This is a bit convoluted, but here goes. Before the image comes the self. Growing up, I had no nickname. Rashad isn't the easiest name to make a nickname out of. The obvious truncation leads to Rash, which while used occasionally was never meant with the friendly sense of afficionado one might want out of a nickname. On the other end of the name, we have Shad. Now at first glance one might think of fish eggs, however if pronounced as though the Ra was removed, it's not so terrible. The problem being that little children that couldn't say Rashad would often settle on Shad. And while I still have one friend that calls me Shad, it is only because in response I call him Tree, and there is a balance of power in the nicknames. In hindsight, Ra wouldn't have been so bad, since it is a powerful Egyptian goddess, but a bit short, and easily confused.

Enter college. Enter freshman year. Enter one of those nights near the beginning of freshman year when most of the floor is gathered in the lounge having returned from various types of late night mischief. And yet, due to the earliness of the year, we barely know each other. I mean, can we ever REALLY know each other? Of course not, but we hadn't progressed to even that point yet. The topic of nicknames came up, and it was decided to go around in a circle and announce our own nicknames. When the turn came to me I confessed that there was no nickname that had been found acceptable. A brief digression, I forgot one nickname. Ratshit Mammalfood was one particularly poignant name invented near the end of elementary school, but fortunately it did not stick. I return.

The crowd was stumped. How could one not have a nickname? The crowd pondered. The crowd took this vacuum of naminess as a challenge.

Questions were asked.

"What are you like?"

I dunno...

"What's your last name?"

Mahmood

"Who do you look like?"

I dunno...

Now, at the time my hair was halfway down my back, and I had recently returned from a summer at an archaeological summer camp, so American Indians were on the mind. One of my roommates who had gotten to know me a bit better than the crowd volunteered, "Daniel Day Lewis! He looks like Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans."

The crowd pondered some more, and then in a pique of brilliance unmatched throughout the rest of his academic career, a fellow named Ali shouted out, "I have it! The name is Momotiki."

Now, I must admit, that at the time I was not particularly enthusiastic about the name. I was also fairly confident that due to the rather high levels of intoxication present among the crowd (especially Ali, relating to the aforementioned point about later academic performance) that the whole incident would be forgotten. But it wasn't forgotten. In fact, Momotiki soon grew to be a phenomenon greater than merely the self.

One of the girls on the floor soon decided that Momotiki day should be a holiday that conveniently fell on her birthday. But what could this holiday entail. In another brilliant detail, the inventor of which is lost to the sands of time, it was suggested that Momotiki should go throughout the building placing chocolate in the shoes of whomever left shoes outside their dorm room doors. Now, were the resource burden solely upon myself, nothing would come of this. However, Momotiki had the fortune to be Vice President of the dorm's governing council. Now what would be better than the dorm subsidizing chocolate for its residents?

So come momotiki day, there indeed was chocolate in many shoes in Norton hall. And it was good. But the name kept growing. Not only did fellow students use it, but indeed staff began using it. RAs, even the Residence Director himself (the mighty head of the Unit 3 dorms). But of course, with so many people using the name, how could it continue? For Momotiki is polysyllabic and somewhat awkward. So naturally, the nickname became nicknamized to merely Momo. And on the rarest of occasions just Mo.

Now to this day I am certain that there are people that still know me by Momo, that do not even know Momotiki, let alone the name I was given at birth. (Even trickier is that I go by my middle name, so my first name is nearly completely obfuscated by layers of deception and dark magic).

But what in Cthulu's name does all this have to with the image? Well you see, Momo is actually a fairly common name in Japan. It is unfortunately usually a girls name, and an appellation for Momoko. (which happened to be the name of one of the sister's of the aforementioned roommate responsible for the Daniel Day Lewis connection. This was only revealed later) It is also often used as a name for pets. Now, there happens to be a show on Nickelodeon called Avatar: The Last Airbender which I enjoy, and lo and behold, there is a character on the show called Momo. And of course, the character is not a strong and powerful warrior (well occasionally). Nor is Momo a powerful bender (magic user)! Indeed he is merely a flying lemur that is the pet of the mighty Avatar Aang. (Unfortunately not even the favorite pet. That is reserved for the flying six-legged flying Bison Appa. See I told you it was a good show)

Now I can't really put an image of Momo the flying lemur up as my picture. It would reveal that I watch a children's show with some regularity, and that I adore cute things. Which I do, but not to the point of advertising that knowledge. (as an aside, cuteoverload.com is a great site) So how else can I depict Momotiki? Why, with a flying lemure. Far superior to a lemur. It is cute, evil, and the main reason that Magic: The Gathering got an in-house art department.

See explanation here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/arcana/340