Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Occidental \ok-si-DEN-tl\, adjective:

1. Western.

2. (Usually initial capital letter) of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Occident or its natives and inhabitants.

noun:

1. A native or inhabitant of the Occident.

Occidental derives from the Latin occidentem, "western sky, part of the sky in which the sun sets." The word has been used in relation to Oriental.

status texting

• When someone texts you completely random and/or insignificant information only pertaining to themselves, as if they were updating their Facebook status.

Lauren (via text): I'm taking pictures at my sister's wedding!!!

Grace (via text): Please, no status texting. Save that shit for Facebook.

Trivia

When it comes to pounds consumed, what is the top-selling fruit in the United States?

• The banana. The average American eats 28 pounds of bananas a year.

History

• Muhammad: the founder of Islam, PBUH, died in Medina, shortly after delivering his Farewell Sermon (632)
• desegregation: the US Supreme Court ruled that restaurants in Washington, DC, could not refuse black patrons (1953)
• Scott O'Grady: US Air Force pilot was rescued by Marines; he had avoided capture for six days after being shot down over Bosnia (1995)
• PHP: scripting language was publicly released by Danish-Greenlandic programmer Rasmus Lerdorf (1995)

Birthdays

• Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Romantic composer, especially famous for his works for the piano
• Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959): iconic architect
• Robert Aumann (80): Nobel laureate in Economics; plus, the co-discoverer of DNA's double-helix structure, Francis Crick (1916-2004)
• Julianna Margulies (44): star of The Good Wife; also, stars Jerry Stiller (83), Joan Rivers (77), Bernie Casey (71), Sonia Braga and Kathy Baker (both 60), Griffin Dunne (55), Keenan Ivory Wayans (52), Kelli Williams (40) and Mark Feuerstein (39)
• Sara Paretsky (63): author, V.I. Warshawski detective stories; also, writers Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) and Dan Futterman (43)
• Tim Berners-Lee (55): guy who wove the World Wide Web
• Kanye West (33): Grammy-winning rapper; also, singers Nancy Sinatra (70), Chuck Negron (68) and Boz Scaggs (66)