What's in a name?

So I just changed my major to Ancient Near Eastern Studies, and I'm seriously the happiest dork on the whole face of the entire earth.

Why, you ask?

Because I can do THIS:

התר

Yup! That's my name. Kind of. It doesn't really mean anything, but my Biblical Hebrew professor uses my middle name all the time. Since it's a variant of Michael, it looks like this:

מיכאל

It means "Who is like God." Wikipedia phrases that as a question, but I'll let you know if that's true when we come to it. We learned David and Samuel in class today, so I may or may not learn more names here soon.

And actually, I just hit the web and found out that if you add a yod to my first name after the hey, it makes a word in Hebrew:

היתר

It means permit, permission, sufferance, dispensation. And actually, the word dispensation comes up without the yod in it.


So if you put my first and last name together, it could actually make a phrase, which is what your name will do if it's Biblical. Mine is something like Dispensation who is like God, or Sufferance who is like God.

Dude, I don't care who you are. THAT'S COOL!

Death wish?

I'm officially a mommy!

Thanks to SavetheWords.org, I can now express my glaring sense of irony--considering the fact that I'm an English teaching major.

Ha ha. And also, Ha!

UPDATE: Words that are also available for adoption into your vocabulary include, but are not limited to:

• squiriferous
• blateration
• quaeritate
• OBACERATE

"Obacerate yourself!" WHERE has this exclamation been all my life?!

I laugh in the face of boredom

I used to be bored. And now I'm not. You want to know why. OK. I'll tell you. It's because of a beautiful contribution to the internet called StumbleUpon.

In the three days that I've used it, I've conquered more boredom than I ever knew I could have been visiting web sites I had no idea existed. Here are just a few.

• Web site that ranks pain and suffering. I found it ironic that the things that scored highest were:

1. Get crucified upside down   <-- This is what happened to Peter
2. Be skinned alive
3. Get crucified   <--This is what happened to Jesus. Peter thinks your prioritizing SUCKS people!

• Picture that explains why women are evil
• A virtual stapler. And you know you're gonna try all three of them.
• Politics Explained - "Surrealism - You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons."
• whyhewassad.com - POP CLOUDS! Coolest thing since bubble wrap!
• Picture of an aquarium toilet
• Scariest picture EVER!
• A video that teaches you how to make a stove out of soda cans.
• Haiku! - This one is about cats. This one is about computer error messages.
• The Bible represented entirely out of LEGOs.
• OneSentence.org - Expressing life in one sentence. Ex: "Tonight I washed my dead grandfather's shirts and my silky underwear in the same load of laundry."

Fun with the dictionary

Did you know that the word "Nerd" is based off of a character in a Doctor Seuss book?

Thanks Merriam-Webster!

Talk about Forbidden Fruit

I've heard it said that the age of epics has passed. Anyone who truly thinks that has clearly never called tech support.

Who is our victim this time, you ask? Why, no other than Apple!

Our story begins with a rather bewildered Apple employee that not only DIDN'T speak English, but was so terribly misinformed as to nearly cost me $39 for a cord set I didn't order by telling me to keep it. ("IS FOR YOU MA'AM!") He finally became so exasperated by his own job that he basically tricked me into hanging up with the false presumption that he would be calling back.

Good thing I wasn't holding my breath, because it has been weeks and I've yet to hear from him.

My second Apple associate was very helpful, albeit the runaround he gave me was more than I bargained for. And I mean that literally. I had to run up and down the stairs probably half a dozen times to get credit card information. He informed me of what I could do with the cord to avoid being charged for it. Sadly, it wasn't for slapping the stupid out of that guy in India. I instead put it back into its envelope, wrote KGP (Karma Gutted Potato? Klingon Gliding Parakeet? Kaleidoscopic Glittered Pattycake?) on the outside, and sent it back. Whatever it means, it worked.

I managed to get my warranty renewed on my iPod Touch, which I do miss very much. Seriously. How in the world can I be expected to ignore the adult portion of the human race if I cannot tastefully shove some earbuds into my head and drown them out? It has been a LONG 2 weeks, let me tell you. Much of it had nothing to do with my missing iPod, but the fact that it was gone left me defenseless. Think wounded gazelle on the Serengeti, only throw some ebola on top and chop off my horns.

Anyway, due to a sudden change of address (we'll blame the mafia for this one), my iPod could no longer be sent to the address on file. Called Fed Ex a few days ago. They gave me the terrorist treatment--you know, where they assume you aren't actually you and give you a really hard time in the event you aren't you. All they can do for me is hold my package in White Marsh. Why White Marsh? White Marsh is so far from here and consistently has the WORST traffic in this part of the state? Can't you be a decent human being and hold it in a store closer to here?


They elected to not be decent human beings, which leads me to believe that Fed Ex is a secret combination of INdecent human beings. Or pod people. OR BOTH!

Tell your friends.

Which leads me to today's development. By now, I've pretty much exhausted all of my impatience with the ordeal. I called Apple to have them change the shipping address so Fed Ex will come on and deliver the goods already.

Silly me for thinking it would be easy. Has this experience taught me NOTHING? I got another English speaker (Was the first guy just a terrible joke or something? Because I'm NOT laughing. Watch, I bet it was one of the 3 Nephites! I'm SO SCREWED!) and he was also very good spirited and helpful. There were just REEEAAALLY long pauses between his helpfulness because I was on hold for so long. And at first the hold music was TERRIBLE. You know those ridiculous people that listen to music on their cell phones and it sounds all garbled because they have it up too loud and their phone speakers SUCK? Times that by a billion and that's what it was like.

