Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Brobdingnagian \brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn\, adjective:

• Of extraordinary size; gigantic; enormous.

Brobdingnagian is from Brobdingnag, a country of giants in Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
Cerebral Bulimia

• Binging and purging of the brain.History

Last week I had total Cerebral Bulimia prepping for that US Government final.
Trivia
What are fog collectors?

• They’re fine mesh nets resembling volleyball nets that are used to harvest fresh water in arid coastal areas. Set up perpendicular to the direction of the prevailing wind, the nets collect tiny drops of water from fog. The water runs down the nets and is channeled to storage tanks.

• Shaka: Zulu kingdom founder was assassinated by his half-brothers (1828)
• Duke of York's Cinema: Britain's oldest continuously operating movie house opened, in Brighton (1910)
• Fiddler on the Roof: musical set in the shtetl opened on Broadway; it ran for 3,242 shows (1964)
• Iran-Iraq War: eight-year Persian Gulf conflict began (1980) 

Birthdays

• Michael Faraday (1791-1867): physicist/chemist who invented the first dynamo

• Andrea Bocelli (52): tenor; also, singers David Coverdale (59), Debby Boone (54), Nick Cave (53) and Joan Jett (50)
• Scott Baio (49): actor, Happy Days and Charles in Charge; also, actors Paul Muni (1895-1967), John Houseman (1902-1988), Paul Le Mat (64), Shari Belafonte (56), Catherine Oxenberg (49) and Tom Felton (23)
• Ronaldo (34): former FIFA player of the year; coach Lute Olson (76) and NBA commissioner David Stern (68) were also born on this date