Sunday, January 3, 2010

tortuous \TOR-choo-us\, adjective:

1. Marked by repeated turns and bends; as, "a tortuous road up the mountain."
2. Not straightforward; devious; as, "his tortuous reasoning."
3. Highly involved or intricate; as, "tortuous legal procedures."

Tortuous is from Latin tortuosus, from tortus, "a twisting," from the past participle of torquere, "to twist."

Guac-blocked

• When you're at a party and all you really want is to get some guacamole dip and chips, but one of your fellow party-goers is drunkingly blocking your path to the guac.

Sarah had gotten her drink and was ready to get some snacks, but unfortunately she was guac-blocked by Cody, who had moved between her and the food.

Trivia

What did basketball great Michael Jordan always wear under his Chicago Bulls uniform for good luck?

• His basketball uniform shorts from the University of North Carolina. To cover his college shorts, Jordan started wearing longer, baggier Bulls shorts—inadvertently launching a basketball fashion trend.

Today in History

• Meiji Restoration: re-established the authority of Japan's emperor and led to the fall of the shoguns (1868)
• the Curse of the Bambino: Red Sox losing streak began with the team's sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees; it lasted till 2004 (1920)
• March of Dimes: fundraising organization was founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to raise funds for the battle against poliomyelitis; it later expanded its aim to the prevention of premature birth, birth defects and infant mortality (1938)
• Alaska: the territory once known as Seward's Folly became the 49th and largest US state (1959)

Today's Birthdays

• Danica McKellar (35): actress, Winnie from The Wonder Years
• Cicero (106 BCE-43 BCE): orator and essayist who delivered 14 Philippic orations against Marc Antony
• Lucretia Mott (1793-1880): women's rights activist
• Robert Whitehead (1823-1905): inventor of the self-propelled torpedo; plus, aircraft designer T. Claude Ryan (18989-1982)
• Clement Attlee (1883-1967): post-WWII PM; plus, S. Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem (1901-1963)
• J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973): writer, LOTR trilogy
• George Martin (84): producer of nearly all The Beatles' albums; plus musicians Victor Borge (1909-2000), Arik Einstein (71), Stephen Stills (65), John Paul Jones (64), James Carter (41) and Kimberley Locke (32)
• Sergio Leone (1929-1989): director of "spaghetti westerns"
• Eli Manning (29): Giants quarterback; also, NHL hall-of-famer Bobby Hull (71)
• Victoria Principal* (60): actor, Dallas; also, actors Robert Loggia (80), Dabney Coleman (78), Mel Gibson (54), Jason Marsden (35) and Nicholas Gonzalez (34)

* I see that in 2007 I had Victoria's age as 61, and now she's 60? Wtf?