BUT THEN they played that amazing song by U2 (Elevation) so I did what any self respecting white girl stewing in her own boredom would do.

I danced to the hold music.

Eventually even THAT got old, and I kept holding. And kept holding. It got to the point where I had to get ready for Institute, so I can now honestly say that I've brushed my teeth while on hold... and tried to confirm my customer service representative (AKA desk monkey) that I was still holding while rinsing.

I remained on hold all the way to Institute. I remained on hold as we sat in the hallway waiting for the teacher. I remained on hold as I celebrated the fact that they REPLACED my iPod as opposed to fixing my old one. I remained on hold as--WHOA hello! You got ahold of the Apple repair center? They're sending the change of address request to Fed Ex? Excellent! Goodbye!

Like I said, anyone who believes the age of epics has passed has never been as resilient as I am with tech support.

I should have asked the guy who took the bite out of the Apple. If he said Eve, it would have been worth it.

What happens when I no longer have my iPod

"...then I guess you don't go, since Heather was the only one who went to bed..." Am I even awake right now? Nope, I don't think so... ZZZZZZZ


Wake up. Wonder if I dreamed that. Spend a LONG time arguing with myself about it, then promptly forget all about it.

Read scriptures and talked with God for a bit. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't understand WHY people skip 2 Nephi. The BEST stuff is in that section! It's like people waited in line for the roller coaster, got to the front, and then decided it was too much work to sit there and be impressed!

Bored of being befuddled by bipedal beings.

Facebook quizzes? OK, maybe just one. OHBUTWAIT there's one where you answer questions with song titles! I LOVE THOSE! I'm gonna use the Beatles for mine and then send it to Brian because then it counts as supporting a missionary and therefore is NOT a waste of time!

Checkin my phoney phone phone... how in the heck do I have phone calls from 4 digit numbers?! That's not good. Perhaps I should take my phone offa Twitter.

I'm so glad I finally have time to read, I mean I know it's Hugh Nibley and he's about as dense as it gets for LDS readings, well, except maybe in like an encyclopedia or something but seriously I'm so glad I finally have time to read this book. OK brain time to shut up now so I can focus on the Nibley magic!

OHBOYOHBOYOHBOY! I gots my popcorn, and my soda, and I'ma watch me a Pixar movie! How much longer until it starts??? OHMYGOSH that kitten is the cutest thing I've EVER SEEN!

What the heck Disney?! A miscarriage? Really. I didn't know I paid $8 to cry at a DISNEY MOVIE anymore! What is this world coming to? I can't--SQUIRREL

Dishes... dishes... doin dishes. Makin important realizations about family and how glad I am to be home and cool revelations I probably won't remember later when I go to write them down because that's just how it works apparently.

Important conversation about opening checking accounts that I can access in Utah and that my mother can put money into once I get poor and look at all the bubbles in the dishwater. Hum de dum de dum de dummmm. OOPS! I'm so glad my finger didn't get in the way of that knife!

The Simpsons--OH what's he writing on the chalkboard this time? FRANKINCENSE IS NOT A MONSTER. Hahahahaha that's funny. I love Jesus humor! As long as it isn't offensive. Dude, that's just not cool.

What is my sister WATCHING?! That deer thing is throwing rabbits at a window, and I feel compelled to sit here and stare stupidly as he continues to do it. There seems to be a relationship with the increased size of our television and how often I find myself doing just that.

You know what would be funny? If I wrote a blog post about how RANDOM this day has been.

Remember the bit about my phone. Go back and write it into the events where it actually happened.

Check Facebook. YAY I got a message from one of me palsies. Write her the most SATISFYING bit of accidental redundancy I've probably ever written.

Redundancy Unintended. Would make a good band name for a bunch of elitist college word nerds!

I'm classifying that misspelling of "elitist" as a typo.

YEAH! I LOVE when iTunes surprises me with great Muse songs! That bass riff is to DIE FOR!

I wonder what kind of music God would have on His iPod. I'm pretty sure that thought counts as sacrilege... or maybe He's just thinking I ought to know by now EXACTLY what He likes. He only tells me on a regular basis what I should and shouldn't bother listening to.

I want curly hair. I wonder how much a perm is. Probably more than I want to pay. And if I do that, my excuses for my aversion to hair dye will never work again. And perms look weird when they grow out.

I'm bored of explaining my boredom. Gonna watch Ace of Cakes or something. I wonder if I can watch it online somewhere that doesn't have Chinese characters on the bottom.

Dude! What do nuns crossing a street with high heeled shoes and golf clubs have to do with paint? Commercials are so weird when you stop to think about them sometimes.

Life is weird when you substitute your own dialogue in general.

Word Nerd + Boredom =

So I recently discovered Googlewhacking.

What is it, you ask?

It's when you do a Google search for two words and try to get only 1 result. There are other rules of course.

And without further ado, I give birth to my very own Whack.

Nucleopeptide timbre

.... Or not.

The secret to this is simple. Find two words accepted by Answers.com as words, that when combined have NO entry. Then, using a blog, create an entry using the two words to give Google something to find. It appears to be taking Google quite a long time to find the entry though.

Hummmm.... Now I'm bored again.