Tuesday, August 7, 2012

incondite \in-KON-dit\, adjective:

1. Ill-constructed; unpolished: incondite prose.
2. Crude; rough; unmannerly.

Incondite stems from the Latin root condere meaning "to put in, restore." The prefix in- also corresponds to the prefix un-, as in the word indefensible.
coffeedence

• The sudden burst of confidence, focus, or creativity one experiences during or immediately following the consumption of coffee/caffeine.

"Holy shit, I've never seen Bob give such a good presentation. He on drugs or something?"
"No, but he had a double shot of espresso this morning -- must be coffeedence."
Trivia

When it comes to fine dining, what musical term describes a palate-cleansing course served between two larger courses?

• Intermezzo, which means “something between” in Italian.

History

• Purple Heart: the military decoration was instituted by George Washington (1782)
• Ulysses: a US appeals court ruled that the James Joyce novel was not obscene and therefore should not be banned (1934)
• Kon-Tiki: the balsa wood raft made it across the Pacific, crashing at the end on a reef in the Tuomotu Islands; this demonstrated that pre-Columbian South Americans could have reached and settled Polynesia (1947)
• Gulf of Tonkin resolution: US Congress authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to use military force in Vietnam (1964)
• Lynne Cox: swims the frigid Bering Strait, becoming the first person to swim from the US to the to the Soviet Union (1987)
• Twin Towers: Philippe Petit walked a tightrope between the towers of New York's World Trade Center (1974)
• US embassy bombings: simultaneous al-Qaeda attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed over 200 people and wounded thousands (1998)

Birthdays

• Nathaniel Greene 1742
• Mata Hari 1876
• Billie Burke 1884
• Rudolf Bunche 1904
• Warren Covington 1921
• Felice Bryant 1925
• Stan Freberg 1926
• "The Amazing" James Randi 1928
• Magic Slim 1937
• Ron Holden 1939
• Verna Bloom 1939
• B.J. Thomas 1942
• Garrison Keillor 1942
• Lana Cantrell 1943
• John Glover 1944
• David Rasche 1944
• Rodney Crowell 1950
• Andy Fraser (Free) 1952
• Caroline Aaron 1952
• Wayne Knight 1955
• Alberto Salazar 1958
• Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) 1958
• David Duchovny 1960
• DeLane Matthews 1961
• Marcus Roberts 1963
• Harold Perrineau 1963 - Actor ("Lost") 
• Raul Malo (The Mavericks) 1965
• Charlotte Lewis 1967
• Sydney Penny 1971
• Charlize Theron 1975
• Sydney Crosby 1987