Name The Giant Bee

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Name the Giant Bee Contest

Okay beekeepers. When we last left the giant bee in late 2004 - it was a present from Yuri - appreciated and loved but nameless. (And also mistaken several times for a purse because of the way I was carrying it...). So I decided to have a contest to give it a name.

Then the holidays swept me away. And when I say "swept me away" I mean that I made it top priority to eat every cookie that crossed my path. And now we find ourselves in the new year - and there is the bee - loved, appreciated, and yet somehow still nameless... I'll wait until you stop sobbing.

waits. drinks a little soda. resumes typing.

So after mulling it over this is how I've decided the whole thing will go down...
(Major thanks go out to Clayfoot for his help in the organization of this contest btw!)

Use the comment section of this blog to post the following information:

What you think the name of the giant bee should be
One sentence as to why you think that should be the name
Your name (Important!)*
*it doesn't have to be your real name right now - your gamer tag is fine too.

You have until February 7th to do this. After that, I will pick the top 5 names and we'll have a vote on a Condorcet Poll .

The winner will receive a SIGNED COPY of the ILB DVD.
(signed by Kristen Rutherford, Elan Lee and Yuri Lowenthal)

Now, in the spirit of ILB, I think we should do the following. If you win, and you already HAVE a signed copy of the DVD, then you may choose someone that doesn't have one and that you think deserves a copy, and I'll send it to them. If you have a copy - but it's not signed - then you can do one of the following - send me your copy and I'll sign it for you, and tell me who you choose to have the other copy sent to - or - send some deserving soul your unsigned copy once you get your signed copy.

That's it. Happy bee naming and ... well you know I have to...

do not disappoint me.


31 Comments:

At 8:43 PM, Blogger Steve said...

Polly
I think the bee should be named Polly, because it's short for Pollen.
- Steve Holder
- droidiac@gmail.com

 
At 8:03 AM, Blogger Mychal said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 8:05 AM, Blogger Mychal said...

The Pious Bee.
Because it already won the Condorcet Poll on the Unfiction forums, and it just seems so right. :-p
- Urthstripe

 
At 8:07 AM, Blogger Mychal said...

Oh I swear this is the last time. I forget to put my REAL name. It's Mychal Stanley.

 
At 2:08 PM, Blogger thebruce0 said...

hmm.... been thinking of names less along the lines of ILB (an obvious topic), and more towards your interest in dreams... Is it ok if I post a couple of ideas? :)

*First choice/favourite:
-Puck-
Def.: from "A Midsummer Night's Dream", a mischievous fairy (reminiscent of the pious flea too :)

*Close Second:
-Caedmon-
Def.: Saint Caedmon was a 7th-century poet who supposedly received his poetic inspiration from a dream. (it's a nice, cool name, not too 'human' or modern, and the connection to dreams and poetry is clear)

*2 others:
-Morpheus-
Def.: Greek - Bringer of dreams; kind of cliche now, perhaps overused, or too connected to the Matrix;

-Lotus-
Def.: dreamlike, a lotus flower; greek origin. Sounds nifty

 
At 6:15 PM, Blogger Jimmy Slaughter said...

-Family-
I think that this one word can sum up the theme of I Love Bees. It has brought us so close together; as ARG fans, as Halo fans, as friends, as family. It is so hard to describe what I feel in one sentence, but I know that we have all formed new and cherrished relationships because of ILBs.
-Astrovanman, Lt.

 
At 1:14 PM, Blogger hmrpita said...

Zzub Zzub, The Amazing Backwards Flying Bee.

Iruy

Spelling stuff backwards is fun.

Ffuts

 
At 8:18 AM, Blogger rose said...

One of the names of the Sleeping Princess in fairy tales is "Briar Rose"(a direct translation of the German title of the story "Dornroschen") or sometimes "rose." I learned this somewhere in the course of trying to figure out the real name of the Sleeping Princess. So, obviously, I would advance "rose" as a name. :D

Maybe because I now associate the bee with that terrible lie that was told to Yasmine "just a little pinch", it doesn't seem that benign to me.

I suppose naming the bee with an emoticon wouldn't be very user friendly.

1. So how about the "Queen of Neptune" as in "what am I, the friggin' Queen of Neptune" and as was used as greet by catherwood the best operator in #beekeepers. She could always be the "Queen Bee" for short.

2. How about "Billie" or "Ella"- well known for singing "Stormy Weather." I like both versions and can't really choose one.

3. Or we could go back to the ancient Greeks with "penelope", "phryne" or "aspasia" all of these could be considered bee-women, but that may be too literary to sustain.

4. one more, as "perdita" was used in the story of the Clockwork Rat, I would suggest "esperanza" which means hope.

Rose

 
At 12:47 PM, Blogger weephun said...

1 - A vote for "the Queen" from me.
Why?
I think I will always think of you now more as "the Princess" than the Op, and as "you" said "yourself":
"as long as the Queen lives, the Princess can never die". Sappy? YES, but it seems to work the best for me.

