Word: albatross
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...interest in a number of women. Prudishness and shyness are partial explanations: when one woman made passes at him in a tavern, “He was at first cold, and then violent, giving her head a sharp smack,” Morris writes. But Beethoven also carried the albatross of physical unattractiveness: he had a swarthy complexion, skin pits, and short legs. One singer rejected him, “because he was so ugly, and half crazy...
...that he has made it easy on himself. When Gilliam meets the moguls to pitch a new project, he wears the albatross of his lost films on one shoulder--and a grudge on the other. "I think I've got a certain talent," he says, "and I don't know how to defend it. So I end up defending it more vociferously than it may need, but I always feel under threat. It's a basic in-built paranoia. When people start interfering, I go a little bit crazy...
...pterosaur's lack of a tail posed another serious challenge to the engineers; a movable, horizontal tail surface increases the stability and control over pitch (the nose angle, up or down) of a flying object. But MacCready observed that other flying creatures, like the albatross, achieve stability and pitch control by instinctively making small fore and aft movements with their wings. His solution: the latter-day pterosaur will have an onboard computerized autopilot that will effect similar corrections in the attitude of its mechanical wings. That will take some doing. Explains MacCready: "Nature's creatures are very good at active...
...that last line, however, which sadly serves as the critical albatross Klimkiewicz may never shake...
...traded to only the Yankees and that George Steinbrenner, of course, lusted after åhim. Theo Epstein was able to put together a package to acquire Schilling, and his next move waså to attempt to acquire Alex Rodriguez from the Texas Rangers and rid himself of the albatross of a contract that the Red Sox owed to Manny Ramirez...