Friday, August 14, 2009

celerity \suh-LAIR-uh-tee\, noun:

• Rapidity of motion or action; quickness; swiftness.

Celerity is from Latin celeritas, from celer, "swift." It is related to accelerate.

pisshap

• A mishap generally involving the mass consumption of alcohol and a misdirection of urine to an area other than the toilet. This usually occurs as the result of an alcoholic stupor.Can also apply to any other misadventure in some way linked to piss.

Man, Mark was so wasted at his birthday party last weekend that he woke up in the middle of the night and peed all over his computer. It was quite the pisshap.

Trivia

What did actress Mary Steenburgen borrow to wear down the aisle at her 1995 wedding to actor Ted Danson that had their guests laughing?

• Her gardener’s red plastic clogs. It was raining heavily and the ground was muddy during the outdoor ceremony on Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts.

Today in History:

• Oregon Territory: was organized by an act of US Congress, consisting of all of present-day Oregon, Idaho and Washington, and parts of Montana and Wyoming (1848)
• Social Security Act: was signed into law by US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, establishing pensions and unemployment insurance (1935)
• Pakistan: southern Asia country became independent of Britain (1947)
• Ilich Ramírez Sánchez: the terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal" was captured (1994)
• Northeast Blackout of 2003: 50 million people — one-third the population of Canada plus one-seventh the population of the US — lost electricity (2003)

Today's Birthdays:

• Arthur J. Dempster (1886-1950): physicist who invented the mass spectrometer
• Buddy Greco (83): jazz and pop singer; musicians Dash Crofts (69), David Crosby (68), Larry Graham (63) were also born today
• Steve Martin (64): wild and crazy comedian, writer and actor; also, actors Susan Saint James (63), Carl Lumbly (57), Marcia Gay Harden (50), Emmanuelle Béart (44), Halle Berry (43), Catherine Bell (41), Christopher Gorham (35) and Mila Kunis (26)
• Danielle Steel (62): prolific author of romance novels; writers Letitia Landon (1802-1838), Ernest Thayer (1863-1940), John Galsworthy (1867-1933) and Eduardo Mallea (1903-1982) share this birth date
• Gary Larson (59): creator of The Far Side