Friday, April 16, 2010

oneiric \oh-NY-rik\, adjective:

• Of, pertaining to, or suggestive of dreams; dreamy. 

Oneiric comes from Greek oneiros, "dream."
slow elevator

• If you live in a tall building when you ride the elevator down to the first floor when your about to get out of it and a lot of people are trying to get in you press every button to piss everyone off

Some asshole pulled a slow elevator on me and it took 15 minutes to get to the 50th floor
Trivia

What notorious Revolutionary War figure is memorialized in a national park with a marble bas-relief of his left leg?

• Benedict Arnold. The sculpture, in New York’s Saratoga National Park, is on the site of a fierce battle that was won by the heroic future traitor, who was shot in his gout-ridden left leg during the fighting. There’s no direct mention of Arnold in the bizarre tribute, which is inscribed “in memory of the most brilliant soldier of the Continental Army. . .”

History

• Harriet Quimby: became the first female pilot to fly the English Channel (1912)
• LSD: Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman accidentally discovered the hallucinogenic effects of the drug (1943)
• cold war: term was coined by financier Bernard Baruch in a speech in South Carolina (1947)
• Walter Cronkite: the "most trusted man in America" began his 19-year run as anchor of CBS Evening News (1962)
• panda diplomacy: China sent the US two giant pandas as a gift after President Richard Nixon's historic visit to China (1972) 

Birthdays

• Anatole France (1844-1924): Nobel Prize-winner for literature; plus, writers John Synge (1871-1909) and Kingsley Amis (1922-1995)
• Wilbur Wright (1867-1912): invented the airplane with his brother Orville
• Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977): silent movie superstar; also, actors Barry Nelson (1917?-2007), Peter Ustinov (1921-2004), Ellen Barkin (56), Martin Lawrence and Jon Cryer (both 45) and Lucas Hass (34)
• Henry Mancini (1924-1994): composer who won four Oscars, two Emmys and 20 Grammys; also, musicians Herbie Mann (1930-2003), Bobby Vinton (75), Dusty Springfield (1939-1999), Jason Scheff (48) and Selena (1971-1995)
• Pope Benedict XVI (83): the 265th pope, born Joseph Ratzinger, looks like a zombie
• Queen Margrethe II (70): Denmark's reigning queen
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (63): NBA's all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points