Friday, March 27, 2009

feckless \FEK-lis\, adjective:

1. Ineffective; having no real worth or purpose.
2. Worthless; irresponsible; generally incompetent and ineffectual.

Feckless is from Scots feck, alteration of effect + -less.
Bromance

• Describes the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males.

Steve: Ah, Dave!!! I can't believe you stole this first pressing of Aladdin Sane from your record store for me. We were just talking about this the other night.

Dave: No sweat, pal.

Steve: That is some full-on bromance. You're the man.

Trivia

What legendary character of the Old West has been portrayed in the movies by Dennis Quaid, Val Kilmer, Stacy Keach, Jason Robards, Kirk Douglas, and Caesar Romero?

• Doc Holliday, the boozy buddy of the Earp brothers. His portrayals are as follows: Quaid, Wyatt Earp, 1994; Kilmer, Tombstone, 1993; Keach, Doc, 1971; Robards, Hour of the Gun, 1967; Douglas, Gunfight at the OK Corral, 1957; and Romero, Frontier Marshal, 1939. Others who have appeared as Doc include Walter Huston, The Outlaw, 1943; Victor Mature, My Darling Clementine, 1946; and Arthur Kennedy, Cheyenne Autumn, 1964.

Today in History:

• Nikita Khrushchev: became prime minister of the Soviet Union (1958)
• Good Friday Earthquake: North America's most powerful earthquake struck Alaska, measuring 8.4 on the Richter scale (1964)
• Tenerife crash: the world's worst aviation disaster took place when two 747 airliners collided on Tenerife, Canary Islands (1977)
• Viagra: was approved by the FDA for erectile dysfunction (1998)

Today's Birthdays:

• Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923): physicist who developed X-ray imagery
• Edward Steichen (1879-1973): artist photographer; lithographer Nathaniel Currier (1813-1888) and architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) shared this date
• James Callaghan (1912-2005): British PM; Japanese PM Sato Eisaku (1901-1975) and US Sec'y of State Cyrus Vance (1917-2002) were also born on this date
• Walt Mossberg (62): WSJ technology columnist
• Quentin Tarantino (46): hack filmmaker, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill; actors born today include Austin Pendleton (69), Michael York (67) and Nathan Fillion (38)
• Fergie (34): butterfaced singer who started out with the Black Eyed Peas and went solo; other singers born today are Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990) and Mariah Carey (39)