So, my nickname is "Duke." Every now and then I get email from someone out on the net who has stumbled across my home page and wants to know if I'm Duke Robillard, the blues guitar player. I'm not; I'm Duke Robillard, the computer programmer. :-) I did see see my more famous and talented namesake perform in a bar outside Boston once, though.

I got the nickname "Duke" in 4th grade. There was a TV show on at the time called, I believe, "The Chicago Teddy Bears." It was a comedy aimed at kids, about Gangsters in 1920's Chicago. All the characters on the show had gangster names like "Killer" or "Dutch." My 4th grade class was fond of the show for a while, and we all adopted similar names. I got "Duke."

When I was in college, the musical Duke Robillard used to play a club in town ("The Haunt," in Ithaca, New York) and I happened to come across one of his posters. Seeing the name in print inspired me to revive it.

I use "duke" as my login name or email address, whenever I got the chance. I also use it as my "meta" word, the way some hackers use "foo" or "bar".