BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
✳ Soon after the Kickstarter campaign for “Veronica Mars” sparked a ton of attention, the team behind “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” took the crowdfunding site by storm, quickly topping its $60,000-goal by selling a DVD of the complete YouTube series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice”. This week it ended the campaign with about 8 times its funding target. The money goes toward a new Austen adaptation, “Welcome to Sanditon”, based on her unfinished novel. (‘Crowdfunding’ … word of the year for 2013?)
– IndieWire.com
✳ Showtime will bid “Dexter” farewell after the serial killer drama’s upcoming 8th season (debuts June 30th), bringing an end to one of the premium cable network’s defining series. It, along with “Homeland”, are Showtime’s top scripted entries. The network isn’t ruling out the possibility of a “Dexter” spinoff, possibly focused on Michael C Hall’s co-star Jennifer Carpenter. (Boo … make it a mercy killing and be done with it.)
– “Hollywood Reporter”
✳ There’s a new website called ‘Right or Rude (Where Manners Matter)’ which determines which category stars fall under. A few highlights: George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, and Charlie Rose: polite; Hugh Grant and Lindsay Lohan, not so much. Grant is a bully, claims Carole Holmes Delouvrier, a former TV producer and one of the site’s founders. In fact, she notes, Jon Stewart has banned him from “The Daily Show”. (Reese Witherspoon has just switched ranks.)
– “The Scandal Sheet”
✳ The animated comedy series “Futurama” has been axed … again. The show, created in 1999 by “The Simpsons” mastermind Matt Groening, was initially scrapped by FOX in 2003 after a sharp decline in ratings. It was revived by Comedy Central in 2010, but now it’s announced the current season will be the last. The final episodes air this Summer. (Mercifully.)
– EW.com
✳ Kim Kardashian’s baby-daddy Kanye West is recording in Paris, France and a source familiar with the situation says the reason he’s gone continental is … he doesn’t want to appear on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”. Kanye did guest on the show several times before he and Kim hooked up, but apparently only because he was trying to get with her. Now, the insider claims, Kanye’s team has advised him that appearing on any of the Kardashian reality shows is bad for his brand … and his bottom line. (Her ‘bottom line’ is likely what got him into this mess.)
– RadarOnline.com

TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “American Idol” (FOX/CTV) – The final 4 perform for the judges in a 2-hour show.
• “Conan” (TBS/CTV) – Lisa Loeb (“No Fairy Tale”). Rerun.
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/CTV2) – Grizzly Bear (“Shields”).
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CityTV) – Depeche Mode (“Delta Machine”).
• “Last Call With Carson Daly” (NBC) – Royal Teeth (“Act Naturally”). Rerun.
• “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/CTV2) – Talib Kweli (“Prisoner of Conscious”, out May 7th).
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS/NTV/Omni1) – Selena Gomez (“Come & Get It”).
• “Live With Kelly & Michael” (syndicated/CTV) – Snoop Lion (“Reincarnated”).
• “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (NBC/CTV2) – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (“Specter At the Feast”).

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Huey Lewis & The News – A woman accused of taking his rental car and laptop outside a Mill Valley CA hotel has pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of stolen property. Lewis left the engine running on the Toyota Corolla while he obtained a receipt at the Holiday Inn Express in February. (Wow, Huey’s gone down-market.)
• Lauren Hill – She’s been given a 2-week reprieve in her sentencing for federal tax evasion while her lawyers attempt to find some more money. So far, they’ve made a $50,000-payment toward her back taxes and penalties, but need to come up with another $504,000 by May 3rd. (There is no more money … she hasn’t released an album since 2001.)
• Michael Jackson – After a month-long search, a jury of 6 men & 6 women has been chosen for the $40-billion civil lawsuit that pits 82-year-old Katherine Jackson vs concert promoter AEG Live. That clears the way for opening statements to begin later this week or early next week. (This is gonna drag on 3 months or even longer if AEG lawyers get their way.)
• Rihanna – She has become the 1st artist in the 20-year history of “Billboard” magazine’s ‘Pop Songs’ radio airplay chart to tally 10 #1 songs as her latest, “Stay” f/Mikky Ekko, has risen to the top of the chart. (She’s now one notch above Katy Perry.)
• Taylor Swift – Along with fun. and Maroon 5, she’s nominated in 11 different categories for the “Billboard Music Awards”, which are slated to be handed out on May 19th in Las Vegas. ABC-TV has broadcast rights.

