Thursday, January 24, 2013

also-ran \AWL-soh-ran\, noun:

1. Informal. A person who loses a contest, election, or other competition.
2. Sports. A. (In a race) a contestant who fails to win or to place among the first three finishers. B. An athlete or team whose performance in competition is rarely, if ever, a winning or near-winning one.
3. Informal. A person who attains little or no success: For every great artist there are a thousand also-rans.

Also-ran was first used in the late 1800s to refer to the losing horse in a horse race. The term was applied more broadly to the loser of any contest shortly thereafter.

Te'oing

• The act of hugging an imaginary person.

Lacey: Yo, McCarron, did you see Te'o trying to tackle me? It looked more like he was hugging an imaginary girlfriend.

McCarron: Yeah man, he was totally Te'oing

Trivia

Which Hollywood hunk has a life-size wax likeness with a strokable chest and pinchable bottom on display at Madame Tussauds museum in London?

• Brad Pitt.

History

• Caligula: Roman emperor who had a reputation for freakish behavior was assassinated by his Praetorian Guards (41)
• gold rush: a gold nugget was found at Sutter's Mill in northern California; President Polk announced the find in December and the gold rush began (1848)
• Robert Baden-Powell: organized the first Boy Scout troop in England (1908)
• Eskimo Pie: chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream bar was patented by Christian K. Nelson; it aimed to satisfy cravings for ice cream and chocolate bars at once (1922)
• St. Petersburg: Russian city was renamed Leningrad three days after Lenin's death (1924)
• Shoichi Yokoi: Japanese soldier was discovered hiding on Guam, 28 years after American forces reconquered the island in the Battle of Guam (1972)
• Department of Homeland Security: began operations, headed by Tom Ridge (2003)

Birthdays

• Hadrian (Roman emperor) AD 76
• Frederick the Great (Prussia) 1712
• Edith Wharton (Jones) 1862
• Ann Todd 1909
• John Beasley Brickhouse 1916
• Ernest Borgnine 1917
• Oral Roberts 1918
• Maria Tallchief 1925
• Marvin Kaplan 1927
• Desmond Morris 1928
• Doug Kershaw 1936
• Jack Scott (Scafone) 1936
• Bobby Scott 1937
• Ray Stevens 1939
• Neil Diamond 1941
• Aaron Neville 1941
• Julie Gregg 1944
• Warren Zevon 1947
• John Belushi 1949
• Becky Hobbs 1950
• Michael Ontkean 1950
• Yakov Smirnoff 1951
• Elaine Giftos 1954
• Julian Holland (Squeeze) 1958
• Nastassja Kinski 1961
• Keech Rainwater (Lonestar) 1963
• John Myung (Dream Theater) 1967
• Mary Lou Retton 1968
• Pat "Sleepy" Brown (Society of Soul) 1970
• Tatyana Ali 1979
• Nicole Marie Lenz 1980 Playmate
• Mischa Barton 1986