Mirror universe Mike.
Wait, we SAY that, but what do we know about Mike’s alibi for that day???
If it makes you feel better, I went to grad school with someone who occasionally had to explain that she was not the same-named registered sex offender from Florida.
EDIT. And once struck up a conversation with the person sitting on the next barstool over, who introduced himself as Ted “not that Ted Cruz” Cruz.
It’s true, I really shouldn’t complain! There’s actually a rich tapestry of Mikes Russo out there, and we seem a pretty solid lot: a stuntman who worked on the first set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, an economics professor from Oregon, a Connecticut painter, a reasonably-prominent sports radio guy, somehow like two or three different MMA fighters… oh, and a fifth-tier X-Men villain. Could be worse.
I’ve recently discovered Brian Rushton the artist, in addition to Brian Rushton the guy who worked for Microsoft and wrote sci fi fiction and goes to my church, as well as Brian Rushton the financier who recently died, and Brian Rushton the rugby player.
Slightly off-topic, in the “slightly misspelling stuff” department, I’m still amused by Matt Gertz, the journalist on Twitter who calls himself “NOT MATT GAETZ” in his bio.
I may’ve mentioned there is an Andrew Schulz who has some sort of fame as a bro-ish comedian. I get asked about it on chess.com a bit, disproportionately when I have 30 seconds left on my game clock and my opponent has a minute or more
Mods, can we spin this off into a new thread? It’s a really cool one, but it’s not about the review spreadsheet per se.
I’m fortunate in that there aren’t a lot of other Stelzers out there—though there’s at least one other Stelzer family in my hometown, completely unrelated to mine, which is a bizarre coincidence. (I learned about this when my coworker married one of them. I’m not sure, but I think they still pronounce it the German way, SHTELL-tser, while my family has assimilated it to STELL-zer.)
I once tried to drive across the Canadian border and actually got brought inside the otherwise drive-through checkpoint because Canada was apparently on the lookout for a John Ziegler sex offender.
I was unique-named for a long time until Google revealed a second.
I can say I was a little bummed out
I’m apparently named after a family ancestor from Ireland. From what I remember, he made an innovation on window blinds or screen doors. It’s been a while since I Googled him.
My wife is unique (in the English-Googlable world, at any rate.)
I however have a pretty common name. Once two of us Phils Riley (to adopt the Russo style of name pluralization) were at the same employer, and I once got his retirement paperwork. I regretfully turned down his retirement package.
Less fun is my son’s name. His alternate self was “shot in the torso while playing the popular Pokemon Go game with friends in San Francisco near Aquatic Park.”
And my favorite alternate self: Amazon.com
Strictly speaking I have both my parents’ surnames (I just treat them as a middle and last name instead of hyphenating for logistical purposes), so the alternative—Daniel Mead—has at least one famous homonym. He’s the ancestor I’m named after, and also the reason why the Meads have an eternal grudge against Frank Lloyd Wright.
I’m lucky that my real (non-pen) name is so different that there are no people like me, except my family. (Plus I have two last names, so…)
Some of you might be able to find this name, but I don’t think there’s any point in doing so.
I used your full name in my credits, is that okay?
I have same situation as my last name is the result of a unique Ellis Island snafu and none of my immediate relatives share my first name.
Oh, and how could I forget - there’s another Mike Russo who’s into IF, even! He doesn’t hang out here I don’t think, but every once in a while I’ll see my name in a comment thread on Jimmy Maher’s blog and thing “hang on, I don’t remember writing that.” At least he mostly seems to go by Michael rather than Mike, which is very polite of him.
That’s okay!
Somewhere out there is a very big-shot TV producer who is probably resigned to the fact that I get all his Google hits. He used to be at the Syfy channel; now at Sony Pictures, looks like.
(But TV producer isn’t the kind of job where you want a social media profile, I suppose.)