 
At 3:19 PM, Blogger Shadow said...

Bigby. 'Cos it's a big bee.

(Oh, ha, ha. Gosh, I'm sooooooo funny.)

 
At 5:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about Waffles?

-Dragonrider (with a little side of imagination :P )

 
At 11:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOONCHIIIIIIIIIILD!!!

~superjerms

 
At 9:56 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yay! Anonymous posting! I was getting worried that I was going to have to set up a blogger account after all, just to comment on this thread. :D

Now, let me present the winningest entry evar: BIOTIN.

This is clearly the best name possible for your bee. It's obviously unique, and holds much important symbology with respect to the unholy merger of the AI construct that inhabited that hapless beekeeper's webserver and those silly little insects themselves.

I mean, just LOOK at that word...it positively EXUDES a merger between animal and technology! The first half, "bio" is quite pointedly the common abbreviation of biology, which, as we are all well aware, is the lamest class subject ever, in addition to having something to do with organic life or poop or something. Seriously, biology is full of all sorts of disgusting gooey wet things, just like bees, but when you shorten it to "bio" it takes on this sort of eXtreme, "I'm too cool to look in there, ew," kind of air, that really only serves as an excellent reminder that bees are much cuter when their guts are not smeared all over your extremities from flailing in a mad attempt to get them off! Get them OFF OF ME!

And then there's the second half, "tin," which is not only an element, one of the basic building blocks of the universe and also tasty canned goods, but is a METALLIC element, and everybody knows that computers and AI constructs are made of metal. Or possibly magnetic polymers, but then "Bio-Magnetic Polymer" would be a crappy name for a bee.

Tin is also fairly low on the periodic table of elements, like in the second row from the bottom even, and therefore easily reached by cute little children and overly short adults without the need for a stepladder. And, if you want to get even deeper into how cool tin is as an element, just look at its abbreviation: "Sn." It makes absolutely no sense! Isn't that crazy? It's so insane, in fact, that English-speaking chemistry teachers worldwide tell their students to remember the element with the phrase, "Don't sniff tin," which they were themselves indubitably doing when they came up with that very phrase. Either that or mercury fumes.

So, let's give that name a trial run, shall we? Biotin! Biotin the Bee! Doesn't that just ROLL off of your tongue? Great! Now don't say it too much or it'll start to sound weird again.

Biotin is a great name for shortening too (and I don't mean like Crisco), because it contains three whole syllables! That means you can, with very little effort, shorten it right up and start calling your little bee "Tin" (OMG, there's that great word again), or "Oh" (OK, that's kind of weird), or even "Bye!" Dammit, on second thought these aren't actually working so much for me, but what if, JUST IF, you called your bee by his first initial only? GUESS WHAT IT WOULD "BEE?!" OMGLOL.

You could also shorten the name and then add a little flourish or something...like maybe call little Biotin "Tinny" instead or "Tiny Tin." Or, given the proper prior attention to his hairstyle, "Tintin." Or even Bi Otin, the Sexually Ambiguous Patriarch (SAP) of the Norse Apiary Pantheon (NAP)!

Biotin also anagrams fairly well to other incredibly appropriate image-producing phrases, such as "Obi Tin," the first jedi droid, and "I no bit," which is what I used to say when my sister would tattle on me after a fight. And don't forget "Ion Bit," which is an unmistakeable reference to something very technobabblical sounding. Like maybe it's some kind of hyperlight drive component...for instance:

Engineer: "No, Cap'n! We can't power up the Warp Core until we've replaced the Ion Bit or she'll surely blow us all to Smithereens!"
Captain: "Dammit, what the hell is a smithereen?! And stop calling me Shirley!"
Engineer: "Hey, that joke is older than me! AND not funny."
Captain: [menacing] "Who's the Captain around here anyway? I'd laugh if I were you...."
Engineer: "Yarr, 'yo ho ho' then."
Captain: "And what's with you being a pirate all of a sudden?"
Engineer: "At least pirates are funny."
Captain: "Just fix the damn thing."
Engineer: "Fine...Ah ha! Found the problem! There was a bee stuck in the...OW! IT STUNG ME! OH JESUS, THAT HURTS!"
Captain: [laughing] "Now THAT'S funny."

So there you go! BIOTIN! All the name you could ever want, not to mention all the convincing (see above)!

What, that's not enough? Oh right, the Halo 2 connection IS a bit weak still. Well, how about this...and I know all those grumbling biology majors out there that I offended earlier have probably already twigged to this little nugget but were going to keep it all to themselves just to spite me, but there IS an excellent link between Biotin and Bungie. The very same kind of link that drove an entire fleece of ARGonauts mad at the start of the ILoveBees campaign! I'm not even sure if I should type it in clear text, because the flood of tears it might release when read by your audience could very well rival the volume of water that, um, okay I don't know where I was going with this but suffice to say there will be many a cry of anguish upon reading my final justification.

