Tuesday, July 17, 2007        Edition: #3576
Can You Believe This Sheet?

BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
TODAY Britain’s Royal Mail issues a series of 7 commemorative ‘Harry Potter’ stamps, depicting the covers of each of the best-selling books (otherwise people might be unaware another one is about to be published) . . . A pair of sisters in Anchorage, Alaska are in the midst of an 11-day vigil for the latest ‘Harry Potter’ novel, THIS SUMMER’s ‘must have’ lo-tech phenomenon (out SATURDAY) . . . George Clooney and his production partner Grant Heslov are developing a new TV show about a family of televangelists (now is that gonna play in Peoria?) . . . 38-year-old actress Jennifer Aniston seems to be getting serious with her new 36-year-old model boyfriend Paul Sculfor,  inviting his parents to fly in from the UK and stay at her Malibu CA mansion (after meeting the ‘rents, the next step will be buying her own engagement rock) . . . Rehabbed actress Lindsay Lohan is back on the club scene but is now wearing an alcohol-monitoring bracelet (it registers from ‘Slightly Inebriated’ to ‘Your Lack of Underwear is Showing’) . . . Model Kate Moss has reportedly agreed to pay for on-and-off boyfriend Pete Doherty’s latest anti-heroin implant, despite the fact they’ve recently split (the way to a man’s heart is through his faux dope) . . . Meantime, “Pirates of The Caribbean” star Keira Knightley is replacing fading supermodel Kate Moss as the face of Chanel (cuz Kate is getting far too fat) . . . And Britney Spears has applied for a gig at the Hollywood restaurant Les Deux, completing a detailed application and an interview with the manager for the job of – cocktail waitress (she’ll be claiming it’s ‘research for a movie role’ any day now but we all know someone forgot their meds again!).

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• AC/DC – A new album is in the works and perhaps a tour. It’s been a half-decade since their last effort, “Stiff Upper Lip”, and almost as long since they took their show on the road.
• Beyoncé – THIS AFTERNOON she shakes her booty on the “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/CityTV).
• Katharine McPhee – The first movie role for last year’s “American Idol” runner-up will be playing a hapless hippie-type who lives in a lame sorority house run by a former Playboy Bunny who’s been evicted from Hefner’s mansion (Anna Faris). Celeb-spawn Rumer Willis co-stars.
• Kenny Chesney – He raked in circa $4 million at his recent “Flip-Flop Summer Tour” date in Philadelphia PA. Close to 52,000 showed up for the big show.
• KT Tunstall – She’s still stunned that she made music her career because she never listened to it growing up.
• Led Zeppelin – Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach SC has just topped off it’s new ‘Led Zeppelin – The Ride’, a 15-stories-tall rollercoaster that will zoom along at 65 map through the park’s ‘Rock & Roll Heaven’ zone when it opens later THIS YEAR.
• Rihanna – “Umbrella” has extended its run as the #1 pop single in the UK to 9 weeks, tying Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” as Britain’s longest chart-topper of the decade.
• Silverchair – They’ve postponed several shows to allow frontman Daniel Johns to recover from laryngitis, which he acquired after flying Sydney-LA-Toronto-NYC-LA … in 4 days.

TODAY’S VIDEO RELEASES:
• “Factory Girl” ( Drama ): Sienna Miller stars in this biography of artist Andy Warhol’s muse Edie Sedgwick, who exploded onto the NYC social scene in 1965 as the latest ‘it girl’ but quickly began losing her grip on reality. Co-stars Guy Pearce, Hayden Christensen, and Jimmy Fallon.
Partially shot in Toronto.
• “The Hills Have Eyes 2” ( Horror ): A group of National Guard trainees find themselves battling against a vicious group of mutants on their last day of training in the New Mexico desert. No-name cast. A follow-up to 2006’s “The Hills Have Eyes” and a pseudo-remake of the 1985 Wes Craven film of the same name.
• “Premonition” ( Thriller ): Sandra Bullock stars as a woman whose husband reappears the day after he died in a car accident. Then the next day he’s dead again – sorta like “Groundhog Day” … with a corpse. Eventually she tries to rearrange events to prevent the tragedy from occurring. Co-stars Julian McMahon and Amber Valletta.
• Also released TODAY: “Gunsmoke: The 1st Season”; “The Incredible Hulk: The Complete 2nd Season”; “NBA Champions 2007”; and the 1995 Elizabeth Berkley bomb, “Showgirls – Fully Exposed Edition”.

