The Urban Sherpa - a blog by Christopher DeWan

(trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, thrifty, brave, clean and irreverent...)

The Urban Sherpa keeps a collection of stories and curios filed under Mythic Proportions.

The Urban Sherpa Dictionary

Can't find what you need? The Urban Sherpa also has a glossary of Internet abbreviations.

Definition: Agoraphobia.11n

agoraphobia.11n. Noun. An abnormal fear of open or public places that are out of range of free, reliable WiFi.

Definition: Alt-Country

alt-country. "Lost my job, my house, my truck. Got new ones."

Definition: Antimonious

antimonious. Adjective. Given to complicating otherwise simple situations in order to make life more of a struggle, and therefore more interesting. Often results in absurd, mundane paradoxes, i.e., "too hungry to eat," "alone in a crowd," etc.

Definition: Armchair Steve Jobs

Jobs Well Done 

Armchair Steve Jobs. Noun. The practice of critiquing Apple Inc.'s business decisions with the benefit of retrospect: e.g., "The new iTunes sucks. Steve Jobs would never have done that." 

Definition: Astigmatism of the Heart

astigmatism of the heart. A defect of the spirit in which desires and passions do not meet at a focal point, but rather the image of them remains always blurred.

Definition: Autocompete

autocompete. Noun. The process, after receiving a message with a misspelled word, of sending a response that contains the corrected spelling of that word, without ever explicitly calling out the original sender's mistake.

Definition: Autoschadenfreude

autoschadenfreude. Noun. A malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of yourself.

Definition: Band Aid

Band Aid. noun. A cosmetic accessory usually worn on a visible limb. It is often confused for medical paraphernalia though it has no medicinal value: anything that can be fixed with a Band Aid wasn't broken to begin with.

Definition: Beauty

beauty. Noun. The look of an enviable future.

Definition: Caveatemptoraphobia

caveatemptoraphobia. Noun. 1. When the fear of "buyer's remorse" paralyzes one into inaction. 2. The refusal to accept a perfectly good thing, because it might turn out to be bad.

(See also, Imelda Marcos Syndrome. )

Definition: Chafe

chafe. French for "My inner thighs are too fat."

Definition: Clatter

Clatter. Noun. Aural clutter.

Definition: Denim Leisure Suit

denim lesiure suit. Noun. Jeans worn simultaneously with a jean jacket.

denim leisure suit

Definition: Dilettante

dilettante. Noun. Any person who can spell "dilettante."

Definition: Dysdysphoria

dysdysphoria. Noun. The unsettling feeling of having misplaced your malaise.

Definition: Dysthymia

dysthymia. Noun. A breathing disorder of the soul.

Definition: Egg

egg. Noun. A delivery device for cheese. See also: bread, french fries.

Definition: Epiphanini

 Epiphanini. Noun. A mini-epiphany. E.g., "Leave the gun. Take the epiphanini."

Definition: Errand

errand. Noun. An expedition involving the acquisition of some good, usually perceived as essential, when in fact completely unnecessary. Because errands involve a component of travel, they are often confused for a leisure activity. From the root, errant, aimless.

Definition: Hawaiian Shirt

Hawaiian shirt print

Hawaiian shirt. Noun. A previously healthy shirt that has metastasized.

Definition: Heart-Healthy Headache

Heart-healthy headache. Noun. A red wine hangover.

Definition: Hegemonic Power Shopping

hegemonic power shopping. Gerund. When well-off people (esp. white people) shop quickly, resulting in the rapid accumulation of goods from Banana Republic, J. Crew, Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn.

Also, shopping for real estate.

Definition: Hipsterior

hipsterior. Noun. A butt so flat it fits in skinny jeans.

Definition: Horse

horse. Noun. The most majestic enormous thing we're allowed to touch.

Definition: Imelda Marcos Syndrome

Imelda Marcos Syndrome. Noun. The pathological desire to acquire new things in lieu of old things, i.e., shoes, people, etc. In chronic cases, the definition of "old" begins to slip into psychosis: "worn once."

