Verify vs. Certify and Google Calendar

This is going to be a long one (Beanie, you may navigate away now).

Well, in the shower this morning I was thinking about word usage in a particular sentence. I mean that I thought of a sentence and then thought about if that sentence was grammatically correct. The sentence itself doesn't even matter but what is interesting is that the words certify and verify in this particular sentence can be interchangeable. Now, I bring this up because it got me thinking about word roots and the reasons that we have words that mean almost the same thing. So let's look at certify; basically this means "to assure that something meets a certain standard". Verify means "to authenticate" or "to make sure that something is true". Basically they mean the same thing though right? OK so do the following sentences mean the same thing?

• I'm calling to verify that the charges are correct.
• I'm calling to certify that the charges are correct.

Not really (plus this was a bad example and I've gone off on a tangent once again and have forgotten what my real point was)...either way. I love words that are similar because they allow me to accurately convey ideas.

Next topic. (Still here Bean?...good.)
Motherfucking Google Calendar is here!!! For a while I was using 30 boxes which is cool as ice. It has this entry field (I forget what they call it) where you can enter an event in plain text so instead of filling out a form and choosing a date then entering a time then entering the event details, you can just write "Masturbatory session in McDonald's bathroom at 8AM on April 25th" and your entry automagically appears on the calendar. It's also got a feature where you can see your friend's calendars and edit events between them plus subscribe to RSS feeds...blah blah blah. Anyway, Google Calendar does all of this but there's one feature that even though this is the first day that I've used it, I just can't live without. This feature is absolute genius. It is the feature which puts my whole day in context. As a matter of fact, I bow down to whoever came up with this. Google calendar emails me my daily agenda every morning at 5 AM.

This is the part where you all think "Richard, what fucking difference does this make? Hurry up and finish this shit, my Easter Vienna sausages are getting cold!!!" OK, maybe not all of you...either way, all of my email (save for spam and the letters from my African money laundering email squad teammates) is automatically forwarded to my phone so this means that when I wake up in the morning and roll over, I look at my phone and I remember what I need to do that day. As you can see, I'm blogging on a Sunday so it worked.