November 12, 2012

Monday, November 12, 2012        Edition: #4866

There’s a Difference Between Sheet and Crapola!

WEEKEND TABLOID & BLOG BS:
• The same group that produced the 9/11 benefit “The Concert for New York City” has again come together to present “12-12-12 (A Concert For Sandy Relief)”, a live music event to help provide assistance to the millions affected by Hurricane Sandy. More details on the December 12th event at NYC’s Madison Square Garden will be released in the coming days.
– FMQB.com
• Matthew McConaughey has no plans to lose any more weight. The 43-year-old actor sparked concern after he recently dropped 30 lbs from his already lean frame for his role as an AIDS patient in the new movie “The Dallas Buyer’s Club”. An insider says shooting on the film began over the weekend, so Matthew’s at his absolute lowest weight. In a month, the source predicts, he’ll begin to put it back on. Just like the rest of us.
– People.com
• 20-year-old actress-turned-singer Selena Gomez has reportedly dumped Justin Bieber because she had ‘trust issues’. BS translation: Justin was spotted on a date with 19-year-old Hungarian Victoria’s Secret model Barbara Palvin in NYC last week. Gomez and Bieber first went public with their relationship in February 2011. A source says the relationship became complicated due to them being apart so much, and it ‘needed to end’.
– ContactMusic.com
• Lindsay Lohan has pulled out of a scheduled TV interview with Barbara Walters after her management decided the timing was all wrong given her recent personal dramas. Walters was reportedly set to ask Lohan some incredibly probing questions about her personal life, which has been a constant source of media attention over the past few months. The interview was rumored to be Lohan’s trade-off in return for producers of her upcoming movie “Liz & Dick” paying off her giant tab at LA’s Chateau Marmont hotel.
– Adapted from ContactMusic.com
• Actress Halle Berry has lost her legal battle to have her daughter move permanently with her to France. She’d been seeking permission to allow 4-year-old Nahla to live with her full-time in Paris alongside her actor-fiancé Olivier Martinez. But Friday an LA judge ruled in favor of her ex-partner, Canadian model Gabriel Aubrey, who had petitioned to stop Berry’s plans.
– TMZ.com
• The iconic blue & white gingham outfit worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard Of Oz” (1939) has sold for $480,000 at the 2-day ‘2012 Icons & Idols’ sale by Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, California. Also going under the hammer: a purple skirt worn by Marilyn Monroe in “River Of No Return” ($50,000); and a dress worn by Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music” ($38,400).
– HollywoodReporter.com

TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “Conan” (TBS/CTV) – Walk the Moon (“Walk the Moon”).
• “Dancing With the Stars All-Stars” (ABC/CTV2) – The 7 remaining couples in performance.
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/CTV2) –  Jennifer Hudson (“I Remember Me”)/Maroon 5 (“Overexposed”).
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CityTV) – Game f/Tyga & Wiz Khalifa (“The R.E.D. Album”).
• “Last Call With Carson Daly” (NBC) – The Walkmen (“Heaven”).
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS/NTV/Omni1) – Soundgarden (“King Animal”, out tomorrow).
• “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (NBC/CTV2) – Lea Michele (“Glee”)/Toby Keith (“Hope On the Rocks”).
• “VH1’s Storytellers” (VH1) – Alicia Keys (“Girl on Fire”, out November 26th).
• “The Voice” (NBC/CTV) – The top 12 artists perform.

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Christina Aguilera – The 31-year-old tells “OK!” magazine the 2008 birth of her son Max Liron (which means ‘greatest song’) was her proudest moment. Quote: “Max is my greatest song.”
• Elton John – Britain’s “The Sun” claims he & partner David Furnish are set to become parents a 2nd time as the same surrogate who delivered their now 2-year-old son Zachary is again pregnant and reportedly set to give birth next year. Her identity has never been revealed.
• Justin Bieber – He’s donating $1 from every ticket to his current run of 4 NYC-area concerts to Hurricane Sandy relief. That includes tonight’s gig at Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn NY.
• Kenny Chesney – He’s announced his “No Shoes Nation Tour” for 2013 that kicks off March 16th in Tampa, Florida. The extensive schedule will include at least 17 stadium shows.
• Leonard Cohen –Tonight the 10-city Canadian leg of his “Old Ideas World Tour” begins in Vancouver. The 77-year-old troubadour wraps the trek December 13th in Kingston.
• MC Hammer – The 1990s “U Can’t Touch This” rapper has been tapped to become the official tourism spokesperson for his hometown of Oakland, California. At this point, he’ll take any work.
• Nickelback – Chad Kroeger Tells BANG Showbiz he was blown away by fiancée Avril Lavigne’s vocal ability while working on tracks for her 5th album. Quote “It’s like taking a bazooka to a knife fight!”
• Paul McCartney – He & wife Nancy Shevell narrowly avoided disaster when the helicopter they were traveling in almost crashed into trees in the driving rain earlier this year, according to newly released air traffic reports. The incident took place on the way to their home in London.
• Pearl Jam – They’re now offering a new ‘Instant Classic’ bootleg series that includes recordings of any gig the band feels is one for the books. Their headlining performance in Missoula MT on September 30th kicks off the special series.

