Monday, July 1, 2002        Edition: #2330
A career is a job that takes about 20 more hours a week.

“WEEKLY WORLD NEWS” HEADLINES:
• “Magic Pill Turns Couch Potatoes Into Hunks & Hotties!”
• “Hey Kids! The Monster Under Your Bed Is Real!”
• “J-Lo’s Face On the New $1 Coin?”
• “2-Headed Man Runs for Mayor — Against Himself!”
• “America’s Secret Weapon in the War on Terrorism: Voodoo!”
• “Man Picks His Nose and Finds a Pearl!”

OTHER BS TRASHY TABLOID TIDBITS:
• Brian Grazer, the Oscar-winning producer of “A Beautiful Mind”, tells the “Sun” tabloid that Eminem may be the man to beat for the ’Best Actor’ Academy Award NEXT YEAR. He claims Em’s acting in the upcoming semi-autobiographical flick “Eight Mile” is reminiscent of the young Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky”. (Does that mean we won’t understand anything he says?)
• If you believe “Star” magazine, love-sick 40-year-old actress Meg Ryan has been virtually stalking actor Russell Crowe, bombarding him with hundreds of e-mails, letters and phone calls in a desperate bid to bring him back into her life even though he unceremoniously dumped her a year-and-a-half-ago. (Yeah, that’s always happening to me, too.)
• “PeopleNews” reports Aussie pop pixie Kylie Minogue will pose for a new book of ‘tasteful nude shots of the rich and famous’ by photographer Lisa B to be called “The Naked Truth”. (What makes a skin flick ‘tasteful’? Air-brushing?)
• “National Enquirer” reports that Prince Charles’ #2 son, Prince Harry, has been turned down for one of 12 spots as a prefect at Eton College. A prefect’s job is to help the school’s masters keep an eye on students, including catching them when they sneak out to local pubs — something Harry has admitted to, along with smoking pot. That, plus his mandatory random drug tests, disqualified him from the position. (The good news is, the other members of his dorm have elected him ‘Chief Party Viking’.)
• Just as her shoplifting and drug possession trial is about to get underway, “Star” quotes people purportedly ‘close’ to actress Winona Ryder as saying she has been seeking solace in drugs ever since her split from actor Matt Damon 2 years ago. One unidentified ‘friend’ says, “What she needs is to go into rehab.” (Unless her lawyer gets her off, she’ll be doing that behind bars.)
• “Sun” reports Ozzy Osbourne’s daughter Kelly is ‘sex-starved’ even though she’s now a model and singer as well as a famous ‘actress’. In fact, she tells the tab hasn’t even kissed anyone for a year. (Here’s a tip, hon – lose the pink hair.)
• The Osbournes may be America’s favorite dysfunctional family, but “NY Post” reports the ‘Prince of Darkness’ and his kooky kin have been turned down in their application to buy a $7-million, 48th-floor spread in NYC’s Trump Palace condominium. The excuse being offered by the condo board — the building is no longer accepting new dogs and the Osbournes have three. (Is that anyway to insult a perfectly nice family?)
• “Men in Black 2″ co-star Tommy Lee Jones threatened to walk from a promotional photo shoot for the movie if he spied anyone wearing a T-shirt. And “PeopleNews” claims he further demanded that all labels be removed from remaining clothing because they ‘freak him out’. A publicist confirms ‘Tommy Lee is not a T-shirt or label kind of guy’. (Are we difficult?)
• And “E! Online” reports The Who will launch their 3-month tour TODAY in Los Angeles even though bassist and founding member John Entwistle was found dead in his Las Vegas hotel room Thursday. The band says the first show will be ‘a tribute to John’. A session musician named Pino Palladino will take over on bass. (Boy, grieving time has really gotten shorter these days, hasn’t it?)

THE PERILS OF SPANKING:
New Columbia University research shows that spanking may get a child’s attention right away, but it can lead to children becoming aggressive and possibly even abusive, hostile or violent as adults. (So if you beat a kid, they grow up thinking whacking others to get your way is normal – wow, what a surprise!)

HEY, LOOK WHAT WE FOUND!
Archaeologists in China have uncovered 7 ancient bronze dildos in a tomb dating from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-25 AD). The dildos were cast from a mold, suggesting they were made by a specialist artisan. Archaeologists say they could have been used by eunuchs or perhaps by palace maids on sexually-deprived imperial concubines.

