MetaFilter

Joined: March 10, 2007

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

My username is a tribute to the hurdy-gurdy girls of the 19th century gold rush town of Barkerville, British Columbia. The hurdy-gurdies were a tough bunch of women and I admire them.

-----

I've said before if we could have favourites folders on MeFi, I'd have one called "to restore faith in humanity." Here are some of the posts I'd put in that folder:

• Today you, tomorrow me.
  
• there's only one rule that I know of, babies
  
• A man throws a Fourth of July BBQ every year open to everyone, to promote diverse community and fellowship.
  
• Mohamed Bzeek is a foster father who only takes in terminally ill children.
  
• In Providence, RI, people blink lights every evening to say good night to kids in hospital
  
• When Norah Met Mr. Dan: A four year old introduces herself to an 82 year old widower in the grocery store and it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
  
• How relationships with progressive Twitter followers helped Megan Phelps-Roper leave the Westboro Baptist Church
  
• I'm from Metafilter, and I'm here to help. A MeFi member posts a distress call to AskMe and the community mobilizes to find and help him.
  
• What happened when a Peanuts fan wrote to Charles Schultz, asking him to include a black character to help promote racial harmony and diversity
  
• For her 9th birthday party, eamondaly's goddaughter decides to invite guests to a sorting bee to put bags of books together for low-income recipients
  
• Man who has seizure on London street is helped by many good Samaritans and then taken to hospital for head injuries; is later able to reconnect over Twitter/Facebook with the people who helped him
• MetaTalk about the relationship that developed between two MeFites based on cancer research
  
• Danish bus driver receives a surprise on his birthday, deleted because it was a double but still great
  
• the town of Geel, Belgium and their care of the mentally ill
  
• the story of Nicholas Winton, a young British stockbroker who organized the rescue of over 600 Jewish children in Czechoslovakia during WWII
  
• how school secretary Antoinette Tuff talked a young man out of his plans to execute a school shooting
  
• Beautiful examples of Jewish-Muslim unity
  
• Years later, Jonny Benjamin found the man who helped him on the day he tried to commit suicide. This is the story of their reunion and of Benjamin's advocacy around mental health.
  
• At a brutal mass murder scene in 1984, the one survivor was a 13-month-old girl. This is the story of that toddler's 30-year relationship with the police officer assigned to her care that first night.
  
• "We Found Our Son In The Subway": Peter Mercurio's account of how his partner Danny found a baby in the New York subway and they ended up being asked if they wanted to adopt him. (They did.) And an update, 8 years later!
  
• Children's author Eric Carle reunites with his long-lost childhood friend after more than 80 years.
  
• 70 year old dairy farmer remembers his dad's response to having a gay son.
  

-----

I like to buy from Canadian online retailers when possible, but sometimes it's hard to find them. Here are a few from helpful AskMe comments:

Shoes: ShoeMe.ca, Poppy Barley
Women's clothing: FIG Clothing, Ureshii
Chlorophylle
Smoking Lily
Ninety-Eight Clothing (Canada)