A couple of preliminaries as I start this thing off.
The picture on this blog is not me. It is the actor Franc Ross, taken from a screen capture of his guest spot on the TV series Firefly. Much more will be said in later entries about that ill-fated series. For the moment, it's enough to say that Firefly was an excellent science-fiction show that was cut down early in it's life by the decisions of short-sighted studio executives. Firefly is now getting a second lease on life through the feature film Serenity, in theaters at the end of September. The sad thing is that the episode Franc Ross appeared in was never aired in the U.S. (it is, however, included on the DVD). I use this picture as my avatar on the fan site Fireflyfans because I really liked the character (even though he only got a few minutes of screen time).
Fireflyfans is also the place where I first started using the nickname SoupCatcher. There was a section of dialogue between Franc Ross' character, Monty, and the main protagonist, Malcolm Reynolds (played by Nathan Fillion) that immediately resonated with me.
Mal: (looks closely at Monty) Something's different.
Monty: (smiles proudly) Yup.
Mal: You look -- there's something --
Monty: (strokes his chin)
Mal: -- the beard! You shaved off the soupcatcher!!
Monty: Yup.
Mal: I thought you were going to take that ugly chin-wig to the grave.
Monty: (chuckles) So did I. But she didn't much like my whiskers...
For most of the past fifteen years I've had facial hair. This has covered the spectrum from pencil-thin-moustache to big-bushy-birds-nest-of-a-beard with much variety in between. Each drastic change to my facial hairstyle (whether through pressure from employers or to please significant others or due to the necessity of appearing clean cut in court) is a traumatic event. Not capital-T traumatic, just a general sort of uncomfortableness. So when I first heard the above exchange I thought, "Hey. I've been there. I'm with you all the way buddy." Since my upper lip and chin was covered by a goodly bit of soup-straining hair at the time, it seemed fitting that I take that word as my nickname.
I eventually got tired of the extra effort required to keep something like that clean and have gone back to a close-cropped goatee. But I think I'll keep the nickname.
So that's that.
