Wednesday, April 11, 2007        Edition: #3507
Bully For You!

BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
As the Stanley Cup Playoffs kick off TONIGHT, several celebs are blogging their fave teams for NHL.com, including “Bones” actor David Boreanaz (Buffalo Sabres); Emerson Drive frontman Brad Mates (Nashville Predators); model Christie Brinkley (NY Islanders); rapper Lil Jon (Atlanta Thrashers); WWE wrestler Edge (NJ Devils); and “CSI: Miami“ actor Brendan Fehr (Vancouver Canucks) . . . Apple Inc has just announced that worldwide iPod sales have now topped 100-million units in just 5-and-half years, making it the ‘fastest-selling music player in history’ (a record previously held by the Victrola?) . . . In related news, US album sales have fallen another 17% in the 1st quarter of 2007 according to Nielsen SoundScan, most acutely in the genres of rap/R&B (-34%) and country (-31%) . . . EMI in the UK is suing the company that cleans its London HQ for allegedly throwing out boxes of rare photos of The Beatles worth over $1 million, including the only surviving original cover photo from the “Please Please Me” album (soon to be for sale on eBay) . . . Word has it singer/actress Brandy Norwood, still devastated by the fatal car accident she caused, will be replaced on the judging panel of THIS SUMMER’s 2nd season of “America’s Got Talent” (NBC) by Sharon Osbourne (makes sense: Osbourne is already a judge on British TV’s “The X Factor” which, like “America’s Got Talent”, is a Simon Cowell production) . . . ‘Mr Bean’ (Rowan Atkinson) has topped a new poll as Britain’s favorite comedian of all-time (who would be 2nd – Prince Philip?) . . . Actor John Travolta and 5 of his “Hairspray” castmates are being turned into (plus-size) collectible plastic dolls to be released in JULY, just before the film hits cinemas . . . And according to new figures from his own company (run by his parents), “Harry Potter” movie star Daniel Radcliffe has now amassed a personal fortune just a hair short of $20 million – 3 months before he turns 18 (wow, this kid really is a wizard!).

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Avril Lavigne – THIS WEEK she becomes a comic book character, the imaginary friend of a disaffected teenager in the new Del Rey Manga graphic novel, “Avril Lavigne’s Make 5 Wishes”.
• Carrie Underwood – She’s on the cover of the MAY issue of “Cosmopolitan”. In an interview inside, she talks about her recent weight-loss and her hopes of finding a solid relationship.
• Good Charlotte – TONIGHT they’re on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC).
• Green Day – Swiss botanist Dr Jason Grant has named a new tropical plant species recently discovered in Ecuador after the band, Macrocarpaea Dies-Viridis (the last part is Latin for Green Day). Why? Grant says his team constantly listened to their music while touring the rainforest.
• Hank Williams Jr/Lynyrd Skynyrd – They co-headline the “Rowdy Frynds Tour”, kicking off TONIGHT at the VBCC Arena in Huntsville AL.
• Janet Jackson – Her mom Katherine has started pressuring her to get serious about starting a family with her long-time partner, Jermaine Dupri.
• Jethro Tull – Frontman Ian Anderson now says he’d like to go back in time and come up with a better name for his classic rock band because he always thought it was a bit too ‘hillbilly’.
• Justin Timberlake – He now says he regrets his lucrative 2003 deal with McDonald’s, when he sold out himself and his song “I’m Lovin’ It”.
• Pink – TODAY she guests on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/CityTV).
• Rickie Lee Jones – TONIGHT the ‘70s singer performs on the “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (NBC/A Channel).
• Sheryl Crow – She’s currently touring college campuses in a bus powered by bio-diesel to raise awareness of climate change. At each stop she performs and discusses ways to help the environment.

BS BUZZWORDS:
New cutting-edge vocab …
• ‘MacGyver’ – Now used as a verb meaning to invent or modify something by the ingenious use of the materials and tools at hand. The term comes from the ‘80s TV series in which Richard Dean Anderson manufactured solutions to problems using whatever was handy. (“Sorry about the phone problems this morning. Our techie Tools McCurdy is in the studio right now trying to MacGyver it together with parts from the dehumidifier and some binder twine.”)
• ‘Marathon Tourism’ – Coinciding with the 40% increase over the past decade in the number of people who are into competitive running, this is a growing trend for destination travel specifically to participate in marathons. As well as NYC, Boston, London & Rome, marathon vacationing can take runners to exotic spots like Kenya and Easter Island, even the Great Wall of China.
• ‘RDI’ (‘Repetitive Driving Injury’) – Derived from the ‘Repetitive Stress Injury’ suffered by computer users, this is pain caused by driving a car, particularly from driving with poor posture or improper seat position. (“I must have had the seat adjusted wrong cuz after 6 hours on the road I’ve got severe RDI … in my butt.”)
• ‘Wilfing’ (‘What Was I Looking For?’) – Surfing the Internet with no real purpose. A new YouGov poll finds people 55-plus are 3 times more likely to ‘wilf’ than under-25s. (They’re also 3 times more likely to forget if they have their hat on.)