SINGLE STUDS SHY AWAY FROM SHACKLES:
Rutgers University’s ‘National Marriage Project’ has found the main reason many of today’s young men don’t want to get married is — they’re comfortable with their current arrangement just living with a woman. Other reasons include fears over the cost of divorce and worries about having to share responsibility for child-care. (Irresponsible wimps! Of course, they’re also right.)

CATS ARE JUST HUMORING US:
Cornell University animal behaviorist Nicholas Nicastro says that a cat’s meow is unusual because cats never use the sound with each other. Communication between felines usually involves only hissing, spitting and purring. Nicastro reckons that over the course of more than 5,000 years of domestication, cats developed meows in order to speak to humans. Cats do not use words, he says (rather obviously) but communicate whole thoughts such as ‘open the tuna, ‘move over’, or ‘change the litter’. (Not to mention ‘get out of my face, bald-bodied loser’.)

BEAST TRAITS:
Animals have distinct personalities, according to researchers at Britain’s University of Portsmouth. For instance, monkeys tend to be hostile rather than cheeky, hyenas are assertive, chimps are devious, and hedgehogs are generally grumpy. (And humans are….? Stupid?)

FORGET ABOUT WRITING THAT NOVEL:
The time people spend reading fiction for pleasure has dropped to an average of just 11 minutes a day. Newspapers have taken over as the most popular form of reading material, with the average person devoting 17 minutes a day to the news.

AND YOU THOUGHT THE RINGING WAS ANNOYING:
Samsung’s new ‘Melody Phone’, to be launched in South Korea NEXT WEEK, features a ‘Palm Top Karaoke’ function that allows users to sample themselves singing. The handset uses natural-sounding 16 chord progression technology to reproduce sound clips. (Like having karaoke in bars wasn’t bad enough, now it’s spreading everywhere. It’s a conspiracy!)

LENSES YOU CAN’T LOSE:
Australian scientists have invented a contact lens which can be worn for up to 5 years. Researchers in Sydney say the lenses can be implanted under the surface of the cornea thanks to an anti-bacterial coating that stops infections. They can then be removed and replaced whenever a patient’s eyesight changes. (This may stop your spouse from turning your bathroom into a science lab with all those contact lens chemicals!)

A CLOSE SHAVE:
The good folks at Gillette have determined that –
• The average man spends 3,350 hours (about 140 days) of his life shaving.
• Your beard would be approximately 30 feet long if you never shaved.
• You would put on an extra pound (in hair) every 16 years if you never shaved.
• Dry beard hair is as tough as copper wire of the same thickness.
• A whisker is 70% easier to cut after being soaked 2 minutes in warm water.

THE BULL SHEET 07.01.2K2

TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1952 [50] Dan Aykroyd, Ottawa CAN, movie actor (“Pearl Harbor”, “Driving Miss Daisy”, “Blues Brothers”)

1967 [35] Pamela Anderson, Ladysmith CAN, ex-TV actress (just canceled “VIP”) who’s appeared on 6 “Playboy” covers/ex-Mrs Tommy Lee who’s now on and off with Kid Rock (most recent mode is ‘on’)

1977 [25] Liv Tyler, Portland ME, movie actress (Arwen Undómiel-“Lord of the Rings” trilogy, “Armageddon”, “Stealing Beauty”)/daughter of Aerosmith’s Steve Tyler and former “Playboy” playmate Bebe Buell

BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
[Caribbean] “Carricom Day” (aka “Caribbean Day”)
[USA] “National Frozen Yogurt Day”

TODAY is “International Joke Day” celebrating humor from around-the-world. It’s a good day to have listeners call in jokes in other languages. It’s most effective if you don’t ask them to translate, just laugh uncontrollably. (Nothing like a joke in Swahili!)

TODAY is “National Financial Freedom Day”, a day to plan the path of future financial wealth. (Also known as “Buy a Lottery Ticket Day”.)

TODAY is “National Postal Worker Day” in the USA, to honor past and present postal workers for their service and dedication in serving the American people. (Reducing the population boom, for instance.)

