Origin of "Rants Like Madman"

I came to the title of my blog as the result of being given an "Indian" name by a co-worker, whose father was part-Navajo, who thought it would be fun to name us based on our tendancies in the workplace.

At the time, I was commuting through the Washington D.C. region and had a bad habit of listening to C-SPAN radio. For those of you that have never had the unique "joy" of listening to C-SPAN, their morning call in shows are like the trailer parks of the airwaves. The people that call in seem to have this "gift" for ignoring the question at hand and just ranting against whatever it is they don't like: Bush, Clinton, Christians/Jews/Muslims. You name it, they hate it.

Anyhoo, back to the topic at hand. I would listen to the dregs of the intellectual barrel and get more and more frustrated. I consider myself a fairly independent person. I've voted for Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, etc. If there is a party for it, I probably agree with something they say. All told, I'm for common sense and logic. So listening to people who either swallow what the news or party tells them without thinking tends to irritate me. I'm all for people having disagreements and differing opinions, but have the common courtesy to learn something about the topic before venting your idiocy on the rest of us. Spouting off about how "Bush is stupid" is just going to make you sound like a lunatic when the question was about illegal aliens being given driver's licenses, particularly when he isn't stupid, just absurdly naive.

So, I would get to work after 30-45 minutes of this "self-inflicted" torture (I say, self-inflicted, because while I could change the channel, for some reason I never did) and would be ranting like a psychotic about the idiots that populate this world. More told, the idiots who would call in and just spout vitriolic rhetoric concerning whatever was their hate-de-jour. By this time, I'm in full on rant mode...snarling, drooling, growling at random people...that kind of thing. Now, a couple of co-workers would take it upon themselves to throw topics at me randomly throughout the day. It was a kind of game...let's see who can get Chuck's vein in his forehead to bulge the farthest without it bursting or him killing anyone in a blind rage.

All that being said, I was named "Rants Like Madman". Another co-worker wasn't happy with "Whines Like Girl", but it fit, so what could he do.