BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
There’s still no official confirmation but it looks like former NY Giants football star Michael Strahan has been selected to co-host “Live With Kelly” after some 59 different guest hosts were tried out as replacements for Regis Philbin (look for a big media blitz announcing the gig September 4th) . . . Rapper-turned-“NCIS Los Angeles” actor LL Cool J came face-to-face with an early morning burglar in his home and took the guy down with his own hands, reportedly delivering a few bruises (mama said knock you out!) . . . The words ‘Prince Harry’s going to Vegas’ must have struck fear into the hearts of Britain’s royal family and it seems warranted: TMZ has published photos showing Harry losing badly at a game ‘strip billiards’ in his VIP suite (are those the royal jewels we see?) . . . The upcoming 9th season of NBC-TV’s “The Office” will be the last, the workplace sitcom concluding due to a ‘creative decision’ (BS translation: Without Steve Carell, ratings are tanking) . . . Actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill are spending this week job-shadowing real-life bankers in NYC to prepare for their roles in the upcoming Martin Scorsese movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” (“OK, so this is how we launder money, guys …”) . . . And tennis ace Maria Sharapova, who’s been engaged to basketball player Sasha Vujacic since 2010, says online gossip suggesting they’ll wed this Autumn is totally bogus (what we wanna know … does she only grunt when she serves?).

TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “Colbert Report” (Comedy Central/CTV) – fun. (“Some Nights”). Rerun.
• “Conan” (TBS/CTV) – Bahamas (“Barchords”). Rerun.
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/CTV2) – Taylor Swift (“Red”, out October 22nd). Rerun.
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CHCH) – Josh Doyle (“Gone Away”).
• “Last Call With Carson Daly” (NBC) – Kasabian (“Velociraptor”). Rerun.
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS/NTV/Omni1) – Josh Turner (“Punching Bag”).
• “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (NBC/CTV2) – Smashing Pumpkins (“Oceania”).
• “Today Show” (NBC) – Owl City w/Carly Rae Jepsen (“The Midsummer Station”).
• “The View” (ABC/CTV) – Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon & Tito Jackson. Rerun.

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Avril Lavigne – The 27-year-old pop star is engaged to marry 37-year-old Chad Kroeger who fronts rock band Nickelback. They got together while writing a song together in February for Avril’s upcoming 5th album. Kroeger apparently popped the question with a 14-carat diamond.
• Hank Williams Jr – “Rolling Stone” reports the 63-year-old has-been country star said the following during a performance at the Iowa State Fair: “We’ve got a Muslim president who hates farming, hates the military, hates the US and we hate him.”
• Justin Bieber – The pop singer will guest-star on an upcoming episode of long-running FOX-TV animated show, “The Simpsons”. He’ll be playing himself as his cartoon avatar attempts to enter a talent contest.
• Madonna – She’s paying for the mother of her boy-toy, French dancer Brahim Zaibat, to join them on vacation at Hotel Du Cap, near Antibes, on the French Riviera. Interestingly, Madonna’s pseudo-‘mother-in-law’, Patricia Vidal, is 7 years her junior at age 47.
• Nicki Minaj – She’s unveiled the bottle for her new fragrance, ‘Pink Friday’, and it looks exactly like her. Handy for anyone with a serious urge to twist off her head.
• One Direction – Zayn Malik has quit Twitter, due to ‘the haters’. It seems he tired of opening up his account and being deluged with nasty messages, so he’s decided to leave the social networking site altogether.
• Rufus Wainwright – Today the 39-year-old avant garde singer weds his theater producer partner Jorn Weisbrodt at his home in Montauk NY in front of 250 friends and family, including Yoko Ono and actress Carrie Fisher. The couple already has a daughter, Viva Wainwright-Cohen, whom Wainwright fathered with singer Leonard Cohen’s daughter Lorca.
• Taylor Swift – Her single “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” has posted 623,000 paid downloads, the best first-week digital sales for a single by a female artist and just 13,000 short of the overall digital single sales record set in 2009 by rapper Flo Rida with “Right Round”.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:
A BS selection of movies in the making …
• “Bill & Ted 3″ – Keanu Reeves’ long-awaited “Bill & Ted” sequel is moving forward with filmmaker Dean Parisot as director. The original “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” came out in 1989 and a follow-up, titled “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey”, was released in 1991. The franchise also enjoyed success on TV thanks to an animated series.
• “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” – Imogen Poots, Felicity Jones, and Anna Kendrick have been short-listed to play the female lead opposite Chris Evans in this upcoming sequel to the 2011 superhero action flick. The film will be directed by brothers Anthony & Joe Russo (“Community”), who are planning a ‘darker, edgier’ take on the Marvel Comics classic.
• “Crazy For the Storm” – Josh Brolin is in talks to star in this Sean Penn-directed adaptation of Norman Ollestad’s memoir. The story centers on how the skills Ollestad’s father instilled in him as a boy helped him survive after a plane crash stranded him alone on a mountaintop. The plan is to shoot the pic in the first quarter of 2013.
• “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” – This adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s fantasy novel, which stars Lily Collins as an ordinary girl forced to fight demons to rescue her mother, is currently shooting in Toronto. It co-stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Elyas M’Barek, one of Germany’s hottest young actors. The film is being set up as the first in a possible franchise.
• “Third Person” – Mila Kunis, Casey Affleck, and James Franco are now set to join Liam Neeson and Olivia Wilde in this Paul Haggis romantic drama. The film follows 3 inter-connected love stories of 3 couples in 3 cities. The couple in Italy represents the beginning of a relationship, Paris the middle, and NYC the end. Production begins this October in Rome.