A few shoes

Definition: iRate

iRate. Adjective. Feeling irrepressible anger and loss when your iPod suddenly ceases to function. The feeling can be detected through a telltale facial expression, which is often mimicked (or possibly mocked) by the iPod itself.

iRate

Definition: iTangle

iTangle. Noun. The accidental, complex knot that inevitably forms in the cable of iPod headphones. The knot forms itself without any action on the part of the iPod's owner, and is nearly impossible to unravel. See also, iRate.

Definition: Law School

law school. Noun. A pastime for privileged people who can't think of something better to do. See also, Business School.

Definition: Libertarian

libertarian. Noun. A person who doesn't understand that their road to success was paved in large part by others. See also, narcissist.

Definition: Libertarianism

libertarianism. Noun. The mistaken belief that pursuing one's own self-interest, while shirking larger social responsibilities, is still somehow related to liberty.

Definition: Marriage

marriage. Noun. A specific kind of Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) wherein one of the board of directors is often considering the firing or murder of the other.

Definition: Midwest

Midwest. Noun. In Manhattan, the flyover blocks around Columbus (as in Ohio) Circle and Lincoln (as in Nebraska) Center. The people who frequent these places think rather highly of them; the rest of us don't think of them much at all.

Definition: Multiple Email Personality Disorder

Multiple Email Personality Disorder. Noun. A condition in which a person with more than one email address—e.g., a work email and a personal email—continues to send messages from the less appropriate address, often resulting in confusion, embarrassment, and spam-filtering.

Definition: Pants Allergies

pants allergies. Noun, plural. A preference for jeans, even in the work place and "grown up" world; an aversion to slacks. Ex: "I can't go to that client meeting! I have serious pants allergies!"

Definition: Preemptive Eating

Preemptive eating. Phrasal verb. Consuming an extra meal immediately prior to a dinner party, brunch meeting, etc., in order to avoid the appearance of gluttony.

Definition: Rebound congestion

rebound congestion. Noun. The traffic jam caused when drivers exit the freeway in favor of local roads, to avoid the traffic jam.

Definition: Redisenfranchisement

redisenfranchisement. Noun. A word that sounds like it was invented by George W. Bush, and to some degree, it actually was.

Definition: Schadenfüße

 Schadenfüße. Noun. The sadness of discovering a hole in your favorite socks.

Definition: Social Anorexia

social anorexia. Noun. An emotional disorder characterized by the pathological fear of becoming socially fat. The social anorexic has a distorted self image such that, regardless of actual social stature, he or she feels the need to starve, socially, to avoid potential rejections.

Definition: Socratic Methadone

Socratic Methadone. Noun. The technique of using the Socratic Method upon one's self, to call one's every belief and value into question. Though use of the technique initially leads to feelings of euphoria, the practice is habit-forming, and may lead to headaches, nausea, hypoventilation, irritability, insomnia, mood swings, decreased bowel motility, and, in extreme cases, death.

See also, antimonious.

Definition: Spite

spite. Noun. The desire to spit.

Definition: String Theory

String theory. Noun. A single unified model in physics which can explain why headphone cables get so tangled and why shoes always come untied.

Definition: Tornado

Tornadoes are God punishing the South for always voting Republican

tornado. Noun. God punishing the South and Midwest for always voting Republican.

Definition: Vegan

ve-gan. Noun. A vegetarian who doesn't like you.

Definition: WebMD

Web-MD. Verb. 1. To research symptoms on the Internet to the point of becoming convinced one has a disease, usually terminal. 2. To psychosomatically inflict such a disease upon yourself via Internet research. Though the disease begins as a figment of the imagination, coupled with Google search results, eventually bona fide symptoms become manifest, generally resulting in death.

Definition: White Man Tan

white man tan. Noun. A sunburn.

Definition: Work

work. Noun. A series of meetings about other meetings.