Wednesday, January 23, 2002 Edition: #2217
All men are animals, some just make better pets.
BS PARENTING TEST:
Can’t decide whether or not you’re ready to have children? Take this series of BS tests –
• Physical Test — Obtain a large beanbag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10 of the beans.
• Mess Test — Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there for a year.
• Toy Test — Get a box of Legos and spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream.
• Supermarket Test — Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop at the grocery store. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.
• Dressing Test — Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all arms stay inside.
• Feeding Test — Suspend a large plastic milk jug filled halfway with water from the ceiling with a stout cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.
• Sleep Test — Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and filling it with 8-12 lbs of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 8pm begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9pm. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10pm. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4am. Set alarm for 5am. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.
• Advice Test – Find a couple who already has a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training, and child’s table manners. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.
BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
Will Smith & wife Jada Pinkett apparently fell in love with South Africa while filming “Ali” there last year and have reportedly just plunked down more than $2.5 million on an estate overlooking the Atlantic in Cape Town . . . Britney Spears is said to be experimenting with makeup and hair ideas for her next video in which she intends to dress as a GUY — and she reportedly wants bf Justin Timberlake to guest star, dolled up as a cute girl (not much of a stretch for him) . . . Bookmakers have made ”A Beautiful Mind” the favorite to win ‘Best Film’ at this year’s Oscars . . . Monica Lewinsky’s documentary special about her infamous affair, scheduled to air MARCH 3 on HBO, will be titled “Monica in Black & White” (rejected titles include “Touched by a President”, “Everybody’s Loved Bill” and “Monica in the Middle”) . . . And there’s a new reality TV show in England called “Jailbirds” in which average people are put into a jail cell with inmates — actual criminals (every week someone will be voted off an inmate).
BUTT OF JOKES:
Canadian speedskaters will be showing their ‘assets’ at the upcoming Winter Olympics thanks to high-tech ‘skin suits’ that are semi-transparent. Canadian speedskater Krissy Myers caused a stir at the recent “World Sprint Speedskating Championships” in Hamar, Norway, when she wore ‘happy face’ underwear that were clearly visible through her suit.
LOYAL CANADIANS:
Most Canadians would never consider having an extra-marital affair even if they were hit on by someone they found extremely attractive. In a Decima Research poll, 89% of us said we’d turn down the offer. Best chance of success is in Québec, where 13% would say “mais oui”!
LIE E-TECTOR:
Researchers are working on a computer program that can detect when someone isn’t telling the truth in an e-mail. The SAS Institute’s ‘Content Analysis Program’ can identify underlying meanings in messages. They say the system works by examining basic patterns in words and phrases to detect likely falsehoods. (We hooked it up and found out this entire e-mail is total “BS”.)
ANOTHER REASON FLYING SUCKS:
Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) has admitted that an American woman filed a complaint with the airline after a high-pressure vacuum flush SEALED her to a toilet seat during a transatlantic flight. And she had to stay there until the flight landed and technicians helped her get loose.
FRESH OBSESSED:
Most of us would say fresh food is better than preserved, but maybe wrongly so. According to a University of Illinois study, canned or frozen produce is actually more vitamin-rich than the fresh stuff, at least up until its expiration date. How can that be? Foods are preserved immediately after harvest, which deactivates nutrient-robbing enzymes. Fresh food, on the other hand, sits around for up to 10 days before it reaches stores. (And for taste, don’t you prefer a delicious can of mushy peas to fresh crisp ones?)
FOR THE RECORD:
Two Hong Kong fish breeders are applying for a listing in the “Guinness Book of Records” for their giant goldfish that’s the size of an average house cat. ‘Bruce’ measures a whopping 37.2 cm (15 inches) long. (When this baby dies they better not try flushing it down the toilet!)
IF IT’S A TOY, PLAY WITH IT!
