The Name Game
Hello World,
Well, I certainly hope that everyone got their licks in on June already, because almost before we know it, the whole month will be over, and we'll be staring July right in the face, as impossible as that might seem. In fact, we can't even count on June 31st to stretch things out for us, because there is no such thing, and you can believe me when I say that June will stop short this coming Monday on the 30th, whether we're ready for it or not. It certainly seems as if the month just started, and I for one can certainly say that I have nothing to show for it, that's for sure, and yet here it is practically over already. They say that time is relative, and frankly, I wish that my relatives would give me some of it back, because at the rate that I'm not getting things done around here, I'll have to live to be at least 150 just to catch up with where I should have been decades earlier. I can see now when they talk about the test of time, I must have slept through that class, because I definitely failed that test, and badly.
Speaking of tests reminds me of a story from the 2008 Assembly, while we were still in the throes of electing a new Bishop, and we were introduced to Rev. Reilly, who brought us greetings from the New Jersey Synod. He explained that he would be the mentor to our new Bishop-elect, after returning from what he referred to as "Baby Bishop Orientation" at the headquarters in Chicago. That got a big laugh, although I'm sure we all felt it was reassuring to know that the new Bishops at least get some training to take on these challenging responsibilities. But it occurred to me later that the man who ended up being elected as our new Bishop, Robert Rimbo, was already a past Bishop of a different Synod, and probably didn't need to go to Baby Bishop Orientation like some greenhorn neophyte fresh out of seminary. So I couldn't help but wonder if they would send him to "Bishop Day Care" instead, with the rest of the more advanced pupils, whose Baby Bishop days were behind them. In fact, if there were a lot of them, you could call it a "Baby Bishop Boom," and I suppose that too few of them could be a "Baby Bishop Bust," although boom and bust do sound a little bit too explosive for what we might normally hope for out of our Bishops. Or to quote another phrase from the Rambo movies, "You can either live for nothing or die for something," and I suppose there's no way to improve upon that.
And also on the topic of Bishops and their ilk, there was a bittersweet moment at the Assembly, when the President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Dr. Benke, was speaking about us electing a new Bishop of our Synod. For so many years, he and our previous Bishop had worked so closely together, and been such media darlings and practically inseparable, that to the untrained observer, it would have appeared that our ELCA denomination and their LCMS denomination were getting along a whole lot better than they do. (They aren't, believe me.) So he said he was observing this election with great personal interest, because he felt like half a person since our previous Bishop left for Chicago, and he was looking forward to working with whoever we chose to be the new Bishop. He quipped, "Right now I'm Frick, just waiting for Frack." He got a huge ovation, which is no surprise, because it's been my experience that he brings the house down wherever he goes, and I've seen it happen plenty of times already. Heck, he's not even in the ELCA, and I guarantee that he could be elected Bishop at any of our Synod Assemblies by a landslide. Of course, it would be a grouchy Lutheran landslide, which would not be a pretty sight, and that would be putting it mildly.
Meanwhile at church, we have yet to see the return of our recovered and improved pew cushions, and this business of dragging ourselves out of these seats every Sunday, week in and week out, has gotten old fast, and it would not be an exaggeration to call it a pain in the butt and then some. I shared the pew cushion story with a cyber-friend in West Virginia (yes, Virginia, there really are computers in West Virginia!) and she sent along the following:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
We just finished having new carpet put in our church. And boy does that glue stink!!! The carpet people finished laying it on Saturday morning. Sunday morning we go in and we can smell right away something that smelled like wires burning. My hubby and I make our way up to our spots in the choir loft and we can smell it even more. As more choir members came in they were smelling it too. As the minutes passed and we're all up there sniffing like dogs looking for a buried bone, Father starts his announcements. He's trying to keep on his topic but keeps looking up at us as we're still being very investigative, trying to find the burning wires. Finally he stops what he's saying and without missing a beat, he looks straight at us and remarks, "The Church isn't burning down, so you're safe there, however the smell is the glue from the carpet, and you'all up there are getting the most benefit from the fumes, so I expect lots of smiles and happy tunes"! Then he goes right back into his announcements.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I thanked her for the great story, and said I guess it's fortunate that our church could never afford new carpeting, after all. Probably if it ever did happen where they replaced the carpet, they'd probably make us walk on the walls in the interim, which would be a whole new workout video that I wouldn't even want to think about.
Now, I may as well admit right up front that I am easily amused, and it seems like I can spend hours at YouTube just watching old and goofy clips of things, one after another. Somehow, TV commercials that we complained about in our youth, now 40 years later seem refreshingly adorable. You could spend an entire day just watching videos of kittens that have been posted, and still not see all of them. There is no musical act throughout the entire history of music, however obscure, that does not show up somewhere in their vast library of subjects. It's a fascinating, if passive, way to waste huge amounts of time and accomplish nothing while doing it. On the other hand, for people who yearn for something a little more interactive, if not necessarily more productive, I can recommend something that's about as much fun as the proverbial barrel of monkeys, and twice as preposterous.