MOST REQUESTED TIX:
According to a new ranking, these are Ticketmaster’s most requested ticketed events so far in 2007 …
5. Justin Timberlake
4. Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo (featuring a slew of concerts)
3. Kenny Chesney
2. The Police
1. “Wicked” (Broadway musical tour)
– PR Newswire

WHY WOMEN WIGGLE:
An hourglass figure has long been perceived to be the ideal for women, but a New York University research team says the Western world’s perception of attractiveness is not as simple as the ratio between waist & hip measurements. Their study suggests men find women most attractive if they move with a ‘shoulder swagger’. In other words, a woman needs to move in a feminine way, specifically by … swaying her hips. (Yeah, there’s nothing hotter than a honey who walks like John Wayne.)
– BBC News

THE EMPIRE’S NEW CLOAK:
“Harry Potter” fans will be thrilled to know that scientists have finally come up with a workable design for an ‘invisibility cloak’. A group of engineers at Purdue University have used complex new math equations for bending light to design a relatively simple device that should be able to – one day soon – make objects as big as an airplane seem to disappear. The design calls for tiny metal needles to be fitted into a hairbrush-shaped cone at angles that force light to pass around it. This would make everything inside the cone appear to vanish as light would no longer reflect off it. (This is nothing new – magician David Copperfield was doing “The Vanishing Airplane” 25 years ago!)
– AFP

KISS-OF-DEATH ACTORS:
Some names on a movie are enough to make you take a pass on it right away. Simply put, if these actors are starring in a movie, it’s gonna be bad ….
5. Bill Cosby – One of TV’s all-time most beloved, he’s made some of the stankiest films ever screened, including “Fat Albert”; “Ghost Dad”; and perhaps the biggest turkey of all … “Leonard Part 6”.
4. Ben Affleck – If it seems like it’s been a long time since his writing Oscar for “Good Will Hunting”, it has … 10 years. Since then: “Jersey Girl”; “Gigli”; “Daredevil”; “Changing Lanes”; “Paycheck”; etc.
3. Nicole Kidman – She’s one of Hollywood’s most famous but check the recent track record: “Bewitched”; “The Stepford Wives”; “The Human Stain”; and “Dogville”. Woof.
2. Kevin Costner – Since the height of his career, a double-Oscar for 1990’s “Dances with Wolves”, he’s made “Rumor Has It …”; “Message in a Bottle”; “The Postman”; “Waterworld”; and the laughable “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”. ‘Nuff said.
1. Matthew Broderick – He may be golden on Broadway but since his 1986 hit movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, he’s made a series of stinkos like “Godzilla”; “The Cable Guy”; and “Deck the Halls”.
– “Maxim” magazine ranking / Internet Movie DataBase data

WE’RE A SALTY LOT:
A new StatsCan study suggests that most Canadians are consuming far more salt than is recommended. Among adults 19-to-70, more than 85% of men & 60% of women are over-salting, which can cause health problems, particularly hypertension. A relatively small grouping of foods accounts for about a third of all the sodium consumed: Pizza, sandwiches, subs, hamburgers & hot dogs (19%); soups (7%); and pasta dishes (6%). (Wow, our diets are saltier than the language on a Don Imus talk show.)
–“Globe & Mail”

THE BIG SELL-OUT:
In an attempt to get a new start on life, a 45-year-old St Paul, Minnesota woman has put most of her belongings up for sale on eBay. Lisa Perry has at one time or another worked as a lawyer, communications professor, and bookseller. She says this latest transformation isn’t a mid-life crisis but rather ‘mid-life excitement’. More than 300 items of her personal effects are under the hammer, including her bed, snowshoes, a futon, a Village People album, and a seashell collection. But you better hurry if you wanna take over her life; the bidding ends TOMORROW. Perry now plans to move west and take up either creative writing or holistic healing. (If you could perform an instant ‘do-over’, what and where would you pick?)
– AHN

BS AMAZING FACTS:
• Hair is as strong as aluminum.
• More than 70% of North American-made 2007 model vehicles have an iPod link.

