Wednesday, July 6, 2016 – Edition: #5768

Sheeters Always Prosper!

BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
★ Apple is said to be considering a takeover bid for Jay Z’s music-streaming service Tidal. The company is reportedly exploring the idea of buying Tidal because of its strong ties to big artists like Kanye West and Madonna. The streaming service is also the only one offering the full back catalogue of Prince. Sources say exploratory talks are already taking place that may lead to a deal. However, a Tidal spokesperson has denied the takeover rumor. Jay Z launched the service in March last year after buying out Aspiro, which used to own Tidal, for $56 million.
– “Wall Street Journal”
★ Pixar plans to release an original movie every year. It only intends to release sequels if there is a story that makes a follow-up film worthwhile. The animation studio, part of the Walt Disney Company, has apparently made a creative decision to focus on bringing new characters to life even though some of its most successful releases, notably “Finding Dory”, are new instalments of existing franchises. Company president Jim Morris says: “‘Everything (on the agenda) after “Toy Story 4” (2018) and “The Incredibles 2″ (2019) is an original right now.”
– “Entertainment Weekly”
★ Notice something a bit off during PBS-TV’s “A Capitol Fourth” broadcast Monday? So did hundreds of people who took to Facebook and Twitter. Though host Tom Bergeron initially laughed off concerns that the live concert and fireworks display over Washington DC would be rained out, the sky above the Capitol Building was foggy and overcast as the fireworks began. That made seeing the show a bit difficult, so PBS intervened and mingled in stock footage of fireworks from previous celebrations. Sort of a firecracker lip-sync.
– NBC News
★ And celebrity offspring Brooklyn Beckham has passed his driving test. The 17-year-old son of David & Victoria Beckham (and boyfriend of actress Chloë Grace Moretz) started learning to drive this March and MailOnline confirms that he has already passed his test and been issued a licence. Brooklyn has been spotted driving around London UK alone this week … in a Mercedes-Benz C-Class. Manufacturer’s suggested list price: £37,000 or $48,500. Life is hard.
– Bang Showbiz

TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “America’s Got Talent” (NBC/CityTV) – Highlights of the season so far and never-before-seen footage of the top auditions.
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CityTV) – Maxwell (“BlackSUMMERS’Night”). Rerun.
• “Late Late Show With James Corden” (CBS/M3) – The Last Shadow Puppets (“Everything You’ve Come to Expect”). Rerun.
• “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (NBC/CTV) – Band of Skulls (“By Default”). Rerun.
• “Live With Kelly” (syndicated/CTV) – 50 Cent (“Street King Immortal”).
• “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/CTV2) – OneRepublic (“Native”). Rerun.
• “Wendy Williams” (syndicated) – Shanice (“Every Woman Dreams”).

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Alice In Chains – Tonight in Portland OR they embark on a headlining tour of North America, with shows booked through July 25th in NYC.
• Drake – “Views” is at #1 on the ‘Billboard 200’ album chart for the 9th consecutive week.
• Fergie – Kim Kardashian West has hit back at claims she was Photoshopped in Fergie’s “MILF$” video. Kim claims she most definitely wasn’t digitally enhanced in any way and that the reason her waistline looks so slim is down to wearing a corset.
• Halsey – Tonight she begins a North American headline tour in Orlando FL. The schedule runs through August 13th in NYC. The singer is touring in support of her full-length debut album, “Badlands”.
• Jennifer Lopez – She’s recorded a song with Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Hamilton”) to benefit victims of the Orlando FL nightclub shootings. “Love Make the World Go Round” is intended to raise money for the Hispanic Federation’s Proyecto Somos Orlando initiative.
• Pitbull – He’s recruited Latin heartthrob Prince Royce to join him on his “Bad Man Tour” that gets underway tonight in Fresno CA. The tour begins almost a month after the release of Pitbull’s 10th studio album, “Climate Change”.
• Queen – Their 1981 “Greatest Hits” has been named the ‘Best-Selling Album of All-Time in Britain’ by the Official Charts Company. In 2nd place is ABBA’s 1992 collection “Gold: Greatest Hits”; The Beatles’ 1967 release “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is 3rd.

