Friday, April 22, 2011

homunculus \huh-MUHNG-kyuh-luhs\, noun:

1. An artificially made miniature person or creature, supposedly produced in a flask by an alchemist.

2. A fully formed, miniature human body believed, according to some medical theories of the 16th and 17th centuries, to be contained in the spermatozoon.

3. A diminutive human being.

4. The human fetus.

being," and -culus is a suffix meaning "small," from which English derives the suffix -cle.

carbon cockprint

• The amount of CO2 and greenhouse gases released by a man in search of sexual gratification

"You're going all the way to Manchester to shag that bird? Your carbon cockprint will be massive!"

Trivia

According to the New Testament, what color was the robe that Pontius Pilate’s soldiers put on Jesus?

• Purple, as recorded in Mark 15:17 and John 19:2; scarlet, as recorded in Matthew 27:28.

Holidays

• Earth Day (International)
• Good Friday (Christian)

History

• Pedro Alvares Cabral: landed on the coast of Brazil, claiming the land for Portugal (1500)
• Henry VIII: much-married king of England ascended to the throne (1509)
• "In God We Trust": US Congress mandated that all minted coins bear this inscription (1864)
• Oklahoma Land Rush: began officially at noon with thousands of homesteaders staking their claims (1889)

Birthdays

• Isabella I (1451-1504): queen who sponsored Christopher Columbus' voyage to the New World; also, world leader Vladimir I. Lenin (1870-1924)
• Henry Fielding (1707-1754): novelist playwright, Tom Jones; plus, authors Germaine de Staël (1766-1817), Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) and Janet Evanovich (68)
• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): German philosopher of the Enlightenment
• J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967): physicist who headed the Manhattan Project
• John Waters (65): offbeat film director, Hairspray; plus, producer Aaron Spelling (1928-2006)
• Peter Frampton (61): rock musician, Fingerprints; also, musicians Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999), Charles Mingus (1922-1979) and Glen Campbell (75)
• Jeffrey Dean Morgan (45): actor, Grey's Anatomy, Weeds; also, actors Charlotte Rae (85), Estelle Harris (83), Jack Nicholson (74), Ryan Stiles (52), Sherri Shepherd (44), and Ingo Rademacher and Eric Mabius (both 40)
• Anna Falchi (39): actress, hottie