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franticky

Franticky is a combination of FRANTIC + PANICKY. It describes a situation in which a person is in a desperate hurry to do something, escape from a situation, etc., but whose efforts don't work because the panicked nature of his/her mood makes focus and resolve impossible.
"June, the phone bill is right here under your nose. You'd have found if if you hadn't been blindly riffling through the papers, all franticky."
by al-in-chgo March 5, 2010
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pecker

Casual way to say "penis." Not considered as vulgar as "cock," "prick," or "dick," almost cute in fact, but definitely not standard. Originally "pecker" was a Southern (USA) usage, but social mobility and innumerable HBO comic roasts have broadened its range.
"I've got Hubert's pecker in my pocket." Said by 1960s US President Lyndon Baines Johnson of his VP Hubert Humphrey, meaning (metaphorically) that Hubert was his bitch politically.

"I'd rather cut my pecker off." Said by same LBJ when told by his physician he had to stop smoking immediately.
by al-in-chgo July 13, 2012
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Movie Parking

(Sometimes called TV Parking.) Not parking for the movies, but the kind of ridiculously easy parking a character in a movie gets when s/he pulls right up to his/her destination, zeroing in on a miraculously wide-open parking spot in what otherwise is an impossibly tight urban area.

During the 1950s and 1960s, in movies and on television, Doris Day got such a rep for manifesting that lucky talent that a spin-off term was coined; see "Doris Day Parking." Generally Ms. Day's roles had her piloting sensible domestic sedans and station wagons, a visual metaphor for her competence, efficiency, self-reliance and ability to live without a man. By way of contrast, the neurotic characters Tony Randall portrayed often struggled with temperamental British roadsters, and Rock Hudson played dissolute types who poured themselves into a taxi -- hungover, drunk, in a hurry, or all three.

Times did change -- a little. On "The Doris Day Show," CBS-TV's' late 1960s career-girl sitcom and vehicle (no pun intended) for Ms. Day, her character drove a 1969 Dodge Charger. A red convertible Charger, on a legal secretary's salary. Modernity notwithstanding, Doris never seemed to have much trouble finding instant parking. In San Francisco. Business-district and high-rise parts of San Francisco. In all fairness, though, the opening credits included a very brief shot of her on the California Avenue cable car.

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In 1985 writer-director-male lead Albert Brooks, playing opposite Julie Hagerty in the film comedy LOST IN AMERICA, saw a movie convention ripe for satire. The lead couple, having had all kinds of bad luck in the Heartland, moves to New York City to find new careers. As the soundtrack blares Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York," their car, shown in exteme high shot, dives (no backing) right into a perfectly sized parking space dead center in front of a white high-rise office building in Midtown Manhattan. This knowing send-up of, and homage to the Movie Parking convention (which fit the plot perfectly) never fails to draw howls from the audience.

"Man, we were so lucky. TV parking in front of the building; the FedEx van had just pulled away."

"You want to see Movie Parking at its finest? Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO from 1957. Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara bel Geddes, all drove right up to Jimmy's apartment building, and it seemed to be the same spot perpetually open and waiting for them. Diagonal parking stalls, no less, or as you Midwesterners like to call it, angle parking."
by al-in-chgo February 25, 2010
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hissy fit

A sudden but violent outburst of a person shouting, screaming recriminations and (possibly) wailing, generally short-lived but shocking.

"Hissy fit" used to describe an adult tantrum but now has become an equal opportunity description, young or old, male or female. What they all have in common is no matter how severe the (alleged) offense, there is always some wounded pride involved, and usually an audience of bystanders along with the culprit who allegedly triggered the hissy.

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-- "When I told Sarah she couldn't have the doll, she broke down and pitched a major hissy fit. Right there in the toy department at Target!"

--"So when Joe got fired, all he did was throw a hissy fit out in the hall? Terrible. REAL men used to slug each other."

--"She freaked! She had a hissy! She thinks you're the cat's meow." 'Farmer Ted' (Anthony Michael Hall) in movie SIXTEEN CANDLES (1984), describing the Molly Ringwald character's sudden infatuation with a boy two years her senior.

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by al-in-chgo February 25, 2010
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virgule

Typesetter's name for a "regular" (pre-computer-era) slash mark (/) that associates related terms. On computer QWERTY keyboards, commonly found to the right of the key for a period. The virgule key + shift indicates a question mark.
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Here's one use of the virgule: Most of the audience found the play racy/dirty, not just racy.
by al-in-chgo March 3, 2010
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Abingdon, Virginia

County Seat of Washington County, Virginia, in southwestern Virginia about fifteen miles northeast of the Tennesse border. Population ca. 6,000.

Active (live-)stock market, seasonal burley tobacco market, site of Federal District court which accounts for beaucoup (way too many) attorneys for hire.

Biggest cultural attributes are probably the annual Virginia Highlands Festival held on the campus of Virginia Highlands Community College, waggishly referred to as "UCLA(q.v.)," and the Barter Theater, the State Theater of Virginia. Contrary to popular opinion, neither Gregory Peck nor Ernest Borgnine was born or grew up in Abingdon, nor Ned Beatty, although they all played the Barter early in their careers.

Worst-kept secret: The really choice furniture, antiques and miscellaneous items (and often, quite good deals) are not to be found at the open-air Highlands Festival, but at a semi-secret rummage sale held by a consortium of downtown Mainline Protestant churches, named for Plum Alley, which the week-long event occupies.

Little-known facts:

. Interstate 81 runs along eastern edge of town and affords easy access to Bristol, where there is also nothing for young people to do.

. One of several thousand communities in the USA that has earned the right to call itself "the buckle on the bible belt."

. Just for fun, Google for "Abington, Virginia" (note misspelling).
"Abingdon, Virginia? Where is this Abingdon? How long to drive there from Richmond?"

"Oh, about six, seven hours if the Interstates don't clot up too much."

"That's impossible. Nowhere in Virginia takes seven hours to reach from the state capital."

"Look on a road map, for the extreme Southwestern tip which they always put in a separate little box."
by al-in-chgo February 26, 2010
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de-Jenner-ate

1) The curious process of historical revision whereby a former Olympian can reveal, retroactively, that s/he spent forty years severely questioning his/her own sexual identity, while all the time taking great pains not to allow said sexually ambiguous thoughts to pass into the media.

2) A bipedal hominid who is in no sense of the word a mensch, who has not made a career of M-T-F but still hasn't the guts to cut off his wang and have it splayed open into a plastic pussy; a publicity-grubbing status-seeker and sexual hypocrite.

3) the result of a sex-change operation not to be confused with normal, healthy transsexuals, who has been so corrupted by Hollywood value that s/he thinks that Americans will swallow 40 years of bullcrap just for a photo cover spread and charm offensive.
"Oh, God, there she is again. All OVER the media."

"I wonder if the cereal company will give me back what I paid for my Wheaties box back when she was still a he?"

"It's a very de-Jenner-ate situation."
by al-in-chgo June 8, 2015
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