Tuesday, November 18, 2003 Edition: #2668
Thanks For Being On Our Sheet List!
BS Show Biz Buzz:
TODAY Whitney Houston is releasing her first album of Christmas songs, “One Wish: The Holiday Album” . . . Also out TODAY, “It’s Still Okay To Dream”, a new fundraising compilation album for Save the Children, featuring tracks by Celine Dion, Sting, Sarah McLachlan and Jewel . . . TONIGHT Destiny’s Child’s Michelle Williams makes her Broadway debut, replacing Toni Braxton in the cast of the long-running musical “Aida” . . . YESTERDAY 7,500 guests were invited to attend Arnold Schwarzenegger’s official swearing in as California governor on the steps of the state Capitol in Sacramento . . . In a BBC radio interview YESTERDAY, Britney Spears insisted that she is role model for young girls (a bad one, but a role model all the same) . . . It’s been announced that worldwide sales of JK Rowling’s first 5 “Harry Potter” books have now reached 250 million copies – and counting . . . Jerry Hall tells “Radio Times” her 60-year-old ex-husband Mick Jagger is an ‘incurable womanizer who needs to get help’, but says she still loves him anyway (therein lies his secret) . . . Nice work if you can get it – Madonna’s just-released 2nd children’s book, “Mr Peabody’s Apples”, is a meager 32 pages long, with actual text on just 9 of them (for a MSRP of $19.95).
Today’s Video Releases:
• “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – 4-Disc Special Extended Edition” (Fantasy – DVD): This can only be meant for diehard fans. The original movie ran a whopping 2 hours, 59 minutes and this version runs 3 hours, 42 minutes! Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock one said, “The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.” Amen.
• “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life” (Action/Adventure – DVD): Angelina Jolie reprises her role as ‘Lara Croft’, the action heroine who will stop at nothing to save the world from destruction. This time she must find the fabled Pandora’s Box, said to house the most unspeakable evil ever known, before it falls into harmful hands.
• “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (Animated Adventure – DVD/VHS): Legendary hero ‘Sinbad’ travels to the ends of the Earth to retrieve and save his childhood friend ‘Proteus’. Features the voices of Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones & Michelle Pfeiffer.
• “The Santa Clause 2″ (Family Comedy – DVD/VHS): In last year’s sequel to the hit 1994 comedy, ‘Santa Claus’ (Tim Allen) finds out that if he doesn’t get married by Christmas Eve, he’ll stop being Santa forever. It’s right there in his contract – the ‘Mrs Clause’.
• And there are also compilation DVDs of TV’s “The West Wing: 1st Season” and “The King of Queens: First Season”.
Goofy New Gizmos:
• Oviedo FL vegetable grower A Duda & Sons has introduced a product 15 years in development – celery stalks that are hollow in the center. They’re specifically designed to be used as special garnish drinking straws for Bloody Mary cocktails.
• Just in time for US Thanksgiving, Seattle-based Jones Soda Co is test-marketing its new concoction – turkey-and-gravy soda. The noncarbonated drink is said to have a ‘faint meaty, peppery aroma’, and a ‘salty-sweet lingering taste’. It took food scientists about 30 tries until it was perfected. (If you’re really into this, you can save money by just sticking a straw in your gravy boat.)
Cool! Chocolate Is Good for You:
A new study in the “Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry” shows that hot chocolate contains lots of antioxidants, chemicals that have been shown to fight cancer, heart disease and aging. In fact, when measured on a per-serving basis, Cornell University researchers found the antioxidant concentration in hot chocolate is almost twice as strong as red wine, 2 to 3 times stronger than green tea, and 4 to 5 times stronger than black tea. (The bad news … the marshmallows will kill ya.)
Chess Cheats Chastised:
Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov, a former world chess champion, has become the first player ever to be disqualified from a competition … because his cellphone rang. According to article 13.4 of the “Laws of Chess”, mobile phones are now banned from all tournaments because players could theoretically receive advice while playing or even access computer databases.
New from Chicken Little:
Florida company Dyn-o-mat claims it’s invented a powder that can remove clouds from the sky and even stop the development of hurricanes. In an experiment, an aircraft dropped 4 tonnes of the stuff onto a developing storm cloud, which quickly disappeared from radar screens. It apparently works by absorbing large quantities of water and turning it into a gel before it falls from the sky. The gel is said to be completely safe and biodegradable, breaking down in seawater. (“Today’s forecast – cloudy with a 40% chance of gel, then really, really sunny the rest of the day …”)
Between the Covers:
According to the upcoming unauthorized biography “Cruise Control”, actor Tom Cruise is not the all-American hero he is on film, but a slightly dysfunctional guy who had a very tough childhood. Author Wensley Clarkson says the book’s title reflects the fact that the superstar actor’s every move, professional or personal, is controlled by advisers. Clarkson also claims Cruise trusts no one but his mother and sisters, and it was his mom who advised him to finally end his turbulent marriage to Nicole Kidman.
Weird World of BS:
• Police in Budapest, Hungary have removed the corpse of a man believed to have hanged himself at least a year ago. It seems faculty and students at the University of Arts had up until now believed the body was a … modern sculpture.
• The city of Winnipeg has installed 10 surveillance cameras to help combat theft from a … municipal dump.
• In order to encourage citizens to obey the local pooper-scooper law, city employees in Lyon, France littered the sidewalks with some 10,000 dog droppings. Fortunately for pedestrians, they were fake plastic doo-doos. If the stunt doesn’t work, the city may hand out fines over $500.