INSTANT FLUENCY:
That universal translator you see in ”Star Trek? The one that can instantaneously translate languages while being spoken? It’s coming to real life, courtesy of Microsoft. Researchers have demonstrated software that translates spoken English into spoken Chinese almost instantly, while preserving the unique cadence of the speaker’s voice … a trick that could make conversation more effective and personal. The system works by recognizing a person’s words, quickly converting the text into properly ordered sentences, and then handing those over to speech synthesis software that has been trained to replicate the speaker’s voice.
– TechNet.com

EAT CHOCOLATE, WIN THE NOBEL PRIZE?
The higher a country’s chocolate consumption, the more Nobel laureates it spawns per capita, according to findings published in the “New England Journal of Medicine”. And who leads the pack? The Swiss, of course, closely followed by the Swedes and the Danes. The Swiss eat an average of 120 three-oz bars of chocolate per year. Even the author of the study admits these freak results are likely random. Scientists look at thousands of different things, and every once in awhile stumble across 2 things that are surprisingly correlated with each other.
– Reuters Health

STUFF SWIFT SAYS:
OK, so she’s been promoting her new album “Red” and she’s been interviewed a thousand times. But maybe she needs to clam up and lie low for awhile? Witness …
• “I grew up on a Christmas tree farm … I didn’t brush my hair and could mismatch my clothes.”
• “I’d run up to random people and sing ‘Lion King’ songs.”
• “If I meet a person who is incredibly complex and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.”
• “I wrote a song called “Mean” about a critic who hated me. It became an anthem against bullies in schools.”
• “When people say things about me empowering women, that’s an amazing compliment. It’s not necessarily what I thought I was doing …”
• “Every 5 minutes there’s a new blog about me.”
• “Sometimes, I write about a scene I saw in a movie.”
• “The best person in my phone is Gwyneth Paltrow.”
– Gawker.com

CLASSICAL CANINES:
Studded collars might suggest otherwise, but a new study shows dogs prefer classical music to heavy metal. Research at Colorado State University has found dogs in animal shelters are less likely to bark and more likely to sleep when played the likes of Mozart or Beethoven. Heavy metal, by contrast, has been found to have the opposite effect, inducing nervous shaking and barking, and stopping the canines from getting any sleep. With shelters being inherently stressful environments for most dogs, the results of the study suggest that playing classical music might help with the welfare of the animals.
– “Leader-Post”

PRACTICE REALLY DOES MAKE PERFECT:
Many of today’s progressive educators think the old-fashioned ‘drill & kill’ method of learning by rote does nothing but dampen students’ enthusiasm for learning. But there’s increasing evidence that rote memorization may be beneficial. In many subjects old-school memorization is required in order to move onto higher-level thinking skills, ie: the multiplication ‘times tables’. Indeed, many experts attribute Chinese students’ success in maths to their schools’ relentless focus on memorizing math facts to the point of ‘automaticity’.
– Sourced from TIME.com

BS AMAZING FACTS:
• Germany and the UK send fewer students to the US than do Nepal or Vietnam.
– “Financial Times”
• The British have invaded 90% of the world’s countries.
– “Daily Telegraph”
• “Abraham Lincoln is the US president who has been portrayed most on film.
– Slate.com
• Apple holds the patent for rounded corners on electronic devices.
– “The Atlantic”

BS CHRONOMETER 11.12.12


TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1944 [68] Al Michaels, Brooklyn NY, TV sportscaster (“NBC Sunday Night Football” since 2007, “ABC Monday Night Football” 1986-2006)/5 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Play-by-Play Host/Hollywood Walk of Fame (2004)

1945 [67] Neil Young, Toronto ON, classic rocker (“Heart of Gold”, Crosby Stills Nash &Young-“Woodstock”)/Farm Aid co-founder/Canada’s Walk of Fame (2000)/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1995-solo, 1997-Buffalo Springfield)/Canadian Music Hall of Fame (1982)

1970 [42] Sarah Harmer, Burlington ON, folk singer-musician (“Oh Little Fire”, “You Were Here”)

1979 [33] Cote de Pablo, Santiago, Chile, TV actress (‘Ziva David’ on “NCIS” since 2005)

1980 [32] Ryan Gosling, London ON, movie actor (“Drive”, “The Notebook”)  COMING UP: “Gangster Squad”, January 2013.

