Sunday, March 7, 2021

bilk \bilk\, verb, noun:

1. to defraud; cheat
2. to frustrate
3. to escape from; elude
4. a trick; fraud; deceit.
5. a cheat, swindler

by 1651, from the noun (1633), first used as a cribbage term. Origin obscure, it was believed in 17th century to be "a word signifying nothing," perhaps of Arab origin; but it is rather perhaps a thinned form of balk. Meaning "to defraud" is first recorded 1672.

 

sexsuade

• To convince someone to agree to, accept, or do something, usually by using the promise of sex (explicit or implicit) or by withholding sex until you get your way.

Girl 1: My bf won't take me out to dinner. 
Girl 2: You need to sexsuade that man!

 

History

• Daniel Webster: orator delivered his Seventh of March speech defending the Compromise of 1850 (1850)
• telephone: transmitter/receiver of sound was patented by Alexander Graham Bell (1876); exactly 50 years later, the first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation took place, between New York City and London (1926)
• fair use: the US Supreme Court ruled in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music that parodies are not copyright infringements (1994)

Birthdays

• Luther Burbank 1849
• Pieter Mondrian 1872
• Maurice Ravel 1875
• Anna Magnani 1908
• Lee Young 1917 - Musician (Nat King Cole Trio)
• Mahlon Clark 1923 - Musician (Lawrence Welk's band)
• James Broderick 1927
• Lord Snowdon 1930 - Photographer
• Frank Morelli 1932
• Willard Scott 1934 - Television personality ("Today")
• Janet Guthrie 1938 - Auto racer

  
• Homero Blancas 1938
• Daniel J. Travanti 1940 - Actor ("Hill Street Blues")
• Michael York 1942
• Michael Eisner 1942 - Walt Disney CEO
• Tammy Faye Bakker 1942
• Billy MacMillan 1943
• Chris White 1943 - Musician (The Zombies)
• John Heard 1946
• Peter Wolf 1946 - Musician (J. Geils Band)
• Matthew Fisher 1946 - Musician (Procol Harum)
• Donna Loren 1947
• Peggy March 1948
• Franco Harris 1950 - Football player
• Lynn Swann 1952 - Football player
• Ernie Isley 1952 - Musician (The Isley Brothers)
• Jules Shear 1953
• Bryan Cranston 1956
• Ivan Lendl 1960 - Tennis player
• Bill Brochtrup 1963
• Wanda Sykes 1964 - Comedian, actress
• Taylor Dayne 1965 - Singer
• Paul Davis 1966 - Musician (Happy Mondays)
• Randy Guss 1967 - Musician (Toad the Wet Sprocket)
• Jeff Kent 1968 - Baseball player
• Rachel Weisz 1971 - Actress
• Peter Sarsgaard 1971 - Actor
• Hugo Ferreira 1974 - Musician (Tantric)
• Jenna Fischer 1974 - Actress ("The Office")
• Laura Prepon 1980 - Actress ("That 70s Show")

 

 

The rings of URANUS (?!?)

 

The rings of Uranus were discovered on March 10, 1977 by James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham, and Douglas J. Mink. Two additional rings were discovered in 1986 by the Voyager 2 spacecraft, and two outer rings were found in 2003–2005 by the Hubble Space Telescope. Additional faint dust bands and incomplete arcs may exist between the main rings. The rings are extremely dark—the bond albedo of the rings' particles does not exceed 2%. They are likely composed of water ice with the addition of some dark radiation-processed organics. The majority of Uranus's rings are opaque and only a few kilometres wide. The ring system contains little dust overall; it consists mostly of large bodies 0.2–20 m in diameter. The relative lack of dust in the ring system is due to aerodynamic drag from the extended Uranian exosphere—corona. The rings of Uranus are thought to be relatively young, at not more than 600 million years. The mechanism that confines the narrow rings is not well understood. The Uranian ring system probably originated from the collisional fragmentation of a number of moons that once existed around the planet. After colliding, the moons probably broke up into numerous particles, which survived as narrow and optically dense rings only in strictly confined zones of maximum stability.

Read the rest of this article:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Uranus

 

Saturday, March 6, 2021

martial \MAHR-shuhl\, adjective:

• suitable or used for war; warlike

1420, from Latin martialis "of Mars or war," from Mars, Roman god of war

dejabrew

• Much like deja vu dejabrew is when you start to remember things you did last night while drinking an excessive amount of beer.

I remember now standing on the bar stool pissing into my beer mug while laughing at anything and everything. Oh my God, dejabrew! I won't ever be able to face those people again.

 

 

Trivia
How many amendments to the U.S. Constitution were proposed in the Bill of Rights passed by Congress in 1789?

• 12. The first two proposed—dealing with the number and apportionment of the House of Representatives, and Congressional pay raises—failed to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. The remaining 10 were ratified and became the Bill of Rights.