MUSIC TO YOUR EARS:
Children who take music lessons have better hearing as adults even if they stop playing their instrument after just a few years of practice, a new Northwestern University study suggests. That’s because their brains have better ability to process sounds, making them more responsive to complex sounds. Researchers say the study suggests that short-term music lessons may enhance lifelong listening and learning. (Listening to your kid practice awful violin tunes over and over and over did nothing for your ears though, right?)
– “Daily Telegraph”

AWARD-WINNING LINERS:
Canadian comedian Stewart Francis has won the top prize for the funniest joke at this year’s “Edinburgh Fringe Festival” in Scotland. Here it is: “You know who really gives kids a bad name? Posh & Becks.” (Posh Spice & David Beckham have cruelly named their children Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz, and Harper Seven.) The best of the rest, according to the joke judges …
• Will Marsh – “I was raised as an only child … which really annoyed my sister.”
• Rob Beckett – “You know you’re working class when your TV is bigger than your bookcase.”
• Tim Vine – “I took part in the sun-tanning Olympics … I just got Bronze.”
• Stewart Francis – “I saw a documentary on how ships are kept together. Rivetting!”
– Condensed from Neatorama.com

DOG DANCING DISSED:
Britain’s Kennel Club has announced a ban on ‘degrading routines and tricks’ following a rise in popularity of ‘Musical Canine Freestyle’, aka ‘Dog Dancing’. Some of the moves causing concern …
✗ ‘The Wheelbarrow’ – Dog’s hind legs are held by owner and animal is walked on its front legs. This can damage the back and pelvis.
✗ ‘The Footstand’ – Handler lies on ground with feet in the air and dog stands on these. If the animal slipped, it could strain a limb.
✗ ‘Walking on Front Paws’ – A stunt that can damage joints. Even walking on hind legs is a problem if it lasts longer than 10 seconds.
This ‘sport’ even has a global governing body …
NET: http://www.worldcaninefreestyle.org
(Animal cruelty or harmless amusement?)
– TheGlobeandMail.com

AT EASE AT THE EASEL:
German researchers analyzing job data, including information on how fulfilled people feel in their current positions, have found that the people who are happiest with their jobs are … artists. On a scale of 1-to-10, those whose principal occupation involves performance or visual art rank their job satisfaction at 7.67 on average, while non-artists average 7.06. More artists than non-artists report being self-employed, which suggests that freedom and independence influence job satisfaction, but otherwise the reasons for the high level of fulfilment remain inconclusive. (Freedom or money … which would you pick?)
– ScienceMag.org

PANTS ON FIRE SYNDROME:
New research finds that lying is linked to mental health and physical ailments. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame have found that most of us lie about 11 times a week. They studied a group of 110 people aged 18-to-71 and asked half of them to reduce their lying over a 10-week period. Those participants who stopped lying – exaggerating their accomplishments, making false excuses for being late, and evading uncomfortable questions – had a significant improvement in their health. Their social interactions also went more smoothly. (As in “How do you like my new outfit?” “To tell you’re the truth, it absolutely sucks!”)
– HuffingtonPost.com

DID YOU KNOW?
• According to the National Pest Management Association, the 3 most common office invaders are cockroaches, mice, and bedbugs. (Bedbugs are most often brought in by workers from their homes.)
– Bloomberg Businessweek
• Albatrosses are serially unfaithful to their long-term partners. (“Wow, look at the wingspan on him!”)
– “New Scientist”
• The USA has the most-monitored climate in the world. (And certainly the most talked about.)
– Slate.com
• Packing an impressive karate punch has more to do with brain power than muscle power. (Is that why they break boards with their foreheads?)
– BBC News