C’MON FEEL THE STINK:
A company called CDDVD Now! is now offering scented inks for CD & DVD printed surface artwork, allowing the integration of aroma onto a disc. It’s claimed that so-called ‘Rub ‘n Smell’ disc-printing increases the impact, recall, value, and effectiveness of marketing efforts. The scented varnish is transparent and remains dormant until the printed surface is rubbed and it actually lasts for years in printed form. The smell dissipates after a few seconds but can be re-activated by rubbing the surface again, similar to a scratch ‘n sniff sticker. (They didn’t have this when Jessica Simpson’s last effort came out but it stank anyway.)
– “Day in Rock”

VINYL ISN’T YET FINAL:
As CD sales continue to fall, newly-released figures confirm what specialty record shops have been saying for a long time … vinyl is back! Research by industry group BPI shows that sales of vinyl have risen 13% in the first half of THIS YEAR alone, with the White Stripes’ “Icky Thump” the biggest seller. It seems record labels have discovered that it’s become cool for artists to release their music on vinyl, especially in limited edition form which makes it highly collectable. (Can you hear the difference? Aficionados insist vinyl sounds ‘warmer’.)
– “GQ”

EVER EVOLVING ENGLISH:
The new edition of the “Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary” that goes on sale THIS FALL will contain about 100 newly-added words. Among them …
• ‘Bollywood’ – The filmmaking industry in India.
• ‘Crunk’ – A style of rap music/dance that originated in the US South.
• ‘DVR’ – Digital Video Recorder.
• ‘Ginormous’ – An adjective that combines ‘gigantic’ and ‘enormous’ which can be traced back to 1948.
• ‘IED’ – Improvised Explosive Devices, which have become common in the Iraq war.
• ‘Smackdown’ – A competition in entertainment wrestling.
• ‘Speed Dating’ – Interviewing numerous candidates for dates in quick succession.
• ‘Sudoku’ – The newspaper number puzzles that are becoming as popular as crosswords.
– Associated Press

WHY WE DO IT:
Psychologists at the University of Texas have polled over 2,000 men & women aged 17-to-52  for the most in-depth research ever carried out on sexual motivation. Some 237 distinct reasons were given for ‘having relations’, topped by love and attraction. Some of the less romantic other reasons include …
• To keep warm on a chilly night.
• To burn off a few calories after a heavy dinner.
• A reasonably effective way of overcoming boredom.
• Helps you fall asleep.
• To get a promotion.
• Gets rid of a stress headache.
• It brings us closer to God.
• Revenge.
– “Daily Mail”

SOCIAL STUDIES:
• In a typical 8-hour day, the average office worker spends about 3 hours actually working.
– AskMen.com
• The tech-savvy under-30 generation is increasingly unable to recall personal information because they rely on technology for details such as phone numbers and the birthdays friends & family. A quarter of those surveyed can’t even remember their own land line telephone number.
– “Puzzler Magazine”
• According to one study, twice as many women as men say they want to cut back their working hours … even if it means sacrificing pay.
– “Cosmopolitan”
• A new UCLA study suggests that women are more physically attracted to brawny men, especially for a fling. But when it comes to finding a long-term partner, they tend to pick a regular guy over a hulk with huge biceps.
– Reuters

BS AMAZING FACTS:
• An unmade bed contains some 1.5 million dust mites, teensy microscopic critters that feed off dead human skin cells, which can trigger asthma and allergies.
• The British government has ruled that fish may feel pain and is developing a charter of rights to protect them from inhumane treatment in research labs.
• Mongolia is the only place on Earth where horses outnumber people.
• Studio apartments in Manhattan went for an average of $1,995 a month LAST YEAR, according to new analysis by Citi Habitats, a NYC rental brokerage. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment … $2,737.
• More than half of all pencils come from China. Factories there turn out some 10 billion annually, enough to circle Earth more than 40 times.

AND WE QUOTE:
• “Young models are today’s equivalent of Victorian chimney sweeps. Many are ill and work in appalling conditions.”
– Denise Byrne, the Baroness Kingsmill, chairman of the UK’s ‘Model Health Inquiry’ in advance of “London Fashion Week” in SEPTEMBER. Among the panel’s recommendations: No models below age 16, and routine screening of all models for health problems.
• “I’m getting really self-conscious about the fact I do constantly look like a bit of a miserable bitch.”
– Hollywood newcomer Victoria Beckham, who’s apparently considering ditching her trademark pout. She’s also confirmed she’s considering a guest TV appearance on “Ugly Betty”.

BS CHRONOMETER 07.17.07

TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1917 [90] Phyllis Diller (Driver), Lima OH, legendary stand-up comic/Hollywood Walk of Fame (1993)/Women’s International Center Living Legacy Award (1990)  FACTOID: She’s had to postpone TONIGHT’s scheduled “Tonight Show” appearance celebrating her birthday because she recently fractured her back and can’t ‘stand up’ properly.

