voice of God.

The God of Pro Wrestling

Stone Cold Steve Austin

I was a huge wrestling fan growing up, but by the early 90's the WWF was a goofy cartoon and I lost interest. Then I discovered a little wrestling promotion operating out of Philadelphia called ECW. Blood and guts wrestling. I became a fan again.

Vince McMahon isn't stupid, he saw the success ECW was having on the small stage so he adapted it to his company. One of the ECW wrestlers he brought in was Stone Cold Steve Austin. He lost points for not having sideburns, but he could drink beer and kick ass so he was alright with me.

Austin's career took off when he gave one of the greatest promos in wrestling history at the King of the Ring in 1996. He "won" (yes I know wrestling isn't real, I like it anyway) the event by beating Jake "The Snake" Roberts. At that time Roberts claimed to be born again and used religion in some of his promos. So Austin took his angle and turned it on him.

"The first thing I want to be done is to get that piece of crap out of my ring. Don't just get him out of the ring, get him out of the WWF, because I proved, son, without a shadow of a doubt, that you ain't got what it takes anymore! You sit there, and you thump your Bible, and you say your prayers, and it didn't get you anywhere. Talk about your Psalms, talk about John 3:16 - AUSTIN 3:16 SAYS I JUST WHIPPED YOUR ASS!"

I thought that was one of the funniest damn things I ever heard in my life. Still do. I don't care for religion (if you do that's fine, but it's not for me) so I got a kick out of the blasphemous rant. From then on chops17 became chops316. Been that way ever since.

If you are still reading, I hope you found some entertainment or at least some knowledge of where my steemit name came from. You can call me Kris if you like, I do answer to it, but all my friends call me Chops. Good thing I always liked it because after 25 (man I'm getting old) years I don't think it's going anywhere.