BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
✳ Golfer Tiger Woods & skier Lindsey Vonn have just admitted what many have known for weeks … they are dating. They’ve each posted a dating confession on their Twitter and Facebook pages. And they’ve already posed for the kind of cheesy couple photos normally reserved for people about to get married. (Lindsey’s dating a sleaze like Tiger? Just how hard did she hit her head in that crash?)
– TMZ.com
✳ Fan-fic writers, your dreams are coming true: ‘Magneto’ is marrying ‘Professor X’. OK, not exactly. But the actors who play the iconic “X-Men” characters do have wedding plans as Ian McKellen will officiate at the upcoming wedding of Patrick Stewart and his fiancée, 35-year-old jazz singer Sunny Ozell. It’s not clear how McKellen is certified to officiate at weddings, but he claims to have done it before. (Thus McKellen is able to truthfully say, “I’m going to marry Patrick.”)
– “Popwatch”
✳ Season 3 of beloved British costume drama “Downton Abbey” has broken a number of ratings records in America, becoming the highest-rated PBS-TV drama of all-time. Some
24 million viewers tuned in to watch the 3rd season. In an age of increasingly fragmented TV viewing, those numbers are even more staggering when you compare them next to say, a recent episode of NBC-TV’s “Smash”, which garnered roughly a tenth of that audience. (The secret to “Downton’s” popularity? Maggie Smith’s devilish delivery of ‘Dowager’ disses.)
– TheDailyBeast.com
✳ Actor Bradley Cooper has previously mentioned he’s trying out a perm for a role and now he’s been photographed on the set of the new David O Russell movie with … rollers on his head. The as-yet-untitled movie deals with an FBI sting operation in the 1970s called ‘Abscam’, which led to the conviction of US Congressmen. David O Russell directed Cooper to his first Oscar nomination in “Silver Linings Playbook”. (Let’s just hope the “Sexiest Man Alive” title can’t be revoked.)
– LaineyGossip.com
✳ Whether you love him or hate him, it’s hard to deny that the notorious Simon Cowell is a hit-maker. He’s drawn in millions of viewers for TV networks, and now he’s turning his attention to YouTube. Later this week, he’s launching a global talent competition on the service. Titled “The You Generation”, the endeavor will hold 26 competitions for ‘rising YouTube stars’ over the next year. (Meh. We say the talent competition genre is in the death throes of overkill.)
– TheNextWeb.com
TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “American Idol” (FOX/CTV) – Finalists perform John Lennon-Paul McCartney songs for the judges.
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/CTV2) – One Direction (“Take Me Home”). Rerun.
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CityTV) – RDGLDGRN (“Red Gold Green”).
• “Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson” (CBS) – Kellie Pickler (“100 Proof”).
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS/NTV/Omni1) – Airborne Toxic Event (“Timeless”).
• “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (NBC/CTV2) – Gary Clark Jr (“Blak & Blu”).
BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Alan Jackson – Tonight he headlines the 5th annual “Stars Go Blue” benefit at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville TN, in support of the Colon Cancer Alliance (CCA).
• Blake Shelton – He & wife Miranda Lambert are lampooning a tabloid report suggesting their marriage is in trouble by exchanging playful posts on Twitter. Miranda quote: “Oh no! Can’t wait to read if we make it or not.”
• Justin Timberlake – The Roots drummer ?uestlove has revealed online that a follow-up to “The 20/20 Experience” is coming in the Fall. Quote: “20/20 Vol. 2 comes out in November. 10 songs now, 10 songs later = 20 vision.”
• Michael Jackson – His mother Katherine (82) and his 3 children are seeking billions for ‘lost future earnings’ in their lawsuit against AEG Live, the concert promoter behind his aborted comeback tour. According to TMZ, the lawsuit will ask for more than $40 billion.
• Lil Wayne – He’s been released from LA’s Cedars-Sinai Hospital after 6 days, most of it in the Intensive Care Unit, after suffering what appears to be a drug OD that triggered a series of massive seizures. He once said that quitting ‘sizzurp’ (cough syrup laced with codeine) “feels like death in your stomach.”
• Wilson Phillips – Carnie Wilson has been diagnosed with a temporary form of facial paralysis. She’s suffering from a bout of Bell’s palsy on the left side of her face, however the 44-year-old says she’s confident the condition, which weakens muscles and causes drooping, will subside in the coming weeks.