Apparently, these things are all over the place, or you can just go right ahead and visit our friends at http://wishafriend.com to see for yourself, and try their random name generator for the fun of it. It turns out that My Reptile Name Is: Psycho Crocodile, which certainly wouldn't surprise my old friends the dinosaurs, who could have told you that from hundreds of millennia ago, back in the days when a crocodile really meant something. But that's not all! These nice folks also offer you the chance to find your name in a wide variety of other incarnations, such as Insects, Birds, Fish, Easter Bunny, Fruit, Computer, Halloween, Christmas, Fantasy, Romantic and many others. Well, I don't mind saying, this is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and you can be sure that I was not going to pass up an opportunity like this one. So I'm happy to share with you the results of my inquiries there, and at various other web sites offering the same service.
My Leprechaun Name Is: Polly Leaf-ducker
My Superhero Name Is: The Violet Vixen
My Rock Star Name Is: King Flintstone (rock on!)
My Rapper Name Is: Threepac Cracka Fool (ya gotta love that one!)
My Porno Name Is: Lana Quickie, which is especially surprising, because it turns out that -
My Pimp Name Is: Sweet Chocolate Lady Quick, which sounds like I'm in kind of a rut, although a fast and delicious one, I guess (my favorite part is you click the button that says "PIMPAFY!" to get your name)
My biggest problem turned out to be one that I thought would be pretty straightforward, perhaps even a lucky shot, but that's not how it happened. This was my first attempt at it -
1. My Mafia Name Is: The Sinister Don, which I thought sounded just too, well, sinister for me, so I tried again, with this result -
2. My Mafia Name Is: The Happy Mustache, which could be considered an improvement over the first one, but maybe a little too far in the other direction for a mobster looking for any street cred, as it were, so I gave it one last chance and came up with -
3. My Mafia Name Is: Tiny "Two Fists" Bambino, which I figured was a gangster name I could live with.
So there you have it, all of you fans of the arcane and irrelevant (and don't think I don't know who you are!) who may be looking for a fun way to while away some time, or perhaps strike out on a new path in your life, with a new identity to go with it. You could do a lot worse than a random name generator, and I ought to know, or my name isn't -
Polly Leaf-ducker
Sweet Chocolate Lady Quick
Tiny "Two Fists" Bambino
King Flintstone
The Happy Mustache
Lana Quickie
The Violet Vixen
Threepac Cracka Fool
The Sinister Don
Well, I certainly hope that everyone got their licks in on June already, because almost before we know it, the whole month will be over, and we'll be staring July right in the face, as impossible as that might seem. In fact, we can't even count on June 31st to stretch things out for us, because there is no such thing, and you can believe me when I say that June will stop short this coming Monday on the 30th, whether we're ready for it or not. It certainly seems as if the month just started, and I for one can certainly say that I have nothing to show for it, that's for sure, and yet here it is practically over already. They say that time is relative, and frankly, I wish that my relatives would give me some of it back, because at the rate that I'm not getting things done around here, I'll have to live to be at least 150 just to catch up with where I should have been decades earlier. I can see now when they talk about the test of time, I must have slept through that class, because I definitely failed that test, and badly.
Speaking of tests reminds me of a story from the 2008 Assembly, while we were still in the throes of electing a new Bishop, and we were introduced to Rev. Reilly, who brought us greetings from the New Jersey Synod. He explained that he would be the mentor to our new Bishop-elect, after returning from what he referred to as "Baby Bishop Orientation" at the headquarters in Chicago. That got a big laugh, although I'm sure we all felt it was reassuring to know that the new Bishops at least get some training to take on these challenging responsibilities. But it occurred to me later that the man who ended up being elected as our new Bishop, Robert Rimbo, was already a past Bishop of a different Synod, and probably didn't need to go to Baby Bishop Orientation like some greenhorn neophyte fresh out of seminary. So I couldn't help but wonder if they would send him to "Bishop Day Care" instead, with the rest of the more advanced pupils, whose Baby Bishop days were behind them. In fact, if there were a lot of them, you could call it a "Baby Bishop Boom," and I suppose that too few of them could be a "Baby Bishop Bust," although boom and bust do sound a little bit too explosive for what we might normally hope for out of our Bishops. Or to quote another phrase from the Rambo movies, "You can either live for nothing or die for something," and I suppose there's no way to improve upon that.
And also on the topic of Bishops and their ilk, there was a bittersweet moment at the Assembly, when the President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Dr. Benke, was speaking about us electing a new Bishop of our Synod. For so many years, he and our previous Bishop had worked so closely together, and been such media darlings and practically inseparable, that to the untrained observer, it would have appeared that our ELCA denomination and their LCMS denomination were getting along a whole lot better than they do. (They aren't, believe me.) So he said he was observing this election with great personal interest, because he felt like half a person since our previous Bishop left for Chicago, and he was looking forward to working with whoever we chose to be the new Bishop. He quipped, "Right now I'm Frick, just waiting for Frack." He got a huge ovation, which is no surprise, because it's been my experience that he brings the house down wherever he goes, and I've seen it happen plenty of times already. Heck, he's not even in the ELCA, and I guarantee that he could be elected Bishop at any of our Synod Assemblies by a landslide. Of course, it would be a grouchy Lutheran landslide, which would not be a pretty sight, and that would be putting it mildly.