FROM THE BS POLL VAULT:
A statistical look at who we are and the things we do …
• 97% of us don’t launder our pillows properly or often enough.
• 60% of married couples say their first important discussion after marriage was about laundry.
• 50% of women say the most important thing they pack when going on vacation is comfy PJs.
• 33% of women say it puts them in a bad mood when their underwear doesn’t fit right at work.
• 10% of women prefer to pay full price for clothing because they think items ‘on sale’ are likely out of style or inferior.
• 5% of men gamble at least once a year without telling their wives.

FOOD LAND:
Just how much land would you need to feed your family? The company One Block Off the Grid estimates that to feed a family of 4 on a home-grown diet of vegetables, you’d need 1.76 acres (7,100 square meters) of land, which would yield 2,300 calories per person per day. Add in meat, dairy, corn, and wheat to those vegetables and you’d need more land, but not much more … about 2 well-organized acres would be enough. (Do you get more crops per year if you grow fast-food?)
– “Boston Globe”

JOB INTERVIEWS FROM HELL:
Personnel Directors of 100 large corporations were asked to describe their most unusual experiences interviewing prospective employees. A few highlights (lowlights?) …
● Candidate said he never finished high school because he was kidnapped and kept in a closet in Mexico.
● Applicant challenged interviewer to arm wrestle.
● Candidate announced she hadn’t had lunch and proceeded to eat a burger and fries in the interviewer’s office.
● Applicant said if hired he would demonstrate his loyalty by having the corporate logo tattooed on his forearm.
● Balding candidate excused himself and returned to the office a few minutes later wearing a hairpiece.
● Applicant dozed off during the interview.
– CareerBuilder.com

BS BUZZWORDS:
New cutting-edge vocab …
✓ ‘Cupertino Effect’ – Named for the California town that’s home to Apple and other tech companies, this is the tendency for automatic spell-checking software to replace words with inappropriate or incorrect alternatives. (Seems ‘Autocorrect’ often isn’t.)
✓ ‘Glasshole’ – A demeaning term for users of the new Google Glass wearable face computer. Can also denote anyone who doesn’t use the gadget in socially acceptable ways. (May also be referred to as a ‘glasswipe’ or ‘glasshat’.)
✓ ‘Twintern’ – Twitter + intern = An intern hired to monitor and post messages to a company’s social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter. (Why not ‘Inyoface’?)

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER:
Can’t tell what her eyes are saying? You’re probably a guy. A new study says men often don’t have a clue what a woman’s eyes are saying, and that the reason for this lies deep in men’s unevolved brains. In experiments, researchers found that men looking at close-up photos of human eyes were twice as likely to correctly identify the mood expressed in the eyes of a man as in those of a woman. (She wants me … no? What? She’s angry?)
– TheGlobeandMail.com

MOST HATE-ABLE:
According to a new “Star Magazine” poll, these are currently the most-hated celebrities …
1. Gwyneth Paltrow
2. Kristen Stewart
3. Jennifer Lopez
4. John Mayer
5. Katherine Heigl
And here are the top reasons why we have a hate-on for any given celeb …
1. Tries Too Hard (do-gooders, poseurs, strivers, fakes, phonies, or those who over-step their position).
2. Doesn’t Try Hard Enough (they slouch, they don’t care about their appearance, they sleep through court dates, they exhibit an aura of entitlement, and haven’t earned their success).
3. Crimes Against Other Celebrities (they cheat with or steal another’s partner, they slag other stars, they always have beefs about the biz and chirp about other people’s short-comings).
– NYMag.com

NETFLIX IN FLUX:
Netflix has attracted a huge base of customers by offering movies and TV shows online for $7.99-a-month with liberal policies that let family and friends share one account. That may be about to change. The company is looking at squeezing out more profit by tightening up those policies and/or boosting prices. As many as 10 million people are watching the online video service without paying as Netflix is currently lax on the number of PCs, tablets, or phones that can use one account and the number of people who can sign in. The current limitation is only on the number of videos each account can have streaming simultaneously … 2. (No more sharing with your 5th cousin twice removed?)
– Sourced from Bloomberg.com

BS AMAZING FACT:
More than 100 billion Earth-like planets that could be home to life may exist in our galaxy.
– “Daily Telegraph”

BS CHRONOMETER 04.24.13

TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1942 [71] Barbra Streisand, Brooklyn NY, movie actress (“Meet the Fockers”, Oscar-“Funny Girl”)/film director (“The Prince of Tides”)/pop singer (“The Way We Were”)/only person to win Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, CableACE, and Peabody awards