BLONDE POWER:
You’ve no doubt heard that blondes have more fun. Well, it turns out they also have more pay. New research at Australia’s Queensland University of Technology studied 13,000 Caucasian women and found that blondes earn more than 7% more than female employees with any other hair color. That pay bump is equivalent to the boost an employee would generally see from an entire year of additional education. As a bonus, the study has also found that blonde women marry men who earn an average of 6% more than husbands of women with other hair colors. (So go ahead and spout your blonde jokes. They’ll be laughing … all the way to the bank.)
– Salary.com
LIFE BY THE NUMBERS:
A BS breakdown of who we are and what we do …
• 86% of us believe governments are addicted to gambling revenues (aka the ‘tax on the stupid’).
• 50% of us say the #1 thing we do to get our partners ‘in the mood’ is cook them food. (With 7 glasses of wine.)
• 45% of couples say they’d use their spouse’s toothbrush without giving it a second thought. (Thankfully, only 3% say they’d share mouthwash.)
• 44% of women say they’re happy with their number of sexual experiences. (Only 7% are brave enough to admit they wish they had more.)
• 30% of men select their spouse as ‘the nicest person they know’, compared to just 17% of women. (Now is that nice?)
• 34% of pet owners take their critters on vacation with the family. (Is that why there are all those wandering dogs on the beaches of Cuba?)
• 25% of women are dissatisfied by the size of their posterior. (The other 75% are married.)
WAYWARD WINDS:
A ‘Chinook’ is a dry Winter or Spring wind which blows down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and is often warm enough to melt snow. It’s only one of many seasonal winds given a unique name. Others include the ‘Mistral’, the cold strong north/northwest wind of the Western Mediterranean; and the ‘Williwaw’, a violent squall that blows in the Strait of Magellan off South America. The ‘Zonda’, a hot dry north wind, blows in Argentina and Uruguay; while the ‘Santa Ana’, a hot dry wind, blows from the north or east in Southern California. Other seasonal winds include the ‘Brickfielder’, the ‘Buran’, the ‘Bora’, the ‘Harmattan’, the ‘Sirocco’, the ‘Pam-pero’, and the ‘Southerly Burster’. (What about the breaking wind called ‘Ole Gassy’?)
– “Disney Adventures”
MORE EVERYDAY THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW HAD NAMES:
• Feat – A dangling lock of curly hair.
• Ferrule – The metal part of a pencil.
• Grawlix – Typographical symbols to represent profanity (“@$?&S#!!!”).
• Lunule – The crescent moon shape at the base of a fingernail.
• Purlicue – The space between the thumb and index finger.
• Philtrum – The groove running down your lip from your nose.
• Punt – The hollow in the bottom of a wine bottle.
• Rasceta – The lines on the inside of your wrist.
• Rectal Tenesmus – The feeling of incomplete defecation.
• Tittle – The dot placed over the letter ‘I’ and the letter ‘j’.
– Adapted from Buzzfeed.com
WIPE THAT STUPID GRIN OFF:
Fighters who smile before bouts are more likely to lose. That’s the conclusion of a new study that analyzed photographs taken at dozens of pre-fight encounters. The pics were shot a day before mixed martial artists competed in UFC matches. Researchers wanted to test the idea that in this context, smiles are an involuntary signal of submission and lack of aggression, just as teeth baring is in the animal kingdom. What they found is that competitors who smile are more likely to lose the match the next day. (Especially the ones with no teeth left to bare.)
– “BPS Research Digest”
BS CUTTING-EDGE VOCAB:
New terms leaking into our lingo …
✓ ‘Instamentary’ – A documentary produced in a very short time, particularly one about a recent news event.
✓ ‘Safe Shake’ – The touching of elbows used as a handshake replacement to avoid spreading germs. Other options include the Japanese bow or the fist-bump.
✓ ‘Strumpfhosentanz’ – It translates from German as ‘sock trousers dance’. There are a lot of YouTube videos of it, usually featuring men who can’t keep their pantyhose hitched up … which makes it clear that the dancers are actually sharing their tights with the dancer next to them!
THE WORLD’S NEXT SUPERFOOD?
Once consumed primarily by Bedouins and others in the Middle East and Africa, camel milk is growing in popularity outside of those areas, most notably in Pakistan, where Karachi vendors say they’re struggling to keep up with demand over the past year or so. That’s apparently because many customers consider camel milk a health drink. In Islamabad, some sellers are even offering fresh milk from camels … parked alongside their stalls. Other areas with growing camel milk markets include Kenya, Australia, and the USA. (Will that be one hump or two?)
– BigThink.com
BS AMAZING FACT:
One square inch of skin contains an average of 645 sweat glands, 63 hairs, 18 feet of blood vessels, and 78 yards of nerves. (That’s a lotta nerve!)
