OMG, U R 2 W1CK3D!

I went to the unneccesarily long Cardinals baseball game last night. I am tired. I'll write about the game later, but here's a silly story to tide you over until then.

Pair told not to name their son "4real" SOURCE

A couple from New Zealand, looking at the ultrasound of their child, realized he was on his way. They decided to name the child "4real", because they now understand the full implications of having a child.

The name is currently under review by authorities, as all unusual names are inspected on a case-by-case basis.

"For most of us, when we try to figure out what our names mean, we have to look it up in a babies book and ... there's no direct link between the meaning and the name," Pat Wheaton told TV One on Wednesday. "With this name, everyone knows what it means."

This is the proud father, talking about his prospective son. Even though most people would associate any name with a number in it as some sort of pre-teen internet code, the father seems adamant that "everybody" will know what the name means.

He's wrong. First, because of the typeface of the original story, I thought he was naming his son "Areal", like a corruption of the moon of Neptune. Because I'm not under the age of 18, I don't automatically recognize numbers when used in words. It's a phenomena I've noticed over the years: even though I pronounce "four" and "for" exactly the same, when I read "four" and say it out loud, my brain processes it as a number. This has caused endless amusement for one of my students, whose parent has a license plate with something like "2 GUD 4 U". Since I couldn't decipher these marginally-educated suburban hieroglyphics, I was pronounced "old".

But back to New Zealand. After scrutinizing the font, I realized it was actually a number "4" as the first character. But I still didn't understand, because my first thought was that New Zealand, being part of the football-happy part of the world (i.e., everything outside of the U.S.), I assumed they were fans of Real Madrid, possibly the most broadly popular football club. You know Real Madrid, right? Erstwhile home team of David Beckham? Of "Bend It Like Beckham" fame? Anyone? His Wikipedia entry is longer than Ghandi's? Married to "Posh Spice"? Anyone? Bueller?

As an aside, "Real" (pronounced "ree-AL") is the Spanish word for real or genuine. So why is the name of the American Soccer team for Utah called "Real Salt Lake"? Is it because they have a genuine salt lake? Maybe. Is it because of the overwhelming Hispanic (and therefore Spanish-speaking) population in Utah? With approximately 6% of the population registering as Hispanic, that would be INCREDIBLY generous of the team owners to cater to that minority. So I guess it's just because there's a really famous team somewhere else that has a "similar" name, and they might get accidental TV coverage from people who just tune in to watch "that one 'Real' team"?

Nope, it's probably just because people think that marketing a team name is such an exact science, that they feel people will watch simply because they've got a cool "foreign-sounding" name. Considering Kansas City's team was originally called the "Kansas City Wiz" (which sounds like something you do in the alley after too much Boulevard Beer), I don't think the marketers have their finger on the pulse of today.

Speaking of marketing, this New Zealand kid will one day have a fantastic career as a "legacy rapper". In 30 years, when the modern culture has fallen out of vogue and is experiencing a resurgence among the 40-50 year-olds, along will come this Kiwi gansta rapper, schooled in the lost arts by Ice-T, who has retired to become a white-haired guru up on the mountains of ... his private island in the Bahamas. At Master-O.G. T's knee (say that five times fast!), young 4real will lift coconuts while suspended upside down from a tar-paper shack, while running through an encyclopedic catalog of all the ways to curse the Police and the playa-haters.

But fear not, for this epic saga ends with him achieving inner peace when he discovers (in dramatic fashion), just exactly how hot something must be, before one drops it.

God-speed, 4real. You'll need it to survive high school.