Wednesday, September 8, 2010        Edition: #4338
Bully For You!

BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
“Avatar” director James Cameron is set to shoot a 3-D movie highlighting the plight of the indigenous people in Brazil who will be uprooted by the construction of a hydroelectric project on a tributary of the Amazon (“Dam! The Movie”) . . . A Kiwi cancer patient who wanted to thank his wife for her support has made her a birthday video featuring movie star Hugh Jackman and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key (sniff, I must have something in my eye) . . . An extra on the “Transformers 3” movie is in stable condition after being injured on the set and undergoing brain surgery (this series isn’t just painful for movie-goers) . . . Latest “American Idol” rumors have Randy Jackson for reals returning, while producers are said to be close to locking down J-Lo (the show’s beginning to reek of being beyond the ‘best before’ date) . . . Actress Hilary Duff’s $1-million dream wedding to NHL player Mike Comrie (Pittsburgh Penguins) is being paid in full by “OK!” magazine in exchange for exclusive photos, but only 290,000 copies of the issue have sold (meaning somebody with a ‘bright idea’ is likely now in line at the unemployment office) . . . Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Deputy Chief Jim Dixon has confirmed that Paris Hilton received special treatment when she was busted for cocaine possession, but only to avoid disruptions caused by a having a famous person hanging around (she was reportedly in & out in 3 hours) . . . And now that the Joaquin Phoenix rap documentary “I’m Still Here” has screened (out of competition) at the “Venice Film Festival”, first-time director Casey Affleck is sticking to the line that it’s ‘not a hoax’ but says he’ll ultimately leave that answer up to the audience (the direct-to-DVD markdown sales bin audience).

TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “America’s Game: 2009 New Orleans Saints” (NFL) – On the eve of the 2010 NFL season’s opening game (Minnesota @ New Orleans), Brad Pitt narrates an NFL Films documentary about the Saints’ Super Bowl season.
• “America’s Got Talent” (NBC) – The Final Four acts are revealed; Sarah McLachlan (“Laws of Illusion’) performs; the Broadway cast of “American Idiot” performs.
• “Country Music Week 2010” in Edmonton, culminating in the annual “CCMA Awards” Sunday.
NET: http://www.countrymusicedmonton.com/
• “Ellen DeGeneres Show” (syndicated/A Channel) – Mariah Carey (“Memoirs Of an Imperfect Angel”).
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CityTV) – Interpol (“Interpol”).
• “Last Call With Carson Daly” (NBC) – OK Go (“Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky”).
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS) – The Black Angels (“Phosphene Dream”).
• “Live With Regis & Kelly” (syndicated/CTV) – Sara Bareilles (“Kaleidoscope Heart”).
• “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (NBC/A Channel) – Ray LaMontagne (“God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise”).
• “The View” (ABC/CTV) – Rock & roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis.

BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Ben Folds – His upcoming album “Lonely Avenue” is a collaboration with novelist Nick Hornby (“About a Boy”, “Juliet Naked”) who wrote all the lyrics, originally sending Folds about 30 sets of words to choose from.
• Blake Shelton – Tonight his first TV special, “Blake Shelton Live: It’s All About Tonight”, premieres on Great American Country. It was filmed at Roberts Stadium in Evansville, Indiana.
• Crosby, Stills & Nash – They’re about a third of the way through recording an album of classic rock covers, being produced by Rick Rubin. They plan to include songs by the Allman Bros Band, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones, and others.
• Electric Light Orchestra – 62-year-old cellist Mike Edwards has died after a 1,300-lb (590-kg) bale of hay tumbled down a steep hill in Devon, England and smashed into his van. (#241 on the list of ‘Embarrassing Ways to Die’.)
• Katy Perry – She tells “Daily Mirror” that she & Russell Brand have decided that, after they get married (still no date), they’re not going to talk about their relationship anymore. (Thank gawd!)
• Kings Of Leon – Today they release the lead single, “Radioactive”, from their upcoming 5th album, “Come Around Sundown” (out October 19th). The video premieres today at VEVO and KingsOfLeon.com.
• Lady Gaga – Author Maureen Callahan’s new biography, “Poker Face: The Rise & Rise of Lady Gaga”, claims she was hospitalized 6 times in a year due to an eating disorder and dangerous dieting.
• Rush – Tonight VH1 Classic is giving a nod to the Jewish New Year by offering 24 hours of “Rush Hashanah” starting at 7 pm. The Rush marathon includes interviews, the rock doc “Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage”, and an in-depth look at some of their classic albums.

