Sunday, February 28, 2010

quixotic \kwik-SOT-ik\, adjective:

1. Caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals; foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals.
2. Capricious; impulsive; unpredictable.

Quixotic refers to the eccentric, generous idealism of Don Quixote, the hero of a satiric romance by Miguel de Cervantes.
No stalk

• Phrase used before one inadvertently says something that sounds stalkerish on Facebook.

Carter: "No stalk but I noticed you changed your quotes on your profile. I love Hunter S Thompson too!"
Jane: Okaaay.
Trivia

Under Jewish law, what implement must be used in handwriting a Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament?

• A feather quill from a kosher bird, usually a goose or a turkey. An iron or metal writing implement cannot be used because it could puncture the parchment document and because metal, which is used in making weapons, is considered a symbol of death.

History

• Methodism: Anglican clergyman and evangelist John Wesley chartered the first Methodist church (1784)
• M*A*S*H: the final episode — "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" — aired; it was the top-rated TV episode in the US (1983)
• Olof Palme: the Swedish prime minister and his wife were shot in Stockholm; he was killed, she survived (1986)
• Waco siege: 51-day standoff began with a gun battle between federal agents and members of the cloistered Branch Davidian sect; the agents were attempting to arrest leader David Koresh on a weapons charge (1993)

Berfdays, yo!

• Linus Pauling (1901-1994): Nobel Prize-winning chemist and advocate of Vitamin C; physicist and naturalist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683-1757) shared this birth date
• Tommy Tune (71): dancer and choreographer
• Mario Andretti (70): champion racecar driver; another winning racer born today is Smarty Jones(9)
• Robert Sean Leonard (41): House's Dr. James Wilson; also, actors Zero Mostel (1915-1977), Charles Durning (87), Gavin McLeod (79), Frank Bonner (68), Kelly Bishop (66), Bubba Smith (65), Mercedes Ruehl and Bernadette Peters (both 62), Gilbert Gottfried (55), John Turturro(53), Rae Dawn Chong (49) and Maxine Bahns (39)