Tuesday, February 19, 2013

counterfactual \koun-ter-FAK-choo-uhl\, noun:

• a conditional statement the first clause of which expresses something contrary to fact, as “If I had known.”

This word was born in the late 1940s from a portmanteau of two complete words. Counterfactual imagines a reality that is counter to the factual, or lived, experience.

mason jism line

• The area on a woman's body above which she is not okay with a man shooting their load after pulling out before climax during intercourse. Usually the breasts or upper-chest; a woman's acceptable cumshot boundary. A verbal play on the mason dixon line that was the dividing line between the Northern and Southern states during the U.S. Civil War.

Man: "She won't ever let me cum on her face."

Friend: "What? Really? What about on her tits?"

Man: "Yeah, she's okay with that- she just tells me to keep it 'below the mason jism line'."

Trivia

What cuddly prop did director John McTiernan work into his movies Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October?

• A teddy bear. John McClane (Bruce Willis) has one at the start of Die Hard (1988); and Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) has the same bear at the end of Red October (1990).

History

• Treaty of Westminster: ended the Third Anglo-Dutch War; New Amsterdam was subsequently ceded to England (1674)
• Aaron Burr: the former US vice president was arrested for treason; he was acquitted (1807)
• Edict of Emancipation: serfs were liberated by Czar Alexander II (1861 OS)
• internment: FDR signed an order confining thousands of West Coast Japanese-Americans to relocation centers (1942); they were released three years later
• Iwo Jima: Operation Detachment commenced when US Marines invaded the island.
• Eastenders: top-rated British soap first aired (1985)
• Mir: Soviet/Russian space station was launched; it remained in orbit for 15 years and was occupied for 12.5 of those (1986)
• Fidel Castro: after nearly 50 years in power, Cuba's charismatic president resigned his post; his younger brother Raúl took over (2008)

Birthdays

• Nicolas Copernicus (Mikolaj Kopernick) 1473 - Polish astronomer, known for the Copernican theory: the sun is the center of our universe
• David Garrick 1717 - Actor, playwright
• Sven Hedin (Sven Anders Hedin) 1865 - Explorer, geographer
• Sir Cedrick Hardwicke 1893 - Actor ("The Hunchchback of Notre Dame", "The Ten Commandments")
• Louis Calhern (Carl Henry Vogt) 1895 - Actor ("The Count of Monte Cristo", "Blackboard Jungle")
• Nydia Westman 1902 - Actress ("Strange Justice", "The Velvet Touch")
• John Bubbles (John William Sublett) 1902 - Actor ("Porgy and Bess"[1953 on Broadway], "Cabin in the Sky")
• Susan Fleming 1909 - ("Range Feud")
• Merle Oberon (Thompson) 1911 - Actress ("Wuthering Heights", "The Oscar")
• Stan Kenton 1912
• Dick Siebert (Richard Walther Siebert) 1912 - Baseball player
• Eddie Arcaro 1916 - Jockey, won two Triple Crowns (1941, 1928)
• Carson McCullers 1917 - Author ("The Member of the Wedding", "Reflections in a Golden Eye")
• Lee Marvin 1924 - Actor ("The Caine Mutiny", "The Dirty Dozen", "Delta Force")
• John Frankenheimer 1930 - Director
• Russ Nixon 1935 - Baseball player
• Bob Engemann 1936 - Singer (The Lettermen)
• Carlin Glynn 1940
• Smokey Robinson 1940 - Singer (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
• Bobby Rogers 1940 - Singer (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
• Paul Krause 1942 - Football player
• Bob Menne 1942 - Golfer
• Lou Christie (Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco) 1943 - Singer
• Michael Nader 1945
• Bruce Fairbairn 1947 - Actor
• Mark Andes (Spirit) 1948
• Tony Iommi 1948 - Musician (Black Sabbath)
• Amy Tan 1952 - Author
• Francis Buchholz 1954 - Musician (Scorpions)
• Eddie Brown 1952 - Football player
• Jeff Daniels 1955 - Actor ("The Purple Rose of Cairo", "Terms of Endearment")
• Ray Winstone 1957 - Actor
• Peter Holsapple (dB's) 1956
• Dave Wakeling (English Beat, General Public, Bang!) 1956
• Lorraine Crook 1957
• Falco (Johann Holzel) 1957 - Singer
• Prince Andrew 1960 - British Duke of York
• Hana Mandlikova 1962 - Tennis player
• Seal 1963 - Singer (Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel)
• Justine Bateman 1966 - Actress ("Family Ties")
• Benicio Del Toro 1967 - Actor
• Haylie Duff 1985 - Singer, actress ("7th Heaven")
• Victoria Justice 1993 - Singer, actress