How to Make Marks with Your Woman:
Tell her she’s beautiful; women never tire of hearing this.
Write her a hand-written letter.
Take her out for surprise lunch.
Cook her favorite dish.
Take her on an ‘official’ date.
Buy her a token present for no reason.
Dance with her.
Give her a flower.
(Ask women for other gestures that score bigtime brownie points.)
Source: AskMen.com
BS Amazing Fact:
1% of Greenland’s entire population lives in one single apartment building, named ‘Blok P’.
THE BULL SHEET 11.18.2K3
Today’s Celebirthdays . . .
1939 [64] Margaret (“Peggy”) Atwood, Ottawa ON, ‘dean of Canadian authors’ (2000 Booker Prize- “The Blind Assassin”, 1996 Giller Prize-“Alias Grace“, 1986 Governor General’s Award-“The Handmaid’s Tale”)/Canada’s Walk of Fame (2001)
1962 [41] Kirk Hammet, San Francisco CA, heavy metal guitarist/singer (Metallica-“St Anger”, “Enter Sandman”)
1968 [35] Owen Wilson, Dallas TX, movie actor (“Shanghai Noon”, “Meet the Parents”) UP NEXT: Plays ‘Hutch’ to Ben Stiller’s ‘Starsky’ in the upcoming bigscreen version of the classic TV series, “Starsky & Hutch”, opening MARCH 5th.
1979 [24] Fabolous (John Jackson), Brooklyn NY, rapper (w/B2K-“Bada Boom”, f/Tamia-“Into You”)
BS Reasons to Party . . .
TODAY kids across America will swap seats in school cafeterias in a project promoting diversity called “National Mix It Up at Lunch Day“. The idea is to bring together various cliques (jocks, geeks, goths, etc) by having them sit with someone different at lunchtime. It’s expected that more than double last year’s total of 3,000 schools will participate in the project sponsored by a group called Teaching Tolerance.
NET: http://www.tolerance.org/teach/respond/teens/index.jsp
TODAY is “Mickey Mouse Day”, generally observed as his ‘birthday’ when he appeared in the cartoon short “Steamboat Willie” in 1928 (making him a geezer mouse of 75!). It was the first cartoon with synchronized sound.
TODAY is “Married to a Scorpio Support Day”, a day of remembrance to honor those who are
married to Scorpios. (Are they that bad? Any horror stories out there?)
Today’s Music Event . . .
1997 [06] 25 people are injured trying to get inside a Texas shopping mall for a concert by … Hanson
Today’s Firsts . . .
1883 [120] 1st standard ‘time zones’ adopted by railroads in Canada and the USA
1913 [90] 1st (intentional) ‘loop-de-loop’ flown in an airplane (next day, the ‘barf bag’ is invented)
1963 [40] Bell Telephone introduces the 1st ‘push button’ phones
Today’s Record . . .
1991 [12] Suzanne Ferrer of Loire Valley, France becomes a great-grandmother at age 49 (had her first child at age 16, her daughter gave birth at 17, and her granddaughter at 15)
And Remember . . .
[Wed] Have A Bad Day Day
[Wed] World Toilet Day
[Thurs] Beaujolais Nouveau Day (worldwide release of France’s new crop wines)
[Thurs] Name Your PC Day
[Thurs] Great American Smokeout
[Fri] World Hello Day
[Fri] “Dr Seuss’ Cat in the Hat” opens
This Week Is . . . Culinary Week
This Month Is . . . Alzheimer’s Disease Month
BULL’S BITS . . .
BS Whyzits:
• Whyzit people think those traffic-light pedestrian buttons work instantly and keep pushing them over and over?
• Whyzit the customer is always right … until you are the customer?
• Whyzit ‘a penny for your thoughts’ but you have to put ‘your 2 cents in’? Somebody’s making a penny!
• Whyzit when you finally get time for a midlife crisis, you don’t have the energy for it?
Buzz Index:
The week’s top Web searches …
1. Paris Hilton
2. Britney Spears
3. Tupac Shakur
4. “The Matrix”
5. Prince Charles
Source: Yahoo
Top Swaps:
The week’s most requested music files online …
1. OutKast – “The Way You Move”
2. OutKast – “Hey Ya”
3. 50 Cent – “PIMP”
4. Nelly – “Shake Ya Tail Feather”
5. Fountains of Wayne – “Stacy’s Mom”
Source: Big Champagne
BS Blatant Jokes:
• Where does the wax go from those ‘dripless’ candles? Wax heaven? Is it reincarnated into votives? Birthday candles? Ear wax? Where the heck does it go?
• She didn’t want to marry him for his money, but she didn’t know how else to get it.
• For 3 days after you die, your hair and fingernails continue to grow … but your phone calls taper off.
• Maybe there is no actual place called hell. Maybe hell is just having to listen to our grandparents breathe through their noses when they’re eating sandwiches.
• We have a great dog. He’s half Labrador Retriever, half Pit Bull. A good combination. Sure, he might bite off my leg, but he’ll bring it back to me.
BS Phone Starters:
• “How long do you hold a grudge?” (Until you get an apology? Until you miss the other
person? Forever?)
• “Have you ever tried to sneak into a party? What happened?”
• “Should schools start teaching money management?” (A new study shows that many young people under 25 are running up serious debt on mobile phones, starting financial problems earlier in life.)
BS Water Cooler Question:
Today’s Question: THIS measures approximately 8 feet, 6 inches.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: The “Wheel of Fortune”.
BS Deep Thought:
Love is grand. Divorce is a hundred grand.
