edi was actually my second choice. I remember going down to the bowels of the communications center, filling out a form, and then handing it in, only to be told that 'avatar' was already taken. I sat there in the concrete hallway for a few minutes, trying to figure out an alternate login name, not wanting to trek all the way up from Oakes again.

I can remember the smell of that hallway for some reason, and I remember staring at all of the computer login forms they had hanging in the hallway.

In a desperate moment, I stole someone else's bbs alias. jedi originally was a bbs handle of one of my friends back in high school, and I thought was a fairly cool alias. So on a lark I asked them to look up jedi. They turned their back to me, looked up account names in a large ream of paper, and told me (much to my surprise) that jedi was available. So I took it.

In my sophomore year, I switched my account from jedi to something else, kept it like that for about a week, and then switched it back.

This might be contrary to popular belief, but I wasn't a Star Wars fanatic. I was a fan, sure. There were elements of The Force that aligned with my own personal belief system. And who in their right mind hasn't wanted to be a swashbuckling hero wielding a large, glowing, humming blade of energy?

But anyway, that's the story. I would love to claim that it was an original idea, or it reflected some old nickname of mine, but it was really a copycat situation. It ended up reflecting fairly well on me in the end I think.