Monday, June 29, 2009

clandestine \klan-DES-tin\, adjective:

• Characterized by, done in, or executed with secrecy or concealment, esp. for purposes of subversion or deception.

Clandestine is from Latin clandestīnus, probably a blend of clam-de, secretly and intestīnus, internal.

hotness hypnosis

• When act of finding someone so physically attractive that you overlook serious flaws in their personality.

Brad Pitt finally wakes from hotness hypnosis, starts to realize that Angelina is batshiat crazy.
Trivia

What nightmarish 1972 action-adventure buddy film was promoted with the tagline, “This is the weekend they didn’t play golf”?

• Deliverance.

Today in History:

• Globe Theatre: London theatre that showcased Shakespeare's plays burned down; it ws reconstructed in 1997 (1613)
• Townshend Acts: were passed by the British Parliament, imposing import duties on paper, tea and other items shipped to America; they led to the Boston Massacre (1767)
• Furman v. Georgia: the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that capital punishment could constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" (1972)
• Atlantis: space shuttle docked with Russian space station Mir; together they formed the largest man-made satellite to orbit Earth (1995)
• iPhone: went on sale in the US amid enormous buzz (2007)

Today's Birthdays:

• Don Dokken (56): rocker
• George Goethals (1858-1928): civil engineer, supervised construction of the Panama Canal
• George Ellery Hale (1868-1938): astronomer who invented the Hale telescope
• James Van Der Zee (1886-1983): photographer, captured scenes of Harlem life
• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944): aviator and writer of Le Petit Prince
• Stokely Carmichael (1941-1998): civil rights activist
• Dan Dierdorf (60): football hall-of-famer; baseball hall-of-famer Harmon Killebrew (73) shares this birth date
• Nicole Scherzinger (31): lead singer of Pussycat Dolls, exotic beauty