my unimpressible friend Jim Ellwanger when he wrote to tell me that Gene Weingarten mentioned me in his online chat today.

I decided not to further blow Jim's mind by telling him that at the time he emailed me I was in the middle of a Will Shortz-Dave Barry hug sandwich.

Also because that would have been false.

Gene is a Gene-ius in case you didn't know. He really is. When I interned at The Washington Post in 1997, everyone wandered around pointing, "There's the genius." An exaggeration, but only slightly. Here's an excerpt and a link to the chat. (Aptonym writeup via Mediabistro LA and courtesy of the always funny Mayrav Saar.)

Okay, what follows is simply the greatest aptonym in the history of aptonymia. I learned about it from my friend Mandy Stadtmiller, who is a writer in New York, and alerted me to this little item. It is the best example I can think of of someone REALLY living up to his name.