5 YEARS AGO . . .
1997 Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony

TODAY’S FIRSTS . . .
1200 [802] 1st ‘sunglasses’ invented in China to conceal eyes of judges while in court

1874 [128] 1st ‘zoo’ in America (Philadelphia)

1892 [110] Invention of the ‘Ouija Board’ (Isaac & William Fuld)

1941 [61] Bulova Watch pays $9 for 1st-ever ‘network TV commercial’

1979 [23] 1st ‘Sony Walkman’ manufactured

1991 [11] ‘Court TV’ debuts, making money off the likes of William Kennedy Smith, Christian Brando and OJ Simpson

AND REMEMBER . . .
[Tues] Jennifer Aniston naked pictures trial begins
[Wed] Compliment Your Mirror Day
[Wed] Dog Days of Summer begin (through August 15)
[Wed] American Redneck Day
[Thurs] Independence Day (no BS service)
[Thurs] National Country Music Day
[Fri] Workaholics Day

THIS WEEK IS . . .
Freedom Week
Canned Luncheon Meat Week
Be Nice to Jersey Week
Prevention of Eye Injuries Awareness Week
Man Watcher’s Compliment Week

BULL’S BITS . . .
YOU KNOW YOU’RE IN RADIO IF —
• The only mail you get are memos, normally 6 a day.
• Your bank and credit card debt is more than you make in a year.
• When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone with the station call letters.
• When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial ‘0′ to get an outside line.
• Your resume is on a diskette in your pocket.
• Your biggest loss from a system crash was when you lost all of your best jokes.
• Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.
• Being sick is defined as you can’t walk or you’re in the hospital.
• There’s no money in the budget for the 5 permanent staff your department desperately needs, but they can afford 4 full-time management consultants advising your boss’s boss on strategy.
• Your relatives and family describe your job as ‘not a real job’.
(Cheer up! There’s no heavy lifting.)

CAN YOU SPEAK CANADIAN?
TODAY is “Canada Day”, the national holiday celebrating Canada’s 135th birthday. See if you can figure out what these following Canadian expressions mean –
• ‘bargoon’ — slang for bargain.
• ‘skunky’ – how beer that has gone bad tastes.
• ‘toque’ [or ‘tuque’] – a woollen roll-up hat worn in the winter.
• ‘whitener’ – powdered non-dairy creamer put in coffee or tea.
• ‘Robertson’ – a screwdriver with a square head.
• ‘Loonies’ [and ‘Toonies’] – the Canadian $1-coin, named for the loon pictured on it [when the $2-coin came along later, it immediately acquired the nickname ‘toonie’.]
• ‘Canuck’ – nickname for a Canadian.
• ‘Tim’s’ — short for ‘Tim Horton’s’, the Canadian equivalent of Starbucks, a coffee and doughnut chain begun by a late NHL hockey player that now has an outlet on virtually every corner.
• ‘the bill’ – what Canadians ask for in a restaurant, as opposed to ‘the check’.
• ‘chesterfield’ – a couch or sofa.
• ‘deke’ – to get a hockey puck around an opponent by making him believe you’re going the other way.
• ‘mickey’ – a flask-shaped 13-oz bottle of liquor.
• ‘scads’ — many or lots.
• ‘brown bread’ — whole wheat bread.
• ‘Screech’ — imported Jamaican rum popular in Newfoundland.
• ‘KD’ — short for ‘Kraft Dinner’, the quick-fix macaroni and cheese variety.
• ‘Smarties’ – the Canadian version of M&Ms.
• ‘5-Pin’ – a version of bowling that uses 5 pins instead of 10 and a smaller ball with no holes.
• ‘poutine’ – a popular fat-laden snack first developed in the French-speaking province of Québec that’s made by slathering hot gravy over cheese curds and french fries.

ALL-TIME TOP MOVIES IN DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE:
1. “Titanic” ($601 million)
2. “Star Wars” ($461 million)
3. ”ET – The Extra-Terrestrial” ($435 million)
4. “The Phantom Menace” ($431 million)
5. “Spider-Man” ($393 million)
Source: Box Office Mojo

BS TRIVIA:
Q: 39 years ago TODAY (1963) the US Postal Service instituted the zip code. What does ‘zip’ stand for?
A: Zone Improvement Plan.

Q: What were bathing caps invented to prevent?
A: Clogged drains. Consumers were told they were also to help preserve their hair follicles.

Q: What kind of tree is most often struck by lightning?
A: Oak.

Q: What legendary table seats 150?
A: King Arthur’s ‘Round Table’.

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Today’s Question: Think of the guys you know. 18% of them get married for this reason.
Answer to Give Out Tomorrow: To get out of housework.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
Never step on a slow cockroach. It only improves the breed.