Guess what? The ‘Beanie Babies’ craze is apparently over. At its height in 1998, rare Beanies like ‘Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant’ would fetch upwards of 5 grand but are now worth less than a quarter of that. Experts report that easier-to-find Beanies that commanded $150 just 3 years ago now sell for $5 to $10. (Aren’t you glad you kept them all in mint condition on a shelf and wouldn’t let the kids touch them? And not cutting off those ‘TY’ tags – that proved worthwhile didn’t it, consumer lemmings?)
NO NEED FOR DOGGY BAGS:
A trio of dog lovers in Singapore, fed up with being turned away from restaurants because of their pets, have opened the Urban Pooch Café, a restaurant which lets dogs eat whatever they want, including ice cream, pasta and cake. No health worries here — the doggy ice creams and other delicacies are free of preservatives, salt and sugar. (But how do dogs know which cutlery to use?)
LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY:
• You find using real money instead of credit or debit to make a purchase is a hassle and takes planning.
• You consider 2nd-day delivery painfully slow.
• You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
• You call your son’s beeper to let him know it’s time to eat. He e-mails you back from his bedroom, “What’s for dinner?”
• You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.
• You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven’t spoken with your next-door neighbor in a year.
• You check the ingredients on a can of chicken noodle soup to see if it contains Echinacea.
• Your grandmother asks you to send her a J-PEG of your newborn so she can create a new screen saver.
• Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t have the first 20 or so years of your life, is cause for panic and turning around to go get it.
THE BULL SHEET 01.23.2K2
TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1950 [52] Patrick Simmons, Aberdeen WA, classic rock guitarist/vocalist (Doobie Bros-“Minute by Minute”, “What a Fool Believes”)
1950 [52] Richard Dean Anderson, Minneapolis MN, TV actor (Colonel Jack O’Neill -“Stargate SG-1″/”MacGyver” [1985-92])
1953 [49] Robin Zander, Rockford IL, classic rock singer/guitarist (Cheap Trick-“The Flame”, “I Want You to Want Me”)
1957 [45] Princess Caroline Grimaldi of Monaco, Monte Carlo MON, idle rich girl
1964 [38] Mariska Hargitay, LA CA, TV actress (Detective Olivia Benson-“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”)
1969 [33] Brendan Shanahan, Mimico ON, NHL winger (Detroit Red Wings, Team Canada 2002 Olympics)
1974 [28] Tiffani Thiessen, Long Beach CA, TV actress (“Just Shoot Me”, “Two Guys & a Girl”, “Beverly Hills 90210″ [1994-98])
BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
[USA] “National Snowplow Mailbox Hockey Day” (only rural people know what this is)
[USA] “National Compliment Day” (you’re not looking as ugly today as usual)
[USA] “National School Nurse Day” (aka ‘Fake a Headache & Get Out of Class Day’)
TODAY is “National Handwriting Day”, a day set aside to encourage more legible handwriting. (Especially for doctors.)
TODAY is “National Pie Day”, celebrating the pie as an ‘art form’. (I like it more as a weapon.)
TODAY is “National Spieling Day”, celebrating that great Canadian pastime — blathering. Celebrants are encouraged to give long-winded speeches about meaningless subjects to family and co-workers. It’s a good day to play ‘Dollar-a-Second’, where phone contestants must speak for 30 seconds continuously on-air without saying ‘um’ or repeating themselves.
TODAY is “Weedless Wednesday”, a day for smokers to kick their butts. It’s the focal point of “National Non-Smoking Week” which promotes a one-day-at-a-time approach to quitting. Smoking facts –
• New figures from StatsCan released THIS WEEK show that smoking rates in Canada declined last year to the lowest level since records have been kept – over 30 years. Just 23% of Canadians over 15 were smokers in 2001, compared to 50% in 1965.
• Figures in “Men’s Fitness” show the average smoker loses 3.6 to 7.2 years of life and the average cigarette contains 3,800 chemical compounds, 43 of which are known carcinogens.
• According to the Society for Human Resource Management, if you take a 10-minute smoking break 4 times daily, you work a total of 1 month less each year.
