Weekend round up

ineluctable \in-ih-LUCK-tuh-buhl\, adjective:

• Impossible to avoid or evade; inevitable.

Ineluctable is from Latin ineluctabilis, from in-, "not" + eluctari, "to struggle out of, to get free from," fromex-, e-, "out of" + luctari, "to struggle."

Cankles

• The area in affected female legs where the calf meets the foot in an abrupt, nontapering terminus; medical cause: adipose tissue surrounding the soleus tendon, probably congenital, worsened by weight gain and improved in appearance only by boots. From the English "calf" meaning wide portion of the lower leg, and "ankle" meaning slender joint of leg with foot.

If I didn't have cankles, I might be able to wear those Prada loafers with my capri pants.

Trivia

What was the first American film in which an actor was shown on a toilet?

• Catch-22, in 1970. Martin Balsam, who played Colonel Cathcart, was the actor on the potty.

Today in History:

• Lionel Nathan Rothschild: became the first Jew to sit in theBritish Parliament — 11 years after he was elected; the House of Commons had to allow a special oath (1858)
• Unua Libro: the "First Book" of Esperanto was published, by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof (1887)
• National Security Act: was signed by US President Harry S Truman; it created the Department of Defense, National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, and Joint Chiefs of Staff (1947)
• Suez Canal: was nationalized by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, leading to aninternational crisis (1956)
• Jimmy Hoffa: Teamsters union head was convicted of fraud and conspiracy (1964)

Today's Birthdays:

• George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950): Nobel Prize-winning author of Pygmalion; also, writers Pearl Buck (1892-1973) and Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
• Salvador Allende (1908-1973): Chilean president
• Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999): perfectionist director of A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey; also, directors Blake Edwards(87) and Peter Hyams (66)
• Mick Jagger (66): singer/songwriter, The Rolling Stones; rockerRoger Taylor (60) shares this birth date
• Dorothy Hamill (53): gold medal figure skater
• Sandra Bullock (45): actor currently on the big screen in The Proposal; also, actors Gracie Allen (1902-1964), Vivian Vance (1909-1979), Jason Robards (1922-2000), Helen Mirren (64), Kevin Spacey (50), Jeremy Piven (44) and Kate Beckinsale (36)

Saturday:

peripatetic \pair-uh-puh-TET-ik\, adjective:

1. Of or pertaining to walking about or traveling from place to place; itinerant.

2. Of or pertaining to the philosophy taught by Aristotle (who gave his instructions while walking in the Lyceum at Athens), or to his followers.

3. One who walks about; a pedestrian; an itinerant.
4. A follower of Aristotle; an Aristotelian.

Peripatetic derives from Greek peripatetikos, from peripatein, "to walk about," from peri-, "around, about" + patein, "to walk."

business shower

• An intimate shower taken between 2 persons solely for the purpose of saving time, completely devoid of any sexual connotation.

"Oh shit, my alarm didnt go off"
"Shit... I have to be at work in 20 minutes"
"We'll just have to shower together"
"Hey man, thats gross"
"Nah its cool... It'll be a Business Shower"
"Aight dog"

Trivia

What country shed Communism in what is known as the Velvet Revolution?

• Czechoslovakia, in November 1989. The popular uprising a week after the fall of the Berlin Wall led to the bloodless overthrow of the Communist government.

Today in History:

• Caracas: Captain Diego de Losada founded Venezuela's capital, then known as Santiago de Leon de Caracas (1567)
• Henry IV of France: embraced Roman Catholicism for the second time; he had abandoned Protestantism in order to win Paris (1593)
• test-tube baby: Louise Joy Brown, the first baby conceived by in vitro fertilization, was born in Oldham, England (1978)
• Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace: at the White House, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein agreed to end their official state of war (1994)

Today's Birthdays:

• Thomas Eakins (1844-1916): painter, photographer, sculptor; plus, artist Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966)
• Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930): British prime minister and foreign secretary who authored the Balfour Declaration
• Elias Canetti (1905-1994): Bulgarian novelist and playwright
• Robert Zoellick (56): president of the World Bank
• Katherine Kelly Lang (48): The Bold and the Beautiful's troubled and complex Brooke Logan; also, actors Estelle Getty (1923-2008), Barbara Harris (74), Iman (54), Bobbie Eakes (48), Ileana Douglas (44), Matt LeBlanc (42), DB Woodside (40), Brad Renfro (1982-2008) and James Lafferty (24)
• Billy Wagner (38): closer for the Mets; basketball hall-of-famer Nate Thurmond (68) shares this birthday