Saturday, November 17, 2012

nictitate \NIK-ti-teyt\, verb:

• To wink.

Nictitate stems from the Latin nictare, "to wink or blink."
Chipmunking

• The act of watching numerous recorded university lectures at 2x speed in a futile attempt to cover an entire semesters material the day before the final exam.

"Have you studied for tomorrows exam?"
"Nah, I'm chipmunking all the lectures tonight."
Trivia
.
History

• Elizabeth I: the "Virgin Queen" of England began her 45-year reign, succeeding her half-sister, Queen Mary, and beginning the Elizabethan era (1558)
• US Congress: held its first Washington session in the partially completed Capitol building (1800)
• Suez Canal: 100-mile-(160 km.)-long waterway opened, linking the Mediterranean and the Red seas (1869)
• Heidi bowl: NBC switched from football to Heidi, missing the last 42 seconds of a game when the Raiders came from behind, scoring two touchdowns to beat the Jets, 43-32 (1968)
• Richard Nixon: declared "I am not a crook" in Orlando, Florida, nine months before resigning over the Watergate scandal (1973)
• Velvet Revolution: demonstrations began in Czechoslovakia, leading to the fall of the communist government (1989)

Birthdays

• Louis XVIII (France) 1755
• Bernard Law Montgomery (Britain) 1887
• Lee Strasberg 1901
• Rock Hudson 1925
• Sir Charles Mackerras 1925
• Bob Mathias 1930
• Gordon Lightfoot 1938
• Gene Clark (Byrds) 1941
• Martin Scorsese 1942
• Danny DeVito 1944
• Lauren Hutton 1944
• Lorne Michaels 1944
• Tom Seaver (MLB) 1944
• Jim Babjak (Smithereens) 1957
• Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio 1958
• William Moses 1959
• RuPaul 1960
• Dylan Walsh 1963
• Daisy Fuentes 1966 (bottom)
• Ronnie DeVoe (New Edition, Bell Biv DeVoe) 1967
• Jeff Allen (Mint Condition) 1968
• Leslie Bib 1973
• Brandon Call 1976
• Rachel McAdams 1978
• Isaac Hanson (Hanson) 1980
• Justin Cooper 1988