Droppin' Bombs ...

Residual methane effect (RME)

[ri-zij-oo-uhl meth-eyn i-fekt]

n., sci., the lingering odor that persists in a confined public space after one has successfully moved one's bowels; This effect can be noted quantitatively and is measured in PPUs.

This often noxious odor may persist for several minutes after the offending party (the "pooper") has left a lavatory. In many cases, the resultant odor may deter future bathroom-goers from using the facilities until after the proverbial air has cleared. Mitigating factors may include proper ventilation, courtesy flushing and one's natural poop "flavor," or odor.

In other cases, the offending party is able to leave the restroom and new users incorrectly blame a fellow stall user who may happen to be in there at the same time.

Check out this fascinating website that touts itself as "your No. 1 source for your No. 2 business" to keep up with the fast-moving world of poop.

I can't believe I just wrote that sentence.

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry ... And Drunk

alcholeric

[al-kuh-ler-ik]

n., a person who becomes extremely irritable, easily angered, belligerent or combative when under the influence of alcohol

Alcholeric is a portmanteau, blending the words "alcohol" and "choleric"

Alcohol reduces inhibitions and the more you drink, the more loose you get. If a person is naturally angry and aggressive before drinking, alcohol will make him more apt to act out and get mean when he is drinking.

Many refer to the inhibition-reducing effects of alcohol as "liquid courage," a surge of temporary eneregy that makes people feel like it's okay to do things they normally wouldn't--they think it's okay because they were drunk, or they "couldn't help themselves".

Check out these great moments in "alcholeric history," thanks to YouTube

Ziggy Bowdust ...

bowdust

[boh duhst]

n., the white chalk-like detritus of dry and flaky skin that often covers the surface area of the elbow; the word "ashy" is often used colloquially to describe a state of uniform bowdust coverage.

"I was on the roof last weekend cleaning out the gutters, when the ladder slipped out from under me. Instead of falling straight back, my slow-motion sideways descent through me right into a thicket of thorn-covered bushes. I wasn't hurt too bad, but I had what seemed like 100,000 scrapes on my arms and forearms. I went upstairs to wash off and check out the damage. I lifted my arms and looked and washed off the cuts. I must not have looked at my elbows in several months, because there was a snow-white layer of bowdust covering my elbow"

In many ways, bowdust is an inevitable byproduct of the aging process. A number of factors conspire to turn your smooth, supple elbows into concentric circle-like wrinkles around a patch of ashy, flaky skin. As its elasticity drops over time, the skin around your elbows bunches up, and the tips of your elbows can become darker as layers of dead, dry skin start to accumulate.

Creams, exfoliation and lotion can help, but ultimately the bowdust wins out. Tyra Banks obsesses about her bowdust so much, that she'll use lip gloss or Chapstick for a quick fix

Odds and Ends:

Here are some tips on getting rid of "ashy elbow forever."

Check out this blog for a humorous Homeland Security-style elbow sandpaper ratings system.

Check out these barons of bowdust, Brooklyn-based hip hop band Ashy L Bowz. You can download their album "No Lotion" off of I-Tunes

I'll be ..

in text

[in tekst]

v.t., an idiom, signifying the act of communicating by text message; similar to "in touch" or "get in touch"

"I'm not sure what we're doing later this evening, but I'll be in text with you and let you know."

Random MySpace people who use the phrase:

• Some dude


• Some chick

A British solicitor will be in text with me too

It's In The ...

It's in the ... hole. Yes Sir! ... Well almost ... Tough finish Rory

While watching yesterday's riveting US Open final round, I noticed that professional golfers perform at such a high level that they nearly expect to make nearly every putt they attempt. On the rare -- but to be expected -- occasions when they do not, the responses are quite similar.

puttrified

[puht-truh-fahyd]

v. intr., to make assorted displays of surprise and mild indignation, especially when narrowly missing after striking a golf ball so as to make it roll along the putting green to its intended target, the hole

Examples of puttrification include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Bending at the knee to lament a putt's narrow miss
• Visually scanning the crowd/caddies/fellow players for sympathetic facial expressions
• Standing in place for several seconds with hands akimbo
• Flipping the putter
• Telekinetic use of body english
• Exaggerated facial expressions (vary, stern and even sometimes sheepish)

After finally conceding that a putt is missed, it is customary for a puttrified golfer to grudgingly accept the gallery's congratulatory applause, tip his cap and resign himself to mere mortality.

Example:

"Bryson walked around the 15th green and stalked the putt from every conceivable direction. With the help of his caddie, he vector analyzed the green's topography, and eyed the bermuda grass with the precision of a land surveyor. Finally, after picking his line, approximating its speed and visualizing the ball's path toward the hole, he approached the ball and struck it firmly. The dimpled spheroid did not oblige, making its final revolution just inches short of the target. On bended knee, Bryson looked puttrified at the unexpected -- and rare -- unsuccessful outcome. His feigned anger, however, was quickly sublimated by the fact that he would go onto win the tournament
a few holes later, putting $4 million large in his coffers."

Putting is golf's great equalizer. Many of us will never stripe 300-yard drives, master the flop shot, shape a high-arcing draw around a live oak or impart "on-a-string" backspin on an approach shot. And while physical limitations and a lack of talent may prevent us from ever experiencing these achievements, we all can putt. Even the most difficult putt could conceivably be made by an amateur, even a beginner.

Planned Pantyhood ...

Planned Pantyhood

[pland pan-tee-hood]

n., the deliberate act of matching one's outerwear in color, style and appearance with the straps of a deliberately exposed undergarment, usually a thong but sometimes a bra, or even both; this fashion decision is usually perpetrated by a precocious -- if not prepubescent -- child and usually by young women, though not exclusively

This interesting -- and mildly disturbing -- fashion trend has not gone unnoticed by the conservative law and order, puritanical crowd.