BURGER MISTAKES EVERYONE MAKES:
✗ Your grill isn’t clean and oiled, so your burgers stick to the grill and look all mangled.
✗ You’re not buying the best meat. That means ground chuck, and the perfect ratio is 80% lean to 20% fat.
✗ You don’t buy the right amount of meat. You need 6 oz of meat per pre-cooked burger.
✗ You’re over-handling the meat. This causes the proteins to get worked up and makes your burgers less tender.
✗ You’re packing it too tight. For better taste, be gentle. Let the meat be loosely clumped together.
✗ Your burgers don’t fit your buns. An uncooked patty should be about 1 inch wider in diameter than the hamburger bun.
✗ You’re pressing down on your patties with a spatula as they cook, meaning all of the delicious juice is going into the fire.
✗ You are shutting the grill lid to speed things up. So your burgers aren’t cooking evenly and they taste like smoke.
– Adapted from BuzzFeed.com

FROM THE BS POLL VAULT:
• 50% more males than females are left-handed.
• 46% of us are hiding greeting cards from an ex.
• 43% of employees say asking for vacation time stresses them out at work.
• 40% of us have experienced a credit card ‘decline’ while on a date.
• 15% of men admit they enjoy watching TV soap operas.
• 7% of kids will lose a tooth while eating a popcorn ball.

PASTA ACQUITTAL:
People who blame pasta for weight-gain have missed the message about the Mediterranean diet, according to Italian researchers. A team from IRCCS Neuromed Institute has crunched numbers from earlier studies involving more than 20,000 Italians and discovered that pasta intake is actually associated with both lower obesity rates and healthier waist-to-hip ratios. The researchers suggest the findings show that people trying to lose weight are wrong to completely banish pasta from their diets. Pasta sometimes gets the blame for weight-gain, they say, due to the overly salty, sugary, and fatty sauces poured over it. (But how else are you going to choke down a heaping plate of fettuccine?)
– UPI.com

BS BUZZWORDS:
Cutting-edge vocab …
• ‘Adult’ (as a verb) – To perform duties and assume responsibilities typically associated with being an adult. (“I just don’t have the energy to adult the whole family this morning.”)
• ‘Dumpster Fire’ – A person, organization, or situation that is hopelessly and disastrously out of control. (“Lady Gaga just passed her driving exam but word has it she’s a real dumpster fire on the road.”)
• ‘Zombie Statistic’ – A false or misleading statistic that keeps getting repeated no matter how often it has been refuted. (Like just about any number that’s bandied about on the Internet.)

COUNTRIES WITH THE HIGHEST QUALITY OF LIFE:
According to the new Social Progress Index based on 3 categories: basic human needs (like shelter and health care), foundations of well-being (like life expectancy and education), and opportunity (rights, freedoms, and tolerance). The top 10 rankings scored out of 100 …
1. Finland – 90.1
2. Canada – 89.5
3. Denmark – 89.4
4. Australia – 89.1
5. Switzerland – 88.9
6. Sweden – 88.8
7. Norway – 88.7
8. The Netherlands – 88.7
9. The UK – 88.6
10. Iceland – 88.5
(USA ranks #19.)
– “Business Insider”

BS AMAZING FACT:
It is impossible to hum and whisper at the same time.
– “1,234 Quite Interesting Facts to Leave You Speechless”

BS CHRONOMETER 07.06.16

TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1946 [70] George Walker Bush (aka ‘Dubya’), New Haven CT, 43rd US president/video star in Kanye West’s “Famous”

1946 [70] Sylvester Stallone, NYC, movie actor-screenwriter-director (“Rocky”, “Rambo”, and “The Expendables” film series)

1948 [68] Peter Mansbridge, London UK, TV news anchor (CBC’s “The National” since 1988)

1951 [65] Geoffrey Rush, Toowoomba, Australia, movie actor (“The Book Thief”, “The King’s Speech”) UP NEXT: “Pirates Of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” 2017.

1958 [58] Jennifer Saunders, Sleaford UK, movie actress (“Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie”, “Minions”)/TV actress (“Absolutely Fabulous” 1992-2012)

1975 [41] 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson), Queens NY, rapper (“Candy Shop”, “In Da Club”)/movie (“Home Of the Brave”, “Get Rich or Die Tryin'”)

1979 [37] Kevin Hart, Philadelphia PA, comedian (“Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain”)/movie actor (“Ride Along” films, “Get Hard”)

1980 [36] Eva Green, Paris, France, movie actress (“300: Rise Of an Empire”, “Casino Royale”)/TV actress (“Penny Dreadful” since 2014)

1985 [31] Chris ‘Woody’ Wood, London UK, rock drummer-vocalist (Bastille-“Good Grief”, “Pompeii”)

TODAY’S BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Eid-Al-Fitr” (‘eed-ul-FIT-tur’), the 3-day Islamic feast that celebrates the end of the month-long “Ramadan” fast. Scanning the sky for the crescent of the new Moon to usher in “Eid” is an Islamic ritual that’s over 1,400-years-old.