BS BUZZWORDS:
New cutting-edge vocab …
• ‘Edupunk’ – A do-it-yourself education reform movement that eschews traditional teaching tools in favor of Internet-based learning, virtual campuses, and other hi-tech methods. (“I’ve got an edupunk doctoral degree that’s truly beyond value!”)
• ‘Funemployment’ – A period of joblessness that a person uses for leisure and other fun activities. (“Hey, let’s take advantage of our funemployment time and go over to the mall and beg.”)
• ‘NEET’ [Not in Employment, Education, or Training] –  A young person who isn’t working, in school, or in any kind of training program. (Formerly known as a ‘BUM’.)

LIFE BY THE NUMBERS:
A BS breakdown of who we are and what we do …
• 75% of people that can be psychologically defined as ‘narcissists’ are men.
• 67% of pet owners insist they can ‘understand’ their pet’s bark or meow.
• 55% of us say our least favorite game to play as a kid was ‘tag’.
• 31% of us only make our beds on the weekend.
• 30% of divorced women say the best thing about being single is having full control of the TV.
• 20% of us now have a vegetable garden.

THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKING:
Call them ‘toners’, ‘shapers’, or ‘rocker bottoms’, those new exercise shoes with the distinctive thick, rounded soles are flying off the shelves. These so-called ‘toning shoes’ use curved soles and extra padding to alter the wearer’s walking gait, purportedly engaging seldom-used muscles, increasing blood flow, and reducing stress to the lower back. Some say they make you feel like you’re walking on sand. And if experts differ on how effectively the shoes will buff butts and carve calves, they do concur that whatever gets you moving is a good thing. (Future garage sale item?)
– “China Daily”

CAREERS TO ENTER RIGHT NOW:
A few fields of employment where workers are currently in high demand …
• Environment – Concerns about global warming have led to demand for better use of renewable energy and that means more ‘green jobs’. The number of clean energy jobs, from farmers to administrative assistants, is expected to continue to grow rapidly.
• Health Care – Nurses, technicians, and doctors make up 3 of the top 10 jobs in demand this year. And predictions are the home health aide field, which requires only short-term training, will grow 50% by 2018.
• Startups – Last year 69% more job-seekers than the previous year opted to start their own businesses instead of pounding the pavement for a new position. That means lots of new fledgling firms are now looking for staffing.
– WomansDay.com

BODY HEAT:
The warmth generated by human bodies in the subway system of Paris, France will soon help heat a public housing project. The building, being renovated to be environmentally-friendly, happens to be connected to the metro through a passageway. The calories emitted by metro passengers, around 100 watts per person, combined with the heat from trains moving along tracks keep subway temperatures at a constant 14-to-20 C (57-to-68 F) year-round. The experimental project to funnel that warm air upward will be launched by the end of the year and is expected to heat 17 apartments. (Great idea except … ever take a sniff in a subway?)
– Reuters.com

PERFORMANCE MYTHS:
Tony Schwartz, author of the book “The Power of Full Engagement”, dispels a few myths about maintaining an energetic professional life …
• Great Performers Get By on Less Sleep – Research suggests just the opposite. Across disparate fields, elite performers sleep an average of 8-and-a-half hours a night, compared to the 6-and-a-half hour average for all adults.
• Anxiety & Fear Help Motivate Us – In fact, negative emotions of any kind consistently undermine high performance. The better we feel, the better we perform.
• Multitasking is Important to Getting Things Done – Numerous studies have shown that when we juggle multiple activities, the time it takes to finish any given single activity increases by an average of 25%.
– OpenForum.com

BS AMAZING FACTS:
• 84-year-old former Cuban president Fidel Castro is an Internet junkie, reading 200-to-300 online articles a day.
– “Los Angeles Times”
• A recent consumer survey concludes that 44% of the world’s mobile phones are lying unused in drawers as only 3% of us recycle them. How many old cellphones do you have lying around?
– Nokia.com

BS CHRONOMETER 09.08.10

TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1971 [39] David Arquette, Winchester VA, movie actor (“Hamlet 2”, “Scream” movies)/wed to Courteney Cox since 1999/brother of actresses Patricia & Rosanna Arquette  UP NEXT: “Scream 4”, now shooting.

