I have never heard that word before, but I can still understand what it means. It's a portmanteau word that combines "advertising" and "blasting." At least in the U.S., the sound in television commercials is usually louder than the sound in TV shows, so when a TV program ends and a commercial break starts, it feels like you're suddenly being "blasted" by the loud volume. I would not recommend using that word in any formal setting because I think it was invented by someone as a kind of joke.

What SarahCC said about the -imnida (-입니다) suffix is correct - it's the most formal form of the verb "to be" and it gets attached to whatever noun is its subject. My guess is that your friends are saying that the name Cresen would be spelled 크레센 in Korean. (The way Sarah spelled it - 커레센 - is not a conventional transcription and would be pronounced differently).

I would go with Rola = 롤라 / Mazen = 마젠 / Fatima = 파티마 I think 롤라 is better than 로라 because the latter would be pronounced like "Lora" 마젠 is pronounced "Ma-jen" 파티마 is pronounced "Pa-ti-ma" DD_Scille's transcriptions would be pronounced "Lura" / "Mae-jen" / "Pe-di-ma" Peachey's transcription of Rola would be pronounced "Luh-ra" (ㅓ is similar to the sound in the English word "tub"). What Pascal said is kind of correct - there are no sounds in Korean that sound exactly like the English "f" and "z", so they are usually replaced with ㅍ and ㅈ, respectively. I have occasionally seen 화 used as an approximation for /fa/ (i.e. "화이팅!") so you could spell Fatima 화티마 ("hwatima") if you wanted. You can hear how Koreans would pronounce each of the transcriptions by going to http://text-to-speech.imtranslator.net/ , switching the language to Korean, and copy-pasting the Korean text.

Wow, that's a really really difficult sentence. save = except twixt = between advertising us of = making us notice gods are met together = gods meet (together) where it is very bleak for men to stand = where humans would be very uncomfortable The sentence is like a picture of a winter night. The earth is sleeping calmly, and the only thing that disturbs the silence is a hinge creaking softly. Thoreau (the author) imagines that the creaking is cheering on Nature. The creaking tells us that there is still life and warmth in the earth, but it is deep inside, in a place where only gods can go.

Hot Potato is a children's game where several children pass a ball (the "hot potato") between them while music is playing. When someone stops the music, the person holding the "hot potato" loses. The children try to pass the ball as fast as possible.

Young prickly pear pads are called "nopales" and are a popular food item in Mexico. Mexican immigrants brought them to the USA, so you can find fresh nopales in supermarkets in areas with large Mexican communities (i.e. the Southwest and West). I don't know for sure, but I would guess that they're fairly cheap, at least in the areas I mentioned above. Although they're sold fresh, you have to cook them before eating them. They taste similar to green beans, except slightly tart and with a sort of mucous covering them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nopal

What Martin said is basically correct, but I'd translate it slightly differently: They all ran through a labyrinth in search of the cheese with which they fed themselves and which made them happy. The part that confuses you may be the last part, starting with "con que se alimentaban..." It's a long prepositional phrase that describes the cheese (queso). Alimentarse is a reflexive verb literally meaning "to nourish oneself" or colloquially, "to eat." In "los hacía felices," "los" is a direct object pronoun referring back to "todos". The subject of the verb "hacía" is "el queso." Another way to phrase it: They all ran through a labyrinth in search of the cheese. The cheese nourished them, and the cheese made them happy. Note that corrían and hacía are spelled with accent marks.