Itinerantdaughter's Blog

GUYS.

Guess what.

This is my 800th post.

I’ve had a lot of anxiety about it, actually, because while there have been a bunch of things that I wanted to post about, none of them seemed “special enough” for this milestone.  Then I thought maybe I should just let it pass unmentioned, and finally I settled on revealing my anxiety so as to preemptively soften the judgments of my critical readers.  It’s this type of psychological gymnastics that keep me going, folks.

What I’ve opted to do is make a little list about the number 800 and pretend that, because it’s a list, there is some interesting interconnectedness to all these random facts.  Very Harper’s Index of me, I know.  Anyway, let us begin:

800 is a Harshad number.  A Harshad number, or Niven number in a given number base, is an integer that is divisible by the sum of its digits when written in that base. Harshad numbers were defined by D. R. Kaprekar, a mathematician from India. The word “Harshad” comes from the Sanskrit harṣa (joy) + da (give), meaning joy-giver. The Niven numbers take their name from Ivan M. Niven from a paper delivered at a conference on number theory in 1997. All integers between zero and n are Harshad numbers in base n.

800 is the first year that the Anno Domini calendar became the dominant year-numbering system in Europe.  800 AD was a leap year that began on a Wednesday, and on Christmas of that year, Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

In numerology, the number 800 carries the energy of 8 only, which possess the following “energies”: material possessions, abundance, authority, leadership, cosmic awareness, self-motivated, prosperity, and infinity.

1-800-222-1222 is the toll free number for every poison control center in the US.

In some Biblical Gematria shit… well, I can’t think of how to segue, so here’s an excerpt from the Bible Wheel Archives:

The historic Christian Church has traditionally associated the Number 8 with the entrance into the Covenant of God. This understanding comes from God Himself who commanded Circumcision – the Sign of the Covenant – to be performed on the Eighth Day. God used the same language – אות ברית (Ot B’rit, Sign of the Covenant) – when He gave the Rainbow (Genesis 9.13):

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

Genesis 17:10f

The word “rainbow” (קשת, qeshet) used in this verse sums to the Number 800 which also is the value of the Greek words “Lord” and “Faith.” It also is the value of the final letter of the Greek alphabet, Omega (cf. Eight and the Resurrection below). This is the essence of Faith – trusting in the Lord who will see us through to the very end, signified by Omega. This lifts us above our present state to behold our Shepherd who is Lord above all.

Given the extreme significance of Circumcision as the Sign of the Covenant, it is no wonder that the Rabbi’s have long expounded on the spiritual significance of the Number Eight and its relation to God’s Covenant. For example, on page 134 of his book Alef-Beit, Rabbi Yitzchak declares:

The Torah prescribes that the circumcision of a male child take place on the eighth day from birth. These eight days always include at least one Shabbat, the seventh day, which corresponds to the experience of perfect harmony with nature. The eighth day of circumcision represents the power of the soul to contact that light which totally transcends nature. Through circumcision the Jew is given the power, throughout his life, to overcome all the obstacles nature may seem to place in the face of his service of G-d.

The transcendence associated with the Number Eight – recognized by both Jews and Christians – ultimately manifests in the everlasting New Beginning found in the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

For the Olympics this past year, the London-based design firm BarberOsgerby designed a torch that was 800mm heigh, weighed 800grammes and featured 8,000 perforated circles representing the 8,000 torchbearers who would carry it on its journey.

A random urine osmolality should average 500–800 mOsm/kg.

No social security numbers with an area number [first three numbers] in the 800s or 900s, or with a 000 area number, have been assigned.

The Book of Kells is generally thought to have been created ca. 800.

In Wolof, a language native to the peoples of Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania, 800 is pronounced “juróom-ñetti téeméer.”

In California, the interim statewide Academic Performance Index target for all schools is 800.

The gardens of Versailles cover approximately 800 hectares of land.

In regard to the LIBOR scandal of earlier this year, the number Barclay’s fiddled with is used as a benchmark to set payments on about $800 trillion-worth of financial instruments, ranging from complex interest-rate derivatives to simple mortgages.

In the Dewey Decimal system, 800 numbers are Literature, English Literature, American Literature, Rhetoric and Criticism.

And last but not leasts (as you’ve probably realized, this could go on for 800 mind-numbing years), in order to get your tickets to the annul Faerie Festival, please call 1 800 922 TIXX.  The 2012 festival featured “I-Knew-the-Maharishi-First” Donovan, Tricky Pixie, and what seems to be the incongruously named “Heavy Hammer.”

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

 

This entry was posted on October 3, 2012 at 4:33 pm and is filed under Conspiracy Theories, Jesting, Infinitely, Lists, Not a Poet, Really Awesome Insults, Things I Love That I Go to Inappropriate Lengths to Track Down. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.