1971 [39] Brooke Burke, Hartford CT, TV personality (“She’s Got the Look” 2010, “Dancing With the Stars” 2008, “Rock Star” 2005–06, “Wild On!” 1999–2002)/model (“Playboy”, “Maxim”, “FHM”)

1975 [35] Richard Hughes, Gravesend UK, rock drummer (Keane-“Is It Any Wonder?”, “Somewhere Only We Know”)

1979 [31] Pink (Alecia Moore), Doylestown PA, pop singer (“So What”, “Get The Party Started”)

1987 [23] Alexandre Bilodeau, Montréal QC, freestyle skier (2010 Olympic gold in men’s moguls at Vancouver)

TODAY’S BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “Andorran National Day” (‘Mare de Deu de Meritxell’) for the tiny principality that’s sandwiched between Spain and France. Andorra has the greatest life expectancy of any country: 82.7 years for a baby born now, compared with 81.2 in Canada and 78.1 in the USA.

• “International Literacy Day”, established by the UN in 1965 to promote reading & writing programs. Worldwide, 1-in-5 adults (about 774 million) are illiterate, and 75 million children are not in school. Millions of young people leave school without a level of literacy adequate for productive and active participation in today’s information society.

• “Rosh Hashanah” begins at sundown, the 2-day Jewish holiday commonly referred to as ‘Jewish New Year’. It’s the first of the so-called ‘High Holidays’.

• “World Physical Therapy Day”, initiated in 1951 to recognize the work that physical therapists do for their patients and community. (What’s the strangest physio you’ve endured? Perhaps acupuncture needles … connected to electricity?)
NET: http://www.wcpt.org/wptday

THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
1930 [80] Comic strip “Blondie”, created by Chic Young, is first published (80 years later and ‘Dagwood’s still working for ‘Mr Dithers’!)

1966 [44] “Star Trek” premieres on NBC-TV (cancelled in April, 1969 after just 79 episodes)  BS FACTOID: It spawns perhaps the most successful TV/movie franchise in history with 4 spin-off TV shows (“The Next Generation”, “Deep Space 9”, “Voyager”, “Enterprise”), an animated series, and 10 motion pictures.

TODAY’S MUSIC EVENTS . . .
2003 [07] Recording Industry Association of America files 261 copyright lawsuits against Internet users for trading songs online

2006 [04] Country singer Toby Keith makes his bigscreen debut, producing and starring in the movie “Broken Bridges”

TODAY’S FIRST . . .
1921 [89] 15-year-old Margaret Gorman from Washington DC (30-25-32) is crowned 1st ‘Miss America’ in 1st-ever bathing beauty contest (2-day pageant)

TODAY’S RECORD . . .
1965 [45] Kansas City Athletics’ Bert Campaneris plays all 9 positions in a single Major League Baseball game (not at once)

AND REMEMBER . . .
[Thurs] NFL Opening Kickoff 2010 (New Orleans LA)
[Thurs] 35th Toronto International Film Festival begins
[Thurs] “The Vampire Diaries” season debut (CW)
[Fri] Eid-Al-Fitr (Muslim)
[Fri] World Suicide Prevention Day
[Fri] “Resident Evil: Afterlife”; “The Virginity Hit” open in movie theaters
This Week Is … Waffle Week
This Month Is … Children’s Good Manners Month

BULL’S BITS

YOU KNOW YOU’RE IN TROUBLE WHEN . . .
• Your accountant’s letter of resignation is postmarked Zurich.
• You see your wife and your girlfriend having lunch together.
• Your suggestion box starts ticking.
• The ‘Simple Instructions Enclosed’ aren’t.
• Your wife receives sympathy cards on your anniversary.
• The plumber floats by … on your kitchen table.
• You make more than you ever made, owe more than you ever owed, and have less than you ever had.

BS PHONE STARTER:
Friday is “Stand Up to Cancer Day”, but this week some schools are banning bracelets promoting cancer awareness because they’re emblazoned with the slogan … “I love boobies”. Understandable or unforgivable?

BS U-PICK TRIVIA:
• Your tools are rusting in your toolbox. Which should you do?
a. Keep a piece of chalk in your toolbox. [CORRECT. A charcoal briquette apparently will also help absorb moisture and inhibit rust.]
b. Rub each tool with a sardine.
c. Fix something once in a while, you slacker!

• Your neighbor is a ‘ucalegon’. What’s his problem?
a. He never mows his lawn.
b. He’s a compulsive ‘peeping Tom’.
c. His house is burning down. [CORRECT. The word comes from the name of one of the ancient Greek elders of Troy, whose house was set afire by invaders.]
– Adapted from Halife.com

BS RANDOM JOKE:
Ever decide to run a red light … and the guy in front of you chickens out?

BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Today’s Question: A person who works in THIS profession spends, on average, $659 of their own money annually to do their job.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: Teacher. (“Oprah Magazine”)

BS DEEP THOUGHT:
Children need love, especially when they don’t deserve it.