Some cities, like Atlanta and Hampton Roads, have even explored treating "planned pantyhood" as a public nuisance and fining its perpetrators. Opa Locka, a town in Florida with a notoriously high crime rate, have already banned baggy pants and exposed boxer shorts in an effort to curtail crime.

Planned pantyhood has not avoided the watchful eye of school administrators and athletics coaches.

Mark Base, a fellow blogger from Helsinborg, Sweden, made some humorous (and documented eyewitness) observations of this trend in a Feb 2007 blog post Pantspotting In Helsinborg.

Internet Trance ...

Internet Trance
[in-ter-net trahns]
n., a state of complete mental absorption or deep musing that occurs when a simple Internet-related task begins quite innocently (e.g., looking up a useless bit of trivia, checking a sports score, downloading a song, doing a wikipedia search) and then ends up taking much. much longer (sometimes a few hours) than you anticipated because you have allowed yourself to wander/surf/meander all over the internet; this is often due to the saturation of hyperlinks in most Internet content (blogs, news articles, effective ads, etc.); One is able to "trace" the path of an internet trance by looking in the "history" section of one's browser.

The trance can also be site-specific, as some sites have such vast content that one could kill hours of time without out ever leaving a domain name. Examples include a Wikipedia Trance, a MySpace Trance or a Facebook trance.

For example, this morning I was looking up something about CSI:Miami for an intro to a freelance article for another publication. From there I read about David Caruso, then NYPD Blue, then Mark Paul Gosselaar ("Zak" from Saved By the Bell), then Saved by the Bell ... and then I ended with reading about Dustin Diamond (screech from saved by the bell). I never ended up finding the information about CSI Miami that I was looking for ... and due to my internet trance, I killed about 30 minutes and filled my mind with more useless info.

Kindercare ...

kindercare

[kin-der-kair]
n., an emotional response or state of mind relating to the objective (and perfectly normal, I might add) non-sexual appreciation of a younger person who may be precociously attractive; also reflects a belief that one can "tell" if an "admired" young person will grow up to become an exceedingly attractive or handsome adult.

I imagine this word could also describe someone like my mom going ga-ga over some young, male heartthrob on American Idol. Does she want to act on her cute little crush on Chris Daughtry? Of course not. Never in a million years. But the appreciation exists nonetheless, and it should have its own word for it.

I think men and women -- young and old -- know when they see someone who will likely turn out to be good-looking/knockout/ahunk/etc. when they mature. The same could probably said for the opposite feeling, ... a sense that a young person is precociously unattractive ... like a baby or toddler that you can tell from an early age has "ugly" potential

Oh yeah, and the word "kindercare" has nothing to do with the wholesome "preschool" corporation that shares the same name.

We Must Protect This House ...

I just saw an ad for FOX's post-Super Bowl programming teasing an "all new" episode of the critically acclaimed series "House." As a diehard "House" fan, I can't wait for the rest of the season.

For those of you not down with the one-hour network television drama, you're missing out. Do yourself a favor and tune in after the Super Bowl. Dr. Gregory House is one-of-a-kind, and if he were a real-live person, he would be on the Mount Rushmore of Quixotica. He'd probably be flicking Theodore Roosevelt's ear or putting rabbit ears behind George Washington's head. His uber-sarcasm, unorthodox treatment style and erratic bedside manner are all things I aspire to, ... even though I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on tv.

If you're lost, here's a primer:

Gregory House, M.D., is a maverick medical genius, who heads a team of young diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. Most episodes start with a cold open somewhere outside the hospital, showing the events leading to the onset of symptoms for that week's main patient. The episode follows the team in their attempts to diagnose and treat the patient's illness.

The team arrives at diagnoses using the Socratic method and differential diagnosis, with House guiding the deliberations. House often discounts the information and opinions from his underlings, pointing out that their contributions have missed various relevant factors. The patient is usually misdiagnosed over the course of each episode and treated with medications appropriate to the misdiagnoses. This usually causes further complications in the patient, but in turn helps lead House and his team to the correct diagnosis by using the new symptoms.

God Bless you Wikipedia. You let me synopsize everything with all your Wiki goodness, even if it's not 100 % accurate.

Back to Quixotica ....

During the show's four season run, House has demonstrated a mastery of pop culture, music and history, ... and a little bit of medical intuition. Not only is he a Fort Knox of trivial knowledge, but his virtuoso command of slang, diction, semantics and language often leads to some very funny dialogue. In some cases, his clever one-liners serve a more important purpose in the show as the occasional "novel" House take on a situation leads a previously unthought-of differential diagnosis. In other cases, his acerbic witticisms are just an exalted form of smartassery and sarcasm.

So without further adieu, here's today's moment of sublime Quixotica ...

Housism

[hous-iz-uhm]

n., A comment, normally a one-liner, generally an offbeat response. Something Dr. Gregory House would say.

This is not an original piece of Quixotica from yours truly. I have to thank the good people at Housisms for this neologism.

In fact, I am not going to give you any examples here. You'll have to go to their website to find out more. Or which an "all-new" episode of "House" following the Patriots' coronation on Sunday.

OK, OK, here's one from the very first episode of the series.

House: See that -- they all assume I'm a patient because of the cane.

Dr. Wilson: Then why don't you put on a white coat like the rest of us?

House: Then they think I'm a doctor.

In other news, please submit any Super Bowl-related slang to me directly at uvadavidg@gmail.com.