1982 [30] Anne Hathaway, Brooklyn NY, movie actress (“The Dark Knight Rises”, “Alice in Wonderland”)  UP NEXT: “Les Misérables”, opening December 25th.

1984 [28] Omarion (Grandberry), Inglewood CA, R&B singer (f/Timbaland-“Ice Box”, B2K-“Bump, Bump, Bump”)/movie actor (“Somebody Help Me”, “You Got Served”)

BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Pizza With the Works Except Anchovies Day”. The world’s first true pizzeria, Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba, opened in 1830 and is still in business today in Naples, Italy. Italian immigrant Gennaro Lombardi opened the first North American pizzeria in 1895 in NYC. Pizza is now consumed all over the world …with or without anchovies!

• “World Orphans Day”, observed annually on the 2nd Monday of November to raise awareness of the plight of orphans and displaced children around-the-world.

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
1910 [102] 1st ‘Movie Stunt’ (a jump into NYC’s Hudson River from a burning balloon)

TODAY’S MUSIC EVENT . . .
2003 [09] Toby Keith has his 3rd straight #1 country album with “Shock’n Y’all”

TODAY’S FIRST . . .
1892 [120] Pudge Heffelfinger becomes the 1st ‘professional football player’ as Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Athletic Association pays him $500 to play as a ringer in a game against its rival, Pittsburgh Athletic Club

1983 [29] ‘Cabbage Patch Dolls’ debut and quickly become the holiday season must-have

TODAY’S RECORD . . .
1955 [57] Washington State & San Jose State play a college football game in front of the lowest paid attendance on record … 1 person (Look, she’s doing ‘the wave’!)

1972 [40] Don Shula of the Miami Dolphins becomes 1st NFL coach to win 100 games in 10 seasons

AND REMEMBER . . .
[Tues] Rolling Stones release “Grrr!”
[Tues] “We Will Always Love You: A Grammy Salute to Whitney Houston” airs (CBS)
[Tues] Young Readers Day
[Wed] Educational Support Professionals Day
[Wed] International Girls Day
[Wed] World Diabetes Day

THIS WEEK IS . . .
Geography Awareness Week / Global Entrepreneurship Week / Hunger & Homeless Awareness Week / Shallow Persons Awareness Week / World Kindness Week / Young Readers Week

BULL’S BITS


BEST OF BS:
A highlight bit culled from 19 years of “Bull Sheet” back issues …
YOU CAN TELL YOU’RE GETTING OLDER WHEN:
• You own – and actually wear – a pair of pajamas.
• Your potted plants stay alive.
• Having sex in a single-sized bed seems absurd.
• You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
• 6 am is when you get up, not when you go to sleep.
• You hear your favorite song on the elevator at work.
• A $6 bottle of wine is no longer ‘pretty good stuff’.
– First published in “BS” 1999.
NET: http://www.FreeRadioPrep.com

BS RANDOM JOKE:
Men are all the same … they just have different faces so you can tell them apart.

BS U-PICK TRIVIA:
• Which fruit has 100 times more vitamin C than an orange?
a. New Zealand Wombat Peach.
b. Australian Billygoat Plum. [CORRECT. Word is, it tastes awful.]
c. Tasmanian Devil Grapefruit.

• You lay eggs from your armpits. What are you?
a. Crayfish
b. Starfish [CORRECT. Alternate answer: extremely talented.]
c. Wombpitfish
– Halife.com

BS PHONER:
☎ Who’s Hollywood’s worst actor/actress?

BS WEB GOODIE:
Just click the ‘please’ button and you’ll be automatically connected to a really useless random website, each of which is fascinating … for about 5 seconds.
NET: http://www.theuselessweb.com

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Question: Studies show left-handed people lose THIS more often than right-handed people.
Answer: Their temper.

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
The road to success is always under construction.

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