About my nickname

"Beloved child has many names", according to an old Finnish saying ;) In school, in my early teens, I was called "Kaapo" or "Anselmi". Both names are old, typical Finnish names and behind both names is a story too long to tell. Besides, only my mother still sometimes uses "Anselmi"; nobody has called me "Kaapo" since I was 16.

My ex-wives call me shortly "Idiot" or "Stupid". Good names, nothing against. And really deserved!

Since 1988 I´ve been known as "Larry Laffer", or "Larry". Here´s the story behind the name:

Sierra OnLine, an American computer game publisher, published a game called "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards" in 1987. It was the first of a successful series of computer games introducing a beer and whisky loving computer nerd called Larry Laffer, seeking for female companionship in (several) wrong places. Larry´s movements were controlled with a mouse. If the player wanted Larry to do something like pick something up or sit or say something to other characters in the game, you had to type your instructions. Maybe this picture from the first Larry-game explains it better:

The game found it´s way to Finland just before Christmas of -87, I got mine early 1988. First weekend I played it through and the rest happened almost automatically: my mates and friends started to ask me about game tips. How to find a certain object Larry was supposed to find to advance in the game and so on.

Keep in mind that a graphical computer game was something new then. We had Amigas, Ataris and Commodore 64:s; IBM had published the first PC-computer only 5 years earlier but nobody could afford it, the price was (in Finland, that is) about 25000 Finnish marks, when a normal worker was making about 3000 marks a month. "Leisuresuit Larry Laffer" (Teryleenipuku Larry in Finnish) was almost instantly a cult.

I do not remember who was the first person to call me Larry. I didn´t like it at first; who likes to be named after a beer licking womanizer who is all the time on the run, chased by the police? I got the name and it stayed, whether I liked it or not.

Today I am OK with the name. When I meet new people socially outside my professional life I present myself as Larry. My blog carries this name, as well as my other private web projects and albums.

Satisfied, Jukka & Sarah?

P.S. Interested to learn more about "Leisuresuit Larry"? Check him out in Wikipedia