– “Fun Facts”
BS CHRONOMETER 03.20.13
TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1950 [63] William Hurt, Washington DC, movie actor (“Into the Wild”, Oscar-“Kiss Of the Spiderwoman”)/TV actor (“Too Big to Fail”, “Damages”)
1957 [56] Spike (Shelton) Lee, Atlanta GA, movie director (“Inside Man”, “Malcolm X”)/movie producer (“Kobe Doin’ Work”, “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts”)/movie actor (“Do the Right Thing”)
1958 [55] Holly Hunter, Conyers GA, movie actress (“Thirteen”, Oscar-“The Piano”)/TV actress (“Saving Grace” 2007-10)
1972 [41] Alex Kapranos, Almondsbury UK, indie rock singer-guitarist (Franz Ferdinand-“No You Girls”, “Take Me Out”)
1976 [37] Chester Bennington, Phoenix AZ, rock singer (Linkin Park-“What I’ve Done”, “Numb”)
1982 [31] Nick Wheeler, Stillwater OK, rock guitarist (All-American Rejects-“Gives You Hell”, “Dirty Little Secret”)
BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Atheist Pride Day”, an unofficial salute to non-believers that many mark by changing their Facebook profile picture to a stylized capital ‘A’. Green is the chosen color for the day, standing for ‘natural’ as opposed to ‘supernatural’.
• “Extraterrestrial Abductions Day”, honoring all wackos who claim they’ve been kidnapped by aliens.
• “First Day of Spring”, as the new season officially arrives in the Northern Hemisphere with the Vernal Equinox this morning at 7:02 am EDT.
• “International Day Of the Francophonie”, instigated by the International Organization Of the Francophonie to celebrate French speakers worldwide. It’s also “UN French Language Day” to coincide.
• “National Dietitians Day”, the 4th annual dedicated to all dietitians across Canada. It celebrates dietitians as health care professionals, committed to using their specialized knowledge and skills in food and nutrition to improve the health of Canadians.
NET: http://www.dietitians.ca/Your-Health/Nutrition-Month/National-Dietitians-Day-2013.aspx
• “Nowruz” (“New Day”), the Persian New Year. The date is determined by the solar calendar and begins on the First Day of Spring. The festival lasts 13 days.
• “Proposal Day”, when both men & women are encouraged to pop the big question. (Who do you think are the most eligible celebrity singles?)
• “World Storytelling Day”, a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling, celebrated every year on March 20th.
THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
2002 [11] Actress Pamela Anderson discloses that she has hepatitis C (doesn’t mention any of the other diseases)
TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
1991 [22] Michael Jackson signs the largest contract renewal to date, inking a $65-million deal with Sony Music
TODAY’S FIRST . . .
2003 [10] In the early hours of the morning, the United States begins military operations in Iraq, with help from the UK, Australia, and Poland (and Bruce Springsteen opens his Melbourne, Australia gig with an acoustic version of “Born In the USA” followed by Edwin Starr’s “War”)
TODAY’S RECORD . . .
1999 [14] Hot air balloon piloted by Brian Jones of England & Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland completes ‘Nonstop Around-the-World Flight’
AND REMEMBER . . .
[Thurs] Brain Injury Awareness Day
[Thurs] Common Courtesy Day
[Fri] “Admission”; “The Croods”; “Olympus Has Fallen”; “Spring Breakers” open in movie theaters
[Fri] International Goof-off Day
[Fri] World Water Day
This Week Is … Act Happy Week
This Month Is … Music In Our Schools Month
BULL’S BITS
ACTUAL BRITISH GOSSIP-MAGAZINE COVER STORIES:
• “I Was Blinded By a Sausage!”
• “A Haunted House Turned My Lover Gay”
• “Psychic Horse Found Me Love”
• “Stand Aside, My Bum’s 5-Feet-Wide”
• “I Breastfeed My Dog to Stop Her Barking”
• “Too Fat to Sleep!”
• “Allergic to Trousers!”
• “Mutilated By My Boss’s Drug Addict Chimp!”
• “My Giant Tongue Wouldn’t Stop Growing”
• “Docs Made a Penis Out of My Thigh”
• “I Paint With My Boobs!”
– Condensed from Buzzfeed.com
BS PHONE STARTER:
☎ If your life was a reality TV show, what would the title be?
BS RANDOM JOKE:
She’s just a trellis for varicose veins.
BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Question: More money is spent on THIS hobby than any other.
Answer: Gardening.
BS DEEP THOUGHT:
If you love life, it will love you back.