Meanwhile at church, we have yet to see the return of our recovered and improved pew cushions, and this business of dragging ourselves out of these seats every Sunday, week in and week out, has gotten old fast, and it would not be an exaggeration to call it a pain in the butt and then some. I shared the pew cushion story with a cyber-friend in West Virginia (yes, Virginia, there really are computers in West Virginia!) and she sent along the following:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
We just finished having new carpet put in our church. And boy does that glue stink!!! The carpet people finished laying it on Saturday morning. Sunday morning we go in and we can smell right away something that smelled like wires burning. My hubby and I make our way up to our spots in the choir loft and we can smell it even more. As more choir members came in they were smelling it too. As the minutes passed and we're all up there sniffing like dogs looking for a buried bone, Father starts his announcements. He's trying to keep on his topic but keeps looking up at us as we're still being very investigative, trying to find the burning wires. Finally he stops what he's saying and without missing a beat, he looks straight at us and remarks, "The Church isn't burning down, so you're safe there, however the smell is the glue from the carpet, and you'all up there are getting the most benefit from the fumes, so I expect lots of smiles and happy tunes"! Then he goes right back into his announcements.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I thanked her for the great story, and said I guess it's fortunate that our church could never afford new carpeting, after all. Probably if it ever did happen where they replaced the carpet, they'd probably make us walk on the walls in the interim, which would be a whole new workout video that I wouldn't even want to think about.
Now, I may as well admit right up front that I am easily amused, and it seems like I can spend hours at YouTube just watching old and goofy clips of things, one after another. Somehow, TV commercials that we complained about in our youth, now 40 years later seem refreshingly adorable. You could spend an entire day just watching videos of kittens that have been posted, and still not see all of them. There is no musical act throughout the entire history of music, however obscure, that does not show up somewhere in their vast library of subjects. It's a fascinating, if passive, way to waste huge amounts of time and accomplish nothing while doing it. On the other hand, for people who yearn for something a little more interactive, if not necessarily more productive, I can recommend something that's about as much fun as the proverbial barrel of monkeys, and twice as preposterous.
Apparently, these things are all over the place, or you can just go right ahead and visit our friends at http://wishafriend.com to see for yourself, and try their random name generator for the fun of it. It turns out that My Reptile Name Is: Psycho Crocodile, which certainly wouldn't surprise my old friends the dinosaurs, who could have told you that from hundreds of millennia ago, back in the days when a crocodile really meant something. But that's not all! These nice folks also offer you the chance to find your name in a wide variety of other incarnations, such as Insects, Birds, Fish, Easter Bunny, Fruit, Computer, Halloween, Christmas, Fantasy, Romantic and many others. Well, I don't mind saying, this is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and you can be sure that I was not going to pass up an opportunity like this one. So I'm happy to share with you the results of my inquiries there, and at various other web sites offering the same service.
My Leprechaun Name Is: Polly Leaf-ducker
My Superhero Name Is: The Violet Vixen
My Rock Star Name Is: King Flintstone (rock on!)
My Rapper Name Is: Threepac Cracka Fool (ya gotta love that one!)
My Porno Name Is: Lana Quickie, which is especially surprising, because it turns out that -
My Pimp Name Is: Sweet Chocolate Lady Quick, which sounds like I'm in kind of a rut, although a fast and delicious one, I guess (my favorite part is you click the button that says "PIMPAFY!" to get your name)
My biggest problem turned out to be one that I thought would be pretty straightforward, perhaps even a lucky shot, but that's not how it happened. This was my first attempt at it -
1. My Mafia Name Is: The Sinister Don, which I thought sounded just too, well, sinister for me, so I tried again, with this result -
2. My Mafia Name Is: The Happy Mustache, which could be considered an improvement over the first one, but maybe a little too far in the other direction for a mobster looking for any street cred, as it were, so I gave it one last chance and came up with -
3. My Mafia Name Is: Tiny "Two Fists" Bambino, which I figured was a gangster name I could live with.
So there you have it, all of you fans of the arcane and irrelevant (and don't think I don't know who you are!) who may be looking for a fun way to while away some time, or perhaps strike out on a new path in your life, with a new identity to go with it. You could do a lot worse than a random name generator, and I ought to know, or my name isn't -
Polly Leaf-ducker
Sweet Chocolate Lady Quick
Tiny "Two Fists" Bambino
King Flintstone
The Happy Mustache
Lana Quickie
The Violet Vixen
Threepac Cracka Fool
The Sinister Don
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:14 PM
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