History

• Toronto: Canada's largest city, and one of the most livable cities in the world, was incorporated (1834)
• the Alamo: fort was overrun by Mexican troops during the Texas revolution; all inside were killed (1836)
• La Traviata: Verdi's opera premiered in Venice (1853)
• Dred Scott case (1857): US Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not citizens; the decision was overturned a decade later by the 14th amendment

Birthdays

• Michelangelo Buonarroti 1475

  
• Cyrano De Bergerac 1619
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806
• Furry Lewis 1893
• Bob Wills 1905
• Lou Costello 1906
• Ed McMahon 1923
• Alan Greenspan 1926 - Federal Reserve chairman, possible zombie
• Wes Montgomery 1927
• Leroy Gordon ‘Gordo’ Cooper 1927

  
• Gabriel Garcia-Marquez 1928 - Author ("Love in the Time of Cholera")
• Lorin Maazel 1930
• Marion Barry 1936
• Sylvia Robinson 1936
• Doug Dillard 1937
• Valentina Tereshkova-Nikolaeva 1937
• Joanna Miles 1940
• Willie Stargell 1941
• Ben Murphy 1942
• Mary Wilson 1944 - Singer (Supremes)
• Dame Kiri Te Kanawa 1944
• Rob Reiner 1945 - hack / meathead
  
• Hugh Grundy 1945 - Musician (The Zombies)
• Kiki Dee 1947
• Dick Fosbury 1947
• David Gimour 1947 - Musician (Pink Floyd)
• Tom Arnold 1959 - Actor
• Skip Ewing 1964
• D.L. Hughley 1964 - Actor ("The Hughleys")
• Connie Britton 1968 - Actress
• Moira Kelly 1968 - Actress ("Caroline in the City")
• Amy Pietz 1969
• Shaquille O'Neal 1972 - Basketball player
• Chris Tomson 1984 - Musician (Vampire Weekend)

 

Rock out with some Chains...

For the first Friday of March, 2021, I thought I'd dust off a killer tune... HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!!

Alice In Chains

Them Bones

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTuD8k3JvxQ&ob=av2e

I believe them bones are me

Some say we're born into the grave

I feel so alone

Gonna end up a big ole pile a them bones

Dust rise right on over my time

Empty fossil of the new scene

I feel so alone

Gonna end up a big ole pile a them bones

Toll due bad dream come true

I lie dead gone under red sky

I feel so alone

Gonna end up a big ole pile a them bones

WTF Friday: CD Rom

That does look like a seedy rom, doesn't it?

Friday, March 5, 2021

parry \PAR-ee\, verb, noun:

1. to ward off; turn aside (as a thrust or weapon)
2. the act of warding off

by 1639, from French parez (which commonly would have been heard in fencing lessons), from parer "ward off," from Italian parare "to ward or defend a blow," from Latin parare "make ready, prepare." Non-fencing use is from 1717.

 

I-Peeper

• eye-peeper(noun); a person, usually in the workplace, who looks at someone's IPOD screen to see what it is they are listening to and then comments on it, or uses that information later for some other purpose.

"Joe I-peeped me yesterday when I was listening to Black Sabbath, and then during lunch, joked to my boss that I listen to 'the devil's music'".

"Hey, I don't mean to be an I-Peeper but I see we have a mutual Clay Aiken thing going on."

fappable

• Something that is sexually desirable, or deemed high enough quality that it can be used for masturbation purposes.

Man, that picture is really fappable.

 

 

 

History

• Boston Massacre: five colonists were killed when British troops fired into a rowdy crowd (1770)
• Stars and Bars: first of several Confederate flags was adopted (1861)
• Iron Curtain: phrase was coined by Winston Churchill in a speech in Missouri (1946)
  Judge Joseph Dredd: the futuristic law man made his first appearance in 2000 A.D. Prog #2 (1977)
• 

  North Korea: held peace talks with South Korea for the first time in 25 years; the representatives met in New York (1997)
• Martha Stewart: businesswoman was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the investigation of ImClone insider trading (2004)

Birthdays

• Gerhardus Mercator 1512 - Flemis mapmaker
• William Oughtred 1574
• William Blackstone 1595 - First settler in Boston
• Antoine Cadillac 1658 - Founder of Detroit, MI
• Lucy Larcom 1824 - Poet
• Elisha Harris 1824
• James Merrit Ives 1824 - Lithographer: Partner of Nathaniel Currier.
• Frank Norris 1870 - Author
• Hector Villa-Lobos 1887
• Emmett J. Culligan 1893 - Water treatment pioneer
• Rex Harrison 1908 - Actor
• James Noble 1922
• James B. Sikking 1934
• Dean Stockwell 1936 - Actor
• Paul Evans 1938
• Fred Williamson 1938
• Tommy Tucker 1939
• Samantha Eggar 1939 - Actress
• Paul Sand 1944 - Actor
• Murray Head 1946
• Michael Warren 1946 - Actor ("Hill Street Blues")
• Eddie Hodges 1947
• Eddy Grant 1948 - Singer
• Eugene Fodor 1950
• Alan Clark 1952 - Musician (Dire Straits)
• Marsha Warfield 1954 - Actress ("Night Court")
• Penn Jillett 1955 - Magician (Penn and Teller)
• Teena Marie 1956 - Singer
• Andy Gibb 1958 - Singer
  

  
• Craig Reid 1962 - Musician (The Proclaimers)
• Charlie Reid 1962 - Musician (The Proclaimers)
• Rome 1970
• John Frusciante 1970 - Musician (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
• Kevin Connolly 1974 - Actress ("Entourage")
  Jolene Blalock 1975 - Actress (Star Trek: Enterprise)
• Eva Mendes 1975 - Actress ("Hitch")
• Niki Taylor 1975 - Model
• Paul Konerko 1976 - Baseball player
• Jake Lloyd 1989