I'm not even going to ask for a drum roll.

Say it along with me, all of you biologists, chemists, and/or health food nuts! Biotin is the common name for...VITAMIN B7! And that, my friends, really was the whole point of this entire charade. :D

Love,
SpaceBass

P.S. BIOTIN!

 
At 9:59 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Keiko
A stuffed animal should have a cute name, and that name has a number of possible meanings (like a puzzle...) that relate to the 'I Love Bees' game, including grace/blessed, enlighten/educate, felicitation/congratulation, view/scene, corner/angle, respect/honor.

Clayfoot, petty officer, 3rd class

 
At 2:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Comatas the bee!

The story of Comatas on the ILB page intrigued me imediately, and in the end we found that was really what it was all about.

I'm sure you will love him as the Muses loved poor Comatas, even when you find Yuri stooped over a dead sheep and he tells you the stuffed bee did it!

-Ensign Jon Brunette :)

 
At 5:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Beasley. Why? So you can say "I Love Bees-ly."

~Dia

 
At 5:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, its officially past the deadline, but I suggest Eric Eric (or Eric Squared aka Eric^2). 'Cos, of course, Eric is only half a bee (thank you Monty Python), and it reminds us of James James aka James squared, who foolishly forgot to look before he leapt.

Let that be a lesson to us all :)
(Credit goes to someone on the forums I think, at least for Eric half-a-bee)

 
At 3:44 PM, Blogger hmrpita said...

I suggest this as a name:

urinate wholly drunk horse fritter

Why? Because it's goofy and it's a puzzle

 
At 10:57 PM, Blogger Ariock said...

Gigantskay Pchyela (Гигантская Пчела) (or just Pchyela)

The name means Giant Bee (like you couldn't guess) in Russian, and since the name Yuri sounds russian, well, there you go.

note: Everything I know about Russian I learned from Babelfish.altavista.com and http://www.friends-partners.org/oldfriends/language/russian-alphabet.html
Do not use anything you have read here when speaking to a person who knows russian. ;)
In other words, I wouldn't be surprised if I am completely wrong.

But I still like the name. :)

Pchyela.

- Ariock

 
At 3:41 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'll submit the name "Belevoise". All the good names are already taken so I did this anagram of ILoveBees. I chose it because it's a slight puzzle and in the spirit of ILB I think.

~Halrandir

 
At 8:27 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Vida

Meaning life, for several months this was what we did with our lives. It gave us something to think about and discuss with others. And for many of us, showed us that we can create a great comunity.

-Regnevah (Syst on Live)

 
At 7:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Giant Bee Name: Sara Adopsti
Reason: Sara means princess & also, what puzzle loving Op wouldn't name a gaint bee using an anagram :) (I'm sure most mystery cracking crewmates will get it in less time than it took me to come up with)


Ensign Pikalek
- still watching <46.875805 -096.784945>, you know, just in case...

 
At 9:45 AM, Blogger sapagoo said...

"Fuzzy" is my choice.

< cheerleader voice>
Because it's GREAT! to BE! FUZZY BEE!
< /cheerleader voice>

-sapagoo

 
At 6:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OLIVE

Yay, I get to use mine since it hasn't been used yet.
Even though it already lost on Condorcet (damn you clayfoot!)

Why???/Why??? Olive Bee (I love Bee)

Lt. Cmdr Johnny Nitro

 
At 11:28 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is leader of the demon bees: Beez-elz-za-zzub or Beellzz for short.

fubarz aka Lt. Cmdr Scott

 
At 1:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Stinger.
Once bitten twice shy!


BUrntfinger

 
At 1:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Two entries:

Name: Buford
Reason: None. I just like the sound of it - "Buford Bee"

Name: Manzanilla
Reason: Means "little apple" in Spanish. Nickname "Manny" can be masculine or feminine. OK there's really no reason for this one either, I just like it :)

 
At 1:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Two entries:

Name: Buford
Reason: None. I just like the sound of it - "Buford Bee"

Name: Manzanilla
Reason: Means "little apple" in Spanish. Nickname "Manny" can be masculine or feminine. OK there's really no reason for this one either, I just like it :)

2nd Lt. bagsbee

 
At 3:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I (mister Anonymous), posted Eric Eric (or Eric Squared) above, but I couldn't remember who had posted the idea for Eric Half-A-Bee on the Forums. I just checked: credit goes to Nightmare Tony if you like the name :)

(I already have a DVD, so will remain anonymous ;)

 
At 8:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Durga - For me, Durga was the puppetmaster and the character that most represented the loyalty and protection that beekeepers grew to emulate. Also, it should remind you of a special time and event in your life.

Secondly, I like I.L. making it I.L. Bee. Hokey but memorable.

kaber

 
At 10:37 PM, Blogger Cédric said...

Leonard

because it is serious, which is good for a bee
and also because it is not serious at all, which is also good for a bee;
plus, the name looks like it's striped - just like bees sometimes are.

[Ninja Vanish!]

 

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