Sunday, November 21, 2010

bamboozle \bam-BOO-zuhl\, verb:

1. To deceive or get the better of (someone) by trickery, flattery, or the like.

2. To perplex; mystify.

Bamboozle was originally a slang or cant word, perhaps Scottish from bombaze, "perplex," related to bombast, or French. embabuiner, literally "to make a baboon of."

Egg Alert

• Alerting your friends and co-workers when someone nearby has just farted.

I was sitting in my cubicle and smelled something rotten in the air. I wish someone would have given an "Egg Alert" before I sat down to eat my lunch.

Trivia

What Hollywood superstar appeared as “guy on couch” in an episode of the TV sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun?

• Tom Cruise, in a 1998 episode. Seven years later, in a more memorable TV appearance, Cruise jumped up and down on a sofa on the set of The Oprah Winfrey Show, while proclaiming his love for future wife Katie Holmes.

History

• hot-air balloon: first manned free flight was taken by Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes on a 20-minute, 9-km. flight over Paris (1783)
• phonograph: a new invention was announced by Thomas Edison (1877)
• Verrazano Narrows Bridge: the suspension bridge connecting Brooklyn to Staten Island opened (1964)
• Who shot J.R.?: 350 million people worldwide tuned in to Dallas to find out (1980)

Birthdays

• William Beaumont (1785-1853): doctor who pioneered the study of digestion
• René Magritte (1898-1967): surrealist painter
• Coleman Hawkins (1904-1969): jazz's first great tenor sax player
• Nicollette Sheridan (47): Edie Britt on Desperate Housewives; also, actors Joseph Campanella (83), Laurence Luckinbill (76), Marlo Thomas (73), Juliet Mills (69), Harold Ramis (66), Goldie Hawn (65) and Cherry Jones (54)
• Björk (44): Icelandic singer, songwriter, actor; singer songwriter, and Livingston Taylor (60)
• Troy Aikman (43): Dallas Cowboys quarterback; plus, team players Stan Musial (90), Earl Monroe (66), Michael Strahan (39) and Ken Griffey, Jr. (41)