• “Fiesta de San Fermin” in Pamplona, Spain, famous for its annual ‘Running Of the Bulls’. The 9-day festival was made legendary by Ernest Hemingway in his novel “The Sun Also Rises”.
NET: http://www.sanfermin.com

• “Fried Chicken Day”. Don’t know who started it; don’t know why. But then … who cares? Dig in!

• “International Kissing Day”, so presumably you can only kiss someone from another country.

• “Take Your Webmaster to Lunch Day”, to show appreciation for the specialized geek responsible for your company’s website. (What a fascinating time this will be, huh?)

TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
2012 [04] Carol Hawkins, former personal assistant to U2 bassist Adam Clayton, is convicted of 181 counts of theft and sentenced to 7 years for embezzling £2.2 million of his money to fund a lavish lifestyle

TODAY’S FIRSTS . . .
2002 [14] Serena Williams defeats older sister Venus to win her 1st Wimbledon title and 2nd straight Grand Slam tournament

2014 [02] Washington legalizes recreational marijuana (becoming the 2nd US state to do so after Colorado)

TODAY’S RECORD . . .
2009 [07] In the most lopsided loss in franchise history, NL’s Cincinnati Reds are routed by Philadelphia Phillies 22-1, beating the previous record 20-run differential (26-6) between the same teams in 1892

COMING UP . . .
[Thurs] Father-Daughter Take a Walk Together Day
[Thurs] Global Forgiveness Day
[Thurs] Tell the Truth Day
[Fri] Collector Car Appreciation Day
[Sat] Body Painting Day
[Sun] Piña Colada Day
This Week Is … Be Nice to New Jersey Week
This Month Is … Vacation Rental Month

BULL’S BITS

WHY IT’S GREAT TO BE A MORNING PERSON:
✓ Sunrises, baby! Sunsets happen every day. But sunrises … well, they’re something special.
✓ You’re able to get up and plan your whole day.
✓ You feel so much more productive, meaning you can put the extra time to good use.
✓ You get to actually enjoy your breakfast hamburger versus just rushing out the door.
✓ Less traffic. That means you can honk your horn to your heart’s content on your way to work.
✓ You have time to really get ready for work and look polished … like an adult.
✓ You can squeeze in some quality time with your personal computer.
✓ You have time to practice your early-morning synchronized dance routine with your pets.
✓ You have time to text everyone in your contacts list to wish them “Good Morning!”
– Adapted from “BuzzFeed”

BS PHONE STARTER:
☎ If you knew you only had 24 hours left to live, what would you do?

BS U-PICK TRIVIA:
• Rich you may be, but only ultimate wealth makes you “as rich as Croesus”. Who or what was Croesus?
a. A king in what is now Turkey, credited with the introduction of gold coinage. [CORRECT]
b. A medieval city-state that imposed heavy tariffs on Mediterranean trading vessels.
c. A miserly Roman merchant mentioned in the New Testament book of “Matthew”.
d. A region of southern Greece where gold and silver were mined throughout antiquity.

• A precursor of credit cards, the Charga-Plate was promoted from about 1935 into the 1950s as a way of helping consumers with their money. What did the Charga-Plate allow one to do?
a. Divide a shared restaurant bill.
b. Keep one’s coins and keys germ-free.
c. Run a tab at a department store. [CORRECT]
d. Validate bank transactions without visiting the bank.

• The richest person as of last year is Bill Gates, with a fortune estimated at $79.2 billion. If Gates were reclassified as a country, where would he rank in a listing of national wealth (GDP)?
a. At #16 after Canada. Spain, #16 now, would have to make way.
b. Not near the top, but a very respectable #88, above Uganda, below Jordan. [CORRECT]
c. On the list, but near the back of the pack at #180, just trailing Samoa.
d. Rich, sure, but he’s just one guy. He’d be way down past the bottom.
– Sourced from TriviaPark.com

BS RANDOM JOKE:
I don’t suffer from stress. I’m a carrier.

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Question: The average person does THIS for 36 minutes a day.
Answer: Relaxes.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
May you live as long as you want to, and want to as long as you live.