Needed a name for counterstrike, and thought Columbo (as in the Peter Falk TV show) was good because:

1. He's awesome

2. He refuses to carry a gun, so that amused me for a counterstrike name

Then I kinda stuck with it. I worry that using it on programming forums comes across a bit cocky what with him being an underestimated genius, but I'm not changing it now.

Community :) I used to go by Nibbles but decided to change it since my friends did a google search on me once and noticed Nibbles on GameDev come up. They had some fun with that. I don't think that was the main reason I changed it though, I think I would have anyways.

I was 9 years old and it sounded cool.

real name

I was trying to find something that sounded cool for Yahoo Chat in the 90's that didn't have any letters or numbers.

Once upon a time when I need a new nick.

I wanted it to be named after a character from a fantasy novel I had read, but could really remember the full name and spelling.

Instead I ended up with Althea (later I remembered the name I was looking for was Althalus).

Then I actually changed it to Althia, because Althea was taken when I played WoW.

But Althia was already taken in here and thus I return to Althea ;)

But all other forums and such where I am active, my nick is still Althia.