BS GOOD THINGS ABOUT BEING A SMOKER:
• You pay far less income tax in your lifetime, because you have far less lifetime.
• Whenever you get the munchies, you have fingers that look like Cheesies.
• No line-ups at the convenience store when you have to make an ‘emergency run’ at 2am.
• In the event you ever face a firing squad, you’ll be absolutely sure of your last request.
• No need to worry about the dangers of ‘second-hand’ smoke.
TODAY’S FIRSTS . . .
1942 [60] ‘Tupperware’ is invented (that stuff in your cupboard you can’t find the lids for)
1981 [21] 1st NHLer to score 50 goals in 50 games (Mike Bossy-NY Islanders)
1986 [16] 1st “Rock & Roll Hall of Fame” inductees include Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry & Fats Domino
1991 [11] “Seinfeld” debuts on NBC-TV as a regular weekly sit-com
TODAY’S RECORDS . . .
1935 [67] Lowest-ever recorded Ontario temperature (-58.3 C at Iroquois Falls)
1916 [86] Browning MT sets record for 24-hour temp variation at 100 degrees (from +44 F to -56 F)
1971 [31] Lowest US temperature ever recorded (-80 F at Prospect Creek Camp, Alaska)
1977 [25] All-time most-watched mini-series “Roots” debuts on ABC-TV (there are several 25th anniversary TV specials scheduled and a re-release of the series on DVD)
AND REMEMBER . . .
[Thurs] Women’s Healthy Weight Day
[Fri] Robbie Burns Day
[Fri] Fun At Work Day
[Fri] A Room of One’s Own Day
[Fri] Opposite Day
[Feb 2] Groundhog Day
[Feb 3] Super Bowl
[Feb 9-24] 2002 Olympic Winter Games
Nurse Anesthetists Week (try saying that 3 times)
National Oatmeal Month (please sir, I want more!)
Personal Self-Defence Month (forget judo and karate, I use body odor)
BULL’S BITS . . .
BS INTERVIEW:
One of the largest collections of birth control devices in the world is on display in Janssen-Ortho Pharmaceuticals ‘History of Contraception Museum’. Ask about the earliest and oddest contraceptives. And is there a museum gift shop?
PHONER: 800-567-5667/416-449-9444 (Walter Masanic -Toronto ON)
TRUTH OR BS:
One of these statements about ISLANDS is pure BS, but which?
• There are at least 5,500 islands in the British Isles.
• No one knows how many islands make up Greenland.
• ‘Thousand Island’ salad dressing is so named because it originated in Japan, the ‘Land of a
Thousand Islands’. (BS. It was named by its originators at Cavanaugh’s Steak House in Alexandria Bay NY, on the US side of the Thousand Islands in the St Lawrence River that divide the US and Canada.)
Q: What size did famous blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe wear?
A: Marilyn Monroe wore a size 14, which today would make her average. Studies show the average woman now weighs 144 lbs and wears size 12 or 14. However, today’s fashion models weigh 23% less than the average woman. Maybe that’s why a study done in 1996 found that 3 minutes spent looking at a fashion magazine caused 70% of women to feel depressed, guilty and shameful.
(Source: “NY Post”)
Q: How fast do humans run?
A: Not very fast. The average human runs 27.89 mph (maximum speed over a quarter-mile). Animals that are much faster include cheetah (70 mph), lion (50 mph), quarter horse (47.5 mph), elk (45 mph), Mongolian wild ass (40 mph), greyhound (39.35 mph), rabbit (35 mph), cat (30 mph), reindeer (32 mph), grizzly bear (30 mph), and white-tailed deer (30 mph).
(Source: “Triviaville”)
Q: What animals move slower than humans?
A: Well, there are a few. The elephant, when charging, only runs about 25 mph. Other slow-pokes include — squirrel (12 mph), domestic pig (11 mph), chicken (9 mph), giant tortoise (0.17 mph), three-toed sloth (0.15 mph), and garden snail (0.03 mph).
(Source: “Triviaville”)
BS TAG LINE:
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. — Abraham Maslow