1934 [73] Donald Sutherland, Saint John NB, long-time movie actor (“Pride & Prejudice”, “Cold Mountain”)/”24” star Keifer Sutherland’s pop/Canada’s Walk of Fame (2000)/Order of Canada (1978)  FACTOID: Grew up in Bridgewater NS where his first part-time job was news reporter at CKBW at age 14

1947 [60] The Duchess of Cornwall (Camilla Parker Bowles Windsor), Plumpton UK, Prince Charles’ longtime mistress whom he finally wed in April 2005 (she’s 420 in dog years)

1952 [55] David Hasselhoff, Baltimore MD, TV personality (“America’s Got Talent” judge)/movie actor (“Click”, “Dodgeball”)/former TV actor (“Baywatch” 1989-2000, “Knight Rider” 1982-86)

TODAY’S BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Backward Masking Awareness Week”, celebrating the fabled electronic technique of implanting hidden messages in music recordings that can only be discovered by playing the recording backwards at slow speed. The practice gained mythical status at the end of The Beatles era when the message ‘Paul’s dead’ was supposedly buried in one of their recordings. It’s a good excuse to conduct some on-air ‘experiments’ using tunes from your playlist to ‘discover’ hidden messages (which you’ve recorded and altered at slow speed).

• “Peach Ice Cream Day” (aka ‘Fuzz Ripple’). Who cares why? Gimme some! Most ice cream makers only make the stuff during summer.

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
1955 [52] ‘Disneyland’ opens in Anaheim CA, billed ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’ (a live TV broadcast of the event is hosted by Walt Disney, Art Linkletter, and Ronald Reagan)

TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
1994 [13] ‘International singing star’ Dennis KC Park mistakenly sings “O Canada” to the tune of “O Christmas Tree” to open a CFL game in Las Vegas

TODAY’S FIRSTS . . .
1902 [105] Buffalo NY engineer Willis Carrier installs 1st ‘Air Conditioning System’ in a Brooklyn NY printing plant (for the next 20 years, his invention is used primarily to cool machines … not people)

1917 [90] British royal family 1st uses surname ‘Windsor’ in attempt to rid itself of its German heritage (and the hard-to-spell ‘Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’)

1976 [31] 1st Olympic Games in Canada open in Montréal (Canada becomes 1st host country NOT to win at least 1 gold medal)

1995 [12] “Forbes” magazine 1st announces Bill Gates is the ‘World’s Richest Man’, with an estimated worth of $12.9 billion (pocket change for him these days)

TODAY’S RECORDS . . .

1941 [66] NY Yankee legend Joe DiMaggio doesn’t get a hit, bringing his ‘Consecutive Game Hitting Streak’ to a close after 56 games … since May 16th! (a record that still stands)

1982 [25] 52-year-old Don Bennett of Seattle WA becomes 1st ‘One-Legged Mountain Climber’ to hop to the top of 14,408-ft Mount Rainier

AND REMEMBER . . .
[Wed] Stick Out Your Tongue Day
[Wed] Get Out of the Doghouse Day
[Thurs-July 28] Capital Ex (Edmonton)
[Fri] Moon Day
[Fri] Chess Day
[Fri] Lollipop Day
[Fri] Special Olympics Day
[Fri] “Hairspray”; “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry”; and “Sunshine” open in movie theaters
[Sat] Junk Food Day
This Week Is … Independent Retailers Week
This Month Is … Horseradish Month

BULL’S BITS

MOST BIZARRE BS SPORTS:
• Bog Snorkeling – The 2007 championship goes AUGUST 27 in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales. Competitors snorkel for best times through dirty, smelly water in a 60-yard trench through a peat bog.
• Buzkashi – The national sport of Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, it’s similar to polo with players on 2 teams riding horses while trying to move an object into the opposing goal. But instead of a ball, they use a dead calf or goat whose head has been cut off.
• Cheese Rolling – A wheel of cheese weighing 8 lbs is rolled down a very steep hill in Gloucester, England as dozens of contestants go scrambling after it so fast that broken limbs are common. Whoever nabs the cheese wins it … and 15 or so minutes of fame.
• Chess Boxing – The brainchild of Dutch participant ‘Iepe the Joker’, it consists of 6 rounds of chess interspersed with 5 bouts in the ring.
• Man Vs Horse Marathon – In another Welsh creation, human competitors pit their stamina against a herd of selected fine horses on a 22-mile cross-country course. Only 1 man has ever won.
• Sepak Takraw – This popular Malaysian game  involves 3-person teams attempting to get a 16-inch ball over a net into the other team’s court, sort of like volleyball … except no hands or arms are allowed. Feet, knees, shoulders or heads are fine.
• Underwater Rugby – Played in a swimming pool, 2 teams of 11 players aim to get a goal by getting the weighted ball into the opposing team’s basket … at the bottom of the pool.
– Oddee.com

BS PHONE STARTERS:
• 500 years from now, only 1 book which exists today will still be available. Which book should it be?
• If you were to have a one-night-stand with a current celebrity, whom would you choose?

BS RANDOM JOKES:
• Math illiteracy affects 8 out of every 5 people.
• He used to be a bartender at the Promises Clinic.

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Today’s Question: About half of guys can’t do THIS at a sporting event because they don’t know how.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: Sing the anthem.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.