THE BULL SHEET 04.11.07

TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1964 [43] Steve Azar, Greenville MS, country singer (“I Don’t Have To Be Me [‘Til Monday]”)

1987 [20] Joss Stone (Joscelyn Stoker), Dover UK, pop/soul singer (“Tell Me ‘Bout It”, “You Had Me”)

TODAY’S BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Barbershop Quartet Day”, honoring the 1938 founding of SPEBSQSA (‘Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America’) in Tulsa OK. So altogether now … hummmm.

• “8-Track Tape Day”, a time for nostalgic memories of the old cartridge tape format of the 1970s. Get listeners to flip through their dusty tapes and call in some of the weirder titles.

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
1989 [18] Cher wins ‘Best Actress’ Academy Award for “Moonstruck”

TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
1961 [46] Bob Dylan makes his professional singing debut at Folk City in Greenwich Village, NYC

1981 [26] Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen weds actress Valerie Bertinelli (they divorce in 2005; he’s now in rehab, she just became the fat new spokesperson for the Jenny Craig weight-loss program)

TODAY’S FIRSTS . . .
1947 [60]  Jackie Robinson becomes 1st African-American to ‘cross the color line’ in modern Major League Baseball (Brooklyn Dodgers)

1989 [18] 1st NHL playoff goal by a goaltender (Ron Hextall, Philadelphia Flyers)

TODAY’S RECORDS . . .
1996 [11] Greg Norman shoots 63 at Masters Golf Championship to tie lowest-ever round in a major tournament

2003 [04] Detroit Tigers lose to Chicago White Sox to become the first-ever MLB team to start a season with 9 consecutive losses … twice … in a row

COMING UP . . .
[Thurs] Teens Against Zits Day
[Thurs] Thank You School Librarian Day
[Fri] Friday the 13th
[Fri] Scrabble Day
[Sun] Husband Appreciation Day
[Mon] 2007 CMT Music Awards (Nashville TN)
[Mon] 111th Boston Marathon
[Mon] “Spider-Man 3” premiere (Tokyo, Japan)
This Week Is … Folding Road Maps Week
This Month Is … Woodworking Month

BULL’S BITS

WHAT FEMMES ARE READING THIS MONTH:
• “The Cupcake Comeback” [“Chatelaine”]
• “10 Things Guys Crave in Bed!” [“Cosmopolitan”]
• “17 Silly Cake Recipes” [“Woman’s Day”]
• “How Well Do You Know Your O?” [“Redbook”]
• “Special Report: Girls Who Pledge Their Virginity …To Their Dads” [“Glamour”]

WHAT GUYS ARE READING THIS MONTH:
• “Unlock the Six-Pack Secrets” [“Men’s Health”]
• “Female Qualities Single Dads Should Look For” [AskMen.com]
• “Thank You Lord, Hilary Swank Is Single Again!” [“Esquire”]
• “A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Hot Shots of Your #1 Chick” [“Stuff”]
• “Anna Nicole: The Playboy Years” [“Playboy”]

BS ‘U-PICK TRIVIA’:
Named one of the most memorable toys of the 20th century by the Toy Industry Association, red-haired “Strawberry Shortcake” skipped onto TV and store shelves in 1980 and became a favorite for a generation of little girls, selling over $1.2-billion of merchandise before being discontinued in the mid-80s. That makes this the perfect quiz for a 30ish female contestant …
• What was the name of Strawberry Shortcake’s cat?
a. Puddin’ Head
b. Coffee Cake
c. Custard [CORRECT]

• Which of these characters is a boy?
a. Apple Dumpling
b. Huckleberry Pie [CORRECT]
c. Pop Tart

• What was the name of Lemon Meringue’s pet frog?
a. Cappuchino
b. Cinnamon Latte Grande
c. Frappe [CORRECT]

• Which of these characters was the villain?
a. Orange Blossom
b. Sour Grapes [CORRECT]
c. Tim Bit Dunkin Donut

• Which of these was Apple Dumpling’s pet?
a. Tea Time Turtle [CORRECT]
b. Marsh Mallard
c. Burrito Supreme

BS PHONE STARTERS:
• What’s in your purse? Ask a woman to empty out her handbag. Pay her a buck-an-item when she’s done.
• If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one new ability or quality, what would it be?

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Today’s Question: By doing THIS you can boost your ability to learn by 15%.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: Taking an afternoon nap.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
Sometimes the way to get cold water is to turn up the hot water and wait.