Ob1shinobi - What's with the name?

I'm on a very boring conference call with GE. I am trying not to scratch my poison ivy. My wife is home for the summer and I'm hating the fact that I don't have summer break with her.

So anyway I thought I'd throw up a quick post to explain the URL, ob1shinobi.blogspot.com. The "ob1" in the name is a play on words for Obi-Wan, as in Obi-Wan Kenobi. I'm a pretty big Star Wars fan and having some reference in there is just a reflection of me. The "ob1" actually started with stand-up video games and the recording of high scores.

In most stand-up video games the player is regulated to only three characters when they are adding their high score to the high score records for a particular video game. Normally the player is limited to letters and numbers - occasionally special characters. As a child I would sign in as "EEE" but later I started signing in as "OB1". And it's stuck with me over the years.

The "shinobi" is an homage to the old stand-up arcade game of the same name, Shinboi. It was a game in which you play a ninja rescuing hostages and whooping ass. I liked it a lot and it seemed to be wherever I hung out. A dear friend of mine who passed away also loved the game and I still hold onto a very fond memory of the two of us pumping quarters into a Shinobi machine one night while the rest of the youth group ate at Mr. Gatti's.

And finally if you say the whole thing, "ob1shinobi", is sounds like Obi-Wan Kenobi - again illustrating my fandom for Star Wars. Yep, I'm a dork.