BS CHRONOMETER 08.23.12

TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1961 [51] Dean DeLeo, Newark NJ, rock guitarist (Stone Temple Pilots-“Between the Lines”, “Creep”)

1970 [42] Jay Mohr, Verona NJ, TV actor (“Ghost Whisperer” 2006-08)/movie actor (“Jerry Maguire”)/TV personality (“Last Comic Standing” 2003-04, “Saturday Night Live” 1993-95)/standup comedian

1976 [36] Scott Caan, LA CA, TV actor (‘Detective Danno Williams-“Hawaii Five-O” since 2010)/movie actor (“Ocean’s” movies, “Gone In 60 Seconds”)/son of actor James Caan

1978 [34] Kobe Bryant, Philadelphia PA, basketball superstar (5-time NBA Champion with LA Lakers, 2-time NBA Finals MVP, NBA MVP 2008, 14-time NBA All-Star)

1978 [34] Julian Casablancas, NYC, rock singer-songwriter (The Strokes-“Juicebox”, “Last Nite”)/son of Elite Models founder John Casablancas

1986 [26] Sky Blu (Skyler Gordy), LA CA, pop-club musician (LMFAO-“Sexy & I Know It”, “Party Rock Anthem”)

TODAY’S BS REASON TO PARTY . . .
• “Day For the Remembrance Of the Slave Trade & Its Abolition”, designated by UNESCO in 1998 as an annual observance to memorialize the transatlantic slave trade.

• “Hug Your Sweetheart Day”, an annual excuse to let your beloved know that he or she is always there in your fondest thoughts.

• “Permanent Press Day”, a day to proudly wear polyester and keep the iron unplugged.
NET: http://tinyurl.com/8buo4j9

• “Sneak Off To the Beach Day”, a day to surreptitiously soak up some rays before Summer’s all over. Don’t forget the sunscreen!

• “Sponge Cake Day”, celebrating the fat-free dessert that’s variously known as ‘Angel Cake’.
NET: http://www.punchbowl.com/holidays/national-sponge-cake-day

• “Virgo” astrology sign begins (August 23 to September 23). Traditional traits of people born under this sign are: modest and shy, meticulous and reliable, practical and diligent, intelligent and analytical. On the dark side, they can also be fussy and a worrier, overcritical and harsh.

ONE YEAR AGO . . .
2011 [01] Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is overthrown after National Transitional Council forces take control of the country

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
2000 [12] 51 million watch the final episode of the original “Survivor” TV series (a summer replacement show) as Richard Hatch is named the $1-million winner (then promptly forgets to pay his taxes leading to jail time)

TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
2007 [05] Queen guitarist Brian May is finally awarded his doctorate in astrophysics by London’s Imperial College (the degree he was seeking when he left school during the band’s first flush of success)

TODAY’S FIRST . . .
1966 [46] 1st photograph of Earth from the Moon is taken by ‘Lunar Orbiter’

TODAY’S RECORD . . .
1960 [52] World’s largest frog (3.3 kg/7.25 lbs) is caught in Equatorial Guinea

COMING UP . . .
[Fri] “The Apparition”; “Premium Rush” open in movie theaters
[Fri] Pluto Demoted Day
[Fri] Waffle Day
[Sat] International Bat Night
[Sat] Kiss & Make Up Day
[Sat] Secondhand Wardrobe Day
This Week Is … Be Kind to Humankind Week
This Month Is … Cataract Awareness Month

BULL’S BITS

LEAST-USED KITCHEN APPLIANCES:
✗ Betty Crocker E-Z Crystal Meth Cooker
✗ White Trash Compactor
✗ Frigiderriere
✗ Vermin Rotisserie
✗ Bris-o-Matic
✗ Frozen Squidsicle Maker
✗ Glock 9mm Salad Shooter
✗ Crotch Pot
– Adapted from TopFive.com

BS RANDOM JOKE:
It’s OK to date a nun, just don’t get in the habit.

BS PHONE STARTER:
☎ Are videogames an artform? (In Washington DC, the Smithsonian American Art Museum is holding an exhibition that explores the history of videogames as an artistic medium.)

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Question: Perhaps surprisingly, men now outnumber women when it comes to doing THIS.
Answer: Online shopping.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
Despite the cost of living, it remains popular.