1952 [61] Jean-Paul Gaultier, Arcueil, France, haute couture fashion designer (Jean Paul Gaultier, Hermès)

1973 [40] Brian Marshall, Fort Walton Beach FL, rock bassist (Creed-“My Sacrifice”, “With Arms Wide Open”; Alter Bridge-“Isolation”, “Open Your Eyes”)

1982 [31] Kelly Clarkson, Fort Worth TX, pop singer (“Stronger”, “Since U Been Gone”)/original “American Idol” winner (2002)/3 Grammy Awards

1984 [29] Tyson Ritter, Stillwater OK, pop-rock singer/bassist (All American Rejects-“Gives You Hell”, “Dirty Little Secret”)

TODAY’S BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Administrative Professionals Day” (“Secretaries Day” in ancient times), the 61st annual observance saluting those dedicated souls in the office who do the work in the trenches.
NET: http://www.iaap-hq.org/events/apw
Occasional BS contributor Robyn Bentley has a few tips to help make the office less stressful …
NET: http://www.fengshuidiva.com/articleadminprofday.htm

• “International Guide Dogs Day”, observed annually on the last Wednesday of April to acknowledge the vital service guide dogs provide to people who are vision-impaired.

• “Pigs In a Blanket Day”, celebrating the breakfast taste-treat of sausage wrapped in a pancake.

• “World Day For Lab Animals”, established in 1979 by the UK’s National Anti-Vivisection Society on behalf of the ‘billions of animals who are burnt, sliced, crushed, electrocuted, gassed, poisoned with toxic chemicals, psychologically tormented, and killed each year in laboratories around the world’. (As opposed to those we just eat.)

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
2007 [06] US president George W Bush is denied a luxury suite at the Imperial Hotel in Vienna, Austria because Mick Jagger, in town with the Rolling Stones tour, had booked it first

TODAY’S FIRST . . .
2005 [08] ‘Snuppy’, the world’s 1st cloned dog, is born in South Korea

TODAY’S RECORDS . . .
1992 [21] Terry Cole balances a world record 220 cigar boxes on his chin for 9 seconds (London UK)

1994 [19] ‘Fastest Backwards Marathon’ record is set by Timothy Badnya at 3 hours, 53 minutes, 17 seconds (Toledo OH)

AND REMEMBER . . .
[Thurs] Full ‘Pink’ Moon
[Thurs] Hairstylists Appreciation Day
[Thurs] Red Hat Society Day
[Fri] Hug an Australian Day
[Fri] Hairball Awareness Day
[Sat] World Tai Chi Day
This Week Is … Consumer Protection Week
This Month Is … Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month

BULL’S BITS

BS DIVES NOT ALLOWED ON “SPLASH”:
If you watched the ABC-TV diving competition “Splash” last night, you did not see …
✗ A forward double-flip with a half-caf half-decaf double espresso.
✗ 2½ somersaults while smoking a pipe and reading “Remembrance of Things Past”.
✗ A triple Lutz with a forward 1½ somersault while wearing figure skates.
✗ A back 1½ somersault with 1½ twists while contemplating the fleeting nature of athletic excellence.
✗ A backward 2½ somersault with a lemon twist while ordering Chinese food on a cellphone.
✗ An inward 2½ while flapping arms and making airplane jokes.
✗ A forward 3½ somersault with the hand clap from the “Friends” theme song in a pike position.
✗ A backward 1½ with arms wrapped tightly around the neck so it looks like you’re making out with someone from behind.
✗ Synchronized moonwalking off the diving platform into a backward 2½ with a crotch-grab while playing air guitar.
– Thanks to Peter Schooff

BS RANDOM JOKE:
There are 2 rules to achieving success. #1. Don’t tell everything you know …

BS PHONE STARTER:
☎ This is “Worldwide Innovation Month”. What’s an innovation we really need? Warp drive for cars? How about a mute button for people? Maybe traffic jam dissolvent?

BS U-PICK TRIVIA:
The ‘Jolly Green Giant’ didn’t turn green until 1935. What color was he before that?
a. White. [CORRECT. He was the ‘White Giant’ from 1925-35.]
b. Purple.
c. Pink.
– GeneralMills.com

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Question: The average family throws away 70 of THESE edible items every year.
Answer: Loaf-end bread crusts.